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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19485-8.txt b/19485-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e78e529 --- /dev/null +++ b/19485-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12930 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Long Night, by Stanley Weyman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Long Night + +Author: Stanley Weyman + +Release Date: October 7, 2006 [EBook #19485] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONG NIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Stacy Brown, Dave Morgan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +THE LONG NIGHT + +BY +STANLEY WEYMAN + + AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," ETC. + + _SECOND IMPRESSION_ + + LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. + 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON + AND BOMBAY + 1903 + + + + + WORKS BY STANLEY WEYMAN. + + + The House of the Wolf. + The New Rector. + The Story of Francis Cludde. + A Gentleman of France. + The Man in Black. + Under the Red Robe. + My Lady Rotha. + The Red Cockade. + Shrewsbury. + Sophia. + The Castle Inn. + From the Memoirs of a Minister of France. + Count Hannibal. + In Kings' Byways. + The Long Night. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. A Student of Theology 1 + II. The House on the Ramparts 16 + III. The Quintessential Stone 31 + IV. Cæsar Basterga 45 + V. The Elixir Vitæ 59 + VI. To Take or Leave 74 + VII. A Second Tissot 88 + VIII. On the Threshold 102 + IX. Melusina 116 + X. Auctio Fit: Venit Vita 129 + XI. By This or That 143 + XII. The Cup and the Lip 157 + XIII. A Mystery Solved 172 + XIV. "And Only One Dose in all the World!" 185 + XV. On the Bridge 200 + XVI. A Glove and What Came of It 215 + XVII. The _Remedium_ 227 + XVIII. The Bargain Struck 242 + XIX. The Departure of the Rats 257 + XX. In the Darkened Room 271 + XXI. The _Remedium_ 285 + XXII. Two Nails in the Wall 301 + XXIII. In Two Characters 318 + XXIV. Armes! Armes! 335 + XXV. Basterga at Argos 350 + XXVI. The Dawn 365 + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A STUDENT OF THEOLOGY. + + +They were about to shut the Porte St. Gervais, the north gate of Geneva. +The sergeant of the gate had given his men the word to close; but at the +last moment, shading his eyes from the low light of the sun, he happened +to look along the dusty road which led to the Pays de Gex, and he bade +the men wait. Afar off a traveller could be seen hurrying two donkeys +towards the gate, with now a blow on this side, and now on that, and now +a shrill cry. The sergeant knew him for Jehan Brosse, the bandy-legged +tailor of the passage off the Corraterie, a sound burgher and a good man +whom it were a shame to exclude. Jehan had gone out that morning to +fetch his grapes from Möens; and the sergeant had pity on him. + +He waited, therefore; and presently he was sorry that he had waited. +Behind Jehan, a long way behind him, appeared a second wayfarer; a young +man covered with dust who approached rapidly on long legs, a bundle +jumping and bumping at his shoulders as he ran. The favour of the gate +was not for such as he--a stranger; and the sergeant anxious to bar, yet +unwilling to shut out Jehan, watched his progress with disgust. As he +feared, too, it turned out. Young legs caught up old ones: the stranger +overtook Jehan, overtook the donkeys. A moment, and he passed under the +arch abreast of them, a broad smile of acknowledgment on his heated +face. He appeared to think that the gate had been kept open out of +kindness to him. + +And to be grateful. The war with Savoy--Italian Savoy which, like an +octopus, wreathed clutching arms about the free city of Geneva--had come +to an end some months before. But a State so small that the frontier of +its inveterate enemy lies but two short leagues from its gates, has need +of watch and ward, and curfews and the like, so that he was fortunate +who found the gates of Geneva open after sunset in that year, 1602; and +the stranger seemed to know this. + +As the great doors clanged together and two of the watch wound up the +creaking drawbridge, he turned to the sergeant, the smile still on his +face. "I feared that you would shut me out!" he panted, still holding +his sides. "I would not have given much for my chance of a bed a minute +ago." + +The sergeant answered only by a grunt. + +"If this good fellow had not been in front----" + +This time the sergeant cut him short with an imperious gesture, and the +young man seeing that the guard also had fallen stiffly into rank, +turned to the tailor. He was overflowing with good nature: he must speak +to some one. "If you had not been in front," he began, "I----" + +But the tailor also cut him short--frowning and laying his finger to his +lip and pointing mysteriously to the ground. The stranger stooped to +look more closely, but saw nothing: and it was only when the others +dropped on their knees that he understood the hint and hastened to +follow the example. The soldiers bent their heads while the sergeant +recited a prayer for the safety of the city. He did this reverently, +while the evening light--which fell grey between walls and sobered those +who had that moment left the open sky and the open country--cast its +solemn mantle about the party. + +Such was the pious usage observed in that age at the opening and the +closing of the gates of Geneva: nor had it yet sunk to a form. The +nearness of the frontier and the shadow of those clutching arms, ever +extended to smother the free State, gave a reality to the faith of those +who opened and shut, and with arms in their hands looked back on ten +years of constant warfare. Many a night during those ten years had +Geneva gazed from her watch-towers on burning farms and smouldering +homesteads; many a day seen the smoke of Chablais hamlets float a dark +trail across her lake. What wonder if, when none knew what a night might +bring forth, and the fury of Antwerp was still a new tale in men's ears, +the Genevese held Providence higher and His workings more near than men +are prone to hold them in happier times? + +Whether the stranger's reverent bearing during the prayer gained the +sergeant's favour, or the sword tied to his bundle and the bulging +corners of squat books which stuffed out the cloak gave a new notion of +his condition, it is certain that the officer eyed him more kindly when +all rose from their knees. "You can pass in now, young sir," he said +nodding. "But another time remember, if you please, the earlier here the +warmer welcome!" + +"I will bear it in mind," the young traveller answered, smiling. +"Perhaps you can tell me where I can get a night's lodging?" + +"You come to study, perhaps?" The sergeant puffed himself out as he +spoke, for the fame of Geneva's college and its great professor, +Theodore Beza, was a source of glory to all within the city walls. +Learning, too, was a thing in high repute in that day. The learned +tongues still lived and were passports opening all countries to +scholars. The names of Erasmus and Scaliger were still in the mouths of +men. + +"Yes," the youth answered, "and I have the name of a lodging in which I +hope to place myself. But for to-night it is late, and an inn were more +convenient." + +"Go then to the 'Bible and Hand,'" the sergeant answered. "It is a +decent house, as are all in Geneva. If you think to find here a +roistering, drinking, swearing tavern, such as you'd find in Dijon----" + +"I come to study, not to drink," the young man answered eagerly. + +"Well, the 'Bible and Hand,' then! It will answer your purpose well. +Cross the bridge and go straight on. It is in the Bourg du Four." + +The youth thanked him with a pleased air, and turning his back on the +gate proceeded briskly towards the heart of the city. Though it was not +Sunday the inhabitants were pouring out from the evening preaching as +plentifully as if it had been the first day of the week; and as he +scanned their grave and thoughtful faces--faces not seldom touched with +sternness or the scars of war--as he passed between the gabled +steep-roofed houses and marked their order and cleanliness, as he saw +above him and above them the two great towers of the cathedral, he felt +a youthful fervour and an enthusiasm not to be comprehended in our age. + +To many of us the name and memory of Geneva stand for anything but +freedom. But to the Huguenot of that generation and day, the name of +Geneva stood for freedom; for a fighting aggressive freedom, a full +freedom in the State, a sober measured freedom in the Church. The city +was the outpost, southwards, of the Reformed religion and the Reformed +learning; it sowed its ministers over half Europe, and where they went, +they spread abroad not only its doctrines but its praise and its honour. +If, even to the men of that day there appeared at times a something too +stiff in its attitude, a something too near the Papal in its decrees, +they knew with what foes and against what odds it fought, and how little +consistent with the ferocity of that struggle were the compromises of +life or the courtesies of the lists. + +At any rate, in some such colours as these, framed in such a halo, +Claude Mercier saw the Free City as he walked its narrow streets that +evening, seeking the "Bible and Hand". In some such colours had his +father, bred under Calvin to the ministry, depicted it: and the young +man, half French, half Vaudois, sought nothing better, set nothing +higher, than to form a part of its life, and eventually to contribute to +its fame. Good intentions and honest hopes tumbled over one another in +his brain as he walked. The ardour of a new life, to be begun this day, +possessed him. He saw all things through the pure atmosphere of his own +happy nature: and if it remained to him to discover how Geneva would +stand the test of a closer intimacy, at this moment, the youth took the +city to his heart with no jot of misgiving. To follow in the steps of +Theodore Beza, a Frenchman like himself and gently bred, to devote +himself, in these surroundings to the Bible and the Sword, and find in +them salvation for himself and help for others--this seemed an end +simple and sufficing: the end too, which all men in Geneva appeared to +him to be pursuing that summer evening. + +By-and-by a grave citizen, a psalm-book in his hand, directed him to the +inn in the Bourg du Four; a tall house turning the carved ends of two +steep gables to the street. On either side of the porch a long low +casement suggested the comfort that was to be found within; nor was the +pledge unfulfilled. In a trice the student found himself seated at a +shining table before a simple meal and a flagon of cool white wine with +a sprig of green floating on the surface. His companions were two +merchants of Lyons, a vintner of Dijon, and a taciturn, soberly clad +professor. The four elders talked gravely of the late war, of the +prevalence of drunkenness in Zurich, of a sad case of witchcraft at +Basle, and of the state of trade in Lausanne and the Pays de Vaud; while +the student, listening with respect, contrasted the quietude of this +house, looking on the grey evening street, with the bustle and chatter +and buffoonery of the inns at which he had lain on his way from +Chatillon. He was in a mood to appraise at the highest all about him, +from the demure maid who served them to the cloaked burghers who from +time to time passed the window wrapped in meditation. From a house hard +by the sound of the evening psalms came to his ears. There are moods and +places in which to be good seems of the easiest; to err, a thing +well-nigh impossible. + +The professor was the first to rise and retire; on which the two +merchants drew up their seats to the table with an air of relief. The +vintner looked after the retreating figure. "Of Lausanne, I should +judge?" he said, with a jerk of the elbow. + +"Probably," one of the others answered. + +"Is he not of Geneva, then?" our student asked. He had listened with +interest to the professor's talk and between whiles had wondered if it +would be his lot to sit under him. + +"No, or he would not be here!" one of the merchants replied, shrugging +his shoulders. + +"Why not, sir?" + +"Why not?" The merchant fixed the questioner with eyes of surprise. +"Don't you know, young man, that those who live in Geneva may not +frequent Geneva taverns?" + +"Indeed?" Mercier answered, somewhat startled. "Is that so?" + +"It is very much so," the other returned with something of a sneer. + +"And they do not!" quoth the vintner with a faint smile. + +"Well, professors do not!" the merchant answered with a grimace. "I say +nothing of others. Let the Venerable Company of Pastors see to it. It is +their business." + +At this point the host brought in lights. After closing the shutters he +was in the act of retiring when a door near at hand--on the farther side +of the passage if the sound could be trusted--flew open with a clatter. +Its opening let out a burst of laughter, nor was that the worst: alas, +above the laughter rang an oath--the ribald word of some one who had +caught his foot in the step. + +The landlord uttered an exclamation and went out hurriedly, closing the +door behind him. A moment and his voice could be heard, scolding and +persuading in the passage. + +"Umph!" the vintner muttered, looking from one to the other with a +humorous eye. "It seems to me that the Venerable Company of Pastors have +not yet expelled the old Adam." + +Open flew the door and cut short the word. But it had been heard, +"Pastors?" a raucous voice cried. "Passers and Flinchers is what I call +them!" And a stout heavy man, whose small pointed grey beard did but +emphasise the coarse virility of the face above it, appeared on the +threshold, glaring at the four. "Pastors?" he repeated defiantly. +"Passers and Flinchers, I say!" + +"In Heaven's name, Messer Grio!" the landlord protested, hovering at his +shoulder, "these are strangers----" + +"Strangers? Ay, and flinchers, they too!" the intruder retorted, +heedless of the remonstrance. And he lurched into the room, a bulky, +reeling figure in stained green and tarnished lace. "Four flinchers! But +I'll make them drink a cup with me or I'll prick their hides! Do you +think we shed blood for you and are to be stinted of our liquor!" + +"Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" the landlord cried, wringing his hands. "You +will be my ruin!" + +"No fear!" + +"But I do fear!" the host retorted sharply, going so far as to lay a +hand on his shoulder. "I do fear." Behind the man in green his +boon-fellows, flushed with drink, had gathered, and were staring half +curious, half in alarm into the room. The landlord turned and appealed +to them. "For Heaven's sake get him away quietly!" he muttered. "I shall +lose my living if this be known. And you will suffer too! Gentlemen," he +turned to the party at the table, "this is a quiet house, a quiet house +in general, but----" + +"Tut-tut!" said the vintner good-naturedly. "We'll drink a cup with the +gentleman if he wishes it!" + +"You'll drink or be pricked!" quoth Messer Grio; he was one of those who +grow offensive in their cups. And while his friends laughed, he swished +out a sword of huge length, and flourished it. "Ça! Ça! Now let me see +any man refuse his liquor!" + +The landlord groaned, but thinking apparently that soonest broken was +soonest mended, he vanished, to return in a marvellously short space of +time with four tall glasses and a flask of Neuchatel. "'Tis good wine," +he muttered anxiously. "Good wine, gentlemen, I warrant you. And Messer +Grio here has served the State, so that some little indulgence----" + +"What art muttering?" cried the bully, who spoke French with an accent +new and strange in the student's ears. "Let be! Let be, I say! Let them +drink, or be pricked!" + +The merchants and the vintner took their glasses without demur: and, +perhaps, though they shrugged their shoulders, were as willing as they +looked. The young man hesitated, took with a curling lip the glass which +was presented to him, and then, a blush rising to his eyes, pushed it +from him. + +"'Tis good wine," the landlord repeated. "And no charge. Drink, young +sir, and----" + +"I drink not on compulsion!" the student answered. + +Messer Grio stared. "What?" he roared. "You----" + +"I drink not on compulsion," the young man repeated, and this time he +spoke clearly and firmly. "Had the gentleman asked me courteously to +drink with him, that were another matter. But----" + +"Sho!" the vintner muttered, nudging him in pure kindness. "Drink, man, +and a fico for his courtesy so the wine be old! When the drink is in, +the sense is out, and," lowering his voice, "he'll let you blood to a +certainty, if you will not humour him." + +But the grinning faces in the doorway hardened the student in his +resolution. "I drink not on compulsion," he repeated stubbornly. And he +rose from his seat. + +"You drink not?" Grio exclaimed. "You drink not? Then by the living----" + +"For Heaven's sake!" the landlord cried, and threw himself between them. +"Messer Grio! Gentlemen!" + +But the bully, drunk and wilful, twitched him aside. "Under compulsion, +eh!" he sneered. "You drink not under compulsion, don't you, my lad? Let +me tell you," he continued with ferocity, "you will drink when I please, +and where I please, and as often as I please, and as much as I please, +you meal-worm! You half-weaned puppy! Take that glass, d'you hear, and +say after me, Devil take----" + +"Messer Grio!" cried the horrified landlord. + +"Devil take"--for a moment a hiccough gave him pause--"all flinchers! +Take the glass, young man. That is well! I see you will come to it! Now +say after me, Devil take----" + +"That!" the student retorted, and flung the wine in the bully's face. + +The landlord shrieked; the other guests rose hurriedly from their seats, +and got aside. Fortunately the wine blinded the man for a moment, and he +recoiled, spitting curses and darting his sword hither and thither in +impotent rage. By the time he had cleared his eyes the youth had got to +his bundle, and, freeing his blade, placed himself in a posture of +defence. His face was pale, but with the pallor of excitement rather +than of fear; and the firm set of his mouth and the smouldering fire in +his eyes as he confronted the drunken bravo, no less than the manner in +which he handled his weapon, showed him as ready to pursue as he had +been hardy to undertake the quarrel. + +He gave proof of forethought, too. "Witness all, he drew first!" he +cried; and his glance quitting Grio for the briefest instant sought to +meet the merchants' eyes. "I am on my defence. I call all here to +witness that he has thrust this quarrel upon me!" + +The landlord wrung his hands. "Oh dear! oh dear!" he cried. "In Heaven's +name, gentlemen, put up! put up! Stop them! Will no one stop them!" And +in despair, seeing no one move to arrest them, he made as if he would +stand between them. + +But the bully flourished his blade about his ears, and with a cry the +goodman saved himself "Out, skinker!" Grio cried grimly. "And you, say +your prayers, puppy. Before you are five minutes older I will spit you +like a partridge though I cross the frontier for it. You have basted me +with wine! I will baste you after another fashion! On guard! On guard, +and----" + +"_What is this?_" + +The voice stayed Grio's tongue and checked his foot in the very instant +of assault. The student, watching his blade and awaiting the attack, was +surprised to see his point waver and drop. Was it a trick, he wondered? +A stratagem? No, for a silence fell on the room, while those who held +the floor hastened to efface themselves against the wall, as if they at +any rate had nothing to do with the fracas. And next moment Grio +shrugged his shoulders, and with a half-stifled curse stood back. + +"What is this?" + +The same question in the same tone. This time the student saw whose +voice it was had stayed Grio's arm. Within the door a pace in front of +two or three attendants, who had displaced the roisterers on the +threshold, appeared a spare dry-looking man of middle height, wearing +his hat, and displaying a gold chain of office across the breast of his +black velvet cloak. In age about sixty, he had nothing that at a first +glance seemed to call for a second: his small pinched features, and the +downward curl of the lip, which his moustache and clipped beard failed +to hide, indicated a nature peevish and severe rather than powerful. On +nearer observation the restless eyes, keen and piercing, asserted +themselves and redeemed the face from insignificance. When, as on this +occasion, their glances were supported by the terrors of the State, it +was not difficult to understand why Messer Blondel, the Syndic, though +no great man to look upon, had both weight with the masses, and a hold +not to be denied over his colleagues in the Council. + +No one took on himself to answer the question he had put, and in a voice +thin and querulous, but with a lurking venom in its tone, "What is +this?" the great man repeated, looking from one to another. "Are we in +Geneva, or in Venice? Under the skirts of the scarlet woman, or where +the magistrates bear not the sword in vain? Good Mr. Landlord, are +these your professions? Your bailmen should sleep ill to-night, for they +are likely to answer roundly for this! And whom have we sparking it +here? Brawling and swearing and turning into a profligate's tavern a +place that should be for the sober entertainment of travellers? Whom +have we here--eh! Let me see them! Ah!" + +He paused rather suddenly, as his eyes met Grio's: and a little of his +dignity fell from him with the pause. His manner underwent a subtle +change from the judicial to the paternal. When he resumed, he wagged his +head tolerantly, and a modicum of sorrow mingled with his anger. "Ah, +Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" he said, "it is you, is it? For shame! For +shame! This is sad, this is lamentable! Some indulgence, it is true"--he +coughed--"may be due after late events, and to certain who have borne +part in them. But this goes too far! Too far by a long way!" + +"It was not I began it!" the bully muttered sullenly, a mixture of +bravado and apology in his bearing. He sheathed his blade, and thrust +the long scabbard behind him. "He threw a glass of wine in my face, +Syndic--that is the truth. Is an old soldier who has shed blood for +Geneva to swallow that, and give God thanks?" + +The Syndic turned to the student, and licked his lips, his features more +pinched than usual. "Are these your manners?" he said. "If so, they are +not the manners of Geneva! Your name, young man, and your dwelling +place?" + +"My name is Claude Mercier, last from Chatillon in Burgundy," the young +man answered firmly. "For the rest, I did no otherwise than you, sir, +must have done in my case!" + +The magistrate snorted. "I!" + +"Being treated as I was!" the young man protested. "He would have me +drink whether I would or no! And in terms no man of honour could bear." + +"Honour?" the Syndic retorted, and on the word exploded in great wrath. +"Honour, say you? Then I know who is in fault. When men of your race +talk of honour 'tis easy to saddle the horse. I will teach you that we +know naught of honour in Geneva, but only of service! And naught of +punctilios but much of modest behaviour! It is such hot blood as yours +that is at the root of brawlings and disorders and such-like, to the +scandal of the community: and to cool it I will commit you to the town +jail until to-morrow! Convey him thither," he continued, turning sharply +to his followers, "and see him safely bestowed in the stocks. To-morrow +I will hear if he be penitent, and perhaps, if he be in a cooler +temper----" + +But the young man, aghast at this sudden disgrace, could be silent no +longer. "But, sir," he broke in passionately, "I had no choice. It was +no quarrel of my beginning. I did but refuse to drink, and when he----" + +"Silence, sirrah!" the Syndic cried, and cut him short. "You will do +well to be quiet!" And he was turning to bid his people bear their +prisoner out without more ado when one of the merchants ventured to put +in a word. + +"May I say," he interposed timidly, "that until this happened, Messer +Blondel, the young man's conduct was all that could be desired?" + +"Are you of his company?" + +"No, sir." + +"Then best keep out of it!" the magistrate retorted sharply. + +"And you," to his followers, "did you hear me? Away with him!" + +But as the men advanced to execute the order, the young man stepped +forward. "One moment!" he said. "A moment only, sir. I caught the name +of Blondel. Am I speaking to Messer Philibert Blondel?" + +The Syndic nodded ungraciously. "Yes," he said, "I am he. What of it?" + +"Only this, that I have a letter for him," the student answered, groping +with trembling fingers in his pouch. "From my uncle, the Sieur de +Beauvais of Nocle, by Dijon." + +"The Sieur de Beauvais?" + +"Yes." + +"He is your uncle?" + +"Yes." + +"So! Well, I remember now," Blondel continued, nodding. "His name was +Mercier. Certainly, it was. Well, give me the letter." His tone was +still harsh, but it was not the same; and when he had broken the seal +and read the letter--with a look half contemptuous, half uneasy--his +brow cleared a little. "It were well young people knew better what +became them," he cried, peevishly shrugging his shoulders. "It would +save us all a great deal. However, for this time as you are a stranger +and well credited, I find, you may go. But let it be a lesson to you, do +you hear? Let it be a lesson to you, young man. Geneva," pompously, "is +no place for brawling, and if you come hither for that, you will quickly +find yourself behind bars. See that you go to a fit lodging to-morrow, +and do you, Mr. Landlord, have a care that he leaves you." + +The young man's heart was full, but he had the wisdom to keep his temper +and to say no more. The Syndic on his part was glad, on second thoughts, +to be free of the matter. He was turning to go when it seemed to strike +him that he owed something more to the bearer of the letter. He turned +back. "Yes," he said, "I had forgotten. This week I am busy. But next +week, on some convenient day, come to me, young sir, and I may be able +to give you a word of advice. In the forenoon will be best. Until +then--see to your behaviour!" + +The young man bowed and waited, standing where he was, until the bustle +attending the Syndic's departure had quite died away. Then he turned. +"Now, Messer Grio," he said briskly, "for my part I am ready." + +But Messer Grio had slipped away some minutes before. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE HOUSE ON THE RAMPARTS. + + +The affair at the inn which had threatened to turn out so unpleasantly +for our hero, should have gone some way towards destroying the illusions +with which he had entered Geneva. But faith is strong in the young, and +hope stronger. The traditions of his boyhood and his fireside, and the +stories, animate with affection for the cradle of the faith, to which he +had listened at his father's knee, were not to be over-ridden by the +shadow of an injustice, which in the end had not fallen. When the young +man went abroad next morning and viewed the tall towers of St. Peter, of +which his father had spoken--when, from those walls which had defied +through so many months the daily and nightly threats of an ever-present +enemy, he looked on the sites of conflicts still famous and on +farmsteads but half risen from their ruins--when, above all, he +remembered for what those walls stood, and that here, on the borders of +the blue lake, and within sight of the glittering peaks which charmed +his eyes--if in any one place in Europe--the battle of knowledge and +freedom had been fought, and the rule of the monk and the Inquisitor +cast down, his old enthusiasm revived. He thirsted for fresh conflicts, +for new occasions: and it is to be feared dreamt more of the Sword than +of the sacred Book, which he had come to study, and which, in Geneva, +went hand in hand with it. + +In the fervour of such thoughts and in the multitude of new interests +which opened before him, he had well-nigh forgotten the Syndic's tyranny +before he had walked a mile: nor might he have given a second thought to +it but for the need which lay upon him of finding a new lodging before +night. In pursuit of this he presently took his way to the Corraterie, a +row of gabled houses, at the western end of the High Town, built within +the ramparts, and enjoying over them a view of the open country, and the +Jura. The houses ran for some distance parallel with the rampart, then +retired inwards, and again came down to it; in this way enclosing a +triangular open space or terrace. They formed of themselves an inner +line of defence, pierced at the point farthest from the rampart by the +Porte Tertasse: a gate it is true, which was often open even at night, +for the wall in front of the Corraterie, though low on the town side, +looked down from a great height on the ditch and the low meadows that +fringed the Rhone. Trees planted along the rampart shaded the triangular +space, and made it a favourite lounge from which the inhabitants of that +quarter of the town could view the mountains and the sunset while +tasting the freshness of the evening air. + +A score of times had Claude Mercier listened to a description of this +row of lofty houses dominating the ramparts. Now he saw it, and, charmed +by the position and the aspect, he trembled lest he should fail to +secure a lodging in the house which had sheltered his father's youth. +Heedless of the suspicious glances shot at him by the watch at the Porte +Tertasse, he consulted the rough plan which his father had made for +him--consulted it rather to assure himself against error than because he +felt doubt. The precaution taken, he made for a house a little to the +right of the Tertasse gate as one looks to the country. He mounted by +four steep steps to the door and knocked on it. + +It was opened so quickly as to disconcert him. A lanky youth about his +own age bounced out and confronted him. The lad wore a cap and carried +two or three books under his arm as if he had been starting forth when +the summons came. The two gazed at one another a moment: then, "Does +Madame Royaume live here?" Claude asked. + +The other, who had light hair and light eyes, said curtly that she did. + +"Do you know if she has a vacant room?" Mercier asked timidly. + +"She will have one to-night!" the youth answered with temper in his +tone: and he dashed down the steps and went off along the street without +ceremony or explanation. Viewed from behind he had a thin neck which +agreed well with a small retreating chin. + +The door remained open, and after hesitating a moment Claude tapped once +and again with his foot. Receiving no answer he ventured over the +threshold, and found himself in the living-room of the house. It was +cool, spacious and well-ordered. On the left of the entrance a wooden +settle flanked a wide fireplace, in front of which stood a small heavy +table. Another table a little bigger occupied the middle of the room; in +one corner the boarded-up stairs leading to the higher floors bulked +largely. Two or three dark prints--one a portrait of Calvin--with a +framed copy of the Geneva catechism, and a small shelf of books, took +something from the plainness and added something to the comfort of the +apartment, which boasted besides a couple of old oaken dressers, highly +polished and gleaming, with long rows of pewter ware. Two doors stood +opposite the entrance and appeared to lead--for one of them stood +open--to a couple of closets: bedrooms they could hardly be called, yet +in one of them Claude knew that his father had slept. And his heart +warmed to it. + +The house was still; the room was somewhat dark, for the windows were +low and long, strongly barred, and shaded by the trees, through the cool +greenery of which the light filtered in. The young man stood a moment, +and hearing no footstep or movement wondered what he should do. At +length he ventured to the door of the staircase and, opening it, +coughed. Still no one answered or came, and unwilling to intrude farther +he turned about and waited on the hearth. In a corner behind the settle +he noticed two half pikes and a long-handled sword; on the seat of the +settle itself lay a thin folio bound in stained sheepskin. A log +smouldered on the hearth, and below the great black pot which hung over +it two or three pans and pipkins sat deep among the white ashes. Save +for these there was no sign in the room of a woman's hand or use. And he +wondered. Certainly the young man who had departed so hurriedly had said +it was Madame Royaume's. There could be no mistake. + +Well, he would go and come again. But even as he formed the resolution, +and turned towards the outer door--which he had left open--he heard a +faint sound above, a step light but slow. It seemed to start from the +uppermost floor of all, so long was it in descending; so long was it +before, waiting on the hearth cap in hand, he saw a shadow darken the +line below the staircase door. A second later the door opened and a +young girl entered and closed it behind her. She did not see him; +unconscious of his presence she crossed the floor and shut the outer +door. + +There was a something in her bearing which went to the heart of the +young man who stood and saw her for the first time; a depression, a +dejection, an I know not what, so much at odds with her youth and her +slender grace, that it scarcely needed the sigh with which she turned +to draw him a pace nearer. As he moved their eyes met. She, who had not +known of his presence, recoiled with a low cry and stared wide-eyed: he +began hurriedly to speak. + +"I am the son of M. Gaston Mercier, of Chatillon," he said, "who lodged +here formerly. At least," he stammered, beginning to doubt, "if this be +the house of Madame Royaume, he lodged here. A young man who met me at +the door said that Madame lived here, and had a room." + +"He admitted you? The young man who went out?" + +"Yes." + +She gazed hard at him a moment, as if she doubted or suspected him. +Then, "We have no room," she said. + +"But you will have one to-night," he answered + +"I do not know." + +"But--but from what he said," Claude persisted doggedly, "he meant that +his own room would be vacant, I think." + +"It may be," she answered dully, the heaviness which surprise had lifted +for a moment settling on her afresh. "But we shall take no new lodgers. +Presently you would go," with a cold smile, "as he goes to-day." + +"My father lodged here three years," Claude answered, raising his head +with pride. "He did not go until he returned to France. I ask nothing +better than to lodge where my father lodged. Madame Royaume will know my +name. When she hears that I am the son of M. Gaston Mercier, who often +speaks of her----" + +"He fell sick here, I think?" the girl said. She scanned him anew with +the first show of interest that had escaped her. Yet reluctantly, it +seemed; with a kind of ungraciousness hard to explain. + +"He had the plague in the year M. Chausse, the pastor of St. Gervais, +died of it," Claude answered eagerly. "When it was so bad. And Madame +nursed him and saved his life. He often speaks of it and of Madame with +gratitude. If Madame Royaume would see me?" + +"It is useless," she answered with an impatient shrug. "Quite useless, +sir. I tell you we have no room. And--I wish you good-morning." On the +word she turned from him with a curt gesture of dismissal, and kneeling +beside the embers began to occupy herself with the cooking pots; +stirring one and tasting another, and raising a third a little aslant at +the level of her eyes that she might peer into it the better. He +lingered, watching her, expecting her to turn. But when she had skimmed +the last jar and set it back, and screwed it down among the embers, she +remained on her knees, staring absently at a thin flame which had sprung +up under the black pot. She had forgotten his presence, forgotten him +utterly; forgotten him, he judged, in thoughts as deep and gloomy as the +wide dark cavern of chimney which yawned above her head and dwarfed the +slight figure kneeling Cinderella-like among the ashes. + +Claude Mercier looked and looked, and wondered, and at last longed: +longed to comfort, to cherish, to draw to himself and shelter the +budding womanhood before him, so fragile now, so full of promise for the +future. And quick as the flame had sprung up under her breath, a magic +flame awoke in his heart, and burned high and hot. If he did not lodge +here, + + The sky might fall, fish fly, and sheep pursue + The tawny monarch of the Libyan strand! + +But he would lodge here. He coughed. + +She started and turned, and seeing him, seeing that he had not gone, she +rose with a frown. "What is it?" she said. "For what are you waiting, +sir?" + +"I have something in charge for Madame Royaume," he answered. + +"I will give it her," she returned sharply. "Why did you not say so at +once?" And she held out her hand. + +"No," he said hardily. "I have it in charge for her hand only." + +"I am her daughter." + +He shook his head stubbornly. + +What she would have done on that--her face was hard and promised +nothing--is uncertain. Fortunately for the young man's hopes, a dull +report as of a stick striking the floor in some room above reached their +ears; he saw her eyes flicker, alter, grow soft. "Wait!" she said +imperiously; and stooping to take one of the pipkins from the fire, she +poured its contents into a wooden bowl which stood beside her on the +table. She added a horn-spoon and a pinch of salt, fetched a slice of +coarse bread from a cupboard in one of the dressers, and taking all in +skilled steady hands, hands childishly small, though brown as nuts, she +disappeared through the door of the staircase. + +He waited, looking about the room, and at this, and at that, with a new +interest. He took up the book which lay on the settle: it was a learned +volume, part of the works of Paracelsus, with strange figures and +diagrams interwoven with the crabbed Latin text. A passage which he +deciphered, abashed him by its profundity, and he laid the book down, +and went from one to another of the black-framed engravings; from these +to an oval piece in coarse Limoges enamel, which hung over the little +shelf of books. At length he heard a step descending from the upper +floors, and presently she appeared in the doorway. + +"My mother will see you," she said, her tone as ungracious as her look. +"But you will say nothing of lodging here, if it please you. Do you +hear?" she added, her voice rising to a more imperious note. + +He nodded. + +She turned on the lowest step. "She is bed-ridden," she muttered, as if +she felt the need of explanation. "She is not to be disturbed with house +matters, or who comes or goes. You understand that, do you?" + +He nodded, with a mental reservation, and followed her up the confined +staircase. Turning sharply at the head of the first flight he saw before +him a long narrow passage, lighted by a window that looked to the back. +On the left of the passage which led to a second set of stairs, were two +doors, one near the head of the lower flight, the other at the foot of +the second. She led him past both--they were closed--and up the second +stairs and into a room under the tiles, a room of good size but with a +roof which sloped in unexpected places. + +A woman lay there, not uncomely; rather comely with the beauty of +advancing years, though weak and frail if not ill. It was the woman of +whom he had so often heard his father speak with gratitude and respect. +It was neither of his father, however, nor of her, that Claude Mercier +thought as he stood holding Madame Royaume's hand and looking down at +her. For the girl who had gone before him into the room had passed to +the other side of the bed, and the glance which she and her mother +exchanged as the daughter leant over the couch, the message of love and +protection on one side, of love and confidence on the other--that +message and the tone, wondrous gentle, in which the girl, so curt and +abrupt below, named him--these revealed a bond and an affection for +which the life of his own family furnished him with no precedent. + +For his mother had many children, and his father still lived. But these +two, his heart told him as he held Madame Royaume's shrivelled hand in +his, were alone. They had each but the other, and lived each in the +other, in this room under the tiles with the deep-set dormer windows +that looked across the Pays de Gex to the Jura. For how much that +prospect of vale and mountain stood in their lives, how often they rose +to it from the same bed, how often looked at it in sunshine and shadow +with the house still and quiet below them, he seemed to know--to guess. +He had a swift mental vision of their lives, and then Madame Royaume's +voice recalled him to himself. + +"You are newly come to Geneva?" she said, gazing at him. + +"I arrived yesterday." + +"Yes, yes, of course," she answered. She spoke quickly and nervously. +"Yes, you told me so." And she turned to her daughter and laid her hand +on hers as if she talked more easily so. "Your father, Monsieur +Mercier," with an obvious effort, "is well, I hope?" + +"Perfectly, and he begged me to convey his grateful remembrances. Those +of my mother also," the young man added warmly. + +"Yes, he was a good man! I remember when, when he was ill, and M. +Chausse--the pastor, you know"--the reminiscence appeared to agitate +her--"was ill also----" + +The girl leant over her quickly. "Monsieur Mercier has brought something +for you, mother," she said. + +"Ah?" + +"His grateful remembrances and this letter," Claude murmured with a +blush. He knew that the letter contained no more than he had already +said; compliments, and the hope that Madame Royaume might be able to +receive the son as she had received the father. + +"Ah!" Madame Royaume repeated, taking the letter with fingers that shook +a little. + +"You shall read it when Monsieur Mercier is gone," her daughter said. +With that she looked across at the young man. Her eyes commanded him to +take his leave. + +But he was resolute. "My father expresses the hope," he said, "that you +will grant me the same privilege of living under your roof, Madame, +which was so highly prized by him." + +"Of course, of course," she answered eagerly, her eyes lighting up. "I +am not myself, sir, able to overlook the house--but, Anne, you will see +to--to this being done?" + +"My dear mother, we have no room!" the girl replied; and stooping, hid +her face while she whispered in her mother's ear. Then aloud, "We are so +full, so--it goes so well," she continued gaily. "We never have any +room. I am sure, sir,"--again she faced him across the bed--"it is a +disappointment to my mother, but it cannot be helped." + +"Dear, dear, it is unfortunate!" Madame Royaume exclaimed; and then with +a fond look at her daughter, "Anne manages so well!" + +"Yet if there be a room at any time vacant?" + +"You shall assuredly have it." + +"But, mother dear," the girl cried, "M. Grio and M. Basterga are +permanent on the floor below. And Esau and Louis are now with us, and +have but just entered on their course at college. And you know," she +continued softly, "no one ever leaves your house before they are obliged +to leave it, mother dear!" + +The mother patted the daughter's hand. "No," she said proudly. "It is +true. And we cannot turn any one away. And yet," looking up at Anne, +"the son of Messer Mercier? You do not think--do you think that we could +put him----" + +"A closet however small!" Claude cried. + +"Unfortunately the room beyond this can only be entered through this +one." + +"It is out of the question!" the girl responded quickly; and for the +first time her tone rang a little hard. The next instant she seemed to +repent of her petulance; she stooped and kissed the thin face sunk in +the pillow's softness. Then, rising, "I am sorry," she continued stiffly +and decidedly. "But it is impossible!" + +"Still--if a vacancy should occur?" he pleaded. + +Her eyes met his defiantly. "We will inform you," she said. + +"Thank you," he answered humbly. "Perhaps I am fatiguing your mother?" + +"I think you are a little tired, dear," the girl said, stooping over +her. "A little fatigues you." + +Madame's cheeks were flushed; her eyes shone brightly, even feverishly. +Claude saw this, and having pushed his plea and his suit as far as he +dared, he hastened to take his leave. His thoughts had been busy with +his chances all the time, his eyes with the woman's face; yet he bore +away with him a curiously vivid picture of the room, of the bow-pot +blooming in the farther dormer, of the brass skillet beside the green +boughs which filled the hearth, of the spinning wheel in the middle of +the floor, and the great Bible on the linen chest beside the bed, of the +sloping roof, and a queer triangular cupboard which filled one corner. + +At the time, as he followed the girl downstairs, he thought of none of +these things. He only asked himself what mystery lay in the bosom of +this quiet house, and what he should say when he stood in the room below +at bay before her. Of one thing he was still sure--sure, ay and surer, +since he had seen her with her mother, + + The sky might fall, fish fly, and sheep pursue + The tawny monarch of the Libyan strand! + +but he lodged here. The mention of his adversary of last night, which +had not escaped his ear, had only hardened him in his resolution. The +room of Esau--or was it Louis' room--must be his! He must be Jacob the +Supplanter. + +She did not speak as she preceded him down the stairs, and before they +emerged one after the other into the living-room, which was still +unoccupied, he had formed his plan. When she moved towards the outer +door to open it he refused to follow: he stood still. "Pardon me," he +said, "would you mind giving me the name of the young man who admitted +me?" + +"I do not see----" + +"I only want his name." + +"Esau Tissot." + +"And his room? Which was it?" + +Grudgingly she pointed to the nearer of the two closets, that of which +the door stood open. + +"That one?" + +"Yes." + +He stepped quickly into it, and surveyed it carefully. Then he laid his +cap on the low truckle-bed. "Very good," he said, raising his voice and +speaking through the open door, "I will take it." And he came out again. + +The girl's eyes sparkled. "If you think," she cried, her temper showing +in her face, "that that will do you any good----" + +"I don't think," he said, cutting her short, "I take it. Your mother +undertook that I should have the first vacant room. Tissot resigned this +room this morning. I take it. I consider myself fortunate--most +fortunate." + +Her colour came and went. "If you were a boor," she cried, "you could +not behave worse!" + +"Then I am a boor!" + +"But you will find," she continued, "that you cannot force your way +into a house like this. You will find that such things are not done in +Geneva. I will have you put out!" + +"Why?" he asked, craftily resorting to argument. "When I ask only to +remain and be quiet? Why, when you have, or to-night will have, an empty +room? Why, when you lodged Tissot, will you not lodge me? In what am I +worse than Tissot or Grio," he continued, "or--I forget the other's +name? Have I the plague, or the falling sickness? Am I Papist or Arian? +What have I done that I may not lie in Geneva, may not lie in your +house? Tell me, give me a reason, show me the cause, and I will go." + +Her anger had died down while he spoke and while she listened. Instead, +the lowness of heart to which she had yielded when she thought herself +alone before the hearth showed in every line of her figure. "You do not +know what you are doing," she said sadly. And she turned and looked +through the casement. "You do not know what you are asking, or to what +you are coming." + +"Did Tissot know when he came?" + +"You are not Tissot," she answered in a low tone, "and may fare worse." + +"Or better," he answered gaily. "And at worst----" + +"Worse or better you will repent it," she retorted. "You will repent it +bitterly!" + +"I may," he answered. "But at least you never shall." + +She turned and looked at him at that; looked at him as if the curtain of +apathy fell from her eyes and she saw him for the first time as he was, +a young man, upright and not uncomely. She looked at him with her mind +as well as her eyes, and seeing felt curiosity about him, pity for him, +felt her own pulses stirred by his presence and his aspect. A faint +colour, softer than the storm-flag which had fluttered there a minute +before, rose to her cheeks; her lips began to tremble. He feared that +she was going to weep, and "That is settled!" he said cheerfully. +"Good!" and he went into the little room and brought out his cap. "I lay +last night at the 'Bible and Hand,' and I must fetch my cloak and pack." + +She stayed him by a gesture. "One moment," she said. "You are determined +to--to do this? To lodge here?" + +"Firmly," he answered, smiling. + +"Then wait." She passed by him and, moving to the fireplace, raised the +lid of the great black pot. The broth inside was boiling and bubbling to +within an inch of the lip, the steam rose from it in a fragrant cloud. +She took an iron spoon and looked at him, a strange look in her eyes. +"Stand where you are," she said, "and I will try you, if you are fit to +come to us or no. Stand, do you hear," she repeated, a note of +excitation, almost of mockery, in her voice, "where you are whatever +happens! You understand?" + +"Yes, I am to stand here, whatever happens," he answered, wondering. +What was she going to do? + +She was going to do a thing outside the limits of his imagination. She +dipped the iron spoon in the pot and, extending her left arm, +deliberately allowed some drops of the scalding liquor to fall on the +bare flesh. He saw the arm wince, saw red blisters spring out on the +white skin, he caught the sharp indraw of her breath, but he did not +move. Again she dipped the spoon, looking at him with defiant eyes, and +with the same deliberation she let the stuff fall on the living flesh. +This time the perspiration sprang out on her brow, her face burned +suddenly hot, her whole frame shrank under the torture. + +"Don't!" he cried hoarsely. "I will not bear it! Don't!" And he uttered +a cry half-articulate, like a beast's. + +"Stand there!" she said. And still he stood: stood, his hands clenched +and his lips drawn back from his teeth, while she dipped the spoon +again, and--though her arm shook now like an aspen and there were tears +of pain in her eyes--let the dreadful stuff fall a third time. + +She was white when she turned to him. "If you do it again," he cried +furiously, "I will upset--the cursed pot." + +"I have done," she said, smiling faintly. "I am not very brave--after +all!" And going to the dresser, her knees trembling under her, she +poured out some water and drank it greedily. Then she turned to him, "Do +you understand?" she said with a long tense look. "Are you prepared? If +you come here, you will see me suffer worse things, things a hundred +times, a thousand times worse than that. You will see me suffer, and you +will have to stand and see it. You will have to stand and suffer it. You +will have to stand! If you cannot, do not come." + +"I stood it," he answered doggedly. "But there are things flesh and +blood cannot stand. There is a limit----" + +"The limit I shall fix," she said proudly. "Not you." + +"But you will fix it?" + +"Perhaps. At any rate, that is the bargain. You may accept or refuse. +You do not know where I stand, and I do. You must see and be blind, feel +and be dumb, hear and make no answer, unless I speak--if you are to come +here." + +"But you will speak--sometime?" + +"I do not know," she answered wearily, and her whole form wilting she +looked away from him. "I do not know. Go now, if you please--and +remember!" + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE QUINTESSENTIAL STONE. + + +The old town of Geneva, pent in the angle between lake and river, and +cramped for many generations by the narrow corselet of its walls, was +not large; it was still high noon when Mercier, after paying his +reckoning at the "Bible and Hand," and collecting his possessions, found +himself again in the Corraterie. A pleasant breeze stirred the leafy +branches which shaded the ramparts, and he stood a moment beside one of +the small steep-roofed watch-towers, and resting his burden on the +breast-high wall, gazed across the hazy landscape to the mountains, +beyond which lay Chatillon and his home. + +Yet it was not of his home he was thinking as he gazed; nor was it his +mother's or his father's face that the dancing heat of mid-day mirrored +for him as he dreamed. Oh, happy days of youth when an hour and a face +change all, and a glance from shy eyes, or the pout of strange lips +blinds to the world and the world's ambitions! Happy youth! But alas for +the studies this youth had come so far to pursue, for the theology he +had crossed those mountains to imbibe--at the pure source and fount of +evangelical doctrine! Alas for the venerable Beza, pillar and pattern of +the faith, whom he had thirsted to see, and the grave of Calvin, aim and +end of his pilgrimage! All Geneva held but one face for him now, one +presence, one gracious personality. A scarlet blister on a round white +arm, the quiver of a girl's lip a-tremble on the verge of tears--these +and no longing for home, these and no memory of father or mother or the +days of childhood, filled his heart to overflowing. He dreamed with his +eyes on the hills, but it was not + + Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, + Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, + +the things he had come to study; but of a woman's trouble and the secret +life of the house behind him, of which he was about to form part. + +At length the call of a sentry at the Porte Tertasse startled him from +his thoughts. He roused himself, and uncertain how long he had lingered +he took up his cloak and bag and, turning, hastened across the street to +the door at the head of the four steps. He found it on the latch, and +with a confident air, which belied his real feelings, he pushed it open +and presented himself. + +For a moment he fancied that the room held only one person. This was a +young man who sat at the table in the middle of the room and, surprised +by the appearance of a stranger, suspended his spoon in the air that he +might the better gaze at him. But when Claude had set down his bag +behind the door, and turned to salute the other, he discovered his +error; and despite himself he paused in the act of advancing, unable to +hide his concern. At the table on the hearth, staring at him in silence, +sat two other men. And one of the two was Grio. + +Mercier paused we have said; he expected an outburst of anger if not an +assault. But a second glance at the old ruffian's face relieved him: a +stare of vacant wonder made it plain that Grio sober retained little of +the doings of Grio drunk. Nevertheless, the silent gaze of the +three--for no one greeted him--took Claude aback; and it was but +awkwardly and with embarrassment that he approached the table, and +prepared to add himself to the party. Something in their looks as well +as their silence whispered him unwelcome. He blushed, and addressing the +young man at the larger table-- + +"I have taken Tissot's room," he said shyly. "This is his seat, I +suppose. May I take it?" And indicating an empty bowl and spoon on the +nearer side of the table, he made as if he would sit down before them. + +In place of answering, the young man looked from him to the two on the +hearth, and laughed--a foolish, frightened laugh. The sound led +Mercier's eyes in the same direction, and he appreciated for the first +time the aspect of the man who sat with Grio; a man of great height and +vast bulk, with a large plump face and small grey eyes. It struck +Mercier as he met the fixed stare of those eyes, that he had entered +with less ceremony than was becoming, and that he ought to make amends +for it; and, in the act of sitting down in the vacant seat, he turned +and bowed politely to the two at the other table. + +"Tissotius timuit, jam peregrinus adest!" the big man murmured in a +voice at once silky and sonorous. Then ignoring Mercier, but looking +blandly at the young man who sat facing him at the table, "What is this +of Tissot?" he continued. "Can it be," with a side-glance at the +newcomer, "that we have lost our--I may not call him our quintessence or +alcahest--rather shall I say our baser ore, that at the virgin touch of +our philosophical stone blushed into ruddy gold? And burned ever +brighter and hotter in her presence! Tissot gone, and with him all those +fair experiments! Is it possible?" + +The young man's grin showed that he savoured a jest. But, "I know +nothing," he muttered sheepishly. "'Tis new to me." + +"Tissot gone!" the big man repeated in a tone humorously melancholy. "No +more shall we + + Upon his viler metal test our purest pure, + And see him transmutations three endure! + +Tissot gone! And you, sir, come in his place. What change is here! A +stranger, I believe?" + +"In Geneva, yes," Claude answered, wondering and a little abashed. The +man spoke with an air of power and weight. + +"And a student, doubtless in our Academia? Like our Tissot? Yes. It may +be," he continued in the same smooth tones wherein ridicule and +politeness appeared to be so nicely mingled that it was difficult to +judge if he spoke in jest or earnest, "like him in other things! It may +be that we have gained and not lost. And that qualities finer and more +susceptible underlie an exterior more polished and an ease more +complete," he bowed, "than our poor Tissot could boast! But here is + + Our stone angelical whereby + All secret potencies to light are brought! + +Doubtless"--with a wave of the hand he indicated the girl who had that +moment entered--"you have met before?" + +"I could not otherwise," Claude answered coldly--he began to resent both +the man and his manner--"have engaged the lodging." And he rose to take +from the girl's hand the broth she was bringing him. She, on her side, +made no sign that she noticed a change, or that it was no longer Tissot +she served. She gave him what he needed, mechanically and without +meeting his eyes. Then turning to the others, she waited on them after +the same fashion. For a minute or two there was silence in the room. + +A strange silence, Claude thought, listening and wondering: as strange +and embarrassing as the talk of the man who shared with Grio the table +by the fireplace: as strange as the atmosphere about them, which hung +heavy, to his fancy, and oppressive, fraught with unintelligible +railleries, with subtle jests and sneers. The girl went to and fro, from +one to another, her face pale, her manner quiet. And had he not seen her +earlier with another look in her eyes, had he not detected a sinister +something underlying the big man's good humour, he would have learned +nothing from her; he would have fancied that all was as it should be in +the house and in the company. + +As it was he understood nothing. But he felt that a something was wrong, +that a something overhung the party. Seated as he was he could not +without turning see the faces of the two at the other table, nor watch +the girl when she waited on them. But the suspicion of a smile which +hovered on the lips of the young man who sat opposite him--whom he could +see--kept him on his guard. Was a trick in preparation? Were they about +to make him pay his footing? No, for they had no notice of his coming. +They could not have laid the mine. Then why that smile? And why this +silence? + +On a sudden he caught the sound of a movement behind him, the swirl of a +petticoat, and the clang of a pewter plate as it fell noisily to the +floor. His companion looked up swiftly, the smile on his face broadening +to a snigger. Claude turned too as quickly as he could and looked, his +face hot, his mind suspecting some prank to be played on him; to his +astonishment he discovered nothing to account for the laugh. The girl +appeared to be bending over the embers on the hearth, the men to be +engaged with their meal; and baffled and perplexed he turned again and, +his ears burning, bent over his plate. He was glad when the stout man +broke the silence for the second time. + +"Agrippa," he said, "has this of amalgams. That whereas gold, silver, +tin are valuable in themselves, they attain when mixed with mercury to a +certain light and sparkling character, as who should say the bubbles on +wine, or the light resistance of beauty, which in the one case and the +other add to the charm. Such to our simple pleasures"--he continued with +a rumble of deep laughter--"our simple pleasures, which I must now also +call our pleasures of the past, was our Tissot! Who, running fluid +hither and thither, where resistance might be least of use, was as it +were the ultimate sting of enjoyment. Is it possible that we have in our +friend a new Tissot?" + +The young man at the table giggled. "I did not know Tissot!" Claude +replied sharply and with a burning face--they were certainly laughing at +him. "And therefore I cannot say." + +"Mercury, which completes the amalgam," the stout man muttered absently +and as if to himself, "when heated sublimes over!" Then turning after a +moment's silence to the girl, "What says our Quintessential Stone to +this?" he continued. "Her Tissot gone will she still work her wonders? +Still of base Grios and the weak alloys red bridegrooms make? +Still--kind Anne, your hand!" + +Silence! Silence again. What were they doing? Claude, full of suspicion, +turned to see what it meant; turned to learn what it was on which the +greedy eyes of his table-fellow were fixed so intently. And now he saw, +more or less. The stout man and Grio had their heads together and their +faces bent over the girl's hand, which the former held. On them, +however, Claude scarcely bestowed a glance. It was the girl's face which +caught and held his eyes, nay, made them burn. Had it blushed, had it +showed white, he had borne the thing more lightly, he had understood it +better. But her face showed dull and apathetic; as she stood looking +down at the men, suffering them to do what they would with her hand, a +strange passivity was its sole expression. When the big man (whose name +Claude learned later was Basterga), after inspecting the palm, kissed it +with mock passion, and so surrendered it to Grio, who also pressed his +coarse lips to it, while the young man beside Claude laughed, no change +came over her. Released, she turned again to the hearth, impassive. And +Claude, his heart beating, recognised that this was the hundredth +performance; that so far from being a new thing it was a thing so old as +to be stale to her, moving her less, though there were insult and +derision in every glance of the men's eyes, than it moved him. + +And noting this he began in a dim way to understand. This was the thing +which Tissot had not been able to bear; which in the end had driven the +young man with the small chin from the house. This was the pleasantry to +which his feeble resistance, his outbursts of anger, of jealousy, or of +protest had but added piquancy, the ultimate sting of pleasure to the +jaded palate of the performers. This was the obsession under which she +lay, the trial and persecution which she had warned him he would find it +hard to witness. + +Hard? He believed her, trifling as was the thing he had seen. For behind +it he had a glimpse of other and worse things, and behind all of some +shadowy brooding mystery which compelled her to suffer them and forbade +her to complain. What that was he could not conceive, what it could be +he could not conceive: nor had he long to consider the question. He +found the shifty eyes of his table-fellow fixed upon him, and, though +the moment his own eyes met them they were averted, he fancied that they +sped a glance of intelligence to the table behind him, and he hastened +to curb, if not his feelings, at least the show of them. He had his +warning. It was not as Tissot he must act if he would help her, but more +warily, more patiently, biding her time, and letting the blow, when the +time came, precede the word. Unwarned, he had acted it is probable as +Tissot had acted, weakly and stormily: warned, he had no excuse if he +failed her. Young as he was he saw this. The fault lay with him if he +made the position worse instead of better. + +Whether, do what he would, his feelings made themselves known--for the +shoulders can speak, and eloquently, on occasion--or the reverse was the +case, and his failure to rise to the bait disappointed the tormentor, +the big man, Basterga, presently resumed the attack. + +"Tissotius pereat, Tissotianus adest!" he muttered with a sneer. "But +perhaps, young sir, Latinity is not one of your subjects. The tongue of +the immortal Cicero----" + +"I speak it a little," Claude answered quietly. "It were foolish to +approach the door of learning without the key." + +"Oh, you are a wit, young sir! Well, with your wit and your Latinity can +you construe this:-- + + Stultitiam expellas, furca tamen usque recurret + Tissotius periit terque quaterque redit!" + +"I think so," Claude replied gravely. + +"Good, if it please you! And the meaning?" + +"Tissot was a fool, and you are another!" the young man returned. "Will +you now solve me one, reverend sir, with all submission?" + +"Said and done!" the big man answered disdainfully. + +"Nec volucres plumæ faciunt nec cuspis Achillem! Construe me that then +if you will!" + +Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "Fine feathers do not make fine birds!" +he said. "If you apply it to me," he continued with a contemptuous face, +"I----" + +"Oh, no, to your company," Claude answered. Self-control comes hardly to +the young, and he had already forgotten his _rôle_. "Ask him what +happened last night at the 'Bible and Hand,'" he continued, pointing to +Grio, "and how he stands now with his friend the Syndic!" + +"The Syndic?" + +"The Syndic Blondel!" + +The moment the words had passed his lips, Claude repented. He saw that +he had struck a note more serious than he intended. The big man did not +move, but over his fat face crept a watching expression; he was plainly +startled. His eyes, reduced almost to pin-points, seemed for an instant +the eyes of a cat about to spring. The effect was so evident indeed that +it bewildered Claude and so completely diverted his attention from Grio, +the real target, that when the bully, who had listened stupidly to the +exchange of wit, proved by a brutal oath his comprehension of the +reference to himself, the young man scarcely heard him. + +"The Syndic Blondel?" Basterga muttered after a pregnant pause. "What +know you of him, pray?" + +Before the young man could answer, Grio broke in. "So you have followed +me here, have you?" he cried, striking his jug on the table and glaring +across the board at the offender. "You weren't content to escape last +night it seems. Now----" + +"Enough!" Basterga muttered, the keen expression of his face unchanged. +"Softly! Softly! Where are we? I don't understand. What is this? Last +night----" + +"I want not to rake up bygones if you will let them be," Claude answered +with a sulky air, half assumed. "It was you who attacked me." + +"You puppy!" Grio roared. "Do you think----" + +"Enough!" Basterga said again: and his eyes leaving the young man fixed +themselves on his companion. "I begin to understand," he murmured, his +voice low, but not the less menacing for that, or for the cat-like purr +in it. "I begin to comprehend. This is one of your tricks, Messer Grio. +One of the clever tricks you play in your cups! Some day you'll do that +in them will--No!" repressing the bully as he attempted to rise. "Have +done now and let us understand. The 'Bible and Hand,' eh? 'Twas there, I +suppose, you and this youth met, and----" + +"Quarrelled," said Claude sullenly. "That's all." + +"And you followed him hither?" + +"No, I did not." + +"No? Then how come you here?" Basterga asked, his eyes still watchful. +"In this house, I mean? 'Tis not easy to find." + +"My father lodged here," Claude vouchsafed. And he shrugged his +shoulders, thinking that with that the matter was clear. + +But Basterga continued to eye him with something that was not far +removed from suspicion. "Oh," he said. "That is it, is it? Your father +lodged here. And the Syndic--Blondel, was it you said? How comes he into +it? Grio was prating of him, I suppose?" For an instant, while he waited +the answer to the question, his eyes shrank again to pin-points. + +"He came in and found us at sword-play," Claude answered. "Or just +falling to it. And though the fault was not mine, he would have sent me +to prison if I had not had a letter for him." + +"Oh!" And returning with a manifest effort to the tone and manner of a +few minutes before:-- + + "Impiger, Iracundus, Inexorabilis, acer + Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis," + +he hummed. "I doubt if such manners will be appreciated in Geneva, young +man," and furtively he wiped his brow. "To old stagers like my friend +here who has given his proofs of fidelity to the State, some indulgence +is granted----" + +"I see that," Claude answered with sarcasm. + +"I am saying it. But you, if you will not be warned, will soon find or +make the town too hot for you." + +"He will find this house too hot for him!" growled his companion, who +had made more than one vain attempt to assert himself. "And that to-day! +To-day! Perdition, I know him now," he continued, fixing his bloodshot +eyes on the young man, "and if he crows here as he crowed last night, +his comb must be cut! As well soon as late, for there will be no living +with him! There, don't hold me, man! Let me at him!" And he tried to +rise. + +"Fool, have done!" Basterga replied, still restraining him, but only by +the exertion of considerable force. And then in a lower tone but one +partially audible, "Do you want to draw the eyes of all Geneva this +way?" he continued. "Do you want the house marked and watched and every +gossip's tongue wagging about it? You did harm enough last night, I'll +answer, and well if no worse comes of it! Have done, I say, or I shall +speak, you know to whom!" + +"Why does he come here? Why does he follow me?" the sot complained. + +"Cannot you hear that his father lodged here?" + +"A lie!" Grio cried vehemently. "He is spying on us! First at the 'Bible +and Hand' last night, and then here! It is you who are the fool, man. +Let me go! Let me at him, I say!" + +"I shall not!" the big man answered firmly. And he whispered in the +other's ear something which Claude could not catch. Whatever it was it +cooled Grio's rage. He ceased to struggle, nodded sulkily and sat back. +He stretched out his hand, took a long draught, and having emptied his +jug, "Here's Geneva!" he said, wiping his lips with the air of a man who +had given a toast. "Only don't let him cross me! That is all. Where is +the wench?" + +"She has gone upstairs," Basterga answered with one eye on Claude. He +seemed to be unable to shake off a secret doubt of him. + +"Then let her come down," Grio answered with a grin, half drunken, half +brutal, "and make her show sport. Here, you there," to the young man who +shared Claude's table, "call her down and----" + +"Sit still!" Basterga growled, and he trod--Claude was almost sure of +it--on the bully's foot. "It is late, and these young gentlemen should +be at their themes. Theology, young sir," he turned to Claude with the +slightest shade of over-civility in his pompous tone, "like the pursuit +of the Alcahest, which some call the Quintessence of the Elements, +allows no rival near its throne!" + +"I attend my first lecture to-morrow," Claude answered drily. And he +kept his seat. His face was red and his hand trembled. They would call +her down for their sport, would they! Not in his presence, nor again in +his absence, if he could avoid it. + +Grio struck the table. "Call her down!" he ordered in a tone which +betrayed the influence of his last draught. "Do you hear!" And he looked +fiercely at Louis Gentilis, the young man who sat opposite Claude. + +But Louis only looked at Basterga and grinned. + +And Basterga it was plain was not in the mood to amuse himself. Whatever +the reason, the big man was no longer at his ease in Mercier's company. +Some unpleasant thought, some suspicion, born of the incident at the +"Bible and Hand," seemed to rankle in his mind, and, strive as he +would, betrayed its presence in the tone of his voice and the glance of +his eye. He was uneasy, nor could he hide his uneasiness. To the look +which Gentilis shot at him he replied by one which imperatively bade the +young man keep his seat. "Enough fooling for to-day," he said, and +stealthily he repressed Grio's resistance. "Enough! Enough! I see that +the young gentleman does not altogether understand our humours. He will +come to them in time, in time," his voice almost fawning, "and see we +mean no harm. Did I understand," he continued, addressing Claude +directly, "that your father knew Messer Blondel?" + +"Who is now Syndic? My uncle did," Claude answered rather curtly. He was +more and more puzzled by the change in Basterga's manner. Was the big +man a poltroon whom the bold front shown to Grio brought to heel? Or was +there something behind, some secret upon which his words had unwittingly +touched? + +"He is a good man," Basterga said. "And of the first in Geneva. His +brother too, who is Procureur-General. Their father died for the State, +and the sons, the Syndic in particular, served with high honour in the +war. Savoy has no stouter foe than Philibert Blondel, nor Geneva a more +devoted son." And he drank as if he drank a toast to them. + +Claude nodded. + +"A man of great parts too. Probably you will wait on him?" + +"Next week. I was near waiting on him after another fashion," Claude +continued rather grimly. "Between him and your friend there," with a +glance at Grio, who had relapsed into a moody glaring silence, "I was +like to get more gyves than justice." + +The big man laughed. "Our friend here has served the State," he +remarked, "and does what another may not. Come, Messer Grio," he +continued, clapping him on the shoulder, as he rose from his seat. "We +have sat long enough. If the young ones will not stir, it becomes the +old ones to set an example. Will you to my room and view the +precipitation of which I told you?" + +Grio gave a snarling assent, and got to his feet; and the party broke up +with no more words. Claude took his cap and prepared to withdraw, well +content with himself and the line he had taken. But he did not leave the +house until his ears assured him that the two who had ascended the +stairs together had actually repaired to Basterga's room on the first +floor, and there shut themselves up. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +CÆSAR BASTERGA. + + +Had it been Mercier's eye in place of his ear which attended the two men +to the upper room, he would have remarked--perhaps with surprise, since +he had gained some knowledge of Grio's temper--that in proportion as +they mounted the staircase, the toper's crest drooped, and his arrogance +ebbed away; until at the door of Basterga's chamber, it was but a +sneaking and awkward man who crossed the threshold. + +Nor was the reason far to seek. Whatever the standpoint of the two men +in public, their relations to one another in private were delivered up, +stamped and sealed in that moment of entrance. While Basterga, leaving +the other to close the door, strode across the room to the window and +stood gazing out, his very back stern and contemptuous, Grio fidgeted +and frowned, waiting with ill-concealed penitence, until the other chose +to address him. At length Basterga turned, and his gleaming eyes, his +moon-face pale with anger, withered his companion. + +"Again! Again!" he growled--it seemed he dare not lift his voice. "Will +you never be satisfied until we are broken on the wheel? You dog, you! +The sooner you are broken the better, were that all! Ay, and were that +all, I could watch the bar fall with pleasure! But do you think I will +see the fruit of years of planning, do you think that I will see the +reward of this brain--this! this, you brainless idiot, who know not +what a brain is"--and he tapped his brow repeatedly with an earnestness +almost grotesque--"do you think that I will see this cast away, because +you swill, swine that you are! Swill and prate in your cups!" + +"'Fore God, I said nothing!" Grio whined. "I said nothing! It was only +that he would not drink and I----" + +"Made him?" + +"No, he would not, I say, and we were coming to blows. And then----" + +"He gave back, did he?" + +"No, Messer Blondel came in." + +Cæsar Basterga stretched out his huge arms. "Fool! Fool! Fool!" he +hissed, with a gesture of despair. "There it is! And Blondel, who should +have sent you to the whipping-post, or out of Geneva, has to cloak you! +And men ask why, and what there is between our most upright Syndic and a +drunken, bragging----" + +"Softly," Grio muttered, with a flash of sullen resentment. "Softly, +Messer Basterga! I----" + +"A drunken, swilling, prating pig!" the other persisted. "A broken +soldier living on an hour of chance service? Pooh, man," with contempt, +"do not threaten me! Do you think that I do not know you more than half +craven? The lad below there would cut your comb yet, did I suffer it. +But that is not the point. The point is that you must needs advertise +the world that you and the Syndic, who has charge of the walls, are +hail-fellows, and the world will ask why! Or he must deal with you as +you deserve and out you go from Geneva!" + +"Per Bacco! I am not the only soldier," Grio muttered, "who ruffles it +here!" + +"No! And is not that half our battle?" Basterga rejoined, gazing on him +with massive scorn. "To make use of them and their grumbling, and their +distaste for the Venerable Company of Pastors who rule us! Such men are +our tools; but tools only, and senseless tools, for Geneva won for the +Grand Duke, and what will they be the better, save in the way of a +little more licence and a little more drink? But for you I had something +better! Is the little farm in Piedmont not worth a month's abstinence? +Is drink-money for your old age, when else you must starve or stab in +the purlieus of Genoa, not worth one month's sobriety? But you must +needs for the sake of a single night's debauch ruin me and get yourself +broken on the wheel!" + +Grio shrank under his eye. "There is no harm done," he muttered at last. +"Nobody suspects what is between us." + +"How do you know that?" came the retort. "What? You think it is natural +Blondel should favour such as you?" + +"It will not be the first time Geneva cloak has covered Genoa velvet!" + +"Velvet!" Basterga repeated with a sneer. "Rags rather!" And then more +quickly, "But that is not all, nor the half. Do you think Blondel, who +is on the point, Blondel, who will and will not and on whom all must +turn, Blondel the upright, the impeccable, the patriotic, without whom +we can do nothing, and who, I tell you, hangs in the balance--do you +think he likes it, blockhead? Or is the more inclined to trust his life +with us when he sees us brawlers, toss-pots, common swillers? Do you +think he on whom I am bringing to bear all the resources of this +brain--this!"--and again the big man tapped his forehead with tragic +earnestness--"and whom you could as much move to side with us as you +could move yonder peak of the Jura from its base--do you think he will +deem better of our part for this?" + +"Well, no." + +"No! No, a thousand times!" + +"But I count drunk the same as sober for that!" Grio cried, plucking up +spirit and speaking with a gleam of defiance in his eye. "For it is my +opinion that you have no more chance of moving him than I have! And so +to be plain you have it, Messer Basterga. For how are you going to move +him? With what? Tell me that!" + +"Ah!" + +"With money?" Grio continued with a fluency which showed he spoke on a +subject to which he had given much thought. "He is rich and ten thousand +crowns would not buy him. And the Grand Duke, much as he craves Geneva, +will not spend over boldly." + +"No, I shall not move him with money." + +"With power and rank, then? Will the Grand Duke make him Governor of +Geneva? No, for he dare not trust him. And less than that, what is it to +Syndic Blondel, whose word to-day is all but law in Geneva?" + +"No, nor with power," Basterga answered quietly. + +"Is it with revenge, then? There are men I know who love revenge. But he +is not of the south, and at such a risk revenge were dearly bought." + +"No, nor with revenge," Basterga replied. + +"A woman, then? For that is all that is left," Grio rejoined in triumph. +Once he had spoken out, he had put himself on a level with his master; +he had worsted him, or he was much mistaken. "Perhaps, from the way you +have played with the little prude below, it is a woman. But they are +plenty, even in Geneva, and he is rich and old." + +"No, nor with a woman." + +"Then with what?" + +"With this!" Basterga replied. And for the third time, drawing himself +up to his full height, he tapped his brow. "Do you doubt its power?" + +For answer Grio shrugged his shoulders, his manner sullen and +contemptuous. + +"You do?" + +"I don't see how it works, Messer Basterga," the veteran muttered. "I +say not you have not good wits. You have, I grant it. But the best of +wits must have their means and method. It is not by wishing and +willing----" + +"How know you that?" + +"Eh?" + +"How know you that?" Basterga repeated with sudden energy, and he shook +a massive finger before the other's eyes. "But how know you anything," +he continued with disdain, as he dropped the hand again, and turned on +his heel, "dolt, imbecile, rudiment that you are? Ay, and blind to boot, +for it was but the other day I worked a miracle before you, and you +learned nothing from it." + +"It is no question of miracles," the other muttered doggedly. "But of +how you will persuade the Syndic Blondel to betray Geneva to Savoy!" + +"Is it so? Then tell me this: the girl below who smacked your face a +month back because you laid a hand upon her wrist, and who would have +had you put to the door the same day--how did I tame her? Can you answer +me that?" + +Grio's face fell remarkably. "No, master," he said, nodding +thoughtfully. "I grant it. I cannot. A wilder filly was never handled." + +"So! And yet I tamed her. And she suffers you! She's sport for us within +bounds. Yet do you think she likes it when you paw her hand or lay your +dirty arm about her waist, or steal a kiss? Think you the blood mounts +and ebbs for nothing? Or the tears rise and the lip trembles and the +limbs shake for sheer pleasure. I tell you, if eyes could slay, you had +breathed your last some weeks ago." + +"I know," Grio answered, nodding thoughtfully. "I have wondered and +wondered, ay, many a time, how you did it." + +"Yet I did it? You grant that?" + +"Yes." + +"And you do not understand--with what?" + +Grio shook his head. + +"Then why mistrust me now, blockhead," the other retorted, "when I say +that as I charmed her, I can charm Blondel? Ay, and more easily. You +know not how I did the one, nor how I shall do the other," the big man +continued. "But what of that?" And in a louder voice, and with a gusto +which showed how genuine was his delight in the metre, + + "Pauci quos æquus amavit + Jupiter aut ardens evexit ad æthera virtus + Dis geniti potuere," + +he mouthed. "But that," he added, looking scornfully at his confederate, +"is Greek to you!" + +Grio's altered aspect, his crestfallen air owned the virtue of the +argument if not of the citation; which he did not understand. He drew a +deep breath. "Per Bacco," he said, "if you succeed in doing it, Messer +Basterga----" + +"I shall do it," Basterga retorted, "if you do not spoil all with your +drunken tricks!" + +Grio was silent a moment, sunk plainly in reflection. Presently his +bloodshot eyes began to travel respectfully and even timidly over the +objects about him. In truth the room in which he found himself was +worthy of inspection, for it was no common room, either in aspect or +furnishing. It boasted, it is true, none of the weird properties, the +skulls and corpse-lights, dead hands, and waxen masks with which the +necromancer of that day sought to impress the vulgar mind. But in place +of these a multitude of objects, quaint, curious, or valuable, filled +that half of the room which was farther from the fire-hearth. On the +wall, flanked by a lute and some odd-looking rubrical calendars, were +three or four silver discs, engraved with the signs of the Zodiac; these +were hung in such a position as to catch the light which entered through +the heavily leaded casement. On the window-seat below them, a pile of +Plantins and Elzevirs threatened to bury a steel casket. On the table, +several rolls of vellum and papyrus, peeping from metal cylinders, leant +against a row of brass-bound folios. A handsome fur covering masked the +truckle-bed, but this, too, bore its share of books, as did two or three +long trunks covered with stamped and gilded leather which stood against +the wall and were so long that the ladies of the day had the credit of +hiding their gallants in them. On stools lay more books, and yet more +books, with a medley of other things: a silver flagon, and some weapons, +a chess-board, an enamelled triptych and the like. + +In a word, this half of the room wore the aspect of a library, +low-roofed, dark and richly furnished. The other half, partly divided +from it by a curtain, struck the eye differently. A stove of peculiar +fashion, equipped with a powerful bellows, cumbered the hearth; before +this on a long table were ranged a profusion of phials and retorts, +glass vessels of odd shapes, and earthen pots. Crucibles and alembics +stood in the ashes before the stove, and on a sideboard placed under the +window were scattered a set of silver scales, a chemist's mask, and a +number of similar objects. Cards bearing abstruse calculations hung +everywhere on the walls; and over the fireplace, inscribed in gold and +black letters, the Greek word "EUREKA" was conspicuous. + +The existence of such a room in the quiet house in the Corraterie was +little suspected by the neighbours, and if known would have struck them +with amazement. To Grio its aspect was familiar: but in this case +familiarity had not removed his awe of the unknown and the magical. He +looked about him now, and after a pause:-- + +"I suppose you do it--with these," he murmured, and with an almost +imperceptible shiver he pointed to the crucibles. + +"With those?" Basterga exclaimed, and had the other ascribed +supernatural virtues to the cinders or the bellows he could not have +thrown greater scorn into his words. "Do you think I ply this base +mechanic art for aught but to profit by the ignorance of the vulgar? Or +think by pots and pans and mixing vile substances to make this, which by +nature is this, into that which by nature it is not! I, a scholar? A +scholar? No, I tell you, there was never alchemist yet could transmute +but one thing--poor into rich, rich into poor!" + +"But," Grio murmured with a look and in a voice of disappointment, "is +not that the true transmutation which a thousand have died seeking, and +one here and there, it is rumoured, has found? From lead to gold, Messer +Basterga?" + +"Ay, but the lead is the poor alchemist, who gets gold from his patron +by his trick. And the gold is the poor fool who finds him in his living, +and being sucked, turns to lead! There you have your transmutation." + +"Yet----" + +"There is no yet!" + +"But Agrippa," Grio persisted, "Cornelius Agrippa, who sojourned here in +Geneva and of whom, master, you speak daily--was he not a learned man?" + +"Ay, even as I am!" Cæsar Basterga answered, swelling visibly with +pride. "But constrained, even as I am, to ply the baser trade and stoop +to that we see and touch and smell! Faugh! What lot more cursed than to +quit the pure ether of Latinity for the lower region of matter? And in +place of cultivating the _literæ humaniores_, which is the true +cultivation of the mind, and sets a man, mark you, on a level with +princes, to stoop to handle virgin milk and dragon's blood, as they +style their vile mixtures; or else grope in dead men's bodies for the +thing which killed them. Which is a pure handicraft and cheirergon, +unworthy a scholar, who stoops of right to naught but the goose-quill!" + +"And yet, master, by these same things----" + +"Men grow rich," Basterga continued with a sneer, "and get power? Ay, +and the bastard sits in the chair of the legitimate; and pure learning +goes bare while the seekers after the Stone and the Elixir (who, in +these days are descending to invent even lesser things and smaller +advantages that in the learned tongues have not so much as names) grow +in princes' favour and draw on their treasuries! But what says Seneca? +'It is not the office of Philosophy to teach men to use their hands. The +object of her lessons is to form the soul and the taste.' And Aldus +Manucius, vir doctissimus, magister noster," here he raised his hand to +his head as if he would uncover, "says also the same, but in a Latinity +more pure and translucent, as is his custom." + +Grio scratched his head. The other's vehemence, whether he sneered or +praised, flew high above his dull understanding. He had his share of the +reverence for learning which marked the ignorant of that age: but to +what better end, he pondered stupidly, could learning be directed than +to the discovery of that which must make its owner the most enviable of +mortals, the master of wealth and youth and pleasure! It was not to +this, however, that he directed his objection: the _argumentum ad +hominem_ came more easily to him. "But you do this?" he said, pointing +to the paraphernalia about the stove. + +"Ay," Basterga rejoined with vehemence. "And why, my friend? Because the +noble rewards and the consideration which former times bestowed on +learning are to-day diverted to baser pursuits! Erasmus was the friend +of princes, and the correspondent of kings. Della Scala was the +companion of an emperor; Morus, the Englishman, was the right arm of a +king. And I, Cæsar Basterga of Padua, bred in the pure Latinity of our +Master Manucius, yield to none of these. Yet am I, if I would live, +forced to stoop 'ad vulgus captandum!' I must kneel that I may rise! I +must wade through the mire of this base pursuit that I may reach the +firm ground of wealth and learned ease. But think you that I am the dupe +of the art wherewith I dupe others? Or, that once I have my foot on firm +ground I will stoop again to the things of matter and sense? No, by +Hercules!" the big man continued, his eye kindling, his form dilating. +"This scheme once successful, this feat that should supply me for life, +once performed, Cæsar Basterga of Padua will know how to add, to those +laurels which he has already gained, + + The bays of Scala and the wreath of More, + Erasmus' palm and that which Lipsius wore." + +And in a kind of frenzy of enthusiasm the scholar fell to pacing the +floor, now mouthing hexameters, now spurning with his foot a pot or an +alembic which had the ill-luck to lie in his path. Grio watched him, and +watching him, grew only more puzzled--and more puzzled. He could have +understood a moral shrinking from the enterprise on which they were both +embarked--the betrayal of the city that gave them shelter. He could have +understood--he had superstition enough--a moral distaste for alchemy and +those practices of the black art which his mind connected with it. But +this superiority of the scholar, this aloofness, not from the treachery, +but from the handicraft, was beyond him. For that reason it imposed on +him the more. + +Not the less, however, was he importunate to know wherein Basterga +trusted. To rave of Scholarship and Scaliger was one thing, to bring +Blondel into the plot which was to transfer Geneva to Savoy and strike +the heaviest blow at the Reformed that had been struck in that +generation, was another thing and one remote. The Syndic was a trifle +discontented and inclined to intrigue; that was true, Grio knew it. But +to parley with the Grand Duke's emissaries, and strive to get and give +not, that was one thing; while to betray the town and deliver it tied +and bound into the hands of its arch-enemy, was another and a far more +weighty matter. One, too, to which in Grio's judgment--and in the dark +lanes of life he had seen and weighed many men--the magistrate would +never be brought. + +"Shall you need my aid with him?" he asked after a while, seeing the +scholar still wrapt in thought. The question was not lacking in craft. + +"Your aid? With whom?" + +"With Messer Blondel." + +"Pshaw, man," Basterga answered, rousing himself from his reverie. "I +had forgotten him and was thinking of that villain Scioppius and his +tract against Joseph Justus. Do you know," he continued with a snort of +indignation, "that in his _Hyperbolimæus_, not content with the +statement that Joseph Justus left his laundress's bill at Louvain +unpaid, he alleges that I--I, Cæsar Basterga of Padua--was broken on the +wheel at Munster a year ago for the murder of a gentleman!" + +Grio turned a shade paler. "If this business miscarry," he said, "the +statement may prove within a year of the mark. Or nearer, at any rate, +than may please us." + +Basterga smiled disdainfully. "Think it not!" he answered, extending his +arms and yawning with unaffected sincerity. "There was never scholar yet +died on the wheel." + +"No?" + +"No, friend, no. Nor will, unless it be Scioppius, and he is unworthy of +the name of scholar. No, we have our disease, and die of it, but it is +not that. Nevertheless," he continued with magnanimity, "I will not deny +that when Master Pert-Tongue downstairs put our names together so pat, +it scared me. It scared me. For how many chances were there against such +an accident? Or what room to think it an accident, when he spoke clearly +with the _animus pugnandi_? No, I'll not deny he touched me home." + +Grio nodded grimly. "I would we were rid of him!" he growled. "The young +viper! I foresee danger from him." + +"Possibly," Basterga replied. "Possibly. In that case measures must be +taken. But I hope there may be no necessity. And now, I expect Messer +Blondel in an hour, and have need, my friend, of thought and solitude +before he comes. Knock at my door at eight this evening and I may have +news for you." + +"You don't think to resolve him to-night?" Grio muttered with a look of +incredulity. + +"It may be. I do not know. In the meantime silence, and keep sober!" + +"Ay, ay!" + +"But it is more than ay, ay!" Basterga retorted with irritation; with +something of the temper, indeed, which he had betrayed at the beginning +of the interview. "Scholars die otherwise, but many a broken soldier has +come to the wheel! So do you have a care of it! If you do not----" + +"I have said I will!" Grio cried sharply. "Enough scolding, master. I've +a notion you'll find your own task a little beyond your hand. See if I +am not right!" he added. And with this show of temper on his side, he +went out and shut the door loudly behind him. + +Basterga stood a few moments in thought. At length, + + "Dimidium facti, qui bene c[oe]pit, habet!" + +he muttered. And shrugging his shoulders he looked about him, judging +with an artistic eye the effect which the room would have on a stranger. +Apparently he was not perfectly content with it, for, stepping to one of +the long trunks, he drew from it a gold chain, some medals and a +jewelled dagger, and flung these carelessly on a box in a corner. He set +up the alembics and pipkins which he had overturned, and here and there +he opened a black-lettered folio, discovered an inch or two of crabbed +Hebrew, or the corner of an illuminated script. A cameo dropped in one +place, a clay figure of Minerva set up in another, completed the +picture. + +His next proceeding was less intelligible. He unearthed from the pile of +duo-decimos on the window-seat the steel casket which has been +mentioned. It was about twelve inches long and as many wide; and as deep +as it was broad. Wrought in high relief on the front appeared an +elaborate representation of Christ healing the sick; on each end, below +a massive ring, appeared a similar design. The box had an appearance of +strength out of proportion to its size; and was furnished with two +locks, protected and partly hidden by tiny shields. + +Basterga handling it gently polished it awhile with a cloth, then +bearing it to the inner end of the room he set it on a bracket beside +the hearth. This place was evidently made for it, for on either side of +the bracket hung a steel chain and padlock; with which, and the rings, +the scholar proceeded to secure the casket to the wall. This done, he +stepped back and contemplated the arrangement with a smile of +contemptuous amusement. + +"It is neither so large as the Horse of Troy," he murmured complacently, +"nor so small as the Wafer that purchased Paris. It is neither so deep +as hell, nor so high as heaven, nor so craftily fastened a wise man may +not open it, nor so strong a fool may not smash it. But it may suffice. +Messer Blondel is no Solomon, and may swallow this as well as another +thing. In which event, Ave atque vale, Geneva! But here he comes. And +now to cast the bait!" + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE ELIXIR VITÆ. + + +As the Syndic crossed the threshold of the scholar's room, he uncovered +with an air of condescension that, do what he would, was not free from +uneasiness. He had persuaded himself--he had been all the morning +persuading himself--that any man might pay a visit to a learned +scholar--why not? Moreover, that a magistrate in paying such a visit was +but in the performance of his duty, and might plume himself accordingly +on the act. + +Yet two things like worms in the bud would gnaw at his peace. The first +was conscience: if the Syndic did not know he had reason to suspect that +Basterga bore the Grand Duke's commission, and was in Geneva to further +his master's ends. The second source of his uneasiness he did not +acknowledge even to himself, and yet it was the more powerful: it was a +suspicion--a strong suspicion, though he had met Basterga but +twice--that in parleying with the scholar he was dealing with a man for +whom he was no match, puff himself out as he might; and who secretly +despised him. + +Perhaps the fact that the latter feeling ceased to vex him before he had +been a minute in the room, was the best testimony to Basterga's tact we +could desire. Not that the scholar was either effusive or abject. It was +rather by a frank address which took equality for granted, and by an +easy assumption that the visit had no importance, that he calmed Messer +Blondel's nerves and soothed his pride. + +Presently, "If I do not the honour of my poor apartment so pressingly as +some," he said, "it is out of no lack of respect, Messer Syndic. But +because, having had much experience of visitors, I know that nothing +fits them so well as to be left at liberty, nothing irks them so much as +to be over-pressed. Here now I have some things that are thought to be +curious, even in Padua, but I do not know whether they will interest +you." + +"Manuscripts?" + +"Yes, manuscripts and the like. This," Basterga lifted one from the +table and placed it in his visitor's hands, "is a facsimile, prepared +with the utmost care, of the 'Codex Vaticanus,' the most ancient +manuscript of the New Testament. Of interest in Geneva, where by the +hands of your great printer, Stephens, M. de Beza has done so much to +advance the knowledge of the sacred text. But you are looking at that +chart?" + +"Yes. What is it, if it please you?" + +"It is a plan of the ancient city of Aurelia," Basterga replied, "which +Cæsar, in the first book of his Commentaries places in Switzerland, but +which, some say, should be rather in Savoy." + +"Indeed, Aurelia?" the Syndic muttered, turning it about. It was a plan +beautifully and elaborately finished, but, like most of the plans of +that day, it was without names. "Aurelia?" + +"Yes, Aurelia." + +"But I seem to--is this water?" + +"Yes, a lake," Basterga replied, stooping with a faint smile to the +plan. + +"And this a river?" + +"Yes." + +"Aurelia? But--I seem to know the line of this wall, and these bastions. +Why, it is--Messer Basterga," in a tone of surprise, not unmingled with +anger--"you play with me! it is Geneva!" + +Basterga permitted his smile to become more apparent. "Oh no, Aurelia," +he said lightly and almost jocosely. "Aurelia in Savoy, I assure you. +Whatever it is, however, we have no need to take it to heart, Messer +Blondel. Believe me, it comes from, and is not on its way to, the Grand +Duke's library at Turin." + +The Syndic showed his displeasure by putting the map from him. + +"Your taste is rather for other things," Basterga continued, affecting +to misunderstand the act. "This illuminated manuscript, now, may +interest you? It is in characters which are probably strange to you?" + +"Is it Hebrew?" the Syndic muttered stiffly, his temper still asserting +itself. + +"No, it is in the ancient Arabic character; that into which the works of +Aristotle were translated as far back as the ninth century of our era. +It is a curious treatise by the Arabic sage, Ibn Jasher, who was the +teacher of Ibn Zohr, who was the teacher of Averroes. It was carried +from Spain to Rome about the year 1000 by the learned Pope Sylvester the +Second, who spoke Arabic and of whose library it formed part." + +"Indeed!" Blondel responded, staring at it. "It must be of great value. +How came it into your possession, Messer Basterga?" + +Basterga opened his mouth and shut it again. "I do not think I can tell +you that," he said. + +"It contains, I suppose, many curious things?" + +"Curious?" Basterga replied impulsively, "I should say so! Why, it was +in that volume I found----" And there in apparent confusion he broke +off. He laughed awkwardly, and then, "Well, you know," he resumed, "we +students find many things interest us which would fail to touch the man +of affairs". As if he wished to change the subject, he took the +manuscript from the Syndic's hand and threw it carelessly on the table. + +Messer Blondel thought the carelessness overdone, and, his interest +aroused, he followed the manuscript, he scarcely knew why, with his +eyes. "I think I have heard the name of Averroes?" he said. "Was he not +a physician?" + +"He was many things," Basterga answered negligently. "As a physician he +was, I believe, rather visionary than practical. I have his _Colliget_, +his most famous work in that line, but for my part, in the case of an +ordinary disease, I would rather trust myself," with a shrug of +contempt, "to the Grand Duke's physician." + +"But in the case of an extraordinary disease?" the Syndic asked +shrewdly. + +Basterga frowned. "I meant in any disease," he said. "Did I say +extraordinary?" + +"Yes," Messer Blondel answered stoutly. The frown had not escaped him. +"But I take it, you are something of a physician yourself?" + +"I have studied in the school of Fallopius, the chirurgeon of Padua," +the scholar answered coldly. "But I am a scholar, Messer Blondel, not a +physician, much less a practitioner of the ancillary art, which I take +to be but a base and mechanical handicraft." + +"Yet, chemistry--you pursue that?" the other rejoined with a glance at +the farther table and its load of strange-looking phials and retorts. + +"As an amusement," Basterga replied with a gesture of haughty +deprecation. "A parergon, if you please. I take it, a man may dip into +the mystical writings of Paracelsus without prejudice to his Latinity; +and into the cabalistic lore of the school of Cordova without losing his +taste for the pure oratory of the immortal Cicero. Virgil himself, if +we may believe Helinandus, gave the weight of his great name to such +sports. And Cornelius Agrippa, my learned forerunner in Geneva----" + +"Went something farther than that!" the Syndic struck in with a meaning +nod, twice repeated. "It was whispered, and more than whispered--I had +it from my father--that he raised the devil here, Messer Blondel; the +very same that at Louvain strangled one of Agrippa's scholars who broke +in on him before he could sink through the floor." + +Basterga's face took on an expression of supreme scorn. "Idle tales!" he +said. "Fit only for women! Surely you do not believe them, Messer +Blondel?" + +"I?" + +"Yes, you, Messer Syndic." + +"But this, at any rate, you'll not deny," Blondel retorted eagerly, +"that he discovered the Philosopher's Stone?" + +"And lived poor, and died no richer?" Basterga rejoined in a tone of +increasing scorn. + +"Well, for the matter of that," the Syndic answered more slowly, "that +may be explained." + +"How?" + +"They say, and you must have heard it, that the gold he made in that way +turned in three days to egg-shells and parings of horn." + +"Yet having it three days," Basterga asked with a sneer, "might he not +buy all he wanted?" + +"Well, I can only say that my father, who saw him more than once in the +street, always told me--and I do not know any one who should have known +better----" + +"Pshaw, Messer Blondel, you amaze me!" the scholar struck in, rising +from his seat and adopting a tone at once contemptuous and dictatorial. +"Do you not know," he continued, "that the Philosopher's Stone was and +is but a figure of speech, which stands as some say for the perfect +element in nature, or as others say for the vital principle--that +vivifying power which evades and ever must evade the search of men? Do +you not know that the sages whose speculations took that direction were +endangered by accusations of witchcraft; and that it was to evade these +and to give their researches such an aspect as would command the +confidence of the vulgar, that they gave out that they were seeking +either the Philosopher's Stone, which would make all men rich, or the +Elixir Vitæ, which would confer immortality. Believe me, they were +themselves no slaves to these expressions; nor were the initiated among +their followers. But as time went on, tyros, tempted by sounds, and +caught by theories of transmutation, began to interpret them literally, +and, straying aside, spent their lives in the vain pursuit of wealth or +youth. Poor fools!" + +Messer Blondel stared. Had Basterga, assailing him from a different +side, broached the precise story to which, in the case of Agrippa or +Albertus Magnus, the Syndic was prepared to give credence, he had +certainly received the overture with suspicion if not with contempt. He +had certainly been very far from staking good florins upon it. But when +the experimenter in the midst of the apparatus of science, and +surrounded by things which imposed on the vulgar, denied their value, +and laughed at the legends of wealth and strength obtained by their +means--this fact of itself went very far towards convincing him that +Basterga had made a discovery and was keeping it back. + +The vital principle, the essential element, the final good, these were +fine phrases, though they had a pagan ring. But men, the Syndic argued, +did not spend money, and read much and live laborious days, merely to +coin phrases. Men did not surround themselves with costly apparatus only +to prove a theory that had no practical value. "He has discovered +something," Blondel concluded in his mind, "if it be not the +Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Life. I am sure he has discovered +something." And with eyes grown sharp and greedy, the magistrate raked +the room. + +The scholar stood thoughtful where he had paused, and did not seem to +notice him. + +"Then do you mean," Blondel resumed after a while, "that all your work +there"--he indicated by a nod the chemical half of the room--"has been +thrown away?" + +"Well----" + +"Not quite, I think?" the Syndic said, his small eyes twinkling. "Eh, +Messer Basterga, not quite? Now be candid." + +"Well, I would not say," Basterga answered coldly, and as it seemed +unwillingly, "that I have not derived something from the researches with +which I have amused my leisure. But nothing of value to the general." + +"Yet something of value to yourself," Blondel said, his head on one +side. + +Basterga frowned, then shrugged his shoulders. "Well, yes," he said at +length, "as it happens, I have. But a thing of no use to any one else, +for the simple reason----" + +"That you have only enough for yourself!" + +The scholar looked astonished and a little offended. + +"I do not know how you learned that," he said curtly, "but you are +right. I had no intention of telling you as much, but, as you have +guessed that, I do not mind adding that it is a remedy for a disease +which the most learned physicians do not pretend to cure." + +"A remedy?" + +"Yes, vital and certain." + +"And you discovered it?" + +"No, I did not discover it," Basterga replied modestly. "But the story +is so long that I will ask you to excuse me." + +"I shall not excuse you if you do not favour me with it," the Syndic +answered eagerly. As he leaned forward there was a light in his eyes +that had not been in them a few minutes before. His hand, too, shook as +he moved it from the arm of his chair to his knee. "Nay, but, I pray +you, indulge me," he continued, in a tone anxious and almost submissive. +"I shall not betray your secrets. I am no philosopher, and no physician, +and, had I the will, I could make no use of your confidence." + +"That is true," Basterga replied. "And, after all, the matter is simple. +I do not know why I should refuse to oblige you. I have said that I did +not discover this remedy. That is so. But it happened that in trying, by +way of amusement, certain precipitations, I obtained not that which I +sought--nor had I expected," he continued, smiling, "to obtain that, for +it was the Elixir of Life, which, as I have told you, does not +exist--but a substance new in my experience, and which seemed to me to +possess some peculiar properties. I tested it in all the ways known to +me, but without benefit or enlightenment; and in the end I was about to +cast it aside, when I chanced on a passage in the manuscript of Ibn +Jasher--the same, in fact, that I showed you a few minutes ago." + +"And you found?" The Syndic's attitude as he leaned forward, with parted +lips and a hand on each knee, betrayed an interest so abnormal that it +was odd that Basterga did not notice it. + +Instead, "I found that he had made," the scholar replied quietly, "as +far back as the tenth century the same experiment which I had just +completed. And with the same result." + +"He obtained the substance?" + +Basterga nodded. + +"And discovered? What?" Blondel asked eagerly. "Its use?" + +"A certain use," the other replied cautiously. "Or, rather, it was not +he, but an associate, called by him the Physician of Aleppo, who +discovered it. This man was the pupil of the learned Rhazes, and the +tutor of the equally learned Avicenna, the link, in fact, between them; +but his name, for some reason, perhaps because he mixed with his +practice a greater degree of mysticism than was approved by the Arabian +schools of the next generation, has not come down to us. This man +identified the product which had defied Ibn Jasher's tests with a +substance even then considered by most to be fabulous, or to be +extracted only from the horn of the unicorn if that animal existed. That +it had some of the properties of the fabled substance, he proceeded to +prove to the satisfaction of Ibn Jasher by curing of a certain incurable +disease five persons." + +"No more than five?" + +"No." + +"Why?" + +"The substance was exhausted." + +Blondel gasped. "Why did he not make more?" he cried. His voice was +querulous, almost savage. + +"The experiment," Basterga answered, "of which it was the product was +costly." + +Blondel's face turned purple. "Costly?" he cried. "Costly? When the +lives of men hung in the balance." + +"True," Basterga replied with a smile; "but I was about to say that, +costly as it was, it was not its price which hindered the production of +a further supply. The reason was more simple. He could not extract it." + +"Could not? But he had made it once?" + +"Precisely." + +"Then why could he not make it again?" the Syndic asked. He was +genuinely, honestly angry. It was strange how much he took the matter to +heart. + +"He could not," Basterga answered. "He repeated the process again and +again, but the peculiar product, which at the first trial had resulted +from the precipitation, was not obtained." + +"There was something lacking!" + +"There was something lacking," Basterga answered. "But what that was +which was lacking, or how it had entered into the alembic in the first +instance, could not be discovered. The sage tried the experiment under +all known conditions, and particularly when the moon was in the same +quarter and when the sun was in the same house. He tried it, indeed, +thrice on the corresponding day of the year, but--the product did not +issue." + +"How do you account for that?" + +"Probably, in the first instance, an impurity in one of the drugs +introduced a foreign substance into the alembic. That chance never +occurred again, as far as I can learn, until, amusing myself with the +same precipitation, I--I, Cæsar Basterga of Padua," the scholar +continued, not boastfully but in a tone thoughtful and almost absent, +"in the last year of the last century, hit at length upon the same +result." + +The Syndic leaned forward; his hands gripped his knees more tightly. +"And you," he said, "can repeat it?" + +Basterga shook his head sorrowfully. "No," he said, "I cannot. Not that +I have myself essayed the experiment more than thrice. I could not +afford it. But a correspondent, M. de Laurens, of Paris, physician to +the King, has, at the expense of a wealthy patient, spent more than +fifteen thousand florins in essays. Alas, without result." + +The big man spoke with his eyes on the floor. Had he turned them on the +Syndic he must have seen that he was greatly agitated. Beads of moisture +stood on his brow, his face was red, he swallowed often and with +difficulty. At length, with an effort at composure, "Possibly your +product--is not, after all, the same as Ibn Jasher's?" he said. + +"I tested it in the same way," Basterga answered quietly. + +"What? By curing persons of that disease?" + +"Yes," Basterga rejoined. "And I would to Heaven," he continued, with +the first spirt of feeling which he had allowed to escape him, "that I +had held my hand after the first proof. Instead, I must needs try it +again and again, and again." + +"For nothing?" + +Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "No," he said, "not for nothing." By a +gesture he indicated the objects about him. "I am not a poor man now, +Messer Blondel. Not for nothing, but too cheaply. And so often that I +have now remaining but one portion of that substance which all the +science of Padua cannot renew. One portion, only, alas!" he repeated +with regret. + +"Enough to cure one person?" the Syndic exclaimed. + +"Yes." + +"And the disease?" Blondel rose as he spoke. "The disease?" he repeated. +He extended his trembling arms to the other. No longer, even if he +wished it, could Basterga feign himself blind to the agitation which +shook, which almost convulsed, the Syndic's meagre frame. "The disease? +Is it not that which men call the Scholar's? Is it not that? But I know +it is." + +Basterga with something of astonishment in his face inclined his head. + +"And I have that disease! I!" the Syndic cried, standing before him a +piteous figure. He raised his hands above his head in a gesture which +challenged the compassion of gods and men. "I! In two years----" His +voice failed, he could not go on. + +"Believe me, Messer Blondel," Basterga answered after a long and +sorrowful pause, "I am grieved. Deeply grieved," he continued in a tone +of feeling, "to hear this. Do the physicians give no hope?" + +"Sons of the Horse-Leech!" the Syndic cried, a new passion shaking him +in its turn. "They give me two years! Two years! And it may be less. +Less!" he cried, raising his voice. "I, who go to and fro here and +there, like other men with no mark upon me! I, who walk the streets in +sunshine and rain like other men! Yet, for them the sky is bright, and +they have years to live. For me, one more summer, and--night! Two more +years at the most--and night! And I, but fifty-eight!" + +The big man looked at him with eyes of compassion. "It may be," he said, +after a pause, "that the physicians are wrong, Messer Blondel. I have +known such a case." + +"They are, they shall be wrong!" Blondel replied. "For you will give me +your remedy! It was God led me here to-day, it was God put it in your +heart to tell me this. You will give me your remedy and I shall live! +You will, will you not? Man, you can pity!" And joining his hands he +made as if he would kneel at the other's feet. "You can pity, and you +will?" + +"Alas, alas," Basterga replied, much and strongly moved. "I cannot." + +"Cannot?" + +"Cannot." + +The Syndic glared at him. "Why?" he cried, "Why not? If I give you----" + +"If you were to give me the half of your fortune," Basterga answered +solemnly, "it were useless! I myself have the first symptoms of the +disease." + +"You?" + +"Yes, I." + +The Syndic fell back in his chair. A groan broke from him that bore +witness at once to the bitterness of his soul and the finality of the +argument. He seemed in a moment shrunk to half his size. In a moment +disease and the shadow of death clouded his features; his cheeks were +leaden; his eyes, without light or understanding, conveyed no meaning to +his brain. "You, too!" he muttered mechanically. "You, too!" + +"Yes," Basterga replied in a sorrowful voice. "I, too. No wonder I feel +for you. I have not known it long, nor has it proceeded far in my case. +I have even hopes, at least there are times when I have hopes, that the +physicians may be mistaken." + +Blondel's small eyes bulged suddenly larger. "In that event?" he cried +hoarsely. "In that event surely----" + +"Even in that event I cannot aid you," the big man answered, spreading +out his hands. "I am pledged by the most solemn oath to retain the one +portion I have for the use of the Grand Duke, my patron. And apart from +that oath, the benefits I have received at his hand are such as to give +him a claim second only to my necessity. A claim, Messer Blondel, +which--I say it sorrowfully--I dare not set aside for any private +feeling or private gain." + +Blondel rose violently, his hands clawing the air. "And I must die?" he +cried, his voice thick with rage. "I must die because he _may_ be ill? +Because--because----" He stopped, struggling with himself, unable, it +seemed, to articulate. By-and-by it became apparent that the pause had +another origin, for when he spoke he had conquered his passion. "Pardon +me," he said, still hoarsely, but in a different tone--the tone of one +who saw that violence could not help him. "I was forgetting myself. +Life--life is sweet to all, Messer Basterga, and we cannot lightly see +it pass from us. To have life within sight, to know it within this room, +perhaps within reach----" + +"Not quite that," Basterga murmured, his eyes wandering to the steel +casket, chained to the wall beside the hearth. "Still, I understand; +and, believe me," he added in a tone of sympathy, "I feel for you, +Messer Blondel. I feel deeply for you." + +"Feel?" the Syndic muttered. For an instant his eyes gleamed savagely, +the veins of his temples swelled. "Feel!" + +"But what can I do?" + +Blondel could have answered, but to what advantage? What could words +profit him, seeing that it was a life for a life, and that, as all that +a man hath he will give for his life, so there is nothing another hath +that he will take for it. Argument was useless; prayer, in view of the +other's confession, beside the mark. The magistrate saw this, and made +an effort to resume his dignity. "We will talk another day," he +murmured, pressing his hand to his brow, "another day!" And he turned to +the door. "You will not mention what I have said to you, Messer +Basterga?" + +"Not a syllable," his host answered, as he followed him out. The +abruptness of the departure did not surprise him. "Believe me, I feel +for you, Messer Blondel." + +The Syndic acknowledged the phrase by a gesture not without pathos, and, +passing out, stumbled blindly down the narrow stairs. Basterga attended +him with respect to the outer door, and there they parted in silence. +The magistrate, his shoulders bowed, walked slowly to the left, where, +turning into the town through the inner gate, the Porte Tertasse, he +disappeared. The big man waited a while, sunning himself on the steps, +his face towards the ramparts. + +"He will come back, oh, yes, he will come back," he purred, smiling all +over his large face. "For I, Cæsar Basterga, have a brain. And 'tis +better a brain than thews and sinews, gold or lands, seeing that it has +all these at command when I need them. The fish is hooked. It will be +strange if I do not land him before the year is out. But the bribe to +his physician--it was a happy thought: a happy thought of this brain of +Cæsar Basterga, graduate of Padua, _viri valde periti, doctissimique_!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TO TAKE OR LEAVE. + + +The house in the Corraterie, near the Porte Tertasse, differed in no +outward respect from its neighbours. The same row of chestnut trees +darkened its lower windows, the same breezy view of the Rhone meadows, +the sloping vineyards and the far-off Jura lightened its upper rooms. A +kindred life, a life apparently as quiet and demure, moved within its +walls. Yet was the house a house apart. Silently and secretly, it had +absorbed and sucked and drawn into itself the hearts and souls and minds +of two men. It held for the one that which the old prize above all +things in the world--life; and for the other, that which the young set +above life--love. + +Life? The Syndic did not doubt; the bait had been dangled before his +eyes with too much cunning, too much skill. In a casket, in a room in +that house in the Corraterie, his life lay hidden; his life, and he +could not come at it! His life? Was it a marvel that waking or sleeping +he saw only that house, and that room, and that casket chained to the +wall; that he saw at one time the four steps rising to the door, and the +placid front with its three tiers of windows; at another time, the room +itself with its litter of scripts and dark-bound books, and rich +furnishings, and phials and jars and strangely shaped alembics? Was it a +marvel that in the dreams of the night the sick man toiled up and up and +up the narrow staircase, of which every point remained fixed in his +mind; or that waking, whatever his task, or wherever he might be, alone +or in company, in his parlour or in the Town House, he still fell +a-dreaming of the room and the box--the room and the box that held his +life? + +Had this been the worst! But it was not. There were times, bitter times, +dark hours, when the pains were upon him, and he saw his fate clear +before him; for he had known men die of the disease which held him in +its clutches, and he knew how they had died. And then he must needs lock +himself into his room that other eyes might not witness the passionate +fits of revolt, of rage and horror, and weak weeping, into which the +knowledge cast him. And out of which he presently came back to--_the +house_. His life lay there, in that room, in that house, and he could +not come at it! He could not come at it! But he would! He would! + +It issued in that always; in some plan or scheme for gaining possession +of the philtre. Some of the plans that occurred to him were wild and +desperate; dangerous and hopeless on the face of them. Others were +merely violent; others again, of which craft was the mainspring, held +out a prospect of success. For a whole day the notion of arresting +Basterga on a charge of treason, and seizing the steel casket together +with his papers, was uppermost. It seemed feasible, and was feasible; +nay, it was more than feasible, it was easy; for already there were +rumours of the man abroad, and his name had been mentioned at the +council table. The Syndic had only to give the word, and the arrest +would be made, the search instituted, the papers and casket seized. Nay, +if he did not give the word, it was possible that others might. + +But when he thought of that step, that irrevocable step, he knew that he +would not have the courage to take it. For if Basterga had so much as +two minutes' notice, if his ear so much as caught the tread of those who +came to take him, he might, in pure malignity, pour the medicine on the +floor, or he might so hide it as to defy search. And at the thought--at +the thought of the destruction of that wherein lay his only chance of +life, his only hope of seeing the sun and feeling again the balmy breath +of spring, the Syndic trembled and shook and sweated with rage and fear. +No, he would not have the courage. He would not dare. For a week and +more after the thought occurred to him, he dared not approach the +scholar's lodging, or be seen in the neighbourhood, so great was his +fear of arousing Basterga's suspicions and setting him on his guard. + +At the end of a fortnight or so, the choice of ways was presented to him +in a concrete form; and with an abruptness which placed him on the edge +of perplexity. It was at a morning meeting of the smaller council. The +day was dull, the chamber warm, the business to be transacted +monotonous; and Blondel, far from well and interested in one thing +only--beside which the most important affairs of Geneva seemed small as +the doings of an ant-hill viewed through a glass--had fallen asleep, or +nearly asleep. Naturally a restless and wakeful man, of thin habit and +nervous temperament, he had never done such a thing before: and it was +unfortunate that he succumbed on this occasion, for while he drowsed the +current of business changed. The debate grew serious, even vital. +Finally he awoke to the knowledge of place and time with a name ringing +in his ears; a name so fixed in his waking thoughts that, before he knew +where he was or what he was doing, he repeated it in a tone that drew +all eyes upon him. + +"Basterga!" + +Some knew he had slept and smiled; more had not noticed it, and turned, +struck by the strange tone in which he echoed the name. Fabri, the First +Syndic, who sat two places from him, and had just taken a letter from +the secretary, leaned forward so as to view him. "Ay, Basterga," he +said, "an Italian, I take it. Do you know him, Messer Blondel?" + +He was awake now, but, confused and startled, inclined to believe that +he was on his trial; and that the faint parleyings with treason, small +things hard to define, to which he had stooped, were known. +Mechanically, to gain time, he repeated the name: "Basterga?" + +"Yes," Fabri repeated. "Do you know him?" + +"Cæsar Basterga, is it?" + +"That is his name." + +He was himself now, though his nerves still shook; himself so far as he +could be, while ignorant of what had passed, and how he came to be +challenged. "Yes, I know him," he said slowly, "if you mean a Paduan, a +scholar of some note, I believe. Who applied to me--I dare say it would +be six weeks back--for a licence to stay a while in the town." + +"Which you granted?" + +"In the usual course. He had letters from"--Blondel shrugged his +shoulders--"I forget from whom. What of him?" with a steady look at +Baudichon the councillor, his life-long rival, and the quarter whence if +trouble were brewing it was to be expected. "What of him?" he repeated, +throwing himself back in his chair, and tapping the table with his +fingers. + +"This," Fabri answered, waving the letter which he had in his hands. + +"But I do not know what that is," Blondel replied coolly. "I am +afraid"--he looked at his neighbour on either side--"was I asleep?" + +"I fear so," said one, while the other smiled. They were his very good +friends and allies. + +"Well, it is not like me. I can say that I am not often," with a keen +look at Baudichon, "caught napping! And now, M. Fabri," he continued +with his usual practical air, "I have delayed the business long enough. +What is it? And what is that?" He pointed to the letter in the First +Syndic's hands. + +"Well, it is really your affair in the main," Fabri answered, "since as +Fourth Syndic you are responsible for the guard and the city's safety; +and ours afterwards. It is a warning," he continued, his eyes reverting +to the page before him, "from our secret agent in Turin, whose name I +need not mention"--Blondel nodded--"informing us of a fresh attempt to +be made on the city before Christmas; by means of rafts formed of +hurdles and capable of transporting whole companies of soldiers. These +he has seen tried in the River Po, and they performed the work. Having +reached the walls by their means the assailants are to mount by ladders +which are being made to fit into one another. They are covered with +black cloth, and can be laid against the wall without noise. It +sounds--circumstantial?" Fabri commented, breaking off and looking at +Blondel. + +The Syndic nodded thoughtfully. "Yes," he said, "I think so. I think +also," he continued, "that with the aid of my friend, Captain Blandano, +I shall be able to give a good account of the rafts and the ladders." + +Baudichon the councillor interposed. "But that is not all," he muttered, +rolling ponderously in his chair as he spoke. He was a stout man with a +double chin and a weighty manner; honest, but slow, and the spokesman of +the more wealthy burghers. His neighbour Petitot, a man of singular +appearance, lean, with a long thin drooping nose, commonly supported +him. Petitot, who bore the nickname of "the Inquisitor," represented the +Venerable Company of Pastors, and was viewed with especial distaste by +the turbulent spirits whom the war had left in the city, as well as by +the lower ranks, who upheld Blondel. In sense and vigour the Fourth +Syndic was more than a match for the two precisians: but honesty of +purpose has a weight of its own that slowly makes itself felt. "That is +not all," Baudichon repeated after a glance at his neighbour and ally +Petitot, "I want to know----" + +"One moment, M. Baudichon, if you please," Fabri said, cutting him +short, amid a partial titter; the phrase "I want to know" was so often +on the councillor's lips that it had become ridiculous. "One moment; as +you say, that is not all. The writer proceeds to warn us that the Grand +Duke's lieutenant, M. d'Albigny, has taken a house on the Italian side +of the frontier, and is there constructing a huge petard on wheels which +is to be dragged up to the gate----" + +"With the ladders and rafts?" + +"They seem to belong to another scheme," Fabri said, as he turned back +and conned the letter afresh. + +"With M. d'Albigny at the bottom of both?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, if he be not more successful with this," Blondel answered +contemptuously, "than he was with the attempt to mine the Arsenal--which +ended in supplying us with two or three casks of powder--I think Captain +Blandano and I may deal with him." + +A murmur of assent approved the boast; but it did not proceed from all. +There were men at the table who had children, who had wives, who had +daughters, whose faces were grave. Just thirty years had passed over the +world since the horrors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew--to be +speedily followed by the sack of Antwerp--had paled the cheek of Europe. +Just thirty years were to elapse and the sack of Magdeburg was to prove +a match and more than a match for both in horror and cruelty. That the +Papists, if they entered, would deal more gently with Geneva, the head +and front of offence, or extend to the Mother of Heretics mercy which +they had refused to her children, these men did not believe. The +presence of an enemy ever lurking within a league of their gates, ever +threatening them by night and by day, had shaken their nerves. They +feared everything, they feared always. In fitful sleep, in the small +hours, they heard their doors smashed in; their dreams were disturbed by +cries and shrieks, by the din of bells, and the clash of weapons. + +To these men Blondel seemed over confident. But no one took on himself +to gainsay him in his particular province, the superintendence of the +guard; and though Baudichon sighed and Petitot shook his head, the word +was left with him. "Is that all, Messer Fabri?" he asked. + +"Yes, if we lay it to heart." + +"But I want to know," Baudichon struck in, puffing pompously, "what is +to be done about--Basterga." + +"Basterga? To be sure I was forgetting him," Fabri answered. "What is to +be done? What do you say, Messer Blondel? What are we to do about him?" + +"I will tell you if you will tell me what the point is that touches him. +You forget, Messer Syndic"--with a somewhat sickly smile--"that I was +asleep." + +"The letter," Fabri replied, returning to it, "touches him seriously. It +asserts that a person of that name is here in the Grand Duke's interest, +that he is in the secret of these plots, and that we should do well to +expel him, if we do not seize and imprison him." + +"And you want to know----" + +"I want to know," Baudichon answered, rolling in his chair as was his +habit when delivering himself, "what you know of him, Messer Blondel." + +Blondel turned rudely on him, perhaps to hide a slight ebb of colour +from his cheeks. "What I know?" he said. + +"Ay, ay." + +"No more than you know!" + +"But," Petitot retorted in his dry, thin voice, "it was you, Messer +Blondel, not Messer Baudichon, who gave him permission to reside in the +town." + +"And I want to know," Baudichon chimed in remorselessly, "what +credentials he had. That is what I want to know!" + +"Credentials? Oh, something formal! I don't know what," Blondel replied +rudely. He looked to the secretary who sat at the foot of the table. "Do +you know?" he asked. + +"No, Messer Syndic," the man replied. "I remember that a licence was +granted to him in the name of Cæsar Basterga, graduate of Padua; and +doubtless--for licences to reside are not granted without such--he had +letters, but I do not recall from whom. They would be returned to him +with the licence." + +"And that is all," Petitot said, his long nose drooping, his inquisitive +eyes looking over his glasses, "that you know about him, Messer +Blondel?" + +Did they know anything, and, if so, what did they know? Blondel +hesitated. This persistence, this continual harping on one point, began +to alarm him. But he carried it bravely. "Do you mean as to his +convictions?" he asked with a sneer. + +"No, I mean at all!" + +"I want to know," Baudichon added--the parrot phrase began to carry to +Blondel's ears the note of fate--"what you know about him." + +This time a pause betrayed Blondel's hesitation. Should he admit that he +had been to Basterga's lodging; or dared he deny a fact that might imply +an intimacy greater than he had acknowledged? A faint perspiration rose +on his brow as he decided that he dare not. "I know that he lives in a +house in the Corraterie," he answered, "a house beside the Porte +Tertasse, and that he is a scholar--I believe of some repute. I know so +much," he continued boldly, "because he wrote to thank me for the +licence, and, by way of acknowledgment, invited me to visit his lodging +to view a rare manuscript of the Scriptures. I did so, and remained a +few minutes with him. That is all I know of him. I suppose," with a grim +look at Baudichon and the Inquisitor, who had exchanged meaning glances, +"it is not alleged that I am in the plot with him? Or that he has +confided to me the Grand Duke's plans?" + +Fabri laughed heartily at the notion, and the laugh, which was echoed by +four-fifths of those at the table, cleared the air. Petitot, it is true, +limited himself to a smile, and Baudichon shrugged his shoulders. But +for the moment the challenge silenced them. The game passed to Blondel's +hands, and his spirits rose. "If M. Baudichon wants to know more about +him," he said contemptuously, "I dare say that the information can be +obtained." + +"The point is," Fabri answered, "what are we to do?" + +"As to--what?" + +"As to expelling him or seizing him." + +"Oh!" The exclamation fell from Blondel's lips before he could stay it. +He saw what was coming, and the dilemma in which he was to be placed. + +"We have the letter before us," the First Syndic continued, "and apart +from it, we know nothing for this person or against him." He looked +round the table and met assenting glances. "I think, therefore, that it +will be well, to leave it to Messer Blondel. He is responsible for the +safety of the city, and it should be for him to say what is to be +done." + +"Yes, yes," several voices agreed. "Leave it to Messer Blondel." + +"You assent to that, Messer Baudichon?" + +"I suppose so," the councillor muttered reluctantly. + +"Very good," said Fabri. "Then, Messer Blondel, it remains with you to +say what is to be done." + +The Fourth Syndic hesitated, and with reason; had Baudichon, had the +Inquisitor known the whole, they could hardly have placed him in a more +awkward dilemma. If he took the course that prudence in his own +interests dictated, and shielded Basterga, his action might lay him open +to future criticism. If, on the other hand, he gave the word to expel or +seize him, he broke at once and for ever with the man who held his last +chance of life in the hollow of his hand. + +And yet, if he dared adopt the latter course, if he dared give the word +to seize, there was a chance, and a good chance, that he would find the +_remedium_ in the casket; for with a little arrangement Basterga might +be arrested out of doors, or be allured to a particular place and there +be set upon. But in that way lay risk; a risk that chilled the current +of the Syndic's blood. There was the chance that the attempt might fail; +the chance that Basterga might escape; the chance that he might have the +_remedium_ about him--and destroy it; the chance that he might have +hidden it. There were so many chances, in a word, that the Syndic's +heart stood still as he enumerated them, and pictured the crash of his +last hope of life. + +He could not face the risk. He could not. Though duty, though courage +dictated the venture, craven fear--fear for the loss of the new-born +hope that for a week had buoyed him up--carried it. Hurriedly at last, +as if he feared that he might change his mind, he pronounced his +decision. + +"I doubt the wisdom of touching him," he said. "To seize him if he be +guilty proclaims our knowledge of the plot; it will be laid aside, and +another, of which we may not be informed, will be hatched. But let him +be watched, and it will be hard if with the knowledge we have we cannot +do something more than frustrate his scheme." + +After an interval of silence, "Well," Fabri said, drawing a deep breath +and looking round, "I believe you are right. What do you say, Messer +Baudichon?" + +"Messer Blondel knows the man," Baudichon answered drily. "He is, +therefore, the best judge." + +Blondel reddened. "I see you are determined to lay the responsibility on +me," he cried. + +"The responsibility is on you already!" Petitot retorted. "You have +decided. I trust it may turn out as you expect." + +"And as you do not expect!" + +"No; but you see"--and again the Inquisitor looked over his +glasses--"you know the man, have been to his lodging, have conversed +with him, and are the best judge what he is! I have had naught to do +with him. By the way," he turned to Fabri, "he is at Mère Royaume's, is +he not? Is there not a Spaniard of the name of Grio lodging there?" + +Blondel did not answer and the secretary looked up from his register. +"An old soldier, Messer Petitot?" he said. "Yes, there is." + +"Perhaps you know him also, Messer Blondel?" + +"Yes, I know him. He served the State," Blondel answered quietly. He had +winked at more than one irregularity on the part of Grio, and at the +sound of the name anger gave place to caution. "I have also," he +continued, "my eye upon him, as I shall have it upon Basterga. Will that +satisfy you, Messer Petitot?" + +The councillor leaned forward. "Fac salvam Genevam!" he replied in a +voice low and not quite steady. "Do that, keep Geneva safe--guard well +our faith, our wives and little ones--and I care not what you do!" And +he rose from his seat. + +The Fourth Syndic did not answer. Those few words that in a moment +raised the discussion from the low level of detail on which the +Inquisitor commonly wasted himself, and set it on the true plane of +patriotism--for with all his faults Petitot was a patriot--silenced +Blondel while they irritated and puzzled him. Why did the man assume +such airs? Why talk as if he and he alone cared for Geneva? Why bear +himself as if he and he alone had shed and was prepared to shed his +blood for the State? Why, indeed? Blondel snarled his indignation, but +made no other answer. + +A few minutes later, as he descended the stairs, he laughed at the +momentary annoyance which he had felt. What did it matter to him, a +dying man, who had the better or who the worse, who posed, or who +believed in the pose? It was of moment indeed that his enemies had +contrived to fix him with the responsibility of arresting Basterga, or +of leaving him at large: that they had contrived to connect him with the +Paduan, and made him accountable to an extent which did not please him +for the man's future behaviour. But yet again what did that +matter--after all? Of what moment was it--after all? He was a dying man. +Was anything of moment to him except the one thing which Basterga had it +in his power to grant or to withhold, to give or to deny? + +Nothing! Nothing! + +He pondered on what had passed, and wondered if he had not done +foolishly. Certainly he had let slip a grand, a unique opportunity of +seizing the man and of snatching the _remedium_. He had put the chance +from him at the risk of future blame. Now he was of two minds about it. +Of two minds: but of one mind only about another thing. As he veered +this way and that in his mind, now cursing his cowardice, and now +thanking God that he had not taken the irrevocable step, + + Opportunity + That work'st our thoughts into desires, desires + To resolutions, + +kindled in him a burning impatience to act. If he did not act, if he +were not going to act, if he were not going to take some surer and safer +step, he had been foolish and trebly foolish to let slip the opportunity +that had been his. + +But he would act. For a fortnight he had abstained from visiting +Basterga, and had even absented himself from the neighbourhood of the +house lest the scholar's suspicions should be wakened. But to what +purpose if he were not going to act? If he were not going to build on +the ground so carefully prepared, to what end this wariness and this +abstention? + +Within an hour the Syndic, long so wary, had worked himself into a fever +and, rather than remain inactive, was ripe for any step, however +venturesome, provided it led to the _remedium_. He had still the +prudence to postpone action until night; but when darkness had fairly +set in and the bell of St. Peter, inviting the townsfolk to the evening +preaching, had ceased to sound--an indication that he would meet few in +the streets--he cloaked himself, and, issuing forth, bent his steps +across the Bourg du Four in the direction of the Corraterie. + +Even now he had no plan in his mind. But amid the medley of schemes that +for a week had been hatching in his brain, he hoped to be guided by +circumstances to that one which gave surest promise of success. Nor was +his courage as deeply rooted as he fancied: the day had told on his +nerves; he shivered in the breeze and started at a sound. Yet as often +as he paused or hesitated, the words "A dying man! A dying man!" rang in +his ears and urged him on. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +A SECOND TISSOT. + + +Messer Blondel's sagacity in forbearing completely and for so long a +period the neighbourhood of Basterga proved an unpleasant surprise to +one man; and that was the man most concerned. For a day or two the +scholar lived in a fool's paradise, and hugging himself on certain +success, anticipated with confidence the entertainment which he would +derive from the antics of the fish as it played about the bait, now +advancing and now retreating. He had formed a low opinion of the +magistrate's astuteness, and forgetting that there is a cunning which is +rudimentary and of the primitives, he entertained for some time no +misgiving. But when day after day passed by and still, though more than +a week had elapsed, Blondel did not appear, nor make any overture, when, +watch he never so carefully in the dusk of the evening or at the quiet +hours of the day, he caught no glimpse of the Syndic's lurking figure, +he began to doubt. He began to fear. He began to wait about the door +himself in the hope of detecting the other: and a dozen times between +dawn and dark he was on his feet at the upper window, looking warily +down, on the chance of seeing him in the Corraterie. + +At last, slowly and against his will, the fear that the fish would not +bite began to take hold of him. Either the Syndic was honest, or he was +patient as well as cunning. In no other way could Basterga explain his +dupe's inaction. And presently, when he had almost brought himself to +accept the former conclusion, on an evening something more than a week +later, a thing happened that added sharpness to his anxiety. He was +crossing the bridge from the Quarter of St. Gervais, when a man cloaked +to the eyes slipped from the shadow of the mills, a little before him, +and with a slight but unmistakable gesture of invitation proceeded in +front of him without turning his head. + +There was mist on the face of the river that rushed in a cataract below; +a steady rain was falling, and darkness itself was not far off. There +were few abroad, and those were going their ways without looking behind +them. A better time for a secret rendezvous could not be, and Messer +Basterga's heart leapt up and his spirits rose as he followed the +cloaked figure. At the end of the bridge the man turned leftwards on to +a deserted wharf between two mills; Basterga followed. Near the water's +edge the projecting upper floor of a granary promised shelter from the +rain; under this the stranger halted, and turning, lowered with a +brusque gesture his cloak from his face. Alas, the eager "Why, Messer +Blondel----" that leapt to Basterga's lips died on them. He stood +speechless with disappointment, choking with chagrin. The stranger noted +it and laughed. + +"Well," he said in French, his tone dry and sarcastic, "you do not seem +overpleased to see me, Monsieur Basterga! Nor am I surprised. Large +promises have ever small fulfilments!" + +"His Highness has discovered that?" Basterga replied, in a tone no less +sarcastic. For his temper was roused. + +The stranger's eyes flickered, as if the other's words touched a sore. +"His Highness is growing impatient!" he returned, his tone somewhat +warmer. "That is what he has sent me to say. He has waited long, and he +bids me convey to you that if he is to wait longer he must have some +security that you are likely to succeed in your design." + +"Or he will employ other means?" + +"Precisely. Had he followed my advice," the stranger continued with an +air of lofty arrogance, "he would have done so long ago." + +"M. d'Albigny," Basterga answered, spreading out his hands with an +ironical gesture, "would prefer to dig mines under the Tour du Pin near +the College, and under the Porte Neuve! To smuggle fireworks into the +Arsenal and the Town House; and then, on the eve of execution, to fail +as utterly as he failed last time! More utterly than my plan can fail, +for I shall not put Geneva on its guard--as he did! Nor set every enemy +of the Grand Duke talking--as he did!" + +M. d'Albigny--for he it was--let drop an oath. "Are you doing anything +at all?" he asked savagely, dropping the thin veil of irony that +shrouded his temper. "That is the question. Are you moving?" + +"That will appear." + +"When? When, man? That is what his Highness wants to know. At present +there is no appearance of anything." + +"No," Basterga replied with fine irony. "There is not. I know it. It is +only when the fireworks are discovered and the mines opened and the +engineers are flying for their lives--that there is really an appearance +of something." + +"And that is the answer I am to carry to the Grand Duke?" d'Albigny +retorted in a tone which betrayed how deeply he resented such taunts at +the lips of his inferior. "That is all you have to tell him?" + +Basterga was silent awhile. When he spoke again, it was in a lower and +more cautious tone. "No; you may tell his Highness this," he said, after +glancing warily behind him. "You may tell him this. The longest night in +the year is approaching. Not many weeks divide us from it. Let him give +me until that night. Then let him bring his troops and ladders and the +rest of it--the care whereof is your lordship's, not mine--to a part of +the walls which I will indicate, and he shall find the guards withdrawn, +and Geneva at his feet." + +"The longest night? But that is some weeks distant," d'Albigny answered +in a grumbling tone. Still it was evident that he was impressed by the +precision of the other's promise. + +"Was Rome built in a day? Or can Geneva be destroyed in a day?" Basterga +retorted. + +"If I had my hand on it!" d'Albigny answered truculently, "the task +would not take more than a day!" He was a Southern Frenchman and an +ardent Catholic; an officer of high rank in the employ of Savoy; for the +rest, proud, brave, and difficult. + +"Ay, but you have not your hand on it, M. d'Albigny!" Basterga retorted +coolly. "Nor will you ever have your hand on it, without help from me." + +"And that is all you have to say?" + +"At present." + +"Very good," d'Albigny replied, nodding contemptuously. "If his Highness +be wise----" + +"He is wise. At least," Basterga continued drily, "he is wiser than M. +d'Albigny. He knows that it is better to wait and win, than leap and +lose." + +"But what of the discontented you were to bring to a head?" d'Albigny +retorted, remembering with relief another head of complaint, on which he +had been charged to deliver himself. "The old soldiers and rufflers +whom the peace has left unemployed, and with whom the man Grio was to +aid you? Surely waiting will not help you with them! There should be +some in Geneva who like not the rule of the Pastors and the drone of +psalms and hymns! Men who, if I know them, must be on fire for a change! +Come, Monsieur Basterga, is no use to be made of them?" + +"Ay," Basterga answered, after stepping back a pace to assure himself by +a careful look that no one was remarking a colloquy which the time and +the weather rendered suspicious. "Use them if you please. Let them drink +and swear and raise petty riots, and keep the Syndics on their guard! It +is all they are good for, M. d'Albigny; and I cannot say that aught +keeps back the cause so much as Grio's friends and their line of +conduct!" + +"So! that is your opinion, is it, Monsieur Basterga?" d'Albigny +answered. "And with it I must go as I came! I am of no use here, it +seems?" + +"Of great use presently, of none now," Basterga replied with greater +respect than he had hitherto exhibited. "Frankly, M. d'Albigny, they +fear you and suspect you. But if President Rochette of Chambery, who has +the confidence of the Pastors, were to visit us on some pretext or +other, say to settle such small matters as the peace has left in doubt, +it might soothe their spirits and allay their suspicions. He, rather +than M. d'Albigny, is the helper I need at present." + +D'Albigny grunted, but it was evident that the other's boldness +impressed him. "You think, then, that they suspect us?" he said. + +"How should they not? Tell me that. How should they not? Rochette's task +must be to lull those suspicions to sleep. In the meantime I----" + +"Yes?" + +"Will be at work," Basterga replied. He laughed drily as if it pleased +him to baulk the other's curiosity. Softly he added under his breath, + + "Captique dolis, lacrimisque coactis, + Quos neque Tydides, nec Larrissæus Achilles + Non anni domuere decem, non mille carinæ! + +D'Albigny nodded. "Well, I trust you are really counting on something +solid," he answered. "For you are taking a great deal upon yourself, +Monsieur Basterga. I hope you understand that," he added with a +searching look. + +"I take all on myself," the big man answered. + +The Frenchman was far from content, but he argued no more. He reflected +a moment, considering whether he had forgotten anything: then, muttering +that he would convey Basterga's views to the Grand Duke, he pulled his +cloak more closely about his face, and with a curt nod of farewell, he +turned on his heel and was gone. A moment, and he was lost to sight +between the wooden mills and sheds which flanked the bridge on either +side, and rendered it at once as narrow and as picturesque as were most +of the bridges of the day. Basterga, left solitary, waited a while +before he left his shelter. Satisfied at length that the coast was +clear, he continued his way into the town, and thinking deeply as he +went came presently to the Corraterie. It cannot be said that his +meditations were of the most pleasant; and perhaps for this reason he +walked slowly. When he entered the house, shaking the moisture from his +cloak and cap, he found the others seated at table and well advanced in +their meal. He was twenty minutes late. + +He was a clever man. But at times, in moments of irritation, the sense +of his cleverness and of his superiority to the mass of men led him to +do the thing which he had better have left undone. It was so this +evening. Face to face with d'Albigny, he had put a bold face on the +difficulties which surrounded him: he had let no sign of doubt or +uncertainty, no word of fear respecting the outcome escape him. But the +moment he found himself at liberty, the critical situation of his +affairs, if the Syndic refused to take the bait, recurred to his mind, +and harassed him. He had no _confidante_, no one to whom he could +breathe his fears, no one to whom he could explain the situation, or +with whom he could take credit for his coolness: and the curb of +silence, while it exasperated his temper, augmented a hundredfold the +contempt in which he held the unconscious companions among whom chance +and his mission had thrown him. A spiteful desire to show that contempt +sparkled in his eyes as he took his seat at the table this evening; but +for a minute or two after he had begun his meal he kept silence. + +On a mind such as his, outward things have small effect; otherwise the +cheerful homeliness of the scene must have soothed him. The lamp, +telling of present autumn and approaching winter, had been lit: a +wood-fire crackled pleasantly in the great fireplace and was reflected +in rows of pewter plates on either dresser: a fragrant stew scented the +air; all that a philosopher of the true type could have asked was at his +service. But Basterga belonged rather to the fifteenth century, the +century of the south, which was expiring, than to the century of the +north which was opening. Splendour rather than comfort, the gorgeousness +of Venice, of red-haired dames, stiff-clad in Titian velvets, of tables +gleaming with silk and gold and ruby glass, rather than the plain +homeliness which Geneva shared with the Dutch cities, held his mind. +To-night in particular his lip curled as he looked round. To-night in +particular ill-pleased and ill-content he found the place and the +company well matched, the one and the other mean and contemptible! + +One there--Gentilis--marked the great man's mood, and, cringing, after +his kind, kept his eyes low on his platter. Grio, too, knew enough to +seek refuge in sullen silence. Claude alone, impatient of the constraint +which descended on the party at the great man's coming, continued to +talk in a raised voice. "Good soup to-night, Anne," he said cheerfully. +For days past he had been using himself to speak to her easily and +lightly, as if she were no more to him than to the others. + +She did not answer--she seldom did. But "Good?" Basterga sneered in his +most cutting tone. "Ay, for schoolboys! And such as have no palate save +for pap!" + +Claude being young took the thrust a little to heart. He returned it +with a boy's impertinence. "We none of us grow thin on it," he said with +a glance at the other's bulk. + +Basterga's eyes gleamed. "Grease and dish-washings," he exclaimed. And +then, as if he knew where he could most easily wound his antagonist, he +turned to the girl. + +"If Hebe had brought such liquor to Jupiter," he sneered, "do you think +he had given her Hercules for a husband, as I shall presently give you +Grio? Ha! You flush at the prospect, do you? You colour and tremble," he +continued mockingly, "as if it were the wedding-day. You'll sleep little +to-night, I see, for thinking of your Hercules!" With grim irony he +pointed to his loutish companion, whose gross purple face seemed the +coarser for the small peaked beard that, after the fashion of the day, +adorned his lower lip. "Hercules, do I call him? Adonis rather." + +"Why not Bacchus?" Claude muttered, his eyes on his plate. In spite of +the strongest resolutions, he could not keep silence. + +"Bacchus? And why, boy?" frowning darkly. + +"He were better bestowed on a tun of wine," the youth retorted, without +looking up. + +"That you might take his place, I suppose?" Basterga retorted swiftly. +"What say you, girl? Will you have him?" And when she did not answer, +"Bread, do you hear?" he cried harshly and imperiously. "Bread, I say!" +And having forced her to come within reach to serve him, "What do you +say to it?" he continued, his hand on the trencher, his eyes on her +face. "Answer me, girl, will you have him?" + +She did not answer, but that which he had quite falsely attributed to +her before, a blush, slowly and painfully darkened her cheeks and neck. +He seized her brutally by the chin, and forced her to raise her face. +"Blushing, I see?" he continued. "Blushing, blushing, eh? So it is for +him you thrill, and lie awake, and dream of kisses, is it? For this new +youth and not for Grio? Nay, struggle not! Wrest not yourself away! Let +Grio, too, see you!" + +Claude, his back to the scene, drove his nails into the palms of his +hands. He would not turn. He would not, he dared not see what was +passing, or how they were handling her, lest the fury in his breast +sweep all away, and he rise up and disobey her! When a movement told him +that Basterga had released her--with a last ugly taunt aimed as much at +him as at her--he still sat bearing it, curbing, drilling, compelling +himself to be silent. Ay, and still to be silent, though the voice that +so cruelly wounded her was scarcely mute before it began again. + +"Tissot, indeed!" Basterga cried in the same tone of bitter jeering. "A +fig for Tissot! No more shall we + + Upon his viler metal test our purest pure, + And see him transmutations three endure! + +And why? Because a mightier than Tissot is here! Because," with a coarse +laugh, + + "Our stone angelical whereby + All secret potencies to light are brought + +has itself suffered a transmutation! A transmutation do I say! Rather an +eclipse, a darkening! He, whom matrons for their maidens fear, has come, +has seen, has conquered! And we poor mortals bow before him." + +Still Claude, his face burning, his ears tingling, put force upon +himself and sat mute, his eyes on the board. He would not look round, he +would not acknowledge what was passing. Basterga's tone conveyed a +meaning coarser and more offensive than the words he spoke; and Claude +knew it, and knew that the girl, at whom he dared not look knew it, as +she stood helpless, a butt, a target for their gloating eyes. He would +not look for he remembered. He saw the scalding liquid blister the skin, +saw the rounded arm quiver with pain; and remembering and seeing, he was +resolved that the lesson should not be lost on him. If it was only by +suffering he could serve her, he would serve her. + +He dared not look even at Gentilis, who sat opposite him; and who was +staring in gross rapture at the girl's confusion, and the burning +blushes, so long banished from her pale features. For to look at that +mean mask of a man was the same thing as to strike! Unfortunately, as it +happened, his silence and lack of spirit had a result which he had not +foreseen. It encouraged the others to carry their brutality to greater +and even greater lengths. Grio flung a gross jest in the girl's face: +Basterga asked her mockingly how long she had loved. They got no answer; +on which the big man asked his question again, his voice grown menacing; +and still she would not answer. She had taken refuge from Grio's +coarseness in the farthest corner of the hearth: where stooping over a +pot, she hid her burning face. Had they gone too far at last? So far, +that in despair she had made up her mind to resist? Claude wondered. He +hoped that they had. + +Basterga, too, thought it possible; but he smiled wickedly, in the pride +of his resources. He struck the table sharply with his knife-haft. +"What?" he cried. "You don't answer me, girl? You withstand me, do you? +To heel! To heel! Stand out in front of me, you jade, and answer me at +once. There! Stand there! Do you hear?" With a mocking eye he indicated +with his knife the spot that took his fancy. + +She hesitated a moment, scarlet revolt in her face; she hesitated for a +long moment; and the lad thought that surely the time had come. But then +she obeyed. She obeyed! And at that Claude at last looked up; he could +look up safely now for something, even as she obeyed, had put a bridle +on his rage and given him control over it. That something was doubt. Why +did she comply? Why obey, endure, suffer at this man's hands that which +it was a shame a woman should suffer at any man's? What was his hold +over her? What was his power? Was it possible, ah, was it possible that +she had done anything to give him power? Was it possible---- + +"Stand there!" Basterga repeated, licking his lips. He was in a cruel +temper: harassed himself, he would make some one suffer. "Remember who +you are, wench, and where you are! And answer me! How long have you +loved him?" + +The face no longer burned: her blushes had sunk behind the mask of +apathy, the pallid mask, hiding terror and the shame of her sex, which +her face had worn before, which had become habitual to her. "I have not +loved him," she answered in a low voice. + +"Louder!" + +"I have not loved him." + +"You do not love him?" + +"No." She did not look at Claude, but dully, mechanically, she stared +straight before her. + +Grio laughed boisterously. "A dose for young Hopeful!" he cried. "Ho! +Ho! How do you feel now, Master Jackanapes?" + +The big man smiled. + + "Galle, quid insanis? inquit, Tua cura Lycoris + Perque nives alium perque horrida castra secuta est!" + +he murmured. He bowed ironically in Claude's direction. "The gentleman +passes beyond the jurisdiction of the court," he said. "She will have +none of him, it seems; nor we either! He is dismissed." + +Claude, his eyes burning, shrugged his shoulders and did not budge. If +they thought to rid themselves of him by this fooling they would learn +their mistake. They wished him to go: the greater reason he should stay. +A little thing--the sight of a small brown hand twitching painfully, +while her face and all the rest of her was still and impassive, had +expelled his doubts for the time--had driven all but love and pity and +burning indignation from his breast. All but these, and the memory of +her lesson and her will. He had promised and he must suffer. + +Whether Basterga was deceived by his inaction, or of set purpose was +minded to try how far they could go with him, the big man turned again +to his victim. "With you, my girl," he said, "it is otherwise. The soup +was bad, and you are mutinous. Two faults that must be paid for. There +was something of this, I remember, when Tissot--our good Tissot, who +amused us so much--first came. And we tamed you then. You paid forfeit, +I think. You kissed Tissot, I think; or Tissot kissed you." + +"No, it was I kissed her," Gentilis said with a smirk. "She chose me." + +"Under compulsion," Basterga retorted drily. "Will you ransom her +again?" + +"Willingly! But it should be two this time," Gentilis said grinning. +"Being for the second offence, a double----" + +"Pain," quoth Basterga. "Very good. Do you hear, my girl? Go to +Gentilis, and see you let him kiss you twice! And see we see and hear +it. And have a care! Have a care! Or next time your modesty may not +escape so easily! To him at once, and----" + +"No!" The cry came from Claude. He was on his feet, his face on fire. +"No!" he repeated passionately. + +"No?" + +"Not while I am here! Not under compulsion," the young man cried. "Shame +on you!" He turned to the others, generous wrath in his face. "Shame on +you to torture a woman so--a woman alone! And you three to one!" + +Basterga's face grew dark. "You are right! We are three," he muttered, +his hand slowly seeking a weapon in the corner behind him. "You speak +truth there, we are three--to one! And----" + +"You maybe twenty, I will not suffer it!" the lad cried gallantly. "You +may be a hundred----" + +But on that word, in the full tide of speech he stopped. His voice died +as suddenly as it had been raised, he stammered, his whole bearing +changed. He had met her eyes: he had read in them reproach, warning, +rebuke. Too late he had remembered his promise. + +The big man leaned forward. "What may we be?" he asked. "You were going, +I think, to say that we might be--that we might be----" + +But Claude did not answer. He was passing through a moment of such +misery as he had never experienced. To give way to them now, to lower +his flag before them after he had challenged them! To abandon her to +them, to see her--oh, it was more than he could do, more than he could +suffer! It was---- + +"Pray go on," Basterga sneered, "if you have not said your say. Do not +think of us!" + +Oh, bitter! But he remembered how the scalding liquor had fallen on the +tender skin. "I have said it," he muttered hoarsely. "I have said it," +and by a movement of his hand, pathetic enough had any understood it, he +seemed to withdraw himself and his opposition. + +But when, obedient to Basterga's eye, the girl moved to Gentilis' side +and bent her cheek--which flamed, not by reason of Gentilis or the +coming kisses, but of Claude's presence and his cry for her--he could +not bear it. He could not stay and see it, though to go was to abandon +her perhaps to worse treatment. He rose with a cry and snatched his cap, +and tore open the door. With rage in his heart and their laughter, their +mocking, triumphant laughter, in his ears, he sprang down the steps. + +A coward! That was what he must seem to them. A coward's part, that was +the part they had seen him play. Into the darkness, into the night, what +mattered whither, when such fierce anger boiled within him? Such +self-contempt. What mattered whither when he knew how he had failed! Ay, +failed and played the Tissot! The Tissot and the weakling! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +ON THE THRESHOLD. + + +He hurried along the ramparts in a rage with those whom he had left, in +a still greater rage with himself. He had played the Tissot with a +vengeance. He had flown at them in weak passion, he had recoiled as +weakly, he had left them to call him coward. Now, even now, he was +fleeing from them, and they were jeering at him. Ay, jeering at him; +their laughter followed him, and burned his ears. + +The rain that beat on his fevered face, the moist wind from the Rhone +Valley below, could not wipe out _that_--the defeat and the shame. The +darkness through which he hurried could not hide it from his eyes. Thus +had Tissot begun, flying out at them, fleeing from them, a thing of +mingled fury and weakness. He knew how they had regarded Tissot. So they +now regarded him. + +And the girl? What shame lay on his manhood who had abandoned her, who +had left her to be their sport! His rage boiled over as he thought of +her, and with the rain-laden wind buffeting his brow he halted and made +as if he would return. But to what end if she would not have his aid, to +what end if she would not suffer him? With a furious gesture, he hurried +on afresh, only to be arrested, by-and-by, at the corner of the ramparts +near the Bourg du Four, by a dreadful thought. What if he had deceived +himself? What if he had given back before them, not because she had +willed it, not because she had looked at him, not in compliance with +her wishes; but in face of the odds against him, and by virtue of some +streak of cowardice latent in his nature? The more he thought of it, the +more he doubted if she had looked at him; the more likely it seemed that +the look had been a straw, at which his craven soul had grasped! + +The thought maddened him. But it was too late to return, too late to +undo his act. He must have left them a full half-hour. The town was +growing quiet, the sound of the evening psalms was ceasing. The rustle +of the wind among the branches covered the tread of the sentries as they +walked the wall between the Porte Neuve and the Mint tower; only their +harsh voices as they met midway and challenged came at intervals to his +ears. It must be hard on ten o'clock. Or, no, there was the bell of St. +Peter's proclaiming the half-hour after nine. + +He was ashamed to return to the house, yet he must return; and +by-and-by, reluctantly and doggedly, he set his face that way. The wind +and rain had cooled his brow, but not his brain, and he was still in a +fever of resentment and shame when his lagging feet brought him to the +house. He passed it irresolutely once, unable to make up his mind to +enter and face them. Then, cursing himself for a poltroon, he turned +again and made for the door. + +He was within half a dozen strides of it when a dark figure detached +itself from the doorway, and stumbled down the steps. Its aim seemed to +be to escape, and leaping to the conclusion that it was Gentilis, and +that some trick was being prepared for him, Claude sprang forward. His +hand shot out, he grasped the other's neck. His wrath blazed up. + +"You rogue!" he said. "I'll teach you to lie in wait for me!" And +shifting his grasp from the man's neck to his shoulder, he turned him +round regardless of his struggles. As he did so the man's hat fell off. +With amazement Claude recognised the features of the Syndic Blondel. + +The young man's arm fell, and he stared, open-mouthed and aghast, the +passion with which he had seized the stranger whelmed in astonishment. + +The Syndic, on the other hand, behaved with a strange composure. +Breathing rather quickly, but vouchsafing no word of explanation, he +straightened the crumpled linen about his neck, and set right his coat. +He was proceeding, still in silence, to pick up his hat, when Claude, +anticipating the action, secured the hat and restored it to him. + +"Thank you," he said. And then, stiffly, "Come with me," he continued. + +He turned as he spoke and led the way to a spot at some distance from +the house, yet within sight of the door; there he wheeled about. "I was +coming to see you," he said, steadfastly confronting Claude. "Why have +you not called upon me, young man, in accordance with the invitation I +gave you?" + +Claude stared. The Syndic's matter-of-factness and the ease with which +he ignored what had just passed staggered him. Perhaps after all Blondel +had come for this, and had been startled while waiting at the door by +the quickness of his approach. "I--I had overlooked it," he murmured, +trying to accept the situation. + +"Then," the Syndic answered shrewdly, "I can see that you have not +wanted anything." + +"No." + +"You lodge there?" Blondel continued, pointing to the house. "But I know +you do. And keep late hours, I fear. You are not alone in the house, I +think?" + +"No," Claude replied; and on a sudden, as his mind went back to the +house and those in it, there leapt into it the temptation to tell all to +this man, a magistrate, and appeal to him in the girl's behalf. He +could not speak to a more proper person, if he sought the city through; +and here was the opportunity, brought unsought, to his door. But then he +had not the girl's leave to speak; could he speak without her leave? He +shifted his feet, and to gain time, "No," he said slowly, "there are two +or three who lodge in the house." + +"Is not the person with whom you quarrelled at the inn one of them?" the +Syndic asked. "Eh? Is not he one?" + +"Yes," Claude answered; and the recollection of the scene and of the +support which the Syndic had given to Grio checked the impulse to speak. +Perhaps after all the girl knew best. + +"And a person of the name of Basterga, I think?" + +Claude nodded. He dared not trust himself to speak now. Could it be that +a whisper of what was passing in the house had reached the magistrates? + +The Syndic coughed. He glanced from the distant door, now a mere blur in +the obscurity, to his companion's face and back again to the door--of +which he seemed reluctant to lose sight. For a moment he seemed at a +loss how to proceed. When he did speak, after a long pause, it was in a +dry curt tone. "It is about him I wish to hear something," he said. "I +look to you as a good citizen to afford such information as the State +requires. The matter is more important than you think. I ask you what +you know of that man." + +"Messer Basterga!" + +"Yes." + +Claude stared. "I know no good," he answered, more and more surprised. +"I do not like him, Messer Syndic." + +"But he is a learned man, I believe. He passes for such, does he not?" + +"Yes." + +"Yet you do not like him. Why?" + +Claude's face burned. "He puts his learning to no good use," he blurted +out. "He uses it to--to torture women. If I could tell you all--all, +Messer Blondel," the young man continued, in growing excitement, "you +would understand me better! He gains power over people, a strange power, +and abuses it." + +"Power? What do you mean? What kind of power?" + +"God knows." + +The Syndic stared a moment, his face expressive of contempt. This was +not the line he had meant his questions to take. What did it matter to +him how the man treated women? Pshaw! Then suddenly a light--as of +satisfaction, or discovery--gleamed in his eyes. "Do you mean," he +muttered, lowering his voice, "by sorcery?" + +"God knows." + +"By evil arts?" + +The young man shook his head. "I do not know," he answered, almost +pettishly. "How should I? But he has a power. A secret power! I do not +understand him or it!" + +The Syndic looked at him darkly thoughtful. "You did not know that that +was said of him?" he asked. + +"That he----" + +"Has magical arts?" + +Claude shook his head. + +"Nor that he has a laboratory upstairs?" Blondel continued, fixing the +young man gravely with his eyes. "A laboratory in which he reads much in +unknown tongues? And speaks much when no one is present? And tries +experiments with strange substances?" + +Claude shook his head. "No!" he said. "Never! I never heard it." + +He never had; but in his eyes dawned none the less a look of horror. No +man in those days doubted the existence of the devilish arts at which +Blondel hinted--arts by the use of which one being could make himself +master of the will and person of another. No man doubted their +existence: and that they were rare, were difficult, were seldom brought +within a man's experience, made them only the more hateful without +making them seem to the men of that day the less probable. That they +were often exercised at the cost of the innocent and pure, who in this +way were added to the accursed brood--few doubted this too; but the full +horror of it could be known only to the man who loved, and who +reverenced where he loved. Fortunately, men who never doubted the +reality of witchcraft, seldom conceived of it as touching those about +them; and it was only slowly that Claude took in the meaning of the +Syndic's suggestion, or discerned how perfectly it accounted for a thing +otherwise unaccountable--the mysterious sway which the scholar held over +the young girl. + +But he reached, he came to that point at last; and his silence and +agitation were more eloquent than words. The Syndic, who had not shot +his bolt wholly at a venture--for to accuse Basterga of the black art +had passed through his mind before--saw that he had hit the mark; and he +pushed his advantage. "Have you noted aught," he asked, "to bear out the +idea that he is given to such practices?" + +Claude was silent in sheer horror: horror of the thing suggested to him, +horror of the punishment in which he might involve the innocent. + +"I don't know!" he stammered at last, and almost incoherently. "I know +nothing! Don't ask me! God grant it be not so!" And he covered his face. + +"Amen! Amen, indeed," Blondel answered gravely. "But now for the woman, +over whom you said he had power?" + +"I said?" + +"Aye, you, a minute ago! Who is she? Is she one of the household? Come, +young man, you must answer me," the Syndic continued with severity +proportioned to the other's hesitation. "I know much, and a little more +light may enable us to act and to bring the guilty to punishment. Does +she live in the house?" + +Only the darkness hid Claude's pallor. "There is a woman," he muttered +reluctantly, "who lives in the house. But I know nothing! I have no +proof! Nothing, nothing!" + +"But you suspect! You suspect, young man," the Syndic continued, eyeing +him sternly, "and suspecting you would leave her in the clutches of the +devil whose she must become, body and soul! For shame!" + +"But I do not believe it!" Claude cried fiercely. "I do not believe it!" + +"Of her?" + +"Of her? No! _Mon dieu!_ No! She is a child! She is innocent! Innocent +as----" + +"The day! you would say?" the Syndic struck in, almost solemnly. "The +likelier prey? The choicest are ever the devil's morsels." + +"And you think that she----" + +"God help her, if she be in his power! This man," the Syndic continued, +laying his hand on the other's arm, "has ruined hundreds by his secret +arts, by his foul practices, by his sorceries. He has made Venice too +hot for him. In Padua they will have him no more. Genoa has driven him +forth. If you doubt this character of him there is an easy proof; for it +is whispered, nay, it is almost certain, in what his power lies. Do you +know his room?" + +"No." + +"No?" in a tone of dismay. "But is it not on a level with yours?" + +"No," Claude answered, shivering; "it is over mine." + +"No matter, there is an easy mode of proving him," the Syndic replied; +and despite himself his tone was eager. "If he be the man they say he +is, there is in his room a box of steel chained to the wall. It contains +the spell he uses. By means of it he can enter where he pleases, he can +enslave women to his will, he----" + +"And you do not seize it?" Claude cried in a tone of horror. + +"He has the Grand Duke's protection," the Syndic answered smoothly, "and +to touch him without clear proof might cause much trouble to the State." + +"And for that you suffer him," Claude exclaimed, his voice trembling. +"You suffer him to work his will? You suffer him----" + +"I must follow the law," Blondel answered, shaking his head. He looked +warily round; the dark ramparts were quiet. "I act but as a magistrate. +Were I a mere man and knew him, as I know him now, for what he is--a +foul magician weaving his spells about the young, ensnaring, with his +sorceries, the souls of innocent women, corrupting--but what is it, +young man?" + +"He is within?" + +"No; he left the house a minute or so before you arrived. But what is +it?" Seizing the young man's arm he restrained him. "Where are you +going?" + +"To his room!" Claude answered between his set teeth. "Be he man or +devil--to his room!" + +"You dare?" + +"I dare and I will!" Resisting the Syndic's feigned efforts to hold him +back, he strode towards the door. "That spell shall not be his another +hour." + +But Blondel terrified by his sudden success, and loth, now the time was +come, to put all on a cast, kept his hand on him. "Stay! Stay!" he +babbled, dragging him back. "Do not be rash!" + +"Stay, and leave him to ruin her!" + +"Still, listen! Whatever you do, listen!" the Syndic answered; and +insisted, clinging to him. His agitation was such, that had Claude +retained his powers of observation, he must have found something strange +in this anxiety. "Listen! If you find the casket, on your life touch +nothing in it! On your life!" Blondel repeated, his hands clinging more +tightly to the other's arm. "Bring it entire--touch nothing! If you do +not promise me I will raise the alarm here and now! To open it, I warn +you, is to risk all!" + +"I will bring it!" Claude answered, his foot on the steps, his hand on +the latch. "I will bring it!" + +"Ay, but you do not know what hangs on it! You will bring it as you find +it?" + +His persistence was so strange, he clung to the young man's arm with so +complete an abandonment of his ordinary manner, that, with the latch +half raised, Claude looked at him in wonder. "Very well, I will bring it +as I find it!" he muttered. Then, notwithstanding a movement which the +Syndic made to restrain him, he pushed the door. + +It was not locked, and, in a moment, he stood in the living-room which +he had left little more than an hour before. It was untenanted, but not +in darkness; a rushlight, set in an earthen vessel on the hearth, flung +long shadows on the walls and ceiling, and gave to the room, so homely +in its every-day aspect, a sinister look. The door of Gentilis' room was +shut; probably he was asleep. That at the foot of the staircase was also +shut. Claude stood a moment, frowning; then he crossed the floor +towards the staircase door. But though his mind was fixed, the spell of +the other's excitement told on him: the flicker of the rushlight made +him start; and half-way across the room a sound at his elbow brought him +up as if he had been stabbed. He turned his head, expecting to find the +big man's eyes bent on him from some corner. He found instead the +Syndic, who had stolen in after him, and with a dark anxious face was +standing like a shadow of guilt between him and the door. + +The young man resented the alarm which the other had caused him. "If you +are going, go," he muttered. "And if you will do it yourself, Messer +Syndic, so much the better." He pointed to the door of the staircase. + +The Syndic recoiled, his beard wagging senilely. "No, no," he babbled. +"No, I will go back." + +It was no longer the formal magistrate, but a frightened man who stood +at Claude's elbow. And this was so clear that superstition, which is of +all things the most infectious, began to shake the young man's +resolution. Desperately he threw it off, and went to open the door. Then +he reflected that it would be dark upstairs, he must have a light; and +re-crossing the floor he brought the rushlight from the hearth. Holding +it aloft he opened the creaking door and began to ascend the stairs. + +With every step the awe of the other world grew on him; while the +shadow, which he had found at his elbow below, followed him upwards. +When he paused at the head of the flight the Syndic's face was on a +level with his knee, the Syndic's eyes were fixed on his. + +Claude did not understand this; but the man's company was welcome now; +and the sight of Basterga's door, not three paces from the place where +he stood, diverted his thoughts. He had not been above stairs since the +day of his arrival, but he knew that Basterga's room was the nearest to +the stairs. That was the door then; behind that door the Italian wrought +his devilish spells! + +His light, smoky and wavering, cast black shadows on the walls of the +passage as he moved. The air seemed heavy, laden with some strange drug; +the house was still, with the stillness which precedes horror. Not many +men of his time, suspecting what he suspected, would have opened that +door, or at that hour of the night would have entered that room. But +Claude, though he feared, though he shuddered, though unearthly terrors +pressed upon him, possessed a charm that supported his courage: the +memory of the scene in the room below, of the scalding drops falling on +the white skin, of the girl looking at him with that face of pain. The +devil was strong, but there was a stronger; and in the strength of love +the young man approached the door and tried it. It was locked. + +Somehow the fact augmented his courage. "Where the devil is, is no need +of locks," he muttered, and he felt above the door, then, stooping, +groped under it. In the latter place he found the key, thrust out of +sight between door and floor, where doubtless it was Basterga's custom +to hide it. He drew it out, and with a grim face set it in the lock. + +"Quick!" muttered a voice in his ear, and turning he saw that the Syndic +was trembling with eagerness. "Quick, quick! Or he may return!" + +Claude smiled. If he did not fear the devil he certainly did not fear +Basterga. He was about to turn the key in the lock when a sound stayed +his hand, ay, and rooted him to the spot. Yet it was only a laugh--but a +laugh such as his ears had never caught before, a laugh full of ghastly, +shrill, unearthly mirth. It rang through the passage, through the +house, through the night; but whence it proceeded, whether from some +being at his elbow, or from above stairs, or below, it was impossible to +say; and the blood gone from his face, Claude stood, peering over his +shoulder into the dark corners of the passage. Again that laugh rose, +shrill, mocking, unearthly; and this time his hand fell from the lock. + +The Syndic, utterly unmanned, leant sweating against the wall. He called +upon the name of his Maker. "My God!" he muttered. "My God!" + +"_There is no God!_" + +The words, each syllable of them clear, though spoken in a voice shrill +and cracked and strange, and such as neither of them had ever heard +before, were beyond doubt. Close on them followed a shriek of weird +laughter, and then the blasphemy repeated in the same tone of mockery. +The hair crept on Claude's head, the blood withdrew to his heart. The +key which he had drawn out of the lock fell from the hand it seemed to +freeze. + +With distended eyes he glared down the passage. The words were still in +the air, the laughter echoed in his brain, the shadows cast by the +shaking rushlight danced and took weird shapes. A rustling as of black +wings gathered about him, unseen shapes hovered closer and closer--was +it his fancy or did he hear them? + +He tried to disbelieve, he strove to withstand his terror; and a moment +his fortitude held. Then, as the Syndic, shaking as with the palsy, +tottered, with a hand on either wall down the stairs, and moaning aloud +in his terror, felt his way across the room below, Claude's courage, +too, gave way; not in face of that he saw, but of that which he fancied. +He turned too, and with a greater show of composure, and still carrying +the light, he stumbled down the stairs and into the room below. + +There, for an instant sense and nerve returned, and he stood. He turned +even, and made as if he would re-ascend the staircase. But he had no +sooner thrust his head into it, and paused an instant to listen ere he +ventured, than a faint echo of the same mirthless laughter reached him, +and he turned shuddering, and fled--fled out of the room, out of the +house, out of the light, to the same spot under the trees whence he had +started with so bold a heart a few minutes earlier. + +The Syndic was there before him--or no, not the Syndic, but a stricken +man, clinging to a tree; seized now and again with a fresh fit of +trembling. "Take me home," he babbled. "There is no hope! There is no +hope. Take me home!" + +His house was not far off, and Claude, when he had a little recovered +himself, assented, gave the tottering man his arm and supported him--he +needed support--until they reached the dwelling in the Bourg du Four. +Still a wreck Blondel was by this time a little more coherent. He +foresaw solitude, and dreaded it; and would have had the other enter and +pass the night with him. But the young man, already ashamed of his +weakness, already doubting and questioning, refused, and would say no +more than that he would return on the morrow. With an aspect apparently +composed, he insisted on taking his leave, turned from the door and +retraced his steps to the Corraterie. But when he came to the house, he +lacked, brave as he was, the heart to enter; and passing it, he spent +the time until daybreak, in walking up and down the rampart within +hearing of the sentries. + +His mind grown somewhat calmer, he set himself to recall, precisely and +exactly, the thing that had happened. But recall it as he might, he +could not account for it. The words of blasphemy that had scorched his +ears as the key entered the lock, had been uttered, he was sure, in no +voice known to him; nay more, in no voice of human intonation. How could +he explain them? How account for them save in one way? How defend his +cowardice save on one ground? He shuddered, gazing at the house, and +murmuring now a prayer, and now a word of exorcism. But the day had +come, the sky was red, and the sun was near its rising before he took +courage and dared to cross the threshold. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +MELUSINA. + + +Even then, with the daylight about him, he crept into the house under a +weight of awe and dread. He left the door ajar that the daylight might +enter with him and dispel the shadows: and when he had crossed the +threshold it was with a pale and frowning face that he advanced to the +middle of the floor, and stood peering round the deserted living-room. +No one was stirring above or below, the house and all within it slept: +the rushlight stand, its wick long extinguished, remained where he had +set it down in the panic of his flight. + +With that exception--he eyed it darkly--no trace of the mysterious event +of the night was visible. The room wore, or minute by minute assumed, +its daylight aspect. Nor had he stood long gazing upon it before he +breathed more freely and felt his heart lightened. What was to be +thought, what could be thought in the circumstances, he was not prepared +to say. But the panic of the night was gone with the darkness; and with +it all thought--if in the depths he had really sunk so low--of +relinquishing the woman he loved to the powers of evil. + +To the powers of evil! To a fate as much worse than death as the soul +and the mind are higher than the body! Was he really face to face with +that? Was this house, so quiet, so peaceful, so commonplace, in reality +the theatre of one of those manifestations of Satan's power which were +the horror of the age? His senses affirmed it, and yet he doubted. Such +things were, he did not deny it. Few men of the time denied it. But +presented to him, brought within his experience, they shocked him to the +point of disbelief. He found that from the thing which he was prepared +to admit in the general, he dissented fiercely and instinctively in the +particular. + +What, the woman he loved! Was he to believe her delivered, soul and +body, to the power of Satan? Never! All that was sane and wholesome and +courageous in the man rebelled against the thought. He would not believe +it. The pots and pans on the hearth, the simple implements of work and +life, on which his eyes alighted wherever he turned them, and to none of +which her hand was stranger, his memory of the love that was between her +and her mother, his picture of the sacred life led by those two above +stairs, all gave the lie to it! Her subjection to Basterga, her +submission to contumely and to insult--there must be a reason for these, +a natural and innocent reason could he hit on it. The strange +occurrences of the night, the blasphemous words, the mocking laughter, +at the worst they might not import a mastery over her. He shuddered as +he recalled them, they rang in his ears and brain, the vividness of his +memory of them was remarkable. But they might not have relation to her. + +He stood long in moody thought, but his ears never for an instant +relaxed their vigil, their hearkening for he knew not what. At length he +passed into his bedcloset, and cooled his hot face with water and +repaired his dress. Coming out again, he found the house still quiet, +the door as he had left it, the daylight pouring in through the +aperture. No one was moving, he was still safe from interruption; and a +curiosity to visit the passage above and learn if aught abnormal was to +be seen, took possession of him. It was just possible that Basterga had +not returned; that the key still lay where he had dropped it! + +He opened the door of the staircase and listened. He heard nothing, and +he stole half-way up the flight and again stood. Still all was silent. +He mounted more boldly then, and he was within four steps of the +top--whence, turning his head a little, he could command the +passage--when a sound arrested him. It was a sound easily explicable +though it startled him; for a moment later Anne Royaume appeared at the +foot of the upper flight of stairs, and moved along the passage towards +him. + +She did not see him, and he could have escaped unnoticed, had he retired +at once. But he stood fixed to the spot by something in her appearance; +a something that, as she moved slowly towards him, fancying herself +alone, filled him with dread, and with something worse than +dread--suspicion. + +For if ever woman looked as if she had come from a witch's Sabbath, if +ever girl, scarce more than child, walked as if she had plucked the +fruit of the Tree and savoured it bitter, it was the girl before him. +Despair--it seemed to him--rode her like a hag. Dejection, fear, misery, +were in her whole bearing. Her eyes looked out from black hollows, her +cheeks were pallid, her mouth was nerveless. Three sleepless nights, he +thought, could not have changed a woman thus--no, nor thrice three; and +he who had seen her last night and saw her now, gazed fascinated and +bewildered, asking himself what had happened, what it meant. + +Alas, for answer there rose the spectre which he had been striving to +lay; the spectre that had for the men of that day so appalling, so +shocking a reality. Witchcraft! The word rang in his brain. Witchcraft +would account for this, ay, for all; for her long submission to vile +behests and viler men; for that which he had heard in this house at +midnight; for that which the Syndic had whispered of Basterga; for that +which he noted in her now! Would account for it; ay, but by fixing her +with a guilt, not of this world, terrible, abnormal: by fixing her with +a love of things vile, unspeakable, monstrous, a love that must deprive +her life of all joy, all sweetness, all truth, all purity! A guilt and a +love that showed her thus! + +But thus, for a moment only. The next she espied his face above the +landing-edge, perceived that he watched her, detected, perhaps, +something of his feeling. With startling abruptness her features +underwent a change. Her cheeks flamed high, her eyes sparkled with +resentment. "You!" she cried--and her causeless anger, her impatience of +his presence, confirmed the dreadful idea he had conceived. "You!" she +repeated. "How dare you come here? How dare you? What are you doing +here? Your room is below. Go down, sir!" + +He did not move, but he met her eyes; he tried to read her soul, his own +quaking. And his look, sombre and stern--for he saw a gulf opening at +his feet--should have given her pause. Instead, her anger faced him down +and mastered him. "Do you hear me?" she flung at him. "Do you hear me? +If you have aught to say, if you are not as those others, go down! Go +down, and I will hear you there!" + +He went down then, giving way to her, and she followed him. She closed +the staircase door behind them; and that done, in the living-room with +her he would have spoken. But with a glance at Gentilis' door, she +silenced him, and led the way through the outer door to the open air. +The hour was still early, the sun was barely risen. Save for a sentry +sleeping at his post on the ramparts, there was no one within sight, and +she crossed the open space to the low wall that looked down upon the +Rhone. There, in a spot where the partly stripped branches which shaded +the rampart hid them from the windows, she turned to him. "Now," she +said--there was a smouldering fire in her eyes--"if you have aught to +say to me, say it. Say it now!" + +He hesitated. He had had time to think, and he found the burden laid +upon him heavy. "I do not know," he answered, "that I have any right to +speak to you." + +"Right!" she cried; and let her bitterness have way in that word. +"Right! Does any stay for that where I am concerned? Or ask my leave, or +crave my will, sir? Right? You have the same right to flout and jeer and +scorn me, the same right to watch and play the spy on me, to hearken at +my door, and follow me, that they have! Ay, and the same right to bid me +come and go, and answer at your will, that others have! Do you scruple a +little at beginning?" she continued mockingly. "It will wear off. It +will come easy by-and-by! For you are like the others!" + +"No!" + +"You are as the others! You begin as they began!" she repeated, giving +the reins to her indignation. "The day you came, last night even, I +thought you different. I deemed you"--she pressed her hand to her bosom +as if she stilled a pain--"other than you are! I confess it. But you are +their fellow. You begin as they began, by listening on stairs and at +doors, by dogging me and playing eavesdropper, by hearkening to what I +say and do. Right?" she repeated the word bitterly, mockingly, with +fierce unhappiness. "You have the right that they have! The same right!" + +"Have I?" he asked slowly. His face was sombre and strangely old. + +"Yes!" + +"Then how did I gain it?" he retorted with a dark look. "How"--his tone +was as gloomy as his face--"did they gain it? Or--he?" + +"He?" The flame was gone from her face. She trembled a little. + +"Yes, he--Basterga," he replied, his eyes losing no whit of the change +in her. "How did he gain the right which he has handed on to others, the +right to shame you, to lay hand on you, to treat you as he does? This is +a free city. Women are no slaves here. What then is the secret between +you and him?" Claude continued grimly. "What is your secret?" + +"My secret!" Her passion dwindled under his eyes, under his words. + +"Ay," Claude answered, "and his! His secret and yours. What is the thing +between you and him?" he continued, his eyes fixed on her, "so dark, so +weighty, so dangerous, you must needs for it suffer his touch, bear his +look, be smooth to him though you loathe him? What is it?" + +"Perhaps--love," she muttered, with a forced smile. But it did not +deceive him. + +"You loathe him!" he said. + +"I may have loved him--once," she faltered. + +"You never loved him," he retorted. All the shyness of youth, all the +bashfulness of man with maiden were gone. Under the weight of that +thought, that dreadful thought, he had grown old in a few minutes. His +tone was hard, his manner pitiless. "You never loved him!" he repeated, +the very immodesty of her excuse confirming his fears. "And I ask you, +what is it? What is it that is between you and him? What is it that +gives him this power over you?" + +"Nothing," she stammered, pale to the lips. + +"Nothing! And was it for nothing that you were startled when you found +me upstairs? When you found me watching you five minutes ago, was it for +nothing that you flamed with rage----" + +"You had no right to be there." + +"No? Yet it was an innocent thing enough--to be there," he answered. "To +be there, this morning." And then, giving the words all the meaning of +which his voice was capable, "To have been there last night," he +continued, "were a different thing perhaps." + +"Were you there?" Her voice was barely audible. + +"I was." + +It was dreadful to see how she sank under that, how she cringed before +him, her anger gone, her colour gone, the light fled from her eyes--eyes +grown suddenly secretive. It was a minute, it seemed a minute at least, +before she could frame a word, a single word. Then, "What do you know?" +she whispered. But for the wall against which she leant, she must have +fallen. + +"What do I know?" + +She nodded, unable to repeat the words. + +"I was at the door of Basterga's room last night." + +"Last night!" + +"Yes. I had the key of his room in my hand. I was putting it into the +lock when I heard----" + +"Hush!" She stepped forward, she would have put her hand over his mouth. +"Hush! Hush!" + +The terror of her eyes, the glance she cast behind her, echoed the word +more clearly than her lips. "Hush! Hush!" + +He could not bear to look at her. Her voice, her terror, the very +defence she had striven to make confirmed him in his worst suspicions. +The thing was too certain, too apparent; in mercy to himself as well as +to her, he averted his eyes. + +They fell on the hills on which he had gazed that morning barely a +fortnight earlier, when the autumn haze had mirrored her face; and all +his thoughts, his heart, his fancy had been hers, her prize, her easy +capture. And now he dared not look on her face. He could not bear to see +it distorted by the terrors of an evil conscience. Even her words when +she spoke again jarred on him. + +"You knew the voice?" she whispered. + +"I did not know it," he answered brokenly. "I knew--whose it was." + +"Mine?" + +"Yes." He scarcely breathed the word. + +She did not cry "Hush!" this time, but she caught her breath; and after +a moment's pause, "Still--you did not recognise it?" she murmured. "You +did not know that it was my voice?" Could it be that after all she hoped +to blind him? + +"I did not." + +"Thank God!" + +"Thank God?" He stared at her, echoing the words in his astonishment. +How dared she name the sacred name? + +She read his thoughts. "Yes," she said hardily, "why not?" + +He turned on her. "Why not?" he cried. "Why not? You dare to thank Him, +who last night denied Him? You dare to name His name in the light, who +in the darkness----You! And you are not afraid?" + +"Afraid?" she repeated. There was a strange light, almost a smile he +would have deemed it had he thought that possible, in her face, "Nay, +perhaps; perhaps. For even the devils, we are told, believe and +tremble." + +His jaw fell; for a moment he gazed at her in sheer bewilderment. Then, +as the full import of her words and her look overwhelmed him, he turned +to the wall and bowed his face on his arms. His whole being shook, his +soul was sick. What was he to say to her? What was he to do? Flee from +her presence as from the presence of Antichrist? Avoid her henceforth as +he valued his soul? Pluck even the memory of her from his mind? Or +wrestle with her, argue with her, snatch her from the foul spells and +enchantments that now held her, the tool and chosen instrument of the +evil one, in their fiendish grip? + +He felt a Churchman's horror--Protestant as he was--at the thought of a +woman possessed. But for that reason, and because he was in the way of +becoming a minister, was it not his duty to measure his strength with +the Adversary? Alas! he could conceive of no words, no thoughts, no +arguments adequate to that strife. Had he been a Papist he might have +turned with hope, even with pious confidence, to the Holy Stoup, the +Bell and Book and Candle, to the Relics, and hundred Exorcisms of his +Church. But the colder and more abstract faith of Calvin, while it +admitted the possibility of such possessions, supplied no weapons of a +material kind. + +He groaned in his impotence, stifled by the unwholesome atmosphere of +his thoughts. He dared not even ponder too long on what she was who +stood beside him; nor peer too closely through the murky veil that hid +her being. To do so might be to risk his soul, to become a partner in +her guilt. He might conjecture what dark thoughts and dreadful aptitudes +lurked behind the girl's gentle mask, he might strive to learn by what +black arts she had been seduced, what power over visible things had been +the price of her apostasy, what Sabbath-mark, seal and pledge of that +apostasy she bore--but at what peril! At what risk of soul and body! His +brain reeled, his blood raced at the thought. + +Such things had lately been, he knew. Had there not been a dreadful +outbreak in Alsace--Alsace, the neighbour almost of Geneva--within the +last few years. In Thann and Turckheim, places within a couple of days' +journey of Geneva, scores had suffered for such practices; and some of +these not old and ugly, but young and handsome, girls and pages of the +Court and young wives! Had not the most unlikely persons confessed to +practices the most dreadful? The most innocent in appearance to things +unspeakable! + +But--with a sudden revulsion of feeling--that was in Alsace, he told +himself. That was in Alsace! Such things did not happen here at men's +elbows! He must have been mad to think it or dream it. And, lifting his +head, he looked about him. The sun had risen higher, the rich vale of +the Rhone, extended at his feet, lay bathed in air and light and +brightness. The burnished hills, the brown, tilled slopes, the gleaming +river, the fairness of that rare landscape clad in morning freshness, +gave the lie to the suspicions he had been indulging, gave the lie, +there and then, to possibilities he dared not have denied in school or +pulpit. Nature spoke to his heart, and with smiling face denied the +unnatural. In Bamberg and Wurzburg and Alsace, but not here! In +Magdeburg, but not here! In Edinburgh, but not here! The world of beauty +and light and growth on which he looked would have none of the dark +devil's world of which he had been dreaming: the dark devil's world +which the sophists and churchmen and the weak-witted of twoscore +generations had built up! + +He turned and looked at her, the scales fallen from his eyes. Though she +was still pale, she had recovered her composure and she met his gaze +without blenching. But now, behind the passive defiance, grave rather +than sullen, which she presented to his attack, the weakness, the +helplessness, the heart pain of the woman were plain. + +He discerned them, and while he hungered for a more explicit denial, for +a cry of indignant protest, for a passionate repudiation, he found some +comfort in that look. And his heart spoke. "I do not believe it!" he +cried impetuously, in perfect forgetfulness of the fact that he had not +put his charge into words. "I do not--I will not! Only say that it is +false! And I will say no more." + +Her answer was as cold water thrown upon him. "I will tell you nothing," +she answered. + +"Why not? Why not?" he cried. + +"You ask why not," she answered slowly. "Are you so short of memory? Is +it so long since, against my will and prayers, you came into yonder +house--that you forget what I said and what I did? And what you +promised?" + +"My God!" he cried in excitement. "You do not know where you stand! You +do not know what perils threaten you. This is no time," he continued, +holding out his hands to her in growing agitation, "for sticking on +scruples or raising trifles. Tell me all!" + +"I will tell you nothing!" she replied with the same quiet firmness. "I +have suffered. I suffer. Can you not suffer a little?" + +"Not blasphemy!" he said. "Not that! Tell me"--his voice, his face grew +suppliant--"tell me only that it was not your voice, Anne. Tell me that +it was not you who spoke! Tell me--but that." + +"I will tell you nothing!" she answered in the same tone. + +"You do not know----" + +"I know what it is you have in your mind!" she replied. "What it is you +are thinking of me. That they will burn me in the Bourg du Four +presently, as they burned the girl in Aix last year! As they burned the +woman in Besançon not many months since; I have seen those who saw it. +As they did to two women in Zurich--my mother was there! As they did to +five hundred people in Geneva in my grandfather's time. It is that," she +continued, a strange wild light in her eyes, "that you think they will +do to me?" + +"God forbid!" he cried. + +"Nay, you may do it, too, if you choose," she answered, gravely +regarding him. "But I do not think you will, for you are young, almost +as young as I am, and, having done it, you would have many years to live +and think. You would remember in those years that it was my mother who +nursed your father, that it was you who came to us not we to you, that +it was you who promised to aid us, not I who sought your aid! You would +remember all these things of a morning when you awoke early: and +this--that in the end you gave me up to the law and burned me." + +"God forbid!" he cried, and hid his face with his hands. The very +quietness of her speech set an edge on horror. "God forbid!" + +"Ay, but men allow!" she answered drearily. "What if I was mad last +night, and in my madness denied my Maker? I am sane to-day, but I must +burn, if it be known! I must burn!" + +"Not by my mouth!" he cried, his brow damp with sweat. "Never, I swear +it! If there be guilt, on my head be the guilt!" + +"You mean it? You mean that?" she said. + +"I do." + +"You will be silent?" + +"I will." + +Her lips parted, hope in her eyes shone--hope which showed how deep her +despair had been. "And you will ask no questions?" she whispered. + +"I will ask no questions," he answered. He stifled a sigh. + +She drew a deep breath of relief, but she did not thank him. It was a +thing for which no thanks could be given. She stood a while, sad and +thoughtful, reflecting, it seemed, on what had passed; then she turned +slowly and left him, crossed the open space, and entered the house, +walking as one under a heavy burden. + +And he? He remained, troubled at one time by the yearning to follow and +comfort and cherish her; cast at another into a cold sweat by the +recollection of that voice in the night, and the strange ties which +bound her to Basterga. Innocent, it seemed to him, that connection could +not be. Based on aught but evil it could hardly be. Yet he must endure, +witness, cloak it. He must wait, helpless and inactive, the issue of it. +He must lie on the rack, drawn one way by love of her, drawn the other +by daily and hourly suspicions, suspicions so strong and so terrible +that even love could hardly cast them out. + +For the voice he had heard at midnight, and the horrid laughter, which +greeted the words of sacrilege--were facts. And her subjection to +Basterga, the man of evil past the evil name, was a fact. And her terror +and her avowal were facts. He could not doubt, he could not deny them. +Only--he loved her. He loved her even while he doubted her, even while +he admitted that women as young and as innocent had been guilty of the +blackest practices and the most evil arts. He loved her and he suffered: +doubting, though he could not abandon her. The air was fresh about him, +the world lay sunlit under his eyes. But the beauty of the world had not +saved young and tender women, who on such mornings had walked barefoot, +none comforting them, to the fiery expiation of their crimes. +Perhaps--perhaps among the thousands who had witnessed their last agony, +one man hidden in the crowd, had vainly closed ears and eyes, one man +had died a hundred deaths in one. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +AUCTIO FIT: VENIT VITA. + + +In his spacious chestnut-panelled parlour, in a high-backed oaken chair +that had throned for centuries the Abbots of Bellerive, Messer Blondel +sat brooding with his chin upon his breast. The chestnut-panelled +parlour was new. The shields of the Cantons which formed a frieze above +the panels shone brightly, the or and azure, gules and argent of their +quarterings, undimmed by time or wood-smoke. The innumerable panes of +the long heavily leaded windows which looked out on the Bourg du Four +were still rain-proof; the light which they admitted still found +something garish in the portrait of the Syndic--by Schouten--that formed +the central panel of the mantelpiece. New and stately, the room had not +its pair in Geneva; and dear to its owner's heart had it been a short, a +very short time before. He had anticipated no more lasting pleasure, +looked forward to no safer gratification for his declining years, than +to sit, as he now sat, surrounded by its grandeur. In due time--not at +once, lest the people take alarm or his enemies occasion--he had +determined to rebuild the whole house after the same fashion. The plans +of the oaken gallery, the staircase and dining-chamber, prepared by a +trusty craftsman of Basle, lay at this moment in the drawer of the +bureau beside his chair. + +Now all was changed. A fiat had gone forth, which placed him alike +beyond the envy of his friends, and the hatred of his foes. He must +die. He must die, and leave these pleasant things, this goodly room, +that future of which he had dreamed. Another man would lie warm in the +chamber he had prepared; another would be Syndic and bear his wand. The +years of stately plenty which he had foreseen, were already as last +year's harvest. No wonder that the sheen of portrait and panel, the +pride of echoing oak, were fled; or that the eyes with which he gazed on +the things about him were dull and lifeless. + +Dull and lifeless at one moment, and clouded by the apathy of despair; +at another bright with the fierce fever of revolt. In the one phase or +the other he had passed many hours of late, some of them amid the +dead-sea grandeur of this room. And he had had his hours of hope also. A +fortnight back a ray of hope, bright as the goblin light which shines +the more brilliantly the darker be the night, had shone on him and +amused and enchanted him. And then, in one moment, God and man--or if +not God, the devil--had joined to quench the hope; and this morning he +sat sunk in deepest despair, all in and around him dark. Hitherto he had +regarded appearances. He had hidden alike his malady and his fears, his +apathy and his mad revolt; he had lived as usual. But this morning he +was beyond that. He could not rouse himself, he could not be doing. His +servants, wondering why he did not go abroad or betake himself to some +task, came and peeped at him, and went away whispering and pointing and +nudging one another. And he knew it. But he paid no heed to them or to +anything, until it happened that his eyes, resting dully on the street, +marked a man who paused before the door and looked at the house, in +doubt it seemed, whether he should seek to enter or should pass on. + +For an appreciable time the Syndic watched the loiterer without seeing +him. What did it matter to a dying man--a man whom heaven, impassive, +abandoned to the evil powers--who came or who went? But by-and-by his +eyes conveyed the identity of the man to his brain; and he rose to his +feet, laying his hands on a bell which stood on the table beside him. In +the act of ringing he changed his mind, and laying the bell down, he +strode himself to the outer door, the house door, and opened it. The man +was still in the street. Scarcely showing himself, Blondel caught his +eye, signed to him to enter, and held the door while he did so. + +Claude Mercier--for he it was--entered awkwardly. He followed the Syndic +into the parlour, and standing with his cap in his hand, began +shamefacedly to explain that he had come to learn how the Syndic was, +after--after that which had happened----He did not finish the sentence. + +For that matter, Blondel did not allow him to finish. He had passed at +sight of the youth into the other of the two conditions between which +his days were divided. His eyes glittered, his hands trembled. "Have you +done anything?" he asked eagerly; and the voice in which he said it +surprised the young man. "Have you done anything?" + +"As to Basterga, do you mean, Messer Syndic?" + +"As to what else? What else?" + +"No, Messer Blondel, I have not." + +"Nor learned anything?" + +"No, nothing." + +"But you don't mean--to leave it there?" Blondel cried, his voice rising +high. And he sat down and rose up again. "You have done nothing, but you +are going to do something? What will it be? What?" And then as he +discerned the other's surprise, and read suspicion in his eyes, he +curbed himself, lowered his tone, and with an effort was himself. "Young +man," he said, wiping his brow, "I am still ridden--by what happened +last night. I have lain, since we parted, under an overwhelming sense of +the presence of evil. Of evil," he repeated, still speaking a little +wildly, "such as this God-fearing town should not know even by repute! +You think me over-anxious? But I have felt the hot blast of the furnace +on my cheek, my head bears even now the smell of the burning. Hell gapes +near us!" He was beginning to tremble afresh, partly with impatience of +this parleying, partly with anxiety to pluck from the other his answer. +The glitter was returning to his eyes. "Hell gapes near us," he +repeated. "And I ask you, young man, what are you going to do?" + +"I?" + +"Yes, you!" + +Claude stared. "What would you have me do?" he asked. + +"What would you have done last night?" the Syndic retorted. "Did you ask +me then? Did you wait for my permission? Did you wait even for my +presence?" + +"No, but----" + +"But what?" + +"Things are changed." + +"Changed? How?" Blondel's tone sank to one of unnatural calm; but his +frame shook and his face was purple with the pressure he put upon +himself. "What is changed? Who has changed it?" he continued; to see his +chance of life hang on the will of this imbecile was almost more than he +could bear. "Speak out! Let me know what has happened." + +"You know what happened as well as I do," Claude answered slowly. He had +given his word to the girl that he would not interfere, but he began to +see difficulties of which he had not thought. "It was enough for me! He +may be all you said he was, Messer Syndic, but----" + +"But you no longer burn to break the spell?" Blondel cried. "You no +longer desire to snatch from him the woman you love? You will stand by +and see her perish body and soul in this web of iniquity? You are +frightened, and will leave her to the law!" He thrust out his thin +flushed face, his pointed beard wagging malignantly. "For that is what +will come of it! To the law, you understand! I warn you, the magistrates +in Geneva bear not the sword in vain." + +The young man's brow grew damp. The crisis was nearer than he had +feared. "But--she has done nothing!" he faltered. + +"The tool with the hand that uses it! The idol and him who made it!" the +Syndic cried, swaying himself to and fro. + +Claude stared. "But you know nothing!" he made shift to say after a +pause. "You have nothing against her, Messer Blondel. He may be all you +say, but she----" + +"I have ears!" + +The tone said more than the words, and Claude trembled. He knew the +width of the net where witchcraft or blasphemy was in question. He knew +that, were Basterga seized, all in the house would be taken with him, +and though men often escaped for the fright, it was seldom that women +went free so cheaply. The knowledge of this tied his tongue; and urgent +as he felt the need to be, he could only glare helplessly at the +magistrate. + +Blondel, on his part, saw the effect of his words, and desperately +resolved to force the young man to his will, he followed up the blow. +"If you would see her burn, well and good!" he cried. "It is for you to +choose. Either break the spell, bring me the box, and set her free; or +see the law take its course! Last night----" + +"Last night," Claude replied, hurt to the quick, "you were not so bold, +Messer Blondel!" + +The Syndic winced, but merged his wrath in an anxiety a thousand times +deeper. "Last night is not to-day," he answered. "Midnight is not +daylight! I have told you where the spell is, where, at least, it is +reputed to be, what it does, and under what sway it lays her; you who +love her--and I see you do--you who have access to the house at all +hours, who can watch him out----" + +"We watched him out last night!" Claude muttered. + +"Ay, but day is day! In the daylight----" + +"But it is not laid on me to do this! I am not the only one----" + +"You love her!" + +"Who has access to the house." + +"Are you a coward?" + +Claude breathed hard. He was driven to the wall. Between his promise to +her, and the Syndic's demand, he found himself helpless. And the demand +was not so unreasonable. For it was true that he loved her, and that he +had access to the house; and if the plan suggested seemed unusual, if it +was not the course most obvious or most natural, it was hardly for him +to cavil at a scheme which promised to save her, not only from the evil +influence which mysteriously swayed her, but from the law, and the +danger of an accusation of witchcraft. Apart from his promise he would +have chosen this course; as it had been his first impulse to pursue it +the evening before. But now he had given his word to her that he would +not interfere, and he was conscious that he understood but in part how +she stood. That being so---- + +"A coward!" the Syndic repeated, savagely and coarsely. He had waited in +intolerable suspense for the other's answer. "That is what you are, with +all your boasting!--A coward! Afraid of--why, man, of what are you +afraid? Basterga?" + +"It may be," Claude answered sullenly. + +"Basterga? Why----" But on the word Blondel stopped; and over his face +came a startling change. The rage died out of it and the flush; and +fear, and a cringing embarrassment, took the place of them. In the same +instant the change was made, and Claude saw that which caused it. +Basterga himself stood in the half-open doorway, looking towards them. + +For a few seconds no one spoke. The magistrate's tongue clave to the +roof of his mouth, as the scholar advanced, cap in hand, and bowed to +one and the other. The florid politeness of his bearing thinly veiling +the sarcasm of his address when he spoke. + +"O mire conjunctio!" he said. "Happy is Geneva where age thinks no shame +of consorting with youth! And youth, thrice happy, imbibes wisdom at the +feet of age! Messer Blondel," he continued, looking to him, and dropping +in a degree the irony of his tone, "I have not seen you for so long, I +feared that something was amiss, and I come to inquire. It is not so, I +hope?" + +The Syndic, unable to mask his confusion, forced a sickly phrase of +denial. He had dreaded nothing so much as to be surprised by Basterga in +the young man's company: for his conscience warned him that to find him +with Mercier and to read his plan, would be one and the same thing to +the scholar's astuteness. And here was the discovery made, and made so +abruptly and at so unfortunate a moment that to carry it off was out of +his power, though he knew that every halting word and guilty look bore +witness against him. + +"No? that is well," Basterga answered, smiling broadly as he glanced +from one face to the other. "That is well!" He had the air of a +good-natured pedagogue who espies his boys in a venial offence, and will +not notice it save by a sly word. "Very well! And you, my friend," he +continued, addressing Claude, "is it not true what I said, + + Terque Quaterque redit! + +You fled in haste last night, but we meet again! Your method in affairs +is the reverse, I fear, of that which your friend here would advise: +namely, that to carry out a plan one should begin slowly, and end +quickly; thereby putting on the true helmet of Plato, as it has been +called by a learned Englishman of our time." + +Claude glowered at him, almost as much at a loss as the Syndic, but for +another reason. To exchange commonplaces with the man who held the woman +he loved by an evil hold, who owned a power so baneful, so foul--to +bandy words with such an one was beyond him. He could only glare at him +in speechless indignation. + +"You bear malice, I fear," the big man said. There was no doubt that he +was master of the situation. "Do you know that in the words of the same +learned person whom I have cited--a marvellous exemplar amid that +fog-headed people--vindictive persons live the life of witches, who as +they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate." + +The blood left Claude's face. "What do you mean?" he muttered, finding +his voice at last. + +"Who hates, burns. Who loves, burns also. But that is by the way." + +"Burns?" + +"Ay," with a grin, "burns! It seems to come home to you. Burns! Fie, +young man; you hate, I fear, beyond measure, or love beyond measure, if +you so fear the fire. What, you must leave us? It is not very mannerly," +with sarcasm, "to go while I speak!" + +But Claude could bear no more. He snatched his cap from the table, and +with an incoherent word, aimed at the Syndic and meant for +leave-taking, he made for the door, plucked it open and disappeared. + +The scholar smiled as he looked after him. "A foolish young man," he +said, "who will assuredly, if he be not stayed, end unfortunate. It is +the way of Frenchmen, Messer Blondel. They act without method and strike +without intention, bear into age the follies of youth, and wear the +gravity neither of the north nor of the south. But that reminds me," he +continued, speaking low and bending towards the other with a look of +sympathy--"you are better, I hope?" + +The words were harmless, but they conveyed more than their surface +meaning, and they touched the Syndic to the quick. He had begun to +compose himself; now he had much ado not to gnash his teeth in the +scholar's face. "Better?" he ejaculated bitterly. "What chance have I of +being better? Better? Are you?" He began to tremble, his hands on the +arms of his chair. "Otherwise, if you are not, you will soon have cause +to know what I feel." + +"I am better," Basterga answered with fervour. "I thank Heaven for it." + +Blondel rose to his feet, his hands still clutching the chair. "What!" +he cried. "You--you have not tried the----" + +"The _remedium_?" The scholar shook his head. "No, on the contrary, I am +relieved from my fears. The alarm was baseless. I have it not, I thank +Heaven. I have not the disease. Nor, if there be any certainty in +medicine, shall have it." + +The Syndic, alas for human nature, could have struck him in the face! + +"You have it not?" he snarled. "You have it not?" And then regaining +control of himself, "I suppose I ought," with a forced and ghastly +smile, "to felicitate you on your escape." + +"Rather to felicitate yourself," Basterga answered. "Or so I had hoped +two days ago." + +"Myself?" + +"Yes," Basterga replied lightly. "For as soon as I found that I had no +need of the _remedium_, I thought of you. That was natural. And it +occurred to me--nay, calm yourself!" + +"Quick! Quick! + +"Nay, calm yourself, my dear Messer Blondel," Basterga repeated with +outward solicitude and inward amusement. "Be calm, or you will do +yourself an injury; you will indeed! In your state you should be +prudent; you should govern yourself--one never knows. And besides, the +thought, to which I refer--I see you recognise what it was----" + +"Yes! yes! Go on! Go on!" + +"Proved futile." + +"Futile?" + +"Yes, I am sorry to say it. Futile." + +"Futile!" The wretched man's voice rose almost to a scream as he +repeated the word. He rose and sat down again. "Then how did you--why +did you----" He stopped, fighting for words, and, unable to frame them, +clutched the air with his hands. A moment he mouthed dumbly, then "Tell +me!" he gasped. "Speak, man, speak! How was it? Cannot you see--that you +are killing me?" + +Basterga saw indeed that he had gone nearer to it than he had intended: +for a moment the starting eyes and purple face alarmed him. In all +haste, he gave up playing with the others fears. "It occurred to me," he +said, "that as I no longer needed the medicine myself, there was only +the Grand Duke to be considered, I thought that he might be willing to +waive his claim, since he is as yet free from the disease. And four +days ago I despatched a messenger whom I could trust to him at Turin. I +had hopes of a favourable reply, and in that event, I should not have +lost a minute in waiting upon you. For I am bound to say, Messer +Blondel"--the big man rubbed his chin and eyed the other +benevolently--"your case appealed to me in an especial manner. I felt +myself moved, I scarcely know why, to do all I could on your behalf. +Alas, the answer dashed my hopes." + +"What was it?" Blondel's voice sounded hollow and unnatural. Sunk in the +high-backed chair, his chin fallen on his breast, it was in his eyes +alone, peering from below bent brows, that he seemed to live. + +"He would not waive his claim," Basterga answered gently, "save on +a--but in substance that was all." + +Blondel raised himself slowly and stiffly in the chair. His lips parted. +"In substance?" he muttered hoarsely, "There was more then?" + +Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "There was. Save, the Grand Duke added, +on the condition--but the condition which followed was inadmissible." + +Blondel gave vent to a cackling laugh. "Inadmissible?" he muttered. +"Inadmissible." And then, "You are not a dying man, Messer Basterga, or +you would think--few things inadmissible." + +"Impossible, then." + +"What was it? What was it?"--with a gesture eloquent of the impatience +that was choking him. + +"He asked," Basterga replied reluctantly, "a price." + +"A price?" + +The big man nodded. + +The Syndic rose up and sat down again. "Why did you not say so? Why did +you not say so at once?" he cried fiercely. "Is it about that you have +been fencing all this time? Is that what you were seeking? And I +fancied--A price, eh? I suppose"--in a lower tone, and with a gleam of +cunning in his eyes--"he does not really want--the impossible? I am not +a very rich man, Messer Basterga--you know that; and I am sure you would +tell him. You would tell him that men do not count wealth here as they +do in Genoa or Venice, or even in Florence. I am sure you would put him +right on that," with a faint whine in his tone. "He would not strip a +man to the last rag. He would not ask--thousands for it." + +"No," Basterga answered, with something of asperity and even contempt in +his tone. "He does not ask thousands for it, Messer Blondel. But he +asks, none the less, something you cannot give." + +"Money?" + +"No." + +"Then--what is it?" Blondel leant forward in growing fury. "Why do you +fence with me? What is it, man?" + +Basterga did not answer for a moment. At length, shrugging his +shoulders, and speaking between jest and earnest, "The town of Geneva," +he said. "No more, no less." + +The Syndic started violently, then was still. But the hand which in the +first instant of surprise he had raised to shield his eyes, trembled; +and behind it great drops of sweat rose on his brow, and bore witness to +the conflict in his breast. + +"You are jesting," he said presently, without removing his hand. + +"It is no jest," Basterga answered soberly. "You know the Grand Duke's +keen desire. We have talked of it before. And were it only a matter," he +shrugged his shoulders, "of the how--of ways and means in fact--there +need be no impossibility, your position being what it is. But I know +the feeling you entertain on the subject, Messer Blondel; and though I +do not agree with you, for we look at the thing from different sides, I +had no hope that you would come to it." + +"Never!" + +"No. So much so, that I had it in my mind to keep the condition to +myself. But----" + +"Why did you not, then?" + +"Hope against hope," the big man answered, with a shrug and a laugh. +"After all, a live dog is better than a dead lion--only you will not see +it. We are ruled, the most of us, by our feelings, and die for our side +without asking ourselves whether a single person would be a ducat the +worse if the other side won. It is not philosophical," with another +shrug. "That is all." + +Apparently Blondel was not listening, for "The Duke must be mad!" he +ejaculated, as the other uttered his last word. + +"Oh no." + +"Mad!" the Syndic repeated harshly, his eyes still shaded by his hand. +"Does he think," with bitterness, "that I am the man to run through the +streets crying 'Viva Savoia!' To raise a hopeless _émeute_ at the head +of the drunken ruffians who, since the war, have been the curse of the +place! And be thrown into the common jail, and hurried thence to the +scaffold! If he looks for that----" + +"He does not." + +"He is mad." + +"He does not," Basterga repeated, unmoved. "The Grand Duke is as sane as +I am." + +"Then what does he expect?" + +But the big man laughed. "No, no, Messer Blondel," he said. "You push me +too far. You mean nothing, and meaning nothing, all's said and done. I +wish," he continued, rising to his feet, and reverting to the tone of +sympathy which he had for the moment laid aside, "I wish I might +endeavour to show you the thing as I see it, in a word, as a philosopher +sees it, and as men of culture in all ages, rising above the prejudices +of the vulgar, have seen it. For after all, as Persius says, + + Live while thou liv'st! for death will make us all, + A name, a nothing, but an old wife's tale. + +But I must not," reluctantly. "I know that." + +The Syndic had lowered his hand; but he still sat with his eyes averted, +gazing sullenly at the corner of the floor. + +"I knew it when I came," Basterga resumed after a pause, "and therefore +I was loth to speak to you." + +"Yes." + +"You understand, I am sure?" + +The Syndic moved in his chair, but did not speak, and Basterga took up +his cap with a sigh. "I would I had brought you better news, Messer +Blondel," he said, as he rose and turned to go. "But _Cor ne edito!_ I +am the happier for speaking, though I have done no good!" And with a +gesture of farewell, not without its dignity, he bowed, opened the door, +and went out, leaving the Syndic to his reflections. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +BY THIS OR THAT. + + +Long after Basterga, with an exultant smile and the words "I have limed +him!" on his lips, had passed into the Bourg du Four and gone to his +lodging, the Syndic sat frowning in his chair. From time to time a sigh +deep and heart-rending, a sigh that must have melted even Petitot, even +Baudichon, swelled his breast; and more than once he raised his eyes to +his painted effigy over the mantel, and cast on it a look that claimed +the pity of men and Heaven. + +Nevertheless with each sigh and glance, though sigh and glance lost no +whit of their fervour, it might have been observed that his face grew +brighter; and that little by little, as he reflected on what had passed, +he sat more firmly and strongly in his chair. + +Not that he purposed buying his life at the price which Basterga had put +on it. Never! But when a ship is on the lee-shore it is pleasant to know +that if one anchor fails to hold there is a second, albeit a borrowed +one. The knowledge steadies the nerves and enables the mind to deal more +firmly with the crisis. Or--to put the image in a shape nearer to the +fact--though the power to escape by a shameful surrender may sap the +courage of the garrison, it may also enable it to array its defences +without panic. The Syndic, for the present at least, entertained no +thought of saving himself by a shameful compliance; it was indeed +because the compliance was so shameful, and the impossibility of +stooping to it so complete, that he sighed thus deeply, and raised eyes +so piteous to his own portrait. He who stood almost in the position of +Pater Patriæ to Geneva, to betray Geneva! He the father of his country +to betray his country! Perish the thought! But, alas, he too must +perish, unless he could hit on some other way of winning the _remedium_. + +Still, it is not to be gainsaid that the Syndic went about the search +for this other way in a more cheerful spirit; and revolved this plan and +that plan in a mind more at ease. The ominous shadow of the night, the +sequent gloom of the morning were gone; in their place rode an almost +giddy hopefulness to which no scheme seemed too fanciful, no plan +without its promise. Betray his country! Never, never! Though, be it +noted, there was small scope in the Republic for such a man as himself, +and he had received and could receive but a tithe of the honour he +deserved! While other men, Baudichon and Petitot for instance, to say +nothing of Fabri and Du Pin, reaped where they had not sown. + +That, by the way; for it had naught to do with the matter in hand--the +discovery of a scheme which would place the _remedium_ within his grasp. +He thought awhile of the young student. He might make a second attempt +to coerce him. But Claude's flat refusal to go farther with the matter, +a refusal on which, up to the time of Basterga's abrupt entrance, the +Syndic had made no impression, was a factor; and reluctantly, after some +thought, Blondel put him out of his mind. + +To do the thing himself was his next idea. But the scare of the night +before had given him a distaste for the house; and he shrank from the +attempt with a timidity he did not understand. He held the room in +abhorrence, the house in dread; and though he told himself that in the +last resort--perhaps he meant the last but one--he should venture, +while there was any other way he put that plan aside. + +And there was another way: there were others through whom the thing +could be done. Grio, indeed, who had access to the room and the box, was +Basterga's creature; and the Syndic dared not tamper with him. But there +was a third lodger, a young fellow, of whom the inquiries he had made +respecting the house had apprised him. Blondel had met Gentilis more +than once, and marked him; and the lad's weak chin and shifty eyes, no +less than the servility with which he saluted the magistrate had not +been lost on the observer. The youth, granted he was not under +Basterga's thumb, was unlikely to refuse a request backed by authority. + +As he reflected, the very person who was in his thoughts passed the +window, moving with the shuffling gait and sidelong look which betrayed +his character. The Syndic took his presence for an omen: tempted by it, +he rose precipitately, seized his head-gear and cane, and hurried into +the street. He glanced up and down, and saw Louis in the distance moving +in the direction of the College. He followed. Three or four youths, +bearing books, were hastening in the same direction through the narrow +street of the Coppersmiths, and the Syndic fell in behind them. He dared +not hasten over-much, for a dozen curious eyes watched him from the +noisy beetle-browed stalls on either side; and presently, finding that +he did not gain, he was making up his mind to await a better occasion, +when Louis, abandoning a companion who had just joined him, dived into +one of the brassfounders' shops. + +The Syndic walked on slowly, returning here and there a reverential +salute. He was nearly at the gate of the College, when Louis, late and +in haste, overtook him, and hurried by him. Blondel doubted an instant +what he should do; doubted now the moment for action was come the +wisdom of the step he had in his mind. But a feverish desire to act had +seized upon him, and after a moment's hesitation he raised his voice. +"Young man," he said, "a moment! Here!" + +Louis, not quite out of earshot, turned, found the magistrate's eye upon +him, wavered, and at last came to him. He cringed low, wondering what he +had done amiss. + +"I know your face," Blondel said, fixing him with a penetrating look. +"Do you not lodge, my lad, in a house in the Corraterie? Near the Porte +Tertasse?" + +"Yes, Messer Syndic," Louis answered, overpowered by the honour of the +great man's address, and still wondering what evil was in store for him. + +"The Mère Royaume's?" + +"Yes, Messer Syndic." + +"Then you can do me--or rather"--with an expression of growing +severity--"you can do the State a service. Step this way, and listen to +me, young man!" And his asperity increased by the fear that he was +taking an unwise step, he told the youth, in curt stiff sentences, such +facts as he thought necessary. + +The young student listened thunderstruck, his mouth open, and an +expression of fatuous alarm on his face. "Letters?" he muttered, when +the Syndic had come to a certain point in the story he had decided to +tell. + +"Yes, papers of importance to the State," the Syndic replied weightily, +"of which it is necessary that possession should be taken as quietly as +possible." + +"And they are----" + +"They are in the steel box chained to the wall of his apartment. Be it +your task, young man, to bring the box and the letters unread and +untouched to me. Opportunities of securing them in Messer Basterga's +absence cannot but occur," he continued more benignly. "Choose one +wisely, use it boldly, and the care of your fortunes will be in better +hands than yours! A word to Basterga, on the other hand," Blondel +continued slowly, and with a deadly look--he had not failed to notice +that Louis winced at the name of Basterga--"and you will find yourself +in the prison of the Two Hundred, destined to share the fate of the +conspirators." + +The young man began to shake. "Conspirators?" he cried faintly. The word +brought vividly before him the horrors of the scaffold and the wheel. +"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Why did I go to that house to lodge?" + +"Do your duty," the Syndic said, "and you need fear nothing." + +"But if I cannot--do it?" the youth stammered, his teeth chattering. He +to penetrate to Basterga's room unbidden! He to rob the formidable man +and perhaps be caught in the act! He to deceive him and meet his eye at +meals! Impossible! "But if I cannot--do it?" he repeated, cowering. + +"The State knows no such word!" the Syndic returned grimly. "Cannot," he +continued slowly, "means will not. Do your duty and fear nothing. Do it +not, pause, hesitate, breathe but a syllable of that which I have told +you, and you will have all to fear. All!" + +He saw too late that it was he himself who had all to fear; that in +taking the lad before him into his confidence, he had placed himself in +the hands of a craven. But he had done it. He had gone too far, moved by +the foolish impulse of the moment, to retreat. His sole chance lay in +showing the lad on which side danger pressed him most closely; on +frightening him completely. And when Louis did not reply:-- + +"You do not answer me?" Blondel said in his sternest tones. "You do not +reply? Am I to understand that you decline? That you refuse to perform +the task which the State assigns to you? In that case be sure you will +perish with those whom the Two Hundred know to be the enemies of Geneva, +and for whom the rack and the wheel are at this moment prepared." + +"No!" Louis cried passionately; he almost fell on his knees in the open +street. "No, no! I will go anywhere, do anything, Messer Syndic! I swear +I will; I am no enemy! No conspirator!" + +"You may be no enemy. But you must show yourself a friend!" + +"I will! I will indeed." + +"And no syllable of this will pass your lips?" + +"As I live, Messer Syndic! Nothing! Nothing!" + +When he had repeated this several times with the earnestness of extreme +terror, and appeared to have laid to heart such particulars as Blondel +thought he should know, the Syndic dismissed him, letting him go with a +last injunction to be silent and a last threat. + +By mere force of habit the lad would have gone forward and entered the +College; but on the threshold he felt how unfit he was to meet his +fellows' eyes, and he turned and hastened as fast as his trembling limbs +would carry him towards his home. The streets, to his excited +imagination, were full of spies; he fancied his every movement watched, +his footsteps counted. If he lingered they might suppose him lukewarm, +if he paused they might think him ill-affected. His speed must show his +zeal. His poor little heart beat in his breast as if it would spring +from it, but he did not stay nor look aside until the door of the house +in the Corraterie closed behind him. + +Then within the house there fell upon him--alas! what a thing it is to +be a coward--a new fear. The fear was not the fear of Basterga, the +bully and cynic, whom he had known and fawned on and flattered; but of +Basterga the dark and dangerous conspirator, of whom he now heard, ready +to repay with the dagger the least attempt to penetrate his secrets! On +his entrance he had flung himself face downward on his pallet in the +little closet in which he slept; but at that thought he sprang up, +suffocated by it; already he fancied himself in the hands of the +desperadoes whom he had betrayed, already he pictured slow and lingering +deaths. But again, at the remembrance of the task laid upon him, he +flung himself prostrate, writhing, and cursing his fate, and shedding +tears of panic. He to beard Basterga! He to betray him! Impossible! Yet +if he failed, the rack and the wheel awaited him. Either way lay danger, +on either side yawned torture and death. And he was a coward. He wept +and shuddered, abandoning himself to a very paroxysm of terror. + +When his door was pushed open a minute later, he did not hear the +movement; with his head buried in the pillow he did not see the face of +wonder, mingled with alarm, which viewed him from the doorway. He had +forgotten that it was Anne Royaume's custom to attend to the young men's +rooms during their absence at the afternoon lecture; and when her voice, +asking in startled accents what was amiss and if he were ill, reached +his ears, he sought, with a smothered shriek, to cover his head with the +bedclothes. He fancied that Basterga was upon him! + +"What is the matter?" she repeated, advancing slowly to the side of the +bed. Then, getting no answer, she dragged the coverlet off him. "What is +it? Don't you know me?" + +He sat up then, saw who it was and came gradually to himself, but with +many sighs and tears. She stood, looking down on him with contempt. "Has +some one been beating you?" she asked, and searched with hard eyes--he +had been no friend to her--for signs of ill-treatment. + +He shook his head. "Worse," he sobbed. "Far worse! Oh, what will become +of me? What will become of me? Lord, have mercy upon me! Lord, have +mercy upon me!" + +Her lip curled. Perhaps she was comparing him with another youth who had +spoken to her that morning in a different strain. + +"I don't think it matters much," she said scornfully, "what becomes of +you." + +"Matters?" he exclaimed. + +"If you are such a coward as this! Tell me what it is. What has +happened? If it is not that some one has beaten you, I don't know what +it is--unless you have been doing something wrong, and they have put you +out of the University? Is it that?" + +"No!" he cried fretfully. "Worse, worse! And do you leave me! You can do +nothing! No one can do anything!" + +She had her own troubles, and to-day was almost sinking under them. But +this was not her way of bearing them. She shrugged her shoulders +contemptuously. "Very well," she said, "I will go if I can do nothing." + +"Do?" he cried vehemently. "What can you do?" And then, in the act of +turning from him, she stood; so startling was the change, so marvellous +the transformation which she saw come over his face. "Do," he repeated, +trembling violently, and speaking in a tone as much altered as his +expression. He rose to his feet. "Do? Perhaps you--you can do +something--still. Wait. Please wait a minute! I--I was not quite +myself." He passed his hand across his brow. She did not know that +behind his face of frightened stupor his mind was working cunningly, +following up the idea that had occurred to him. + +She began to think him mad. But though she held him in distaste, she had +no fear of him; and even when he closed the door with a cringing air, +and a look that implored indulgence, she held her ground. "Only, you +need not close the door," she said coldly. "There is no one in the house +except my mother." + +"Messer Basterga?" + +"He has gone out. Is it of him," in sudden enlightenment, "that you are +afraid?" + +He nodded sullenly. "Yes," he said; and then he paused, eyeing her in +doubt if he could trust her. At last, "It is, but, if you dared do it, I +know how I could draw his teeth! How I could"--with the cruel grin of +the coward--"squeeze him! squeeze him!" and he went through the act with +his nervous, shaking fingers. "I could hold him like that! I could hold +him powerless as the dog that would bite and dare not!" + +She stared at him. "You?" she said; it was hard to say whether +incredulity or scorn were written more plainly on her face. "You?" + +"I! I!" he replied, with the same gesture of holding something. "And I +know how to put him in your power also!" + +"In my power!" + +"Ay." + +Her face grew hard as if she too held her enemy passive in her grip. +Then her lip curled, and she laughed in scorn. "Ay! And what must I do +to bring that about? Something, I suppose, you dare not, Louis?" + +"Something you can do more easily than I," he answered doggedly. "A +small thing, too," he continued, clasping his hands in his eagerness and +looking at her with imploring eyes. "A nothing, a mere nothing!" + +"And yet it will do so much?" + +"I swear it will." + +"Then," she retorted, eyeing him shrewdly, "if it is so easy to do why +were you undone a minute ago? And puling like a child in arms?" + +"Because," he said, flushing under her eyes, "it--it is not easy for me +to do. And I did not see my way." + +"It looked like it." + +"But I see it now if you will help me. You have only to take a packet of +letters from his room--and you go there when you please--and he is +yours! While you have the letters he dare not stir hand or foot, lest +you bring him to the scaffold!" + +"Bring him to the scaffold?" + +"Get the letters, give them to me, and I will answer for the rest." +Louis' voice was low, but he shook with excitement. "See!" he continued, +his eyes at all times prominent, almost starting from his head, "it +might be done this minute. This minute!" + +"It might," the girl replied, watching him coldly. "But it will not be +done either this minute or at all unless you tell me what is in the +letters, and how you come to know about them." + +Should he tell her? He fancied that he had no choice. "Messer Blondel +the Syndic wants the letters," he answered sullenly. And, urged farther +by her expression of disbelief, he told the astonished girl the story +which Blondel had told him. The fact that he believed it went far with +her; why, for the rest, doubt a story so extraordinary that it seemed to +bear the stamp of truth? + +"And that is all?" she said when he came to the end. + +"Is it not enough?" + +"It may be enough," she replied, her resolute manner in strange contrast +with his cowardly haste. "Only there is a thing not clear. If the Syndic +knows what is in the letters, why does he not seize them and Basterga +with them--the traitor with the proof of his treason?" + +"Because he is afraid of the Grand Duke," Louis cried. "If he seize +Basterga and miss the proof of his treason, what then?" + +"Then he is not sure that the letters are there?" Anne replied keenly. + +"He is not sure that they would be there when he came to seize them," +Louis answered. "Basterga might have a dozen confederates in the house +ready at a sign to destroy the letters." + +She nodded. + +"And that is what they will make us out to be," he continued, his voice +sinking as his fears returned upon him. "The Syndic threatened as much; +and such things have happened a hundred times. I tell you, if we do not +do something, we shall suffer with him. But do it, and he is in your +power! And if he has any hold on you, it is gone!" + +The blood surged to her face. Hold upon her? Ah! Rage--or was it +hope?--lightened in her eyes and transformed her face. She was thinking, +he guessed, of the hundred insults she had undergone at Basterga's +hands, of the shame-compelling taunts to which she had been forced to +listen, of the loathed touch she had been forced to bear. If there was +aught in her mind beyond this, any motive deeper or more divine, he did +not perceive it; enough, that he saw that she wavered, and he pressed +her. + +"You will be free," he cried passionately. "Freed from him! Freed from +fear of him! Say you will do it! Say that you will do it," he continued +fervently, and he made as if he would kneel before her. "Do it, and I +swear that never shall a word to displease you pass my lips." + +With a glance of scorn that pierced even his selfishness, "Swear only," +she said, "that you have told me the truth! I ask no more." + +"I swear it on my salvation!" + +She drew a deep breath. + +"I will do it," she said. "The steel box which is chained to the wall?" + +"Yes, yes," he panted, "you cannot mistake it. The key----" + +"I know where he keeps it." + +She said no more, but turned, and regarding his thanks as little as if +they had been the wind passing by her, she opened the door, crossed the +living-room, and vanished up the staircase. He followed her as far as +the foot of the stairs, and there stood listening and shifting his feet +and biting his nails in an agony of suspense. She had not deigned to bid +him watch for Basterga's coming, but he did so; his eyes on the outer +door, through which the scholar must enter, and his tongue and feet in +readiness to warn her or save himself, according as the pressure of +danger directed the one or the other step. + +Meanwhile his ears were on the stretch to catch what she did. He heard +her try the door of the room. It was locked. He heard her shake it. Then +he guessed that she fetched a key, for after an interval, which seemed +an age, he caught the grating of the wards in the lock. After that, she +was quiet so long, that but for the apprehensions of Basterga's coming, +which weighed on his coward soul, he must have gone up in sheer jealousy +so see what she was doing. + +Not that he distrusted her. Even while he waited, and while the thing +hung in the balance, he smiled to think how cleverly he had contrived +it. On the side of the authorities he would gain favour by delivering +the letters: on the other side, if Basterga retained power to harm, it +was not he who had taken the letters, nor he who would be exposed to the +first blast of vengeance--but the girl. The blame for her, the credit +for him! From the nettle danger his wits had plucked the flower safety. +But for his fears he could have chuckled; and then he heard her leave +the room, and relock the door. With a gasp of relief, he retired a pace +or two, and waited, his eyes fixed on the doorway through which she must +enter. + +She was long in coming, and when she came his hand, extended to receive +the letters, fell by his side, the whispered question died on his lips. +Her face told him that she had failed. It might have told him also that +she had built far more on the attempt than she had let him perceive. But +what was that to him? It was enough for him that she had not the +letters. He could have torn her with his hands. "Where are they? Where +are they?" he cried, advancing upon her. "You have not got them?" + +"Got them?" And then she straightened herself, and with a passionate +glance at the door, "No! And he has not come in time to take me in the +act, it seems. As I have no doubt you planned, you villain! That I might +be more and deeper in his power!" + +"No! No!" he cried, recoiling. "I never thought of it!" + +"Yes, yes!" she retorted. + +He wrung his hands. How was he to make her understand? "I swear," he +cried, and he fell on his knees with uplifted hands. "I swear on my +knees I thought of no such thing. The tale I told you was true! True, +every word of it! And the letters----" + +"There are no letters!" she said. + +"In the box?" + +"None." + +He sprang to his feet. He shook his fist at her in low ignoble rage. +"You lie!" he cried. "You have not looked. You have played with me. You +have gone into the room and come out again, but you have not looked, you +have not dared to look." + +"I have looked," she answered quietly. "In the box that is chained to +the wall. There are no papers in it. There is nothing in it except a +small phial." + +"A phial?" + +"Of some golden liquid." + +"That is all?" + +"All!" + +Louis Gentilis stared at her, open-mouthed. Had the Syndic deceived him? +Or had some one deceived the Syndic? + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE CUP AND THE LIP. + + +Blondel could not hide the agitation he felt as he listened to his +unexpected visitors, and saw whither their errand tended. Fabri, who was +leader of the deputation of three who had come upon him without warning, +discerned this; much more Baudichon and Petitot, whose eyes were on the +watch for the least sign of weakness. And Blondel was conscious that +they saw it, and on that account strove the more to mask his feelings +under a show of decision. "I have little doubt that I shall have news +within the hour," he said. "Before night, I must have news." And nodding +with the air of a man who knew much which he could not impart, he leant +back in the old abbot's chair. + +But Fabri had not come for that, nor was he to be satisfied with that; +and, after a pause, "Yes," he replied, "I know. That may be so. But you +see, Messer Blondel, this affair is not quite where it was yesterday, or +we should not have come to you to-day. The King of France--I am sure we +are much indebted to him--does not write on light occasions, and his +warning is explicit. From Paris, then, we get the same story as from +Turin. And this being so, and the King's tale agreeing with our +agent's----" + +"He does not mention Basterga!" Blondel objected. He repented the moment +he had said it. + +"By name, no. But he says----" + +"Enough for any one with eyes!" Petitot exclaimed. + +"He says," Fabri repeated, requesting the other by a gesture to be +silent, "that the Grand Duke's emissary is a Paduan expelled from Venice +or from Genoa. That is near enough. And I confess, were I in your place, +Messer Blondel----" + +"With your responsibilities," Petitot muttered through closed teeth. + +"I should want to know--more about him." This from Baudichon. + +Fabri nodded assent. "I think so," he said. "I really think so. In fact, +I may go farther and say that were I in your place, Messer Blondel, I +should seize him to-day." + +"Ay, within the hour!" + +"This minute!" said Baudichon, last of the three. And all three, their +ultimatum delivered, looked at Blondel, a challenge in their eyes. If he +stood out longer, if he still declined to take the step which prudence +demanded, the step on which they were all agreed, they would know that +there was something behind, something of which he had not told them. + +Blondel read the look, and it perturbed him. But not to the point of +sapping the resolution which he had formed at the Council Table, and to +which, once formed, he clung with the obstinacy of an obstinate man. The +_remedium_ first; afterwards what they would, but the _remedium_ first. +He was not going to risk life, warm life, the vista of sunny unending +to-morrows, of springs and summers and the melting of snows, for a +craze, a scare, an imaginary danger! Why at that very minute the lad +whom he had commissioned to seize the thing might be on the way with it. +At any minute a step might sound on the threshold, and herald the +promise of life. And then--then they might deal with Basterga as they +pleased. Then they might hang the Paduan high as Haman, if they pleased. +But until then--his mind was made up. + +"I do not agree with you," he said, his underlip thrust out, his head +trembling a little. + +"You will not arrest him?" + +"No, I shall not arrest him," he replied, hardening himself to meet +their protestant and indignant eyes. "Nor would you," he continued with +bravado, "in my place. If you knew as much as I do." + +"But if you know," Baudichon said, "I would like to know also." + +"The responsibility is mine." Blondel swayed himself from side to side +in his chair as he said it. "The responsibility is mine, and I am +willing to bear it. It is the old difference of policy between us," he +continued, addressing Petitot. "You are willing to grasp at every petty +advantage, I am willing----" + +"To risk much to gain much," Petitot exclaimed. + +"To take some risk to gain a real advantage," Blondel retorted, +correcting him with an eye to Fabri; whom alone, as the one impartial +hearer, he feared. "For to what does the course which you are so eager +to take amount? You seize Basterga: later, you will release him at the +Grand Duke's request. What are we the better? What is gained?" + +"Safety." + +"No, on the other hand, danger. Danger! For, warned that we have +detected their plot, they will hatch another plot, and instead of +working as at present under our eyes, they will work below the surface +with augmented care and secrecy: and will, perhaps, deceive us. No, my +friends"--throwing himself back in his chair with an air of patronage, +almost of contempt--for by dint of repeating his argument he had come to +believe it, and to plume himself upon it--"I look farther ahead than +you do, and for the sake of future gain am willing to take--present +responsibility." + +They were silent awhile: his old mastery was beginning to assert itself. +Then Petitot spoke. "You take a heavy responsibility," he said, "a heavy +charge, Messer Blondel. What if harm come of it?" + +Blondel shrugged his shoulders. + +"You have no wife, Messer Blondel." + +The Fourth Syndic stared. What did the man mean? + +"You have no daughters," Petitot continued, a slight quaver in his tone. +"You have no little children, you sleep well of nights, the fall of +wood-ash does not rouse you, you do not listen when you awake. You do +not----" he paused, the last barrier of reserve broken down, the tears +standing openly in his eyes--"it is foolish perhaps--you do not yearn, +Messer Blondel, to take all you love in your arms, and shelter them and +cover them from the horrors that threaten us, the horrors that may fall +on us--any night! You do not"--he looked at Baudichon and the stout +man's face grew pale, he averted his eyes--"you do not dream of these +things, Messer Blondel, nor awake to fancy them, but we do. We do!" he +repeated in accents which went to the hearts of all, "day and night, +rising and lying down, waking and sleeping. And we--dare run no risks." + +In the silence which followed Blondel's fingers tapped restlessly on the +table. He cleared his throat and voice. + +"But there, I tell you there are no risks," he said. He was moved +nevertheless. + +Petitot bowed, humbly for him. "Very good," he said. "I do not say that +you are not right. But----" + +"And moment by moment I expect news. It might come at this minute, it +might come at any minute," the Syndic continued. With a glance at the +window he moved his chair, as if to shake off the spell that Petitot +had cast over him. "Besides--you do not expect the town to be taken in +an hour from now?" + +"No." + +"In broad daylight?" + +Petitot shook his head, "God knows what I expect!" he murmured +despondently. + +"When the information we have points to a night attack?" + +Fabri nodded. "That is true," he said. + +"And the walls are well guarded at night." + +Fabri nodded again. "Yes," he said, "it is true. I think, Messer +Petitot," he went on, turning to him, "we are a little over-fearful." + +The two others were silent, and Blondel eyed them harshly, aware that he +had mastered them, yet hating them. Petitot's appeal to his +feelings--which had touched and moved Blondel even while he resented it +as something cruel and unfair--had lacked but a little of success. But +missing, failing by ever so little, it left the three ill-equipped to +continue the struggle on lower grounds. They sat silent, Fabri almost +convinced, the others dejected: and Blondel sat silent also, hardened by +his victory, and hating them for the manner of it. Was not his life as +dear to him as their wives and children were to them? And was it not at +stake? Yet he did not whine and pule to them. God! they whine, they +complain, who had long years to live and rose of mornings without +counting the days, and, at the worst and were Geneva taken, had but the +common risks to run and many a chance of escape! While he--yet he did +not pule to them! He did not stab them unfairly, cruelly, striving to +reach their tender spots, to take advantage of their kindness of heart. +He had no thought, no notion of betraying them; but, had he such, it +would serve them right! It would repay them selfishness for +selfishness, greed for greed! In his place they would not hesitate. He +could see at what a price they set their petty lives, and how little +they would scruple to buy them in the dearest market. Well was it for +Geneva that it was he and not they whom God saw fit to try. And he +glowered at them. Wives and daughters! What were wives and daughters +beside life, warm life, life stretching forward pleasantly, +indefinitely, morning after morning, day after day--life and a +continuance of good things? + +Immersed as he was in this train of thought, it was none the less he who +first caught the sound of a foot on the threshold, and a summons at the +door. He rose to his feet. Already in his mind's eye he saw Basterga +cast to the lions: and why not? The sooner the better if the _remedium_ +were really at the door. "There may be news even now," he said, striving +to master his emotion, and to speak with the superiority of a few +minutes before. "One moment, by your leave! I will see and let you know +if it be so, Messer Fabri." + +"Do by all means," Fabri answered earnestly. "You will greatly relieve +me." + +"Ay, indeed, I hope it is so," Petitot murmured. + +"I will see, and--and return," Blondel repeated, beginning to stammer. +"I--I shall not be a minute." The struggle for composure was vain; his +head was on fire, his limbs twitched. Had it come? + +Yet when he reached the door he paused, afraid to open. What if it were +not the _remedium_, what if it were some trifle? What if--but as he +hesitated, his hand, half eager, half reluctant, rested on the latch, +the door slid ajar, and his eyes met the complacent smirking face of his +messenger. He fancied that he read success in Gentilis' looks, and his +heart leapt up. "I shall be back in a moment," he babbled, speaking over +his shoulder to those whom he left. "In a moment, gentlemen, one +moment!" And going out he closed the door behind him--closed it +jealously, that they might not hear. + +"I hope he has news will decide him," Petitot muttered lowering his +voice involuntarily. "Messer Blondel is over-courageous for me!" He +shook his head dismally. + +"He is very courageous," Fabri assented in the same undertone. "Perhaps +even--a little rash." + +Baudichon grunted. "Rash!" he repeated. "I would like to know what he +expects? I would like to know----" + +A cry as of a wild beast cut short the word: a blow, a shriek of pain +followed, the door flew open; as they rose to their feet in wonder, into +the room fell a lad--it was Louis--a red weal across his face, his arm +raised to protect his head. Close on him, his eyes flaming, his cane +quivering in the air, pressed Messer Blondel. In their presence he aimed +another blow at the lad: but the blow fell short, and before he could +raise his stick a third time the astonished looks of the three in the +room reminded him where he was, and in a measure sobered him. But he was +still unable to articulate: and the poor smarting wretch cowering behind +the magistrates was not more deeply or more visibly moved. + +"Steady, steady, Messer Blondel!" Fabri said. "I fear something untoward +has happened. What is it?" And he put himself more decidedly between +them. + +"He has ruined us!" + +"Not that, I hope?" + +"Ruined us! Ruined us!" Blondel panted, his rage almost choking him. "He +had it in his hands and let it go. He let it go!" + +"That which you----" + +"That which I"--a pause--"commissioned him to get." + +"But you did not! Oh, worshipful gentlemen," Gentilis wailed, turning to +them, "indeed, he did not tell me to bring aught but papers! I swear he +did not." + +"Whatever was there, I said! Whatever was there!" the Syndic screamed. + +"No, worshipful sir!" amid a storm of sobs. "No, no! Indeed no! And how +was I to know? There was naught but that in the box, and who would think +treason lay in a----" + +"Mischief lay in it!" + +"In a bottle!" + +"And treason," Blondel thundered, drowning his last word, "for aught you +knew! Who are you to judge where treason lies, or may lie? Oh, pig, dog, +fool," he continued, carried away by a fresh paroxysm of rage, at the +thought that he had had it in his grasp and let it go! "If I could score +your back!" And he brandished his cane. + +"You have scored his face pretty fairly," Baudichon muttered. "To score +his back too----" + +"Were nothing for the offence! Nothing! As you would say if you knew +it," Blondel panted. + +"Indeed?" + +"Ay." + +"Then I would like to know it. What is it he has done?" + +"He has left undone that which he was ordered to do," Blondel answered +more soberly than he had yet spoken. He had recovered something of his +power to reason. "That is what he has done. But for his default we +should at this moment be in a position to seize Basterga." + +"Ay?" + +"Ay, and to seize him with proof of his guilt! Proof and to spare." + +"But I could not know," Louis whimpered. "Worshipful gentlemen, I could +not know. I could not know what it was you wanted." + +"I told you to bring the contents of the box." + +"Letters, ay! Letters, worthy sir, but not----" + +"Silence, and go into that room!" Blondel pointed with a shaking finger +to a small inner serving-room at the end of the parlour. "Go!" he +repeated peremptorily, "and stay there until I come to you." + +Then, but not until the lad had taken his tear-bedabbled face into the +closet and had closed the door behind him, the Syndic turned to the +three. "I ask your pardon," he said, making no attempt to disguise the +agitation which still moved him. "But it was enough, it was more than +enough, to try me." He paused and wiped his brow, on which the sweat +stood in beads. "He had under his hand the papers," looking at them a +little askance as if he doubted whether the explanation would pass, +"that we need! The papers that would convict Basterga. And because they +did not wear the appearance he expected--because they were disguised, +you understand--they were in a bottle in fact--and were not precisely +what he expected----" + +"He left them?" + +"He left them." There was something like a tear, a leaden drop, in the +corner of the Fourth Syndic's eye. + +"Still if he had access to them once," Petitot suggested briskly, "what +has been done once may be done twice. He may gain access to them again. +Why not?" + +"He may, but he may not. Still, I should have thought of that and--and +made allowance," Blondel answered with a fair show of candour. "But too +often an occasion let slip does not return, as you well know. The least +disorder in the box he searched may put Basterga on the alert, and wreck +my plans." + +They did not answer. They felt one and all, Petitot and Baudichon no +less than Fabri, that they had done this man an injustice. His passion, +his chagrin, his singleness of aim, the depth of his disappointment, +disarmed even those who were in the daily habit of differing from him. +Was this--this the man whom they had secretly accused of lukewarmness? +And to whom they had hesitated to entrust the safety of the city? They +had done him wrong. They had not credited him with a tithe of the +feeling, the single-mindedness, the patriotism which it was plain he +possessed. + +They stood silent, while Blondel, aware of the precipice, to the verge +of which his improvident passion had drawn him, watched them out of the +corner of his eye, uncertain how far their comprehension of the scene +had gone. He trembled to think how nearly he had betrayed his secret; +and took the more shame to himself, inasmuch as in cooler blood he saw +the lad's error to be far from irremediable. As Petitot said, that which +could be done so easily and quickly could be done a second time. If only +he had not struck the lad! If only he had commanded himself, and spoken +him fairly and sent him back! Almost by this time the _remedium_ might +be here. Ay, here, in the palm of his hand! The reflection stabbed +Blondel so poignantly, the sense of his folly went so deep, he groaned +aloud. + +That groan fairly won over Baudichon, who was by nature of a kind heart. +"Tut, tut," he said; "you must not take it to heart, Messer Blondel. Try +again." + +"Unless, indeed," Petitot murmured, but with respect, "Messer Blondel +knows the mistake to be fraught with consequences more grave than we +suppose." + +The Fourth Syndic smiled awry: that was precisely what he did know. But +"No," he said, "the thing can be cured. I am sorry I lost my temper. Not +a moment must be wasted, however. I will see this young man: if he +raises any difficulty, I have still another agent whom I can employ. And +by to-morrow at latest----" + +"You may still have the thing in your hands." + +"I think so. I certainly think so." + +"Good. Then till to-morrow," Fabri answered, as he took his cap from the +table and with the others turned towards the door. "Good luck, Messer +Blondel. We are reassured. We feel that our interests are in good +hands." + +"Yes," said Petitot almost warmly. "Still, caution, caution! Messer +Blondel. One bad man within the gates----" + +"May be hung!" Blondel cried gaily. + +"Ay, may be! But unhung is a graver foe than five hundred men without! +It is that I would have you bear in mind." + +"I will bear it in mind," the Fourth Syndic answered. "And when I can +hang him," with a vindictive look, "be sure I will--and high as Haman!" + +He attended them with solicitude to the door, being set by what had +happened a little more upon his behaviour. That done and the outer door +closed upon them, he returned to the parlour, but did not at once seek +the young man, upon whom he had taken the precaution of turning the key. + +Instead he stood a while, pondering with a pale face; a haggard, paler +replica he seemed of the stiff, hard portrait on the panel over the +mantel. He was wondering why he had let himself go so foolishly; he was +recognising with a sinking heart that it was to his illness he owed it +that he had so frequently of late lost control of himself. + +For a man to discover that the power of self-mastery is passing from him +is only a degree less appalling than the consciousness of insanity +itself; and Blondel cowered, trembling under the thought. If aught +could strengthen his purpose it was the suspicion that the insidious +disease from which he suffered was already sapping the outworks of that +mind on whose clever combinations he depended for his one chance of +cure. + +Yet while the thought strengthened, it terrified him. "I must make no +second mistake--no second mistake!" he muttered, his eyes on the door of +the serving-room. "No second mistake!" And he waited a while considering +the matter in all its aspects. Should he tell Louis more than he had +told him already? It seemed needless. To send the lad with curt, stern +words to fetch that which he had omitted to bring--this seemed the more +straight-forward way: and the more certain, too, since the lad had now +seen the other magistrates, and could have no doubt of their concurrence +or of the importance of the task entrusted to him. Blondel decided on +that course, and advancing to the door he opened it and called to his +prisoner to come out. + +To his credit be it said the sight of the lad's wealed face gave the +Syndic something of a shock. He was soon to be more gravely shaken. +Instigated partly by curiosity, partly by the desire to fix Louis' +scared faculties, he began by asking what was the aspect of the phial +which the lad had omitted to bring. "What was its colour and size, and +how full was it?" he proceeded, striving to speak gently and to make +allowance for the cowering weakness of the youth before him. "Do you +hear?" he urged. "Of what shape was it? You can tell that at least. You +handled it, I suppose? You took it out of the metal box?" + +Louis burst into tears. + +Blondel had much ado--for it was true, he had small command of +himself--not to strike the lad again. Instead, "Fool," he said, "what do +your tears help you or advance me? Speak, I tell you, and answer my +question! What was the appearance of this flask or bottle, or what it +was--that you left there?" + +The lad sank to his knees. Fear and pain had robbed him of the petty +cunning he possessed. He no longer knew what to tell nor what to +withhold. And in a breath the truth was out. "Don't strike me!" he +wailed, guarding his smarting face with his arm. "And I'll tell you all! +I will indeed!" + +The Syndic knew then that there was more to learn. "All?" he repeated, +aghast. + +"Ay, the truth. All the truth," Louis moaned. "I didn't see it. I did +not go to it! I dared not! I swear I dared not.'" + +"You did not see it?" the Syndic said slowly. "The phial? You did not +see the phial?" + +"No." + +This time Messer Blondel did not strike. He leant heavily upon the +table; his face, which a moment before had been swollen with impatience, +turned a sickly white. "You--you didn't see it?" he muttered--his tone +had sunk to a whisper. "You didn't see it? Then all you told me was a +lie? There was nothing--no bottle in the box? But how, then, did you +know anything of a bottle? Did he"--with a sharp spasm of pain--"send +you here to tell me this?" + +"No, no! She told me. She looked--for me in the box." + +"Who?" + +"Anne. Anne Royaume! I was afraid," the lad continued, speaking with a +little more confidence, as he saw that the Syndic made no movement to +strike him, "and she said that she would look for me. She could go to +his room, and run little risk. But if he had caught me there he would +have killed me! Indeed he would!" Louis repeated desperately, as he +read the storm-signs that began to darken the Syndic's face. + +"You told her then?" + +"I could not do it myself! I could not indeed." + +He cowered lower; but he fared better than he expected. The Syndic drew +a long fluttering breath, a breath of returning life, of returning hope. +The colour, too, began to come back to his cheeks. After all, it might +have been worse. He had thought it worse. He had thought himself +discovered, tricked, discomfited by the man against whom he had pitted +his wits, with his life for stake. Whereas--it seemed a small thing in +comparison--this meant only the inclusion of one more in the secret, the +running of one more risk, the hazarding another tongue. And the lad had +not been so unwise. She had easier access to the room than he, and ran +less risk of suspicion or detection. Why not employ her in place of the +lad? + +The youth grovelling before him wondered to see him calm, and plucking +up spirit stood upright. "You must go back to her, and ask her to get it +for you," Blondel said firmly. "You can be back within the half-hour, +bringing it." + +Louis began to shrink. His eyes sank. "She will not give it me," he +muttered. + +"No?" Blondel, as he repeated the word, wondered at his own moderation. +But the shock had been heavy; he felt the effect of it. He was languid, +almost half-hearted. Moreover, a new idea had taken root in his mind. +"You can try her," he said. + +"I can try her, but she will not give it me," Louis repeated with a new +obstinacy. As the Syndic grew mild he grew sullen. The change was in the +other, not in himself. Subtly he knew that the Syndic was no longer in +the mood to strike. + +Blondel ruminated. It might be better, it might even be safer, if he saw +the girl himself. The story--of treason and a bottle--which had imposed +on his colleagues might not move her much. It might be wiser to attack +her on other grounds, grounds on which women lay more open. And +self-pity whispered with a tear that the truth, than which he could +conceive nothing more moving, nothing more sublimely sad, might go +farther with a woman than bribes or threats or the most skilful +inventions. He made up his mind. He would tell the truth, or something +like it, something as like it as he dared tell her. + +"Very well," he said, "you can go! But be silent! A word to him--I shall +learn it sooner or later--and you perish on the wheel! You can go now. I +shall put the matter in other hands." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +A MYSTERY SOLVED. + + +Whether Basterga, seeing that Claude was less pliant than he had looked +to find him, shunned occasion of collision with him, or the Paduan being +in better spirits was less prone to fall foul of his companions, certain +it is that life for a time after the outbreak at supper ran more quietly +in the house in the Corraterie. Claude's gloomy face--he had not +forgiven--bade beware of him; and little save on the subject of Louis' +disfigured cheek--of which the most pointed questions could extract no +explanation--passed among them at table. But outward peace was preserved +and a show of ease. Grio's brutal nature broke out once or twice when he +had had wine; but discouraged by Basterga, he subsided quickly. And +Louis, starting at a voice and trembling at a knock, with the fear of +the Syndic always upon him, showed a nervousness which more than once +drew the Italian's eye to him. But on the whole a calm prevailed; a +stranger entering at noon or during the evening meal might have deemed +the party ill-assorted and silent, but lacking neither in amity nor +ease. + +Meantime, under cover of this calm, destined to be short-lived and +holding in suspense the makings of a storm of no mean violence, two +persons were drawing nearer to one another. A confidence, even a +confidence not perfect, is a tie above most. Nor does love play at any +time a higher part than when it repeats "I do not understand--I trust". +By the common light of day, which showed Anne moving to and fro about +her household tasks, at once the minister and the providence of the +home, the dark suspicion that had for a moment--a moment only!--mastered +Claude's judgment, lost shape and reality. It was impossible to see her +bending over the hearth, or arranging her mother's simple meal, it was +impossible to witness her patience, her industry, her deftness, to +behold her, ever gentle yet supporting with a man's fortitude the trials +of her position, trials of the bitterness of which she had given him +proof--it was impossible, in a word, to watch her in her daily life, +without perceiving the wickedness as well as the folly of the thought +which had possessed him. + +True, the more he saw of her the graver seemed the mystery; and the more +deeply he wondered. But he no longer dreaded the answer to the riddle; +nor did he fear to meet at some turn or corner a Megæra head that should +freeze his soul. Wickedness there might be, cruelty there might be, and +shame; but the blood ran too briskly in his veins and he had looked too +often into the girl's candid eyes--reading something there which had not +been there formerly--to fear to find either at her door. + +He had taken to coming to the living-room a little before nightfall; +there he would seat himself beside the hearth while she prepared the +evening meal. The glow of the wood-fire, reflected in rows of burnished +pewters, or given back by the night-backed casements, the savour of the +coming meal, the bubbling of the black pot between which and the table +her nimble feet carried her a dozen times in as many minutes, the +pleasant, homely room with its touches of refinement and its winter +comfort, these were excuses enough had he not brought the book which lay +unheeded on his knee. + +But in truth he offered her no excuse. With scarce a word an +understanding had grown up between them that not a million words could +have made more clear. Each played the appropriated part. He looked and +she bore the look, and if she blushed the fire was warrant, and if he +stared it was the blind man's hour between day and night, and why should +he not sit idle as well as another? Soon there was not a turn of her +head or a line of her figure that he did not know; not a trick of her +walk, not a pose of her hand as she waited for a pot to boil that he +could not see in the dark; not a gleam from her hair as she stooped to +the blaze, nor a turn of her wrist as she shielded her face that was not +as familiar to him as if he had known her from childhood. + +In these hours she let the mask fall. The apathy, which had been the +least natural as it had been the most common garb of her young face, and +which had grown to be the cover and veil of her feelings, dropped from +her. Seated in the shadow, while she moved, now in the glow of the +burning embers, now obscured, he read her mind without disguise--save in +one dark nook--watched unrebuked the eye fall and the lip tremble, or in +rarer moments saw the shy smile dimple the corner of her cheek. Not +seldom she stood before him sad: sad without disguise, her bowed head +and drooping shoulders the proof of gloomy thoughts, that strayed, he +fancied, far from her work or her companion. And sometimes a tear fell +and she wiped it away, making no attempt to hide it; and sometimes she +would shiver and sigh as if in pain or fear. + +At these times he longed for Basterga's throat; and the blood of old +Enguerrande de Beauvais, his ancestor, dust these four hundred years at +"Damietta of the South," raced in him, and he choked with rage and +grief, and for the time could scarcely see. Yet with this pulse of wrath +were mingled delicious thrills. The tear which she did not hide from +him was his gage of love. The brooding eye, the infrequent smile, the +start, the reverie were for him only, and for no other. They were the +gift to him of her secret life, her inmost heart. + +It was an odd love-making, and bizarre. To Grio, even to men more +delicate and more finely wrought, it might have seemed no love-making at +all. But the wood-smoke that perfumed the air, sweetened it, the +firelight wrapped it about, the pots and pans and simple things of life, +amid which it passed, hallowed it. His eyes attending her hither and +thither without reserve, without concealment, unabashed, laid his heart +at her feet, not once, but a hundred times in the evening; and as often, +her endurance of the look, more rarely her sudden blush or smile, +accepted the offering. + +And scarce a word said: for though they had the room to themselves, they +knew that they were never alone or unheeded. Basterga, indeed, sat above +stairs and only descended to his meals; and Grio also was above when he +was not at the tavern. But Louis sulked in his closet beside them, +divided from them only by a door, whence he might emerge at any minute. +As a fact he would have emerged many times, but for two things. The +first was his marked face, which he was chary of showing; the second, +the notion which he had got that the balance of things in the house was +changing, and the reign of petty bullying, in which he had so much +delighted, approaching its end. With Basterga exposed to arrest, and the +girl's help become of value to the authorities, it needed little acumen +to discern this. He still feared Basterga; nay, he lived in such terror, +lest the part he had played should come to the scholar's ears, that he +prayed for his arrest night and morning, and whenever during the day an +especial fit of dread seized him. But he feared Anne also, for she might +betray him to Basterga; and of young Mercier's quality--that he was no +Tissot to be brow-beaten, or thrust aside--he had had proof on the night +of the fracas at supper. Essentially a coward, Louis' aim was to be on +the stronger side; and once persuaded that this was the side on which +they stood, he let them be. + +On several consecutive evenings the two passed an hour or more in this +silent communion. On the last the door of Louis' room stood open, the +young man had not come in, and for the first time they were really +alone. But the fact did not at once loosen Claude's tongue; and if the +girl noticed it, or expected aught to come of it, more than had come of +their companionship on other evenings, she hid her feelings with a +woman's ease. He remarked, however, that she was more thoughtful and +downcast than usual, and several times he saw her break off in the +middle of a task and listen nervously as for something she expected. +Presently:-- + +"Are you listening for Louis?" he asked. + +She turned on him, her eyes less kind than usual. "No," she said, almost +defiantly. "Was I listening?" + +"I thought so," he said. + +She turned away again, and went on with her work. But by-and-by as she +stooped over the fire a tear fell and pattered audibly in the wood-ash +on the hearth; and another. With an impatient gesture she wiped away a +third. He saw all--she made no attempt to hide them--and he bit his lip +and drove his finger-ends into his palms in the effort to be silent. +Presently he had his reward. + +"I am sorry," she said in a low tone. "I was listening, and I knew I +was. I do not know why I deceived you." + +"Why will you not tell me all?" he cried. + +"I cannot!" she answered, her breast heaving passionately. "I cannot!" +For the first time in his knowledge of her, she broke down completely, +and sinking on a bench with her back to the table she sobbed bitterly, +her face in her hands. For some minutes she rocked herself to and fro in +a paroxysm of trouble. + +He had risen and stood watching her awkwardly, longing to comfort her, +but ignorant how to go about it, and feeling acutely his helplessness +and his _gaucherie_. Sad she had always been, and at her best +despondent, with gleams of cheerfulness as fitful as brief. But this +evening her abandonment to her grief convinced him that something more +than ordinary was amiss, that some danger more serious than ordinary +threatened. He felt no surprise therefore when, a little later, she +arrested her sobbing, raised her head, and with suspended breath and +tear-stained face listened with that scared intentness which had +impressed him before. + +She feared! He could not be mistaken. Fear looked out of her strained +eyes, fear hung breathless on her parted lips. He was sure of it. And +"Is it Basterga?" he cried. "Is it of him that you are afraid? If you +are----" + +"Hush!" she cried, raising her hand in warning. "Hush!" And then, "You +did not--hear anything?" she asked. For an instant her eyes met his. + +"No." He met her look, puzzled; and, obeying her gesture, he listened +afresh. "No, I heard nothing. But----" + +He heard nothing even now, nothing; but whatever it was sharpened her +hearing to an abnormal pitch, it was clear that she did. She was on her +feet; with a startled cry she was round the table and half-way across +the room, while he stared, the word suspended on his lips. A second, and +her hand was on the latch of the staircase door. Then as she opened it, +he sprang forward to accompany her, to help her, to protect her if +necessary. "Let me come!" he said. "Let me help you. Whatever it is, I +can do something." + +She turned on him fiercely. "Go back!" she said. All the confidence, +the gentleness, the docility of the last three days were gone; and in +their place suspicion glared at him from eyes grown spiteful as a cat's. +"Go back!" she repeated. "I do not want you! I do not want any one, or +any help! Or any protection! Go, do you hear, and let me be!" + +As she ceased to speak, a sound from above stairs--a sound which this +time, the door being open, did reach his ears, froze the words on his +lips. It was the sound of a voice, yet no common voice, Heaven be +thanked! A moment she continued to confront him, her face one mute, +despairing denial! Then she slammed the door in his teeth, and he heard +her panting breath and fleeing footsteps speed up the stairs and along +the passage, and--more faintly now--he heard her ascend the upper +flight. Then--silence. + +Silence! But he had heard enough. He paused a moment irresolute, +uncertain, his hand raised to the latch. Then the hand fell to his side, +he turned, and went softly--very softly back to the hearth. The +firelight playing on his face showed it much moved; moved and softened +almost to the semblance of a woman's. For there were tears in his +eyes--eyes singularly bright; and his features worked, as if he had some +ado to repress a sob. In truth he had. In a breath, in the time it takes +to utter a single sound, he had hit on the secret, he had come to the +bottom of the mystery, he had learnt that which Basterga, favoured by +the position of his room on the upper floor, had learned two months +before, that which Grio might have learned, had he been anything but the +dull gross toper he was! He had learned, or in a moment of intuition +guessed--all. The power of Basterga, that power over the girl which had +so much puzzled and perplexed him, was his also now, to use or misuse, +hold or resign. + +Yet his first feeling was not one of joy; nor for that matter his +second. The impression went deeper, went to the heart of the man. An +infinite tenderness, a tenderness which swelled his breast to bursting, +a yearning that, man as he was, stopped little short of tears, these +were his, these it was thrilled his soul to the point of pain. The room +in which he stood, homely as it showed, plain as it was, seemed +glorified, the hearth transfigured. He could have knelt and kissed the +floor which the girl had trodden, coming and going, serving and making +ready--under that burden; the burden that dignified and hallowed the +bearer. What had it not cost her--that burden? What had it not meant to +her, what suspense by day, what terror of nights, what haggard +awakenings--such as that of which he had been the ignorant witness--what +watches above, what slights and insults below! Was it a marvel that the +cheeks had lost their colour, the eyes their light, the whole face its +life and meaning? Nay, the wonder was that she had borne the weight so +long, always expecting, always dreading, stabbed in the tenderest +affection; with for confidant an enemy and for stay an ignorant! Viewed +through the medium of the man's love, which can so easily idealise where +it rests, the love of the daughter for the mother, that must have +touched and softened the hardest--or so, but for the case of Basterga, +one would have judged--seemed so holy, so beautiful, so pure a thing +that the young man felt that, having known it, he must be the better for +it all his life. + +And then his mind turned to another point in the story, and he recalled +what had passed above stairs on that day when he had entered a stranger, +and gone up. With what a smiling face of love had she leant over her +mother's bed. With what cheerfulness had she lied of that which passed +below, what a countenance had she put on all--no house more prosperous, +no life more gay--how bravely had she carried it! The peace and neatness +and comfort of the room with its windows looking over the Rhone valley, +and its spinning-wheel and linen chest and blooming bow-pot, all came +back to him; so that he understood many things which had passed before +him then, and then had roused but a passing and a trifling wonder. + +Her anxiety lest he should take lodging there and add one more to the +chances of espial, one more to the witnesses of her misery; her secret +nods and looks, and that gently checked outburst of excitement on Madame +Royaume's part, which even at the time had seemed odd--all were plain +now. Ay, plain; but suffused with a light so beautiful, set in an +atmosphere so pure and high, that no view of God's earth, even from the +eyrie of those lofty windows, and though dawn or sunset flung its +fairest glamour over the scene, could so fill the heart of man with +gratitude and admiration! + +Up and down in the days gone by, his thoughts followed her through the +house. Now he saw her ascend and enter, and finding all well, mask--but +at what a cost--her aching heart under smiles and cheerful looks and +soft laughter. He heard the voice that was so seldom heard downstairs +murmur loving words, and little jests, and dear foolish trifles; heard +it for the hundredth time reiterate the false assurances that affection +hallowed. He was witness to the patient tendance, the pious offices, the +tireless service of hand and eye, that went on in that room under the +tiles; witness to the long communion hand in hand, with the world shut +out; to the anxious scrutiny, to the daily departure. A sad departure, +though daily and more than daily taken; for she who descended carried a +weight of fear and anxiety. As she came down the weary stairs, stage by +stage, he saw the brightness die from eye and lip, and pale fear or dull +despair seize on its place. He saw--and his heart was full--the slender +figure, the pallid face enter the room in which he stood--it might be at +the dawning when the cold shadow of the night still lay on all, from the +dead ashes on the hearth to the fallen pot and displaced bench; or it +might be at mid-day, to meet sneers and taunts and ignoble looks; and +his heart was full. His face burned, his eyes filled, he could have +kissed the floor she had walked over, the wooden spoon her hand had +touched, the trencher-edge--done any foolish thing to prove his love. + +Love? It was a deeper thing than love, a holier, purer thing--that which +he felt. Such a feeling as the rough spearsmen of the Orléannais had for +Joan the maid; or the great Florentine for the girl whom he saw for the +first time at the banquet in the house of the Portinari; or as that man, +who carried to his grave the Queen's glove, yet had never touched it +with his bare hand. + +Alas, that such feelings cannot last, nor such moments endure; that in +the footsteps of the priest, be he never so holy, treads ever the +grinning acolyte with his mind on sweet things. They pass, these +feelings, and too quickly. But once to have had them, once to have lived +such moments, once to have known a woman and loved her in such wise +leaves no man as he was before; leaves him at the least with a memory of +a higher life. + +That the acolyte in Claude's case took the form of Louis Gentilis made +him no more welcome. Claude was still dreaming on his feet, still +viewing in a kind of happy amaze the simple things about him, things +that for him wore + + The light that never was on land or sea, + +and that this world puts on but once for each of us, when Gentilis +opened the door and entered, bringing with him a rush of rain, and a +gust of night air. He breathed quickly as if he had been running, yet +having closed the door, he paused before he advanced into the room; and +he seemed surprised, and at a nonplus. After a moment, "Supper is not +ready?" he said. + +"It is not time," Claude answered curtly. The vision of an angel does +not necessarily purify at all points, and he had small stomach for +Master Louis at any time. + +The youth winced under the tone, but stood his ground. + +"Where is Anne?" he asked, something sullenly. + +"Upstairs. Why do you ask?" + +"Messer Basterga is not coming to supper. Nor Grio. They bade me tell +her. And that they would be late." + +"Very well, I will tell her." + +But it was evident that that was not all Louis had in his mind. He +remained fidgeting by the door, his cap in his hand; and his face, had +Claude marked it--but he had already turned a contemptuous shoulder on +him--was a picture of doubt and indecision. At length, "I've a message +for you," he muttered nervously. "From Messer Blondel the Syndic. He +wants to see you--now." + +Claude turned, and if he had not looked at the other before, he made up +for it now. "Oh!" he said at last, after a stare that bespoke both +surprise and suspicion. "He does, does he? And who made you his +messenger?" + +"He met me in the street--just now." + +"He knows you, then?" + +"He knows I live here," Louis muttered. + +"He pays us a vast amount of attention," Claude replied with polite +irony. "Nevertheless"--he turned again to the fire--"I cannot pleasure +him," he continued curtly, "this time." + +"But he wants to see you," Gentilis persisted desperately. It was plain +that he was on pins and needles. "At his house. Cannot you believe me?" +in a querulous tone. "It is all fair and above board. I swear it is." + +"Is it?" + +"It is--I swear it is. He sent me. Do you doubt me?" he added with +undisguised eagerness. + +Claude was about to say, with no politeness at all, that he did, and to +repeat his refusal in stronger terms, when his ear caught the same sound +which had revealed so much to him a few minutes earlier at the foot of +the stairs. It came more faintly this time, deadened by the closed door +of the staircase, but to his enlightened senses it proclaimed so clearly +what it was--the echo of a cracked, shrill voice, of a laugh insane, +uncanny, elfish--that he trembled lest Louis should hear it also and +gain the clue. That was a thing to be avoided at all costs; and even as +this occurred to him he saw the way to avoid it. Basterga and Grio were +absent: if this fool could be removed, even for an hour or two, Anne +would have the house to herself, and by midnight the crisis might be +overpast. + +"I will come with you," he said. + +Louis uttered a sigh of relief. He had expected--and he had very nearly +received--another answer. "Good," he said. "But he does not want me." + +"Both or neither," Claude replied coolly. "For all I know 'tis an +ambush." + +"No, no!" + +"In which event I shall see that you share it. Or it may be a scheme to +draw me from here, and then if harm be done while I am away----" + +"Harm? What harm?" Louis muttered. + +"Any harm! If harm be done, I say, I shall then have you at hand to pay +me for it. So--both or neither!" + +For a moment Louis' hang-dog face--none the handsomer for the mark of +the Syndic's cane--spelt refusal. Then he changed his mind. He nodded +sulkily. "Very well," he said. "But it is raining, and I have no great +wish to--Hush! What is that?" He raised his hand in the attitude of one +listening and his eyes sought his companion's. "What is that? Did you +not hear something--like a scream upstairs?" + +"I hear something like a fool downstairs!" Claude retorted gruffly. + +"But it was--I certainly heard something!" Louis persisted, raising his +hand again. "It sounded----" + +"If we are to go, let us go!" Claude cried with temper. "Come, if you +want me to go! It is not my expedition," he continued, moving noisily +hither and thither in search of his staff and cloak. "It is your affair, +and--where is my cap?" + +"I should think it is in your room," Louis answered meekly. "It was only +that I thought it might be Anne. That there might be----" + +"Two fools in the house instead of one!" Claude broke in, emerging +noisily, and slamming the door of his closet behind him. "There, come, +and we may hope to be back to supper some time to-night! Do you hear?" +And jealously shepherding the other out of the house, he withdrew the +key when both had passed the threshold. Locking the door on the outside, +he thrust the key under it. "There!" he said, smiling at his cleverness, +"now, who enters--knocks!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +"AND ONLY ONE DOSE IN ALL THE WORLD!" + + +In his picture of the life led by the two women on the upper floor of +the house in the Corraterie, that picture which by a singular intuition +he had conceived on the day of his arrival, Claude had not gone far +astray. In all respects but one the picture was truly drawn. Than the +love between mother and daughter, no tie could be imagined at once more +simple and more holy; no union more real and pure than that which bound +together these two women, left lonely in days of war and trouble in the +midst of a city permanently besieged and menaced by an enduring peril. +Almost forgotten by the world below, which had its own cares, its +alarums and excursions, its strivings and aims, they lived for one +another. The weak health of the one and the brave spirit of the other +had gradually inverted their positions; and the younger was mother, the +elder, daughter. Yet each retained, in addition, the pious instincts of +the original relation. To each the welfare of the other was the prime +thought. To give the other the better portion, be it of food or wine, of +freedom from care, or ease of mind, and to take the worse, was to each +the ground plan of life, as it was its chiefest joy. + +In their eyrie above the anxious city they led an existence all their +own. Between them were a hundred jests, Greek to others; and whimsical +ways, and fond sayings and old smiles a thousand times repeated. And +things that must be done after one fashion or the sky would fall; and +others that must be done after another fashion or the world would end. +When the house was empty of boarders, or nearly empty--though at such +times the cupboard also was apt to be bare--there were long hours spent +upstairs and surveys of household gear, carried up with difficulty, and +reviews of linen and much talk of it, and small meals, taken at the open +windows that looked over the Rhone valley and commanded the sunset view. +Such times were times of gaiety though not of prosperity, and far from +the worst hours of life--had they but persisted. + +But in the March of 1601 a great calamity fell on these two. A fire, +which consumed several houses near the Corraterie, and flung wide +through the streets the rumour that the enemy had entered, struck the +bedridden woman--aroused at midnight by shouts and the glare of +flames--with so dire a terror, not on her own account but on her +daughter's, that she was never the same again. For weeks at a time she +appeared to be as of old, save for some increase of weakness and +tremulousness. But below the surface the brain was out of poise, and +under the least pressure of excitement she betrayed the change in a +manner so appalling--by the loud negation of those beliefs which in +saner moments were most dear to her, and especially by a denial of the +Providence and goodness of God--that even her child, even the being who +knew her and loved her best, shuddered lest Satan, visible and +triumphant, should rise to confront her. + +Fortunately the fits of this mysterious malady were short as they were +appalling, and to the minds of that day, suspicious. And in the +beginning Anne had the support of an old physician, well-nigh their only +intimate. True, even he was scared by a form of disease, new and beyond +his science; but he prescribed a sedative and he kept counsel. He went +further: for sufficiently enlightened himself to believe in the +innocence of these attacks, he none the less explained to the daughter +the peril to which her mother's aberrations must expose her were they +known to the vulgar; and he bade her hide them with all the care +imaginable. + +Anne, on this would fain have adopted the safest course and kept the +house empty; to the end that to the horror of her mother's fits of +delirium might not be added the chance of eavesdropping. But to do this +was to starve, as well as to reveal to Madame Royaume the fact of those +seizures of which no one in the world was more ignorant than the good +woman who suffered under them. It followed that to Anne's burden of +dread by reason of the outer world, whom she must at all costs deceive, +was added the weight of concealment from the one from whom she had never +kept anything in her life. A thing which augmented immeasurably the +loneliness of her position and the weight of her load. + +Presently the drama, always pitiful, increased in intensity. The old +leech who had been her stay and helper died, and left her to face the +danger alone. A month later Basterga discovered the secret and +henceforth held it over her. From this time she led a life of which +Claude, in his dreams upon the hearth, exaggerated neither the tragedy +nor the beauty. The load had been heavy before. Now to fear was added +contumely, and to vague apprehensions the immediate prospect of +discovery and peril. The grip of the big scholar, subtle, cruel, +tightening day by day and hour by hour, was on her youth; slowly it +paralysed in her all joy, all spirit, all the impulses of life and hope, +that were natural to her age. + +That through all she showed an indomitable spirit, we know. We have seen +how she bore herself when threatened from an unexpected quarter on the +morning when Claude Mercier, after overhearing her mother's ravings, had +his doubts confirmed by the sight of her depression on the stairs. How +boldly she met his attack, unforeseen as it was, how bravely she +shielded her other and dearer self, how deftly she made use of the +chance which the young man's soberer sense afforded her, will be +remembered. But not even in that pinch, no, nor in that worse hour when +Basterga, having discovered his knowledge to her, gave her--as a cat +plays with a mouse which it is presently to tear to pieces--a little law +and a little space, did she come so near to despair as on this evening +when the echo of her mother's insane laughter drew her from the +living-room at an hour without precedent. + +For hitherto Madame Royaume's attacks had come on in the night only. +With a regularity not unknown in the morbid world they occurred about +midnight, an hour when her daughter could attend to her and when the +house below lay wrapped in sleep. A change in this respect doubled the +danger, therefore. It did more: the prospect of being summoned at any +hour shook, if it did not break, the last remains of Anne's strength. To +be liable at all times to such interruptions, to tremble while serving a +meal or making a bed lest the dreadful sound arise and reveal all, to +listen below and above and never to feel safe for a minute, never! +never!--who could face, who could endure, who could lie down and rise up +under this burden? + +It could not be. As Anne ascended the stairs she felt that the end was +coming, was come. Strive as she might, war as she might, with all the +instinct, all the ferocity, of a mother defending her young, the end was +come. The secret could not be kept long. Even while she administered the +medicine with shaking hands, while with tears in her voice she strove +to still the patient and silence her wild words, even while she +restrained by force the feeble strength that would and could not, while +in a word she omitted no precaution, relaxed no effort, her heart told +her with every pulsation that the end was come. + +And presently, when Madame was quiet and slept, the girl bowed her head +over the unconscious object of her love and wept, bitterly, +passionately, wetting with her tears the long grey hair that strewed the +pillow, as she recalled with pitiful clearness all the stages of +concealment, all the things which she had done to avert this end. +Vainly, futilely, for it was come. The dark mornings of winter recurred +to her mind, those mornings when she had risen and dressed herself by +rushlight, with this fear redoubling the chill gloom of the cold house; +the nights, too, when all had been well, and in the last hour before +sleep, finding her mother sane and cheerful, she had nursed the hope +that the latest attack might be the last. The evenings brightened by +that hope, the mornings darkened by its extinction, the rare hours of +brooding, the days and weeks of brave struggle, of tendance never +failing, of smiles veiling a sick heart--she lived all these again, +looking pitifully back, straining tenderly in her arms the dear being +she loved. + +And then, stabbing her back to life in the midst of her exhaustion, the +thought pierced her that even now she was hastening the end by her +absence. They would be asking for her below; they must be asking for her +already. The supper-time was come, was past, perhaps; and she was not +there! She tried to picture what would happen, what already must be +happening; and rising and dashing the tears from her face she stood +listening. Perhaps Claude would make some excuse to the others; or, +perhaps--how much had he guessed? + +Her mother was passive now, sunk in the torpor which followed the +attack and from which the poor woman would awake in happy +unconsciousness of the whole. Anne saw that her charge might be left, +and hastily smoothing the tangle of luxuriant hair which had fallen +about her face, she opened the door. Another might have stayed to allay +the fever of her cheeks, to remove the traces of her tears, to stay the +quivering of her hands; but such small cares were not for her, nor for +the occasion. She could form no idea of the length of time she had spent +upstairs, a half-hour, or an hour and a half; and without more ado she +raised the latch, slipped out, and turning the key on her patient ran +down the upper flight of stairs. + +She anticipated many things, but not that which she encountered--silence +on the upper landing, and below when she had descended and opened the +staircase door--an empty room. The place was vacant; the tables were as +she had left them, half laid; the pot was gently simmering over the +fire. + +What had happened? The supper-hour was past, yet none of the four who +should have sat down to the meal were here. Had they overheard her +mother's terrible cry--those words which voiced the woman's despair on +finding, as she fancied, the city betrayed? And were they gone to +denounce her? The thought was discarded as soon as formed; and before +she could hit on a second explanation a hasty knocking on the door +turned her eyes that way. + +The four who lodged in the house were not in the habit of knocking, for +the door was only locked at night when the last retired. She approached +it then, wondering, hesitated an instant, and at last, collecting her +courage, raised the latch. The door resisted her impulse. It was locked. + +She tried it twice, and it was only as she drew back the second time +that she saw the key lying at the foot of the door. That deepened the +mystery. Why had they locked her in? Why, when they had done so, had +they thrust the key under the door and so placed it in her power? Had +Claude Mercier done it that the others might not enter to hear what he +had heard and discover what he had discovered? Possibly. In which case +the knocker--who at that instant made a second and more earnest attack +upon the door--must be one of the others, and the sooner she opened the +door the less would be the suspicion created. + +With an apology trembling on her lips she hastened to open. Then she +stood bewildered; she saw before her, not one of the lodgers, but Messer +Blondel. "I wish to speak to you," the magistrate said with firmness. +Before she knew what was happening he had motioned to her to go before +him into the house, and following had locked the door behind them. + +She knew him by sight, as did all Geneva; and the blood, which surprise +at the sight of a stranger had brought to her cheeks, fled as she +recognised the Syndic. Had they betrayed her, then, while she lingered +upstairs? Had they locked her in while they summoned the magistrate? And +was he here to make inquiries about--something he had heard? + +His voice cut short her thoughts without allaying her fears. "I wish to +speak to you alone," he said. "Are you alone, girl?" His manner was +quiet, but masked excitement. His eyes scrutinised her and searched the +room by turns. + +She nodded, unable to speak. + +"There is no one in the house with you?" + +"Only my mother," she murmured. + +"She is bedridden, is she not? She cannot hear us?" he added, frowning. + +"No, but I am expecting the others to return." + +"Messer Basterga?" + +"Yes." + +"He will not return before morning," the Syndic replied with decision, +"nor his companion. The two young men are safe also. If you are alone, +therefore, I wish to speak to you." + +She bowed her head, trembling and wondering, fearing what the next +moment might disclose. + +"The young man who lodges here--of the name of Gentilis--he came to you +some time ago and told you that the State needed certain letters which +the man Basterga kept in a steel box upstairs? That is so, is it not?" + +"Yes, Messer Syndic." + +"And you looked for them?" + +"Yes, I--I was told that you desired them." + +"You found a phial? You found a phial?" the Syndic repeated, passing his +tongue over his lips. His face was flushed; his eyes shone with a +peculiar brightness. + +"I found a small bottle," she answered slowly. "There was nothing else." + +He raised his hand. If she had known how the delay of a second tortured +him! "Describe it to me!" he said. "What was it like?" + +Wondering, the girl tried to describe it. "It was small and of a strange +shape, of thin glass, Messer Syndic," she said. "Shot with gold, or +there was gold afloat in the liquid inside. I do not know which." + +"It was not empty?" + +"No, it was three parts full." + +His hand went to his mouth, to hide the working of his lips. "And there +was with it--a paper, I think?" + +"No." + +"A scrap of parchment then? Some words, some figures?" His voice rose +as he read a negative in her face. "There was something, surely?" + +"There was nothing," she said. "Had there been a scrap even of +writing----" + +"Yes, yes?" He could not control his impatience. + +"I should have sent it to you. I should have thought," she continued +earnestly, "that it was that you needed, Messer Syndic; that it was that +the State needed. But there was nothing." + +"Well, be there papers with it or be there not, I must have that phial!" + +Anne stared. "But I do not think"--she ventured with hesitation--and +then as she gained courage, she went on more firmly--"that I can take +it! I dare not, Messer Syndic." + +"Why not?" + +"Papers for the State--were one thing," she stammered in confusion; "but +to take this--a bottle--would be stealing!" + +The Syndic's eyes sparkled. His passion overcame him. "Girl, don't play +with me!" he cried. "Don't dare to play with me!" And then as she shrank +back alarmed by his tone, and shocked by this sudden peeping forth of +the tragic and the real, lo, in a twinkling he was another man, +trembling, and holding out shaking hands to her. "Get it for me!" he +said. "Get it for me, girl! I will tell you what it is! If I had told +you before, I had had it now, and I should be whole and well! whole and +well. You have a heart and can pity! Women can pity. Then pity me! I am +rich, but I am dying! I am a dying man, rising up and lying down, +counting the days as I walk the streets, and seeing the shroud rise +higher and higher upon my breast!" + +He paused for breath, endeavouring to gain some command of himself; +while she, carried off her feet by this rush of words, stared at him in +stupefaction. Before he came he had made up his mind to tell her the +truth--or something like the truth. But he had not intended to tell the +truth in this way until, face to face with her and met by her scruples, +he let the impulse to tell the whole carry him away. + +He steadied his lips with a shaking hand. "You know now why I want it," +he resumed, speaking huskily and with restrained emotion. "'Tis life! +Life, girl! In that"--he fought with himself before he could bring out +the word--"in that phial is my life! Is life for whoever takes it! It is +the _remedium_, it is strength, life, youth, and but one--but one dose +in all the world! Do you wonder--I am dying!--that I want it? Do you +wonder--I am dying!--that I will have it? But"--with a strange grimace +intended to reassure her--"I frighten you, I frighten you." + +"No!" she said, though in truth she had unconsciously retreated almost +to the door of the staircase before his extended hands. "But I--I +scarcely understand, Messer Blondel. If you will please to tell me----" + +"Yes, yes!" + +"What Messer Basterga--how he comes to have this?" She must parley with +him until she could collect her thoughts; until she could make up her +mind whether he was sane or mad and what it behoved her to do. + +"Comes to have it!" he cried vehemently. "God knows! And what matter? +'Tis the _remedium_, I tell you, whoever has it! It is life, strength, +youth!" he repeated, his eyes glittering, his face working, and the +impulse to tell her not the truth only, but more even than the truth, if +he might thereby dazzle her, carrying him away. "It is health of body, +though you be dying, as I am! And health of mind though you be +possessed of devils! It is a cure for all ills, for all weaknesses, all +diseases, even," with a queer grimace, "for the Scholar's evil! Think +you, if it were not rare, if it were not something above the common, if +it were not what leeches seek in vain, I should be here! I should have +more than enough to buy it, I, Messer Blondel of Geneva!" He ceased, +lacking breath. + +"But," she said timidly, "will not Messer Basterga give it to you? Or +sell it to you?" + +"Give it to me? Sell it to me? He?" Blondel's hands flew out and clawed +the air as if he had the Paduan before him, and would tear it from him. +"He give it me? No, he will not. Nor sell it! He is keeping it for the +Grand Duke! The Grand Duke? Curse him; why should he escape more than +another?" + +Anne stared. Was she dreaming or had her brain given way? Or was this +really Messer Blondel the austere Syndic, this man standing before her, +shaking in his limbs as he poured forth this strange farrago of +_remedia_ and scholars and princes and the rest? Or if she were not mad +was he mad? Or could there be truth, any truth, any fact in the medley? +His clammy face, his trembling hands, answered for his belief in it. But +could there be such a thing in nature as this of which he spoke? She had +heard of panaceas, things which cured all ills alike; but hitherto they +had found no place in her simple creed. Yet that he believed she could +not doubt; and how much more he knew than she did! Such things might be; +in the cabinets of princes, perhaps, purchasable by a huge fortune and +by the labour, the engrossment, the devotion of a life. She did not +know; and for him his acts spoke. + +"It was this that Louis Gentilis was seeking?" she murmured. + +"What else?" he retorted, opening and shutting his hands. "Had I told +him the truth, as I have told you, the thing had been in my grasp now!" + +"But are you sure," she ventured to ask with respect, "that it will do +these things, Messer Blondel?" + +He flung up his hands in a gesture of impatience. "And more! And more!" +he cried. "It is life and strength, I tell you! Health and youth! For +body or mind, for the old or the young! But enough! Enough, girl!" he +resumed in an altered tone, a tone grown peremptory and urgent. "Get it +me! Do you hear? Stand no longer talking! At any moment they may return, +and--and it may be too late." + +Too late! It was too late already. The door shook even as he spoke under +an angry summons. As he stiffened where he stood, his eyes fixed upon +it, his hand still pointing her to his bidding, a face showed white at +the window and vanished again. An instant he imagined it Basterga's; and +hand, voice, eyes, all hung frozen. Then he saw his mistake--to +whomsoever the face belonged, it was not Basterga's; and finding voice +and breath again, "Quick!" he muttered fiercely, "do you hear, girl? Get +it! Get it before they enter!" + +Her hand was on the latch of the inner door. Another second and, swayed +by his will, she would have gone up and got the thing he needed, and the +stout door would have shielded them, and within the staircase he might +have taken it from her and no one been the wiser. But as she turned, +there came a second attack on the door, so loud, so persistent, so +furious, that she faltered, remembering that the duplicate key of +Basterga's chamber was in her mother's room, and that she must mount to +the top of the house for it. + +He saw her hesitation, and, shaken by the face which had looked in out +of the night, and which still might be watching his movements, his +resolution gave way. The habit of a life of formalism prevailed. The +thing was as good as his, she would get it presently. Why, then, cause +talk and scandal by keeping these persons--whoever they were--outside, +when the thing might be had without talk? + +"To-night!" he cried rapidly. "Get it to-night, then! Do you hear, girl? +You will be sure to get it?" His eyes flitted from her to the door and +back again. "Basterga will not return until to-morrow. You will get it +to-night!" + +She murmured some form of assent. + +"Then open the door! open the door!" he urged impatiently. And with a +stifled oath, "A little more and they will rouse the town!" + +She ran to obey, the door flew open, and into the room bundled first +Louis without his cap; and then on his heels and gripping him by the +nape, Claude Mercier. Nor did the latter seem in the least degree +abashed by the presence in which he found himself. On the contrary, he +looked at the Syndic, his head high; as if he, and not the magistrate, +had the right to an explanation. + +But Blondel had recovered himself. "Come, come!" he said sternly. "What +is this, young man? Are you drunk?" + +"Why was the door locked?" + +"That you might not interrupt me," Blondel replied severely, "while I +asked some questions. I have it in my mind to ask you some also. You +took him to my house?" he continued, addressing Louis. + +Louis whined that he had. + +"You were late then?" His cold eye returned to Claude. "You were late, I +warrant. Attend me to-morrow at nine, young man. Do you hear? Do you +understand?" + +"Yes." + +"Then have a care you are there, or the officers will fetch you. And +you," he continued, turning more graciously to Anne, "see, young woman, +you keep counsel. A still tongue buys friends, and is a service to the +State. With that--good-night." + +He looked from one to the other with a sour smile, nodded, and passed +out. + +He left Claude staring, and something bewildered in the middle of the +room. The love, the pity, the admiration of which the lad's heart had +been full an hour before, still hungered for expression; but it was not +easy to vent such feelings before Louis, nor at a moment when the +Syndic's cold eye and the puzzle of his presence there chilled for the +time the atmosphere of the room. + +Claude, indeed, was utterly perplexed by what he had seen; and before he +could decide what he would do, Anne, ignoring the need of explanation, +had taken the matter into her own hands. She had begun to set out the +meal; and Louis, smiling maliciously, had seated himself in his place. +To speak with any effect then, or to find words adequate to the feelings +that had moved him a while before, was impossible. A moment later, the +opportunity was gone. + +"You must please to wait on yourselves," the girl said wearily. "My +mother is not well, and I may not come down again this evening." As she +spoke, she lifted from the table the little tray which she had prepared. + +He was in time to open the door for her; and even then, had she glanced +at him, his eyes must have told her much, perhaps enough. But she did +not look at him. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts; pressing +thoughts they must have been. She passed him as if he had been a +stranger, her eyes on the tray. Worshipping, he stood, and saw her turn +the corner at the head of the flight; then with a full heart he went +back to his place. His time would come. + +And she? At the door of Basterga's room she paused and stood long in +thought, gazing at the rushlight she carried on the tray--yet seeing +nothing. A sentence, one sentence of all those which Blondel had poured +forth--not Blondel the austere Syndic, who had set the lads aside as if +they had been schoolboys, but Blondel the man, trembling, holding out +suppliant hands--rang again and again in her ears. + +"It is health of body, though you be dying as I am, and health of mind, +though you be possessed of devils!" Health of body! Health of mind! +Health of body! Health of mind! The words wrote themselves before her +eyes in letters of fire. Health of Body! Health of Mind! + +And only one dose in all the world. Only one dose in all the world! She +recalled that too. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +ON THE BRIDGE. + + +To say that the Syndic, as soon as he had withdrawn, repented of his +weakness and wished with all his heart that he had not opened until the +_remedium_ was in his hand, is only to say that he was human. He did +more than this, indeed. When he had advanced some paces in the direction +of the Porte Tertasse he returned, and for a full minute he stood before +the Royaumes' door irresolute; half-minded to knock and, casting the +fear of publicity to the winds, to say that he must have at once that +for which he had come. He would get it, if he did, he was certain of +that. And for the rest, what the young men said or thought, or what +others who heard their story might say or think, mattered not a straw +now that he came to consider it; since he could have Basterga seized on +the morrow, and all would pass for a part of his affair. + +Yet he did not knock. A downward step on the slope of indecision is hard +to retrace. He reflected that he would get the _remedium_ in the +morning. He would certainly get it. The girl was won over, Basterga was +away. Practically, he had no one to fear. And to make a stir when the +matter could be arranged without a stir was not the part of a wise man +in the position of a magistrate. Slowly he turned and walked away. + +But, as if his good angel touched him on the shoulder, under the Porte +Tertasse he had qualms; and again he stood. And when, after a shorter +interval and with less indecision, he resumed his course, it was by no +means with the air of a victor. He would receive what he needed in the +morning: he dared not admit a doubt of that. And yet--was it a vague +presentiment that weighed on him as he walked, or only the wintry night +wind that caused the blood to run more slowly and more tamely in his +veins? He had not fared ill in his venture, he had made success certain. +And yet he was unreasonably, he was unaccountably, he was undefinably +depressed. + +He grew more cheerful when he had had his supper and seated before a +half-flagon of wine gave the reins to his imagination. For the space of +a golden hour he held the _remedium_ in his grasp, he felt its +life-giving influence course through his frame, he tasted again of +health and strength and manhood, he saw before him years of success and +power and triumph! In comparison to it the bath of Pelias, though +endowed with the virtues which lying Medea attributed to it, had not +seemed more desirable, nor the elixir of life, nor the herb of Anticyra. +Nor was it until he had taken the magic draught once and twice and +thrice in fancy, and as often hugged himself on health renewed and life +restored that a thought, which had visited him at an earlier period of +the evening, recurred and little by little sobered him. + +This was the reflection that he knew nothing of the quantity of the +potion which he must take, nothing of the time or of the manner of +taking it. Was it to be taken all at once, or in doses? Pure, or diluted +with wine, or with water, or with _aqua vitæ_? At any hour, or at +midnight, or at a particular epoch of the moon's age, or when this or +that star was in the ascendant? + +The question bulked larger as he considered it; for in life no trouble +is surmounted but another appears to confront us; nor is the most +perfect success of an imperfect world without its drawback. Now that he +held the elixir his, now that in fancy he had it in his grasp, the +problem of the mode and the quantity which had seemed trivial and +negligible a few days or hours before, grew to formidable dimensions; +nor could he of himself discover any solution of it. He had counted on +finding with the potion some scrap of writing, some memorandum, some +hieroglyphics at least, that, interpreted by such skill as he could +command, would give him the clue he sought. But if there was nothing, as +the girl asserted, not a line nor a sign, the matter could be resolved +in one way only. He must resort to pressure. With the potion and the man +in his possession, he must force the secret from Basterga; force it by +threats or promises or aught that would weigh with a man who lay +helpless and in a dungeon. It would not be difficult to get the truth in +that way: not at all difficult. It seemed, indeed, as if Providence--and +Fabri and Petitot and Baudichon--had arranged to put the man in his +power _ad hoc_. + +He hugged this thought to him, and grew so enamoured of it that he +wondered that he had not had the courage to seize Basterga in the +beginning. He had allowed himself to be disturbed by phantoms; there lay +the truth. He should have seen that the scholar dared not for his own +sake destroy a thing so precious, a thing by which he might, at the +worst, ransom his life. The Syndic wondered that he had not discerned +that point before: and still in sanguine humour he retired to bed, and +slept better than he had slept for weeks, ay, for months. The elixir was +his, as good as his; if he did not presently have Messer Basterga by the +nape he was much mistaken. + +He had had the scholar watched and knew whither he was gone and that he +would not return before noon. At nine o'clock, therefore, the hour at +which he had directed Claude to come to him at his house, he approached +the Royaumes' door. Pluming himself on the stratagem by which twice in +the twenty-four hours he had rid himself of an inconvenient witness, he +opened the door boldly and entered. + +On the hearth, cap in hand, stood not Claude, but Louis. The lad wore +the sneaking air as of one surprised in a shameful action, which such +characters wear even when innocently employed. But his actions proved +that he was not surprised. With finger on his lip, and eyes enjoining +caution, he signed to the Syndic to be silent, and with head aside set +the example of listening. + +The Syndic was not the man to suffer fools gladly, and he opened his +mouth. He closed it--all but too late. All but too late, if--the thought +sent cold shivers down his back--if Basterga had returned. With an air +almost as furtive as that of the lad before him, he signed to him to +approach. + +Louis crossed the room with a show of caution the more strange as the +early December sun was shining and all without was cheerful. "Has he +come back?" Blondel whispered. + +"Claude?" + +"Fool!" Low as the Syndic pitched his tone it expressed a world of +contempt. "No, Basterga?" + +The youth shook his head, and again laying his finger to his lips +listened. + +"What! He has not?" Blondel's colour returned, his eyes bulged out with +passion. What did the imbecile mean? Because he knew certain things did +he think himself privileged to play the fool? The Syndic's fingers +tingled. Another second and he had broken the silence with a vengeance, +when-- + +"You are--too late!" Louis muttered. "Too late!" he repeated with +protruded lips. + +Blondel glared at him as if he would annihilate him. Too late? What did +this creature know? Or how could it be too late, if Basterga had not +returned? Yet the Syndic was shaken. His fingers no longer tingled for +the other's cheek; he no longer panted to break the silence in a way +that should startle him. On the contrary, he listened; while his eyes +passed swiftly round the room, to gather what was amiss. But all seemed +in order. The lads' bowls and spoons stood on the table, the great roll +of brown bread lay beside them, and a book, probably Claude's, lay face +downwards on the board. The door of one of the bedrooms stood open. The +Syndic's suspicious gaze halted at the closed door. He pointed to it. + +Louis shook his head; then, seeing that this was not enough, "There is +no one there," he whispered. "But I cannot tell you here. I will follow +you, honoured sir, to----" + +"The Porte Tertasse." + +"Mercier would meet us, by your leave," Louis rejoined with a faint +grin. + +The magistrate glared at the tool who on a sudden was turned adviser. +Still, for the time he must humour him. "The mills, then, on the +bridge," he muttered. And he opened the door with care and went out. +With a dreadful sense of coming evil he went along the Corraterie and +took his way down the steep to the bridge which, far below, curbed the +blue rushing waters of the Rhone. The roar of the icy torrent and of the +busy mills, stupendous as it was, was not loud enough to deaden the two +words that clung to his ears, "Too late! Too late!" Nor did the frosty +sunshine, gloriously reflected from the line of snowy peaks to eastward, +avail to pierce the gloom in which he walked. For Louis Gentilis, if it +should turn out that he had inflicted this penance for naught, there was +preparing an evil hour. + +The magistrate turned aside on a part of the bridge between two mills. +With his back to the wind-swept lake and its wide expanse of ruffled +waves, he stood a little apart from the current of crossers, on a space +kept clear of loiterers by the keen breeze. He seemed, if any curious +eye fell on him, to be engaged in watching the swirling torrent pour +from the narrow channel beneath him, as in warmer weather many a one +stood to watch it. Here two minutes later Louis found him; and if +Blondel still cherished hope, if he still fought against fear, or +maintained courage, the lad's smirking face was enough to end all. + +For a moment, such was the effect on him, Blondel could not speak. At +last, with an effort, "What is it?" he said. "What has happened?" + +"Much," Louis replied glibly. "Last night, after you had gone, honoured +sir, I judged by this and that, that there was something afoot. And +being devoted to your interests, and seeking only to serve you----" + +"The point! The point!" the Syndic ejaculated. "What has happened?" + +"Treachery," the young man answered, mouthing his words with enjoyment; +it was for him a happy moment. "Black, wicked treachery!" with a glance +behind him. "The worst, sir, the worst, if I rightly apprehend the +matter." + +"Curse you," Blondel cried, contrary to his custom, for he was no +swearer, "you will kill me, if you do not speak." + +"But----" + +"What has happened. What has happened, man!" + +"I was going to tell you, honoured sir, that I watched her----" + +"Anne? The girl?" + +"Yes, and an hour before midnight she took that which you wished me to +get--the bottle. She went to Basterga's room, and----" + +"Took it! Well? Well?" The Syndic's face, grey a moment before, was +dangerously suffused with blood. The cane that had inflicted the bruise +Louis still wore across his visage, quivered ominously. Public as the +bridge was, open to obloquy and remark as an assault must lay him, +Blondel was within an inch of striking the lad again. "Well? Well?" he +repeated. "Is that all you have to tell me?" + +"Would it were!" Louis replied, raising his open hands with +sanctimonious fervour. "Alas, sir!" + +"You watched her?" + +"I watched her back to her room." + +"Upstairs?" + +"Yes, the room which she occupies with her mother. And kneeling and +listening, and seeing what I could for your sake," the knave continued, +not a feature evincing the shame he should have felt, "I saw her handle +the phial at a little table opposite the door, but hidden by a curtain +from the bed." + +The Syndic's eyes conveyed the question his lips refused to frame. No +man, submitted to the torture, has ever suffered more than he was +suffering. + +But Louis had as much mind to avenge himself as the bravest, if he could +do so safely; and he would not be hurried. "She held it to the light," +he said, dwelling on every syllable, "and turned it this way and that, +and I could see bubbles as of gold----" + +"Ah!" + +"Whirling and leaping up and down in it as if they lived--God guard us +from the evil one! Then she knelt----" + +The Syndic uttered an involuntary cry. + +"And prayed," Louis continued, confirming his astonishing statement by a +nod. "But whether to it--'twas on the table before her--or to the devil, +or otherwise, I know not. Only"--with damnatory candour--"it had a +strange aspect. Certainly she knelt, and it was on the table in front of +her, and her forehead rested on her hands, and----" + +"What then? What then? By Heaven, the point!" gasped Blondel, writhing +in torture. "What then? blind worm that you are, can you not see that +you are killing me? What did she do with it? Tell me!" + +"She poured it into a glass, and----" + +"She drank it?" + +"No, she carried it to her mother," Louis replied as slowly as he dared. +Fawning on the hand that had struck him, he would fain bite it if he +could do so safely. "I did not see what followed," he went on, "they +were behind the screen. But I heard her say that it was Madame's +medicine. And I made out enough----" + +"Ah!" + +"To be sure that her mother drank it." + +Blondel stared at him a moment, wide-eyed; then, with a cry of despair, +bitter, final, indescribable, the Syndic turned and hurried away. He did +not hear the timid remonstrances which Louis, who followed a few paces +behind, ventured to utter. He did not heed the wondering looks of those +whom he jostled as he plunged into the current of passers and thrust his +way across the bridge in the direction whence he had come. The one +impulse in his blind brain was to get home, that he might be alone, to +think and moan and bewail himself unwatched; even as the first instinct +of the wounded beast is to seek its lair and lie hidden, there to await +with piteous eyes and the divine patience of animals the coming of +death. + +But this man had the instinct only, not the patience. In his case would +come with thought wild rages, gnawings of regret, tears of blood. That +he might have, and had not, that he had failed by so little, that he +had been worsted by his own tools--these things and the bitter irony of +life's chances would madden and torment him. In an hour he would live a +lifetime of remorse; yet find in his worst moments no thought more +poignant than the reflection that had he played the game with courage, +had he grasped the nettle boldly, had he seized Basterga while it was +yet time, he might have lived! He might have lived! Ah, God! + +Meanwhile Louis, though consumed with desire to see what would happen, +remained on the bridge. He had tasted a fearful joy and would fain +savour more of it if he could do so with a whole skin. But to follow +seemed perilous; he held the Syndic's mood in too great awe for that. He +did the next best thing. He hastened to a projecting part of the bridge +a few paces from the spot where they had conferred; there he raised +himself on the parapet that he might see which way Blondel turned at the +end of the bridge. If he entered the town no more could be made of it: +but if he turned right-handed and by the rampart to the Corraterie, +Louis' mind was made up to risk something. He would follow to the +Royaumes' house. The magistrate could hardly blame him for going to his +own lodging! + +It was a busy hour, and, cold as it was, a fair number of people were +passing between the island and the upper town. For a moment, look as he +might, he could not discern the Syndic's spare figure; and he was +beginning to think that he had missed him when he saw something that in +a twinkling turned his thoughts. On the bank a little beside the end of +the bridge stood Claude Mercier. He carried a heavy stick in his hand, +and he was waiting: waiting, with his eyes fixed on our friend, and a +look in those eyes that even at that distance raised a gentle sweat on +Louis' brow. + +It required little imagination to follow Claude's past movements. He had +gone to the Syndic's house at nine, and finding himself tricked a second +time had returned hot-foot to the Corraterie. Thence he had tracked the +two to this place. But how long had he been waiting, Louis wondered; and +how much had he seen? Something for certain. His face announced that; +and Louis, hot all over, despite the keen wind and frosty air, augured +the worst. Cowards however have always one course open. The way was +clear behind him. He could cross the island to the St. Gervais bank, and +if he were nimble he might give his pursuer the slip in the maze of +small streets beside the water. It was odd if the lapse of a few hours +did not cool young Mercier's wrath, and restore him to a frame of mind +in which he might be brought to hear reason. + +No sooner planned than done. Or rather it would have been done if +turning to see that the way was clear behind him, Louis had not +discovered a second watcher, who from a spot on the edge of the island +was marking his movements with grim attention. This watcher was +Basterga. Moreover the glance which apprised Louis of this showed him +that the scholar's face was as black as thunder. + +Then, if the gods looked down that day upon any mortal with pity, they +must have looked down on this young man; who was a coward. At the one +end of the bridge, Claude, with an ugly weapon and a face to match! At +the other, Basterga, with a black brow and Heaven alone could say how +much knowledge of his treachery! The scholar could not know of the loss +of the phial, indeed, for it was clear that he had just returned to the +city by the St. Gervais gate. But that he soon would know of it, that he +knew something already, that he had been a witness to the colloquy with +the Syndic--this was certain. + +At any rate Louis thought so, and his knees trembled under him. He had +no longer a way of retreat, and out of the corner of his eye he saw +Claude beginning to advance. What was he to do? The perspiration burst +out on him. He turned this way and that, now casting wild eyes at the +whirling current below, now piteous eyes--the eyes of a calf on its way +to the shambles, and as little regarded--on the thin stream of passers. +How could they go on their way and leave him to the mercies of this +madman? + +He smothered a shriek as Claude, now less than twenty paces away, sped a +look at him. Claude, indeed, was thinking of Anne and her wrongs; and of +a certain kiss. His face told this so plainly, and that passion was his +master, that Louis' cheek grew white. What if the ruffian threw him into +the river? What if--and then like every coward, he chose the remoter +danger. With Claude at hand, he turned and fled, dashed blindly through +the passers on the bridge, flung himself on Basterga, and, seizing the +big scholar by the arm, strove to shelter himself behind him. + +"He is mad!" he gasped. "Mad! Save me! He is going to throw me over!" + +"Steady!" Basterga answered; and he opposed his huge form to Claude's +rush. "What is this, young man? Coming to blows in the street? For +shame! For shame!" He moved again so as still to confront him. + +"Give him up!" Claude panted, scarcely preventing himself from attacking +both. "Give him up, I say, and----" + +"Not till I have heard what he has done! Steady, young man, keep your +distance!" + +"I will tell you everything! Everything!" Louis whined, clinging to his +arm. + +"Do you hear what he says?" Basterga replied. "In the meantime, I tell +you to keep your distance, young man. I am not used to be jostled!" + +Claude hesitated a moment, scowling. Then, "Very well!" he said, drawing +off with a gesture of menace. "It is only put off: I shall pay him +another time. It is waiting for you, sneak, bear that in mind!" And +shrugging his shoulders he turned with as much dignity as he could and +moved off. + +Basterga wheeled from him to the other. "So!" he said. "You have +something to tell me, it seems?" And taking the trembling Louis by the +arm, he drew him aside, a few paces from the approach of the bridge. In +doing this he hung a moment searching the bridge and the farther bank +with a keen gaze. He knew, and for some hours had known, on what a +narrow edge of peril he stood, and that only Blondel's influence +protected him from arrest. Yet he had returned: he had not hesitated to +put his head again into the lion's mouth. Still if Louis' words meant +that certain arrest awaited him, he was not too proud to save himself. + +He could discern no officers on the bridge, and satisfied on the point +of immediate danger, he turned to his shivering ally. "Well, what is +it?" he said. "Speak!" + +"I'll tell you the truth," Louis gabbled. + +"You had better!" Basterga replied, in a tone that meant much more than +he said. "Or you will find me worse to deal with than yonder hot-head! I +will answer for that." + +"Messer Blondel has been at the house," Louis murmured glibly, his mind +centred on the question how much he should tell. "Last night and again +this morning. He has been closeted with Anne and Mercier. And there has +been some talk--of a box or a bottle." + +"Were they in my room?" Basterga asked, his brow contracting. + +"No, downstairs." + +"Did they get--the box or the bottle?" There was a dangerous note in +Basterga's voice; and a look in his eyes that scared the lad. + +Louis, as his instinct was, lied again, fleeing the more pressing peril. +"Not to my knowledge," he said. + +"And you?" The scholar eyed him with bland suavity. "You had nothing to +do--with all this, I suppose?" + +"I listened. I was in my room, but they thought I was out. When I went," +the liar continued, "they discovered me; and Messer Blondel followed me +and overtook me on the bridge and threatened--that he would have me +arrested if I were not silent." + +"You refused to be silent, of course?" + +But Louis was too acute to be caught in a trap so patent. He knew that +Basterga would not believe in his courage, if he swore to it. "No, I +said I would be silent," he answered. "And I should have been," he +continued with candour, "if I had not run into your arms." + +"But if you assented to his wish," Basterga retorted, eyeing him keenly, +"why did he depart after that fashion?" + +"Something happened to him," Louis said. "I do not know what. He seemed +to be in distress, or to be ill." + +"I could see that," the scholar answered dryly. "But Master Claude? What +of him? And why was he so enamoured of you that he could not be parted +from you?" + +"It was to punish me for listening. They followed me different ways." + +"I see. And that is the truth, is it?" + +"I swear it is!" + +The scholar saw no reason why it should not be the truth. Louis, a +facile tool, had always been of his, the stronger, party. If Blondel +tampered with any one, he would naturally, if he knew aught of the +house, suborn Claude or Anne. And Louis, spying and fleeing, and when +overtaken, promising silence, was quite in the picture. The only thing, +indeed, which stood out awkwardly, and refused to fall into place, was +the fashion in which the Syndic had turned and gone off the bridge. And +for that there might be reasons. He might have been seized with a sudden +attack of his illness, or he might have perceived Basterga watching him +from the farther bank. + +On the whole, the scholar, forgetting that cowards are ever liars, saw +no reason to doubt Louis' story. It did but add one more to the motives +he had for action: immediate, decisive, striking action, if he would +save his neck, if he would succeed in his plans. That the Syndic alone +stood between him and arrest, that by the Syndic alone he lived, he had +learned at a meeting at which he had been present the previous night at +the Grand Duke's country house four leagues distant. D'Albigny had been +there, and Brunaulieu, Captain of the Grand Duke's Guards, and Father +Alexander, who dreamed of the Episcopate of Geneva, and others--the +chiefs of the plot, his patrons. To his mortification they had been able +to tell him things he had not learned, though he was within the city, +and they without. Among others, that the Council had certain knowledge +of him and his plans, and but for the urgency of Blondel would have +arrested him a fortnight before. + +His companions at the midnight supper had detected his dismay, and had +derided him, thinking that with that there was an end of the mysterious +scheme which he had refused to impart. They fancied that he would not +return to the city, or venture his head a second time within the lion's +jaws. But they reckoned without their man, Basterga with all his faults +was brave; and he had failed in too many schemes to resign this one +lightly. + + "Si fractus illabatur orbis + Impavidum ferient ruinæ," + +he murmured; and he had ventured, he had passed the gates, he was here. +Here, with his eyes open to the peril, and open to the necessity of +immediate action if the slender thread by which all hung were not to +snap untimely. + +Blondel! He lived by Blondel. And Blondel--why had he left the bridge in +that strange fashion? Abruptly, desperately, as if something had +befallen him. Why? He must learn, and that quickly. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +A GLOVE AND WHAT CAME OF IT. + + +Meanwhile, Claude, robbed of his prey, had gone into the town in great +disgust. As he passed from the bridge, and paused before he entered the +huddle of narrow streets that climbed the hill, he had on his left the +glittering heights of snow, rising ridge above ridge to the blue; and +most distant among them Mont Blanc itself, etherealised by the frosty +sunshine and clear air of a December morning. But Mont Blanc might have +been a marsh, the Rhone, pouring its icy volume from the lake, might +have been a brook, for him. Aware, at length, of the peril in which Anne +stood, and not doubting that these colloquies of Messers Blondel and +Louis, these man[oe]uvrings to be rid of his presence, were part of a +conspiracy against her, he burned with the desire to thwart it. They had +made a puppet of him; they had sent him to and fro at their will and +pleasure; and they had done this, no doubt, in order that in his absence +they might work--Heaven knew what vile and miserable work! But he would +know, too! He was going to know! He would not be so tricked thrice. + +His indignation went beyond the Syndic. The smug-faced towns-folk whom +he met and jostled in the narrow ways, and whose grave starched looks he +countered with hot defiant glances--he included them in his anathema. He +extended to them the contempt in which he held Blondel and Louis and the +rest. They were all of a breed, a bigoted breed; all dull, blind worms, +insensible to the beauty of self-sacrifice, or the purity of affection. +All, self-sufficient dolts, as far removed, as immeasurably divided from +her whom he loved, as the gloomy lanes of this close city lay below the +clear loveliness of the snow-peaks! For, after all, he had lifted his +eyes to the mountains. + +One thing only perplexed him. He understood the attitude of Basterga and +Grio and Louis towards the girl. He discerned the sword of Damocles that +they held over her, the fear of a charge of witchcraft, or of some vile +heresy, in which they kept her. But how came Blondel in the plot? What +was his part, what his object? If he had been sincere in that attempt on +Basterga's secrets, which Madame's delirious words had frustrated, was +he sincere now? Was his object now as then--the suppression of the +devilish practices of which he had warned Claude, and in the punishment +of which he had threatened to include the girl with her tempter? +Presumably it was, and he was still trying to reach the goal by other +ways, using Louis as he had used Claude, or tried to use him. + +And yet Claude doubted. He began to suspect--for love is jealous--that +Blondel had behind this a more secret, a more personal, a more selfish +aim. Had the young girl, still in her teens, caught the fancy of the man +of sixty? There was nothing unnatural in the idea; such things were, +even in Geneva; and Louis was a go-between, not above the task. In that +case she who had showed a brave front to Basterga all these months, who +had not blenched before the daily and hourly persecution to which she +had been exposed in her home, was not likely to succumb to the senile +advances of a man who might be her grandfather! + +If he did not hold her secret. But if he did hold it? If he did hold +it, and the cruel power it gave? If he held it, he who had only to lift +his hand to consign her to duress on a charge so dark and dangerous that +innocence itself was no protection against it? So plausible that even +her lover had for a short time held it true? What then? + +Claude, who had by this time reached the Tertasse gate and passed +through it from the town side, paused on the ramparts and bared his +head. What then? + +He had his answer. Framed in the immensity of sky and earth that lay +before him, he saw his loneliness and hers, his insignificance and hers, +his helplessness and hers; he, a foreigner, young, without name or +reputation, or aught but a strong right hand; she, almost a child, alone +or worse than alone, in this great city--one of the weak things which +the world's car daily and hourly crushes into the mud, their very cries +unheard and unheeded. Of no more account than the straw which the turbid +Rhone, bore one moment on its swirling tide, and the next swallowed from +sight beneath its current! + +They were two--and a mad woman! And against them were Blondel and +Basterga and Grio and Louis, and presently all the town of Geneva! All +these gloomy, narrow, righteous men, and shrieking, frightened +women--frightened lest any drop of the pitch fall on them and destroy +them! Love is a marvellous educator. Almost as clearly as we of a later +day, he saw how outbreaks of superstition, such as that which he +dreaded, began, and came to a head, and ended. A chance word at a door, +a spiteful rumour or a sick child, the charge, the torture, the widening +net of accusation, the fire in the market-place. So it had been in +Bamberg and Wurzburg, in Geneva two generations back, in Alsace scarce +as many years back: at Edinburgh in Scotland where thirty persons had +suffered in one day--ten years ago that; in the district of Como, where +a round thousand had suffered! + +Nobility had not availed to save some, nor court-favour others; nor +wealth, nor youth, nor beauty. And what had he or she to urge, what had +they to put forward that would in the smallest degree avail them? That +could even for a moment stem or avert the current of popular madness +which power itself had striven in vain to dam. Nothing! + +And yet he did not blench, nor would he; being half French and of good +blood, at a time when good French blood ran the more generously for a +half century of war. He would not have blenched, even if he had not, +from the sunlit view of God's earth and heaven which lay before his +eyes, drawn other thoughts than that one of his own littleness and +insignificance. As this view of vale and mountain had once before lifted +his judgment above the miasma of a cruel superstition, so it raised him +now above creeping fears and filled him with confidence in something +more stable than magistrates or mobs. Love, like the sunlight, shone +aslant the dark places of the prospect and filled them with warmth. +Sacrifice for her he loved took on the beauty of the peaks, cold but +lovely; and hope and courage, like the clear blue of the vault above, +looked smiling down on the brief dangers and the brief troubles of man's +making. + +The clock of St. Gervais was striking eleven as, still in exalted mood, +he turned his back on the view and entered the house in the Corraterie. +He had entered on his return from his fruitless visit to Blondel, and +had satisfied himself that Anne was safe. Doubtless she was still safe, +for the house was quiet. + +In his new mood he was almost inclined to quarrel with this. In the +ardour of his passion he would gladly have seen the danger immediate, +the peril present, that he might prove to her how much he loved her, +how deeply he felt for her, what he would dare for her. To die on the +hearth of the living-room, at her feet and saving her, seemed for a +moment the thing most desirable--the purest happiness! + +That was denied him. The house was quiet, as in a morning it commonly +was. So quiet that he recalled without effort the dreams which he had +dreamed on that spot, and the thoughts which had filled his heart to +bursting a few hours before. The great pot was there, simmering on its +hook; and on the small table beside it, the table that Basterga and Grio +occupied, stood a platter with a few dried herbs and a knife fresh from +her hand. Claude made sure that he was unobserved, and raising the knife +to his lips, kissed the haft gently and reverently, thinking what she +had suffered many a day while using it! What fear, and grief and +humiliation, and---- + +He stood erect, his face red: he listened intently. Upstairs, breaking +the long silence of the house, opening as it were a window to admit the +sun, a voice had uplifted itself in song. The voice had some of the +tones of Anne's voice, and something that reminded him of her voice. But +when had he heard her sing? When had aught so clear, so mirthful, or so +young fallen from her as this; this melody, laden with life and youth +and abundance, that rose and fell and floated to his ears through the +half-open door of the staircase? + +He crept to the staircase door and listened; yes, it was her voice, but +not such as he had ever heard it. It was her voice as he could fancy it +in another life, a life in which she was as other girls, darkened by no +fear, pinched by no anxiety, crushed by no contumely; such as her voice +might have been, uplifted in the garden of his old home on the French +border, amid bees and flowers and fresh-scented herbs. Her voice, +doubtless, it was; but it sorted so ill with the thoughts he had been +thinking, that with his astonishment was mingled something of shock and +of loss. He had dreamed of dying for her or with her, and she sang! He +was prepared for peril, and her voice vied with the lark's in joyous +trills. + +Leaning forward to hear more clearly, he touched the door. It was ajar, +and before he could hinder it, it closed with a sharp sound. The singing +ceased with an abruptness that told, or he was much mistaken, of +self-remembrance. And presently, after an interval of no more than a few +seconds, during which he pictured the singer listening, he heard her +begin to descend. + +Two men may do the same thing from motives as far apart as the poles. +Claude did what Louis would have done. As the foot drew near the +staircase door, treading, less willingly, less lightly, more like that +of Anne with every step, he slid into his closet, and stood. Through the +crack between the hinges of the open door, he would be able to view her +face when she appeared. + +A second later she came, and he saw. The light of the song was still in +her eyes, but mingled, as she looked round the room to learn who was +there, with something of exaltation and defiance. Christian maidens +might have worn some such aspect, he thought--but he was in love--as +they passed to the lions. Or Esther, when she went unbidden into the +inner court of the King's House, and before the golden sceptre moved. +Something had happened to her. But what? + +She did not see him, and after standing a moment to assure herself that +she was alone, she passed to the hearth. She lifted the lid of the pot, +bent over it, and slowly stirred the broth; then, having covered it +again, she began to chop the dried herbs on the platter. Even in her +manner of doing this, he fancied a change; a something unlike the Anne +he had known, the Anne he had come to love. The face was more animated, +the action quicker, the step lighter, the carriage more free. She began +to sing, and stopped; fell into a reverie, with the knife in her hand, +and the herb half cut; again roused herself to finish her task; finally +having slid the herbs from the platter to the pot, she stood in a second +reverie, with her eyes fixed on the window. + +He began to feel the falseness of his position. It was too late to show +himself, and if she discovered him what would she think of him? Would +she believe that in spying upon her he had some evil purpose, some low +motive, such as Louis might have had? His cheek grew hot. And then--he +forgot himself. + +Her eyes had left the window and fallen to the window-seat. It was the +thing she did then which drew him out of himself. Moving to the +window--he had to stoop forward to keep her within the range of his +sight--she took from it a glove, held it a moment, regarding it; then +with a tender, yet whimsical laugh, a laugh half happiness, half +ridicule of herself, she kissed it. + +It was Claude's glove. And if, with that before his eyes he could have +restrained himself, the option was not his. She turned in the act, and +saw him; with a startled cry she put--none too soon--the table between +them. + +They faced one another across it, he flushed, eager, with love in his +eyes, and on his lips; she blushing but not ashamed, her new-found joy +in her eyes, and in the pose of her head. + +"Anne!" he cried. "I know now! I know! I have seen and you cannot +deceive me!" + +"In what?" she said, a smile trembling on her lips. "And of what, Messer +Claude, are you so certain, if you please?" + +"That you love me!" he replied. "But not a hundredth part"--he stretched +his arms across the table towards her "as much as I love you and have +loved you for weeks! As I loved you even before I learned last +night----" + +"What?" Into her face--that had not found one hard look to rebuke his +boldness--came something of her old silent, watchful self. "What did you +learn last night?" + +"Your secret!" + +"I have none!" Quick as thought the words came from her lips. "I have +none! God is merciful," with a gesture of her open arms, as if she put +something from her, "and it is gone! If you know, if you guess aught of +what it was"--her eyes questioned his and read in them if not that which +he knew, that which he thought of her. + +"I ask you to be silent." + +"I will, after I have----" + +"Now! Always!" + +"Not till I have spoken once!" he cried. "Not till I have told you once +what I think of you! Last night I heard. And I understood. I saw what +you had gone through, what you had feared, what had been your life all +these weeks, rising and lying down! I saw what you meant when you bade +me go anywhere but here, and why you suffered what you did at their +hands, and why they dared to treat you--so! And had they been here I +would have killed them!" he added, his eyes sparkling. "And had you been +here----" + +"Yes?" she did not seek to check him now. Her bearing was changed, her +eyes, soft and tender, met his as no eyes had ever met his. + +"I should have worshipped you! I should have knelt as I kneel now!" he +cried. And sinking on his knees he extended his arms across the table +and took her unresisting hands. "If you no longer have a secret, you +had one, and I bless God for it! For without it I might not have known +you, Anne! I might not have----" + +"Perhaps you do not know me now," she said; but she did not withdraw her +hands or her eyes. Only into the latter grew a shade of trouble. "I have +done--you do not know what I have done. I am a thief." + +"Pah!" + +"It is true. I am a thief." + +"What is it to me?" He laughed a laugh as tender as her eyes. "You are a +thief, for you have stolen my heart. For the rest, do you think that I +do not know you now? That I can be twice deceived? Twice take gold for +dross, and my own for another thing? I know you!" + +"But you do not know," she said tremulously, "what I have done--what I +did last night--or what may come of it." + +"I know that what comes of it will happen, not to one but to two," he +replied bravely. "And that is all I ask to know. That, and that you are +content it shall be so?" + +"Content?" + +"Yes." + +"Content!" + +There are things, other than wine, that bring truth to the surface. That +which had happened to the girl in the last few hours, that which had +melted her into unwonted song, was of these things; and the tone of her +voice as she repeated the word "Content!" the surrender of her eyes that +placed her heart in his keeping, as frankly as she left her hands in +his, proclaimed it. The reserves of her sex, the tricks of coyness and +reticence men look for in maids, were shaken from her; and as man to man +her eyes told him the truth, told him that if she had ever doubted she +no longer doubted that she loved him. In the heart which a single +passion, the purest of which men and women are capable, had engrossed +so long, Nature, who, expel her as you will, will still return, had won +her right and carved her kingdom. + +And she knew that it was well with her--whatever the upshot of last +night. To be lonely no more; to be no longer the protector, but the +protected; to know the comfort of the strong arm as well as of the +following eye, the joy of receiving as well as of giving; to know that, +however dark the future might lower, she had no longer to face it alone, +no longer to plan and hope and fear and suffer alone, but with +_him_--the sense of these things so mingled with her gratitude on her +mother's account that the new affection, instead of weakening the old +became as it were part of it; while the old stretched onwards its pious +hand to bless the new. + +If Claude did not read all this in her eyes, and in that one word +"Content?" he read so much that never devotee before relic rose more +gently or more reverently to his feet. Because all was his he would take +nothing. "As I stand by you, may God stand by me," he said, still +holding her hands in his, and with the table between them. + +"I have no fear," she replied in a low voice. "Yet--if you fail, may He +forgive you as fully as I must forgive you. What shall I say to you on +my part, Messer Claude?" + +"That you love me." + +"I love you," she murmured with an intonation which ravished the young +man's heart and brought the blood to his cheeks. "I love you. What +more?" + +"There is no more," he cried. "There can be no more. If that be true, +nothing matters." + +"No!" she said, beginning to tremble under a weight of emotion too heavy +for her, following as it did the excitement of the night. "No!" she +continued, raising her eyes which had fallen before the ardour of his +gaze. "But there must be something you wish to ask me. You must wish to +know----" + +"I have heard what I wished to know." + +"But----" + +"Tell me what you please." + +She stood in thought an instant: then, with a sigh, "He came to me last +evening," she said, "when you were at his house." + +"Messer Blondel?" + +"Yes. He wished me to procure for him a certain drug that Messer +Basterga kept in his room." + +Claude stared. "In a steel casket chained to the wall?" he asked. + +"Yes," she whispered with some surprise. "You knew of it, then? He had +tried to procure it through Louis, and on the pretence that the box +contained papers needed by the State. Failing in that he came last +evening to me, and told me the truth." + +"The truth?" Claude asked, wondering. "But was it the truth?" + +"It was." Her eyes, like stars on a rainy night, shone softly. "I have +proved it." Again, with a ring of exultation in her voice, "I have +proved it!" she cried. + +"How?" + +"There was in the box a drug, he told me, possessed of an almost +miraculous power over disease of body and mind; so rare and so wonderful +that none could buy it, and he knew of but this one dose, of which +Messer Basterga had possessed himself. He begged me to take it and to +give it to him. He had on him, he said, a fatal illness, and if he did +not get this--he must die." Her voice shook. "He must die! Now God help +him!" + +"You took it." + +"I took it." Her face, as her eyes dropped before his, betrayed trouble +and doubt. "I took it," she continued, trembling. "If I have done wrong, +God forgive me. For I stole it." + +His face betrayed his amazement, but he did not release her hands. +"Why?" he said. + +"To give it to her," she answered. "To my mother. I thought then that it +was right--it was a chance. I thought--now I don't know, I don't know!" +she repeated. The shade on her face grew deeper. "I thought I was right +then. Now--I--I am frightened." She looked at him with eyes in which her +doubts were mirrored. She shivered, she who had been so joyous a moment +before, and her hands, which hitherto had lain passive in his, returned +his pressure feverishly. "I fear now!" she exclaimed. "I fear! What is +it? What has happened--in the last minute?" + +He would have drawn her to him, seeing that her nerves were shaken; but +the table was between them, and before he could pass round it, a sound +caught his ear, a shadow fell between them, and looking up he discovered +Basterga's face peering through the nearer casement. It was pressed +against the small leaded panes, and possibly it was this which by +flattening the huge features imparted to them a look of malignity. Or +the look--which startled Claude, albeit he was no coward--might have +been only the natural expression of one, who suspected what was afoot +between them and came to mar it. Whatever it meant, the girl's cry of +dismay found an echo on Claude's lips. Involuntarily he dropped her +hands; but--and the action was symbolical of the change in her life--he +stepped at the same moment between her and the door. Whatever she had +done, right or wrong, was his concern now. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE _REMEDIUM_. + + +We have seen that for Claude, as he hurried from the bridge, the faces +he met in the narrow streets of the old town were altered by the medium +through which he viewed them; and appeared gloomy, sordid and fanatical. +In the eyes of Blondel, who had passed that way before him, the same +faces wore a look of selfishness, stupendously and heartlessly cruel. +And not the faces only; the very houses and ways, the blue sky overhead, +and the snow-peaks--when for an instant he caught sight of them--bore +the same aspect. All wore their every-day air, and mocked the despair in +his heart. All flung in his teeth the fact, the incredible fact, that +whether he died or lived, stayed or went, the world would proceed; that +the eternal hills, ay, and the insensate bricks and mortar, that had +seen his father pass, would see him pass, and would be standing when he +was gone into the darkness. + +There are few things that to the mind of man in his despondent moods are +more strange, or more shocking, than the permanence of trifles. The +small things to which his brain and his hand have given shape, which he +can, if he will, crush out of form, and resolve into their primitive +atoms, outlive him! They lie on the table when he is gone, are unchanged +by his removal, serve another master as they have served him, preach to +another generation the same lesson. The face is dust, but the canvas +smiles from the wall. The hand is withered, but the pencil is still in +the tray and is used by another. There are times when the irony of this +thought bites deep into the mind, and goads the mortal to revolt. Had +Blondel, as he climbed the hill, possessed the power of Orimanes to +blast at will, few of those whom he met, few on whom he turned the +gloomy fire of his eyes, would have reached their houses that day or +seen another sun. + +He was within a hundred paces of his home, when a big man, passing along +the Bourg du Four, but on the other side of the way, saw him and came +across the road to intercept him. It was Baudichon, his double chin more +pendulent, his massive face more dully wistful than ordinary; for the +times had got upon the Councillor's nerves, and day by day he grew more +anxious, slept worse of nights, and listened much before he went to bed. + +"Messer Blondel," he called out, in a voice more peremptory than was +often addressed to the Fourth Syndic's ear. "Messer Syndic! One moment, +if you please!" + +Blondel stopped and turned to him. Outwardly the Syndic was cool, +inwardly he was at a white heat that at any moment might impel him to +the wildest action. "Well?" he said. "What is it, M. Baudichon?" + +"I want to know----" + +"Of course!" The sneer was savage and undisguised. "What, this time, if +I may be so bold?" + +Baudichon breathed quickly, partly with the haste he had made across the +road, partly in irritation at the gibe. "This only," he said. "How far +you purpose to try our patience? A week ago you were for delaying the +arrest you know of--for a day. It was a matter of hours then." + +"It was." + +"But days have passed, and are passing! and we have no explanation; +nothing is done. And every night we run a fresh risk, and every +morning--so far--we thank God that our throats are still whole; and +every day we strive to see you, and you are out, or engaged, or about to +do it, or awaiting news! But this cannot go on for ever! Nor," puffing +out his cheeks, "shall we always bear it!" + +"Messer Baudichon!" Blondel retorted, the passion he had so far +restrained gleaming in his eyes, and imparting a tremor to his voice, +"are you Fourth Syndic or am I?" + +"You! You, certainly. Who denies it?" the stout man said. "But----" + +"But what? But what?" + +"We would know what you think we are, that we can bear this suspense." + +"I will tell you what I think you are!" + +"By your leave?" + +"_A fat hog!_" the Syndic shrieked. "And as brainless as a hog fit for +the butcher! That for you! and your like!" + +And before the astounded Baudichon, whose brain was slow to take in new +facts, had grasped the full enormity of the insult flung at him, the +Syndic was a dozen paces distant. He had eased his mind, and that for +the moment was much; though he still ground his teeth, and, had +Baudichon followed him, would have struck the Councillor without thought +or hesitation. The pigs! The hogs! To press him with their wretched +affairs: to press him at this moment when the grave yawned at his feet, +and the coffin opened for him! + +To be sure he might now do with Basterga as he pleased without thought +or drawback; but for their benefit--never! He paused at his door, and +cast a haggard glance up and down; at the irregular line of gables +which he had known from childhood, the steep, red roofs, the cobble +pavement, the bakers' signs that hung here and there and with the wide +eaves darkened the way; and he cursed all he saw in the frenzy of his +rage. Let Basterga, Savoy, d'Albigny do their worst! What was it to him? +Why should he move? He went into his house despairing. + +Unto this last hour a little hope had shone through the darkness. At +times the odds had seemed to be against him, at one time Heaven itself +had seemed to declare itself his foe. But the _remedium_ had existed, +the thing was still possible, the light burned, though distant, feeble, +flickering. He had told himself that he despaired; but he had not known +what real despair was until this moment, until he sat, as he saw now, +among the Dead Sea splendours of his parlour, the fingers of his right +hand drumming on the arm of the abbot's chair, his shaggy eyelids +drooping over his brooding eyes. + +Ah, God! If he had stayed to take the stuff when it lay in his power! If +he had refused to open until he held it in his hand! If, even after that +act of folly, he had refused to go until she gave it him! How +inconceivable his madness seemed now, his fear of scandal, his thought +of others! Others? There was one of whom he dared not think; for when he +did his head began to tremble on his shoulders; and he had to clutch the +arms of the chair to stay the palsy that shook him. If _she_, the girl +who had destroyed him, thought it was all one to him whom the drug +advantaged, or who lived or who died, he would teach her--before he +died! He would teach her! There was no extremity of pain or shame she +should not taste, accursed witch, accursed thief, as she was! But he +must not think of that, or of her, now; or he would die before his time. +He had a little time yet, if he were careful, if he were cool, if he +were left a brief space to recover himself. A little, a very little +time! + +Whose were that foot and that voice? Basterga's? The Syndic's eyes +gleamed, he raised his head. There was another score he had to pay! His +own score, not Baudichon's. Fool, to have left his treasure unguarded +for every thieving wench to take! Fool, thrice and again, for putting +his neck back into the lion's mouth. Stealthily Blondel pulled the +handbell nearer to him and covered it with his cloak. He would have +added a weapon, but there was no arm within reach, and while he +hesitated between his chair and the door of the small inner room, the +outer door opened, and Basterga appeared and advanced, smiling, towards +him. + +"Your servant, Messer Syndic," he said. "I heard that you had been +inquiring for me in my absence, and I am here to place myself at your +disposition. You are not looking----" he stopped short, in feigned +surprise. "There is nothing wrong, I hope?" + +Had the scholar been such a man as Baudichon, Blondel's answer would +have been one frenzied shriek of insults and reproaches. But face to +face with Basterga's massive quietude, with his giant bulk, with that +air, at once masterful and cynical, which proclaimed to those with whom +he talked that he gave them but half his mind while reading theirs, the +wrath of the smaller man cooled. A moment his lips writhed, without +sound; then, "Wrong?" he cried, his voice harsh and broken. "Wrong? All +is wrong!" + +"You are not well?" Basterga said, eyeing him with concern. + +"Well? I shall never be better! Never!" Blondel shrieked. And after a +pause, "Curse you!" he added. "It is your doing!" + +Basterga stared. He was in the dark as to what had happened, though the +Syndic's manner on leaving the bridge had prepared him for something. +"My doing, Messer Blondel?" he said. "Why? What have I done?" + +"Done?" + +"Ay, done! It was not my fault," the scholar continued, with a touch of +sternness, "that I could not offer you the _remedium_ on easy terms. Nor +mine, that hard as the terms were, you did not accept them. Besides," he +continued, slowly and with meaning, + + "Terque quaterque redit! + +You remember the Sibylline books? How often they were offered, and the +terms? It is not too late, Messer Blondel--even now. While there is life +there is hope, there is more than hope. There is certainty." + +"Is there?" Blondel cried; he extended a lean hand, shaking with +vindictive passion. "Is there? Go and look in your casket, fool! Go and +look in your steel box!" he hissed. "Go! And see if it be not too late!" + +For a moment Basterga peered at him, his brow contracted, his eyes +screwed up. The blow was unexpected. Then, "Have you taken the stuff?" +he muttered. + +"I? No! But she has!" And on that, seeing the change in the other's +face--for, for once, the scholar's mask slipped and suffered his +consternation to appear--Blondel laughed triumphantly: in torture +himself, he revelled in a disaster that touched another. "She has! She +has!" + +"She? Who?" + +"The girl of the house! Anne you call her! Curse her! child of +perdition, as she is! She!" And he clawed the air. + +"She has taken it?" Basterga spoke incredulously, but his brow was damp, +his cheeks were a shade more sallow than usual; he did not deceive the +other's penetration. "Impossible!" he continued, striving to rally his +forces. "Why should she take it? She has no illness, no disease! +Try"--he swallowed something--"to be clear, man. Try to be clear. Who +has told you this cock-and-bull story?" + +"It is the truth." + +"She has taken it?" + +"To give to her mother--yes." + +"And she?" + +"Has taken it? Yes." + +The scholar, ordinarily so cool and self-contained, could not withhold +an execration. His small eyes glittered, his face swelled with rage; for +a moment he was within a little of an explosion. Of what mad, what +insensate folly, unworthy of a schoolboy, worthy only of a sot, an +imbecile, a Grio, had he been guilty! To leave the potion, that if it +had not the virtues which he ascribed to it, had virtue--or it had not +served his purpose of deceiving the Syndic during some days or hours--to +leave the potion unprotected, at the mercy of a chance hand, of a +treacherous girl! Safeguarded, in appearance only, and to blind his +dupe! It seemed incredible that he could have been so careless! + +True, he might replace the stuff at some expense; but not in a day or an +hour. And how--with one dose in all the world!--keep up the farce? The +dose consumed, the play was at an end. An end--or, no, was he losing his +wits, his courage? On the instant, in the twinkling of an eye, he shaped +a fresh course. + +He cursed the girl anew, and apparently with the same fervour. "A +month's work it cost me!" he cried. "A month's work! and ten gold +pieces!" + +The Syndic, pale, and almost in a state of collapse--for the bitter +satisfaction of imparting the news no longer supported him--stared. "A +month's work?" he muttered. "A month? Years you told me! And a fortune!" + +"I told you? Never!" Basterga opened his eyes in seeming amazement. +"Never, good sir, in all my life!" he repeated emphatically. +"But"--returning grimly to his former point--"ten gold pieces, or a +fortune--no matter which, she shall pay dearly for it, the thieving +jade!" + +The Syndic sat heavily in his seat, and, with a hand on either arm of +the abbot's chair, stared dully at the other. "A fortune, you told me," +he said, in a voice little above a whisper. "And years. Was it a +fiction, all a fiction? About Ibn Jasher, and the Physician of Aleppo, +and M. Laurens of Paris, and--and the rest?" + +Basterga deliberately took a turn to the window, came back, and stood +looking down at him. "Mon Dieu!" he muttered. "Is it possible?" + +"Eh?" + +"I can scarcely believe it!" The scholar spoke with a calmness half +cynical, half compassionate. "But I suppose you really think that of me, +though it seems incredible! You are under the impression that the drug +this jade stole was the _remedium_ of Ibn Jasher, the one incomparable +and sovereign result of long years of study and research? You believe +that I kept this in a mere locked box, the key accessible by all who +knew my habits, and the treasure at the mercy of the first thief! Mon +Dieu! Mon Dieu! If I said it a thousand times I could not express my +astonishment. I might be the vine grower of the proverb, + + Cui saepe viator + Cessisset magna compellans voce cucullum!" + +The Syndic heard him without changing the attitude of weakness and +exhaustion into which he had fallen on sitting down. But midway in the +other's harangue, his lips parted, he held his breath, and in his eyes +grew a faint light of dawning hope. "But if it be not so?" he muttered +feebly. "If this be not so, why----" + +"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" + +"Why did you look so startled a moment ago?" + +"Why, man? Because ten pieces of gold are ten pieces! To me at least! +And the potion, which was made after a recipe of that same Messer +Laurens of Paris, cost no less. It is a love-philtre, beneficent to the +young, but if taken by the old so noxious, that had you swallowed it," +with a grin, "you had not been long Syndic, Messer Blondel!" + +Blondel shook his head. "You do not deceive me," he muttered. For though +he was anxious to believe, as yet he could not. He could not; he had +seen the other's face. "It is the _remedium_ she has taken! I feel it." + +"And given to her mother?" + +Blondel inclined his head. + +The scholar laughed contemptuously. "Then is the test easy," he said. +"If it be the _remedium_ you will find her mother, who has not left her +bed for three years, grown strong and well and vigorous, and like to him +who lifted up his bed and walked. But if it be the love-philtre, you +have but to come with me, and you will find her----" He did not finish +the sentence, but a shrug of his shoulders and a mysterious smile filled +the gap. + +Imperceptibly Blondel had raised himself in his chair. The gleam of +hope, once lighted in his eyes, was growing bright. "How?" he asked. +"How shall we find her? If it be the philtre only that she has taken--as +you say?" + +"If it be the philtre? The mother, you mean?" + +"Yes." + +"Mad! Mad!" Basterga repeated with decision, "and beside herself. As you +had been," he continued grimly, "had you by any chance taken the _aqua +Medeæ_." + +"That you kept in the steel box?" + +"Ay." + +"You are sure it was not the _remedium_?" Blondel leaned forward. If +only he could believe it, if only it were the truth, how great the +difference! No wonder that the muscles of his lean throat swelled, and +his hands closed convulsively on the arms of his great chair, as he +strove to read the other's mind. + +He had as soon read a printed page without light. The scholar saw that +it needed but a little to convince him, and took his line with +confidence; nor without some pride in the wits that had saved him. "The +_remedium_?" he repeated with impatient wonder. "Do you know that the +_remedium_ is unique? That it is a man's life? That in the world's +history it scarce appears once in five hundred years? That all the +wealth of kings cannot produce it, nor the Spanish Indies furnish it? Do +you remember these things, Messer Blondel, and do you ask if I keep it +like a common philtre in a box in my lodgings?" He snorted in contempt, +and going disdainfully to the hearth spat in the fire as if he could not +brook the idea. Then returning to the Syndic's side, he took up his +story in a different tone. "The _remedium_," he said, "my good friend, +is in the Grand Duke's Treasury at Turin. It is in a steel box, it is +true, but in one with three locks and three keys, sealed with the Grand +Duke's private signet and with mine; and laid where the Treasurer +himself cannot meddle with it." + +The Syndic sat up straight, and with his eyes fixed sullenly on the +floor fingered his beard. He was almost persuaded, but not quite. Could +it be, could it really be that the thing still existed? That it was +still to be obtained, that life by its means was still possible? + +"Well?" Basterga said, when the silence had lasted some time. + +"The proof!" Blondel retorted, excitement once more over-mastering him. +"Let me have the proof! Let me see, man, if the woman be mad." + +But the scholar, leaning Atlas-like, against the wall beside the long +low window, with his arms crossed, and his great head sunk on his +breast, did not move. He saw that this was his hour and he must use it. +"To what purpose?" he answered slowly: and he shrugged his shoulders. +"Why go to the trouble? The _remedium_ is in Turin. And if it be not, it +is the Grand Duke's affair only, and mine, since you will not come to +his terms. I would, I confess," he continued, in a more kindly tone, +"that it were your affair also, Messer Blondel. I would I could have +made you see things as they are and as I see them. As, believe me, +Messer Petitot would see them were he in your place; as Messer Fabri and +Messer Baudichon--I warrant it--do see them; as--pardon me--all who rank +themselves among the wise and the illuminate, see them. For all such, +believe me, these are times of enlightening, when the words which past +generations have woven into shackles for men's minds fall from them, and +are seen to be but the straw they are; when men move, like children +awaking from foolish dreams, and life----" + +The Syndic's eyes glowed dully. + +"Life," Basterga continued sonorously, "is seen to be that which it is, +the one thing needful which makes all other things of use, and without +which all other things are superfluities! Bethink you a minute, Messer +Blondel! Would Petitot give his life to save yours?" + +The Syndic smiled after a sickly fashion. Petitot? The stickling pedant! +The thin, niggling whipster! + +"Or Messer Fabri?" + +Blondel shook his head. + +"Or Messer Baudichon?" + +"I called him but now--a fat hog!" + +It was Basterga's turn to shake his head. "He is not one to forget," he +said gravely. "I fear you will hear of that again, Messer Blondel. I +fear it will make trouble for you. But if these will not, is there any +man in Geneva, any man you can name, who would give his life for you?" + +"Do men give life so easily?" Blondel answered, moving painfully in his +chair. + +"Yet you will give yours for them! You will give yours! And who will be +a ducat the better?" + +"I shall at least die for freedom," the Syndic muttered, gnawing his +moustache. + +"A word!" + +"For the religion, then." + +"It is that which men make it!" the scholar retorted. "There have been +good men of all religions, though we dare not say as much in public, or +in Geneva. 'Tis not the religion. 'Tis the way men live it! Was John +Bernardino of Assisi, whom some call St. Francis, a worse man than +Arnold of Brescia, the Reformer? Or is your Beza a better man than +Messer Francis of Sales? Or would the heavens fall if Geneva embraced +the faith of the good Archbishop of Milan? Words, Messer Blondel, +believe me, words!" + +"Yet men die for them!" + +"Not wise men. And when you have died for them, who will thank you?" The +Syndic groaned. "Who will know, or style you martyr?" Basterga continued +forcibly. "Baudichon, whom you have called a fat hog? He will sit in +your seat. Petitot--he said but a little while ago that he would buy +this house if he lived long enough." + +"He did?" The Syndic came to his feet as if a spring had raised him. + +"Certainly. And he is a rich man, you know." + +"May the Bise search his bones!" Blondel cried, trembling with fury. For +this was the realisation of his worst fears. Petitot to live in his +house, lie warm in his bed, sneer at his memory across the table that +had been his, rule in the Council where he had been first! Petitot, that +miserable crawler who had clogged his efforts for years, who had shared, +without deserving, his honours, who had spied on him and carped at him +day by day and hour by hour! Petitot to succeed him! To be all and own +all, and sun himself in the popular eye, and say "Geneva, it is I!" +While he, Blondel, lay rotting and forgotten, stark, beneath snow and +rain, winter wind and summer drought! + +Perish Geneva first! Perish friend and foe alike! + +The Syndic wavered. His hand shook, his thin dry cheek burned with +fever, his lips moved unceasingly. Why should he die? They would not die +for him. Nay, they would not thank him, they would not praise him. A +traitor? To live he must turn traitor? Ay, but try Petitot, and see if +he would not do the same! Or Baudichon, who could not sleep of nights +for fear--how would he act with death staring him in the face? The +bravest soldiers when disarmed, or called upon to surrender or die, +capitulate without blame. And that was his position. + +Life, too; dear, warm life! Life that might hold much for him still. +Hitherto these men and their fellows had hampered and thwarted him, +marred his plans and balked his efforts. Freed from them and supported +by an enlightened and ambitious prince, he might rise to heights +hitherto invisible. He might lift up and cast down at will, might rule +the Council as his creatures, might live to see Berne and the Cantons at +his feet, might leave Geneva the capital of a great and wealthy country. + +All this, at his will; or he might die! Die and rot and be forgotten +like a dog that is cast out. + +He did not believe in his heart that faith and honour were words; +fetters woven by wise men to hamper fools. He did not believe that all +religions were alike, and good or bad as men made them. But on the one +side was life, and on the other death. And he longed to live. + +"I would that I could make you see things as I see them," Basterga +resumed, in a gentle tone. Patiently waiting the other's pleasure he had +not missed an expression of his countenance, and, thinking the moment +ripe, he used his last argument. "Believe me, I have the will, all the +will, to help you. And the terms are not mine. Only I would have you +remember this, Messer Blondel: that others may do what you will not, so +that after all you may find that you have cast life away, and no one the +better. Baudichon, for instance, plays the Brutus in public. But he is a +fearful man, and a timid; and to save himself and his family--he thinks +much of his family--he would do what you will not." + +"He would do it!" the Syndic cried passionately. And he struck the +table. "He would, curse him!" + +"And he would not forget," Basterga continued, with a meaning nod, "that +you had miscalled him!" + +"No! But I will be before him!" The Syndic was on his feet again, +shaking like a leaf. + +"Ay?" Basterga blew his nose to hide the flash of triumph that shone in +his eyes. "You will be wise in time? Well, I am not surprised. I thought +that you would not be so mad--that no man could be so mad as to throw +away life for a shadow!" + +"But mind you," Blondel snarled, "the proof. I must have the proof," he +repeated. He was anxious to persuade himself that his surrender depended +on a condition; he would fain hide his shame under a show of bargaining. +"The proof, man, or I will not take a step." + +"You shall have it." + +"To-day?" + +"Within the hour." + +"And if she be not mad--I believe you are deceiving me, and it was the +_remedium_ the girl took--if she be not mad----" The Syndic, stammering +and repeating himself, broke off there. He could not meet the other's +eyes; between a shame new to him and the overpowering sense of what he +had done, he was in a pitiable state. "Curse you," with violence, "I +believe you have laid a trap for me!" he cried. "I say if she be not +mad, I have done." + +"Let it stand so," Basterga answered placidly. "Trust me, if she has +taken the philtre she will be mad enough. Which reminds me that I also +have a crow to pick with Mistress Anne." + +"Curse her!" + +"We will do more than that," Basterga murmured. "If she be not very good +we will burn her, my friend. + + Uritur infelix Dido, totaque videtur + Urbe furens!" + +His eyes were cruel, and he licked his lips as he applied the +quotation. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +THE BARGAIN STRUCK. + + +Claude, at the first sign of peril, had put himself between Anne and the +door; and, had not the fear which seized the girl at the sight of +Basterga robbed her of the power to think, she must have thrilled with a +new and delicious sensation. She, who had not for years known what it +was to be sheltered behind another, was now to know the bliss of being +protected. Nor did her lover remain on the defensive. It was he who +challenged the intruders. + +"What is it?" he asked, as the Syndic crossed the threshold; which was +darkened a moment later by the scholar's huge form. "What is your +business here, Messer Syndic, if it please you?" + +"With you, none!" Blondel answered; and pausing a little within the +door, he cast a look, cold and searching, round the apartment. His +outward composure hid a tumult of warring passions; shame and rage were +at odds within him, and rising above both was a venomous desire to exact +retribution from some one. "Nothing with you!" he repeated. "You may +stand aside, young man, or, better, go to your classes. What do you here +at this hour, and idle, were the fitting question; and not, what is my +business! Do you hear, sirrah?" with a rap of his staff of office on the +floor. "Begone to your work!" + +But Claude, who had been thirsting this hour past for realms to conquer +and dragons to subdue, and who, with his mistress beside him, felt +himself a match for any ten, was not to be put aside. His manhood +rebelled against the notion of leaving Anne with men whose looks boded +the worst. "I am at home," he replied, breathing a little more quickly, +and aware that in defying the Syndic he was casting away the scabbard. +"I am at home in this house. I have done no wrong. I am in no inn now, +and I know of no right which you have to expel me without cause from my +own lodging." + +Blondel's lean face grew darker. "You beard me?" he cried. + +"I beard no one," Claude answered hardily. "I am at home here, that is +all. If you have lawful business here, do it. I am no hindrance to you. +If you have no lawful business--and as to that," he continued, recalling +with indignation the tricks which had been employed to remove him, "I +have my opinion--I have as much right to be here as you! The more, as it +is not very long," he went on, with a glance of defiance, directed at +Basterga, "since you gave the man who now accompanies you the foulest of +characters! Since you would have me rob him! Since you called him +reprobate of the reprobate! Is he reprobate now?" + +"Silence!" + +"A corrupter of women, as you called him?" + +"Liar!" the Syndic cried, trembling with passion. "Be silent!" The blow +found him unprepared. "He lies!" he stammered, turning to his ally. + +Basterga laughed softly. He had guessed as much: none the less he +thought it time to interfere, lest his tool be put too much out of +countenance. "Gently, young man," he said, "or perhaps you may go too +far. I know you." + +"He is a liar!" Blondel repeated. + +"Probably," Basterga said, "but it matters not. It is enough that our +business here lies not with him, but with this young woman. You seem to +have taken her under your protection," he continued, addressing Claude, +"and may choose, if you please, whether you will see her haled through +the streets, or will suffer her to answer our questions here. As you +please." + +"Your questions?" Claude cried, recalling with rage the occasions on +which he had heard this man insult her. "Hear me one moment, and I will +very quickly prove----" + +He was silent with the word on his lips. Her hand on his sleeve recalled +the necessity of prudence. He bit his lip and stood glowering at them. +It was she who spoke. + +"What do you wish?" she asked in a low voice. + +Naturally courageous as she was, she could not have spoken but for the +support of her lover. For the unexpected conjunction of these two, and +their entrance together, smote her with fear. "What is your desire?" she +repeated. + +"To see your mother," Basterga answered. "We have no business with +you--at present," he added, after a perceptible pause, and with a slight +emphasis. + +She caught her breath. "You want to see my mother?" she faltered. + +"I spoke plainly," Basterga replied with sternness. "That was what I +said." + +"What do you want with her?" + +"That is our affair." + +Pale to the lips, she hesitated. Yet, after all, why should they not go +up and see her mother? Things were not to-day as they had been +yesterday: or she had done in vain that which she had done, had sinned +in vain if she had sinned. And that was a thing not to be considered. +If they found her mother as she had left her, if they found the promise +of the morning fulfilled, even their unexpected entrance would do no +harm. Her mother was sane to-day: sane and well as other people, thank +God! It was on that account she had let her heart rise like a bird's to +her lips. + +Yet, when she opened her mouth to assent, she found the words with +difficulty. "I do not know what you want," she said faintly. "Still if +you wish to see her you can go up." + +"Good!" Basterga replied, and advancing, he opened the staircase door, +then stood aside for the Syndic to ascend first. "Good! The uppermost +floor, Messer Blondel," he continued, holding the door wide. "The stairs +are narrow, but I think I can promise you that at the top you will find +what you want." + +He could not divest his tone of the triumph he felt. Slight as the +warning was, it sufficed; while the last word was still on his lips, she +snatched the door from his grasp, closed it and stood panting before it. +What inward monition had spoken to her, what she had seen, what she had +heard, besides that note of triumph in Basterga's voice, matters not. +Her mind was changed. + +"No!" she cried. "You do not go up! No!" + +"You will not let us see her?" Basterga exclaimed. + +"No!" Her breast heaving, she confronted them without fear. + +In his surprise at her action the scholar had recoiled a step: he was +fiercely angry. "Come, girl, no nonsense," he said roughly and brutally. +"Make way! Or we shall have a little to say to you of what you did in my +room last night! Do you mark me?" he continued. "I might have you +punished for it, wench! I might have you whipped and branded for it! Do +you mind me? You robbed me, and that which you took----" + +"I took at his instigation!" she retorted, pointing an accusing finger +at Blondel, who stood gnawing his beard, hating the part he was playing, +and hating still more this white-faced girl who had come so near to +ruining, if she had not ruined, his last chance of life. Hate her? The +Syndic hated her for the hour of anguish through which he had just +passed, hated her for the price--he shuddered to think of it--which he +must now pay for his life. He hated her for his present humiliation, he +hated her for his future shame. She seemed to blame for all. + +"You took it," Basterga answered, acknowledging her words only by a +disdainful shrug, "and gave it to your mother. Why, I care not. Now that +you see we know so much, will you let us go up!" + +"No!" She faced him bravely and steadfastly. "No. If you know so much, +you know also why I took it, and why I gave it to her." And then, the +radiance of unselfish love illuminating her pallid face, "I would do it +again were it to do," she said. "And again, and yet again! For you, I +have done you wrong; I have robbed you, and you may punish me. I must +bear it. But as to him," pointing to Messer Blondel, "I am innocent! +Innocent," she repeated firmly. "For he would have done it himself and +for himself; it was he who would have me do it. And if I have done it, I +have done it for another. I have robbed you, if need be I must pay the +price; but that man has naught against me in this! And for the rest, my +mother is well." + +"Ah?" + +"Ay, well! well!" she repeated, the light of joy softening her eyes as +she repeated the word. "Well! and I fear nothing." + +Basterga laughed cruelly. "Well?" he said. "Well, is she? Then let us go +up and see her. If she be well, why not?" + +"No!" + +"Why not?" + +She did not answer, but she did not make way. + +"Why not? I will tell you, if you please," he said. "And it will make +you pipe to another tune. You have given her, young woman, that which +will make her worse, and not better!" + +"She is better!" + +"For an hour, or for twelve hours!" he retorted. "That certainly. Then +worse." + +"No!" + +"No? But I see what it is," he continued--and, alas, his voice +strengthened the fear that like a dead hand was closing on her heart and +staying it; deepened the terror that like a veil was falling before her +eyes and darkening the room; so that she had much ado, gripping +finger-nails into palms, to keep her feet and let herself from fainting. +"I see what it is. You would fain play Providence," he continued--"that +is it, is it? You would play Providence? Then come! Come then, and see +what kind of Providence it is you have played. We will see if you are +right or I am right! And if she be well, or if she be ill!" And again he +moved towards the staircase. + +But she stood obstinately between him and the door. "No," she said. "You +do not go up!" She was resolute. The fear that as she listened to his +gibing tones had driven the colour from her face, had hardened it too. +For, if he were right? If for that fear there were foundation? If that +which the Syndic had led her to give and that which she had given, +proved--though for a few hours it had seemed to impart marvellous +vigour--useless or worse than useless? Then the need to keep these men +from her mother was the greater, the more desperate. How they could be +kept, for how long it was possible to keep them, she did not pause to +consider, any more than the she-wolf that crouches, snarling, between +her whelps and the hunt, counts odds. It was enough for her that if they +were right the worst had come, and naught lay between her mother's +weakness and their cruel eyes and judgments but her own feeble strength. + +Or no! she was wrong in that; she had forgotten! As she spoke, and as +Basterga with a scowl repeated the order to stand aside, Claude put her +gently but irresistibly by, and took her place. The young man's eyes +were bright, his colour high. "You will not go up!" he said, a mocking +note of challenge, replying to Basterga's tone, in his voice. "You will +not go up." + +"Fool! Will you prevent us?" + +"You will not go up! No!" + +In the very act of falling on the lad, Basterga recoiled. Claude had not +been idle while the others disputed. He had gone to the corner for his +sword, and it was the glittering point, suddenly whipped out and +flickered before his eyes that gave the scholar pause, and made him leap +back. "Pollux!" he cried, "are you mad? Put down! Put down! Do you see +the Syndic? Do you know," he continued, stamping his foot, "that it is +penal to draw in Geneva?" + +"I know that you are not going upstairs!" Claude answered gently. He was +radiant. He would not have exchanged his position for a crown. She was +looking, and he was going to fight. + +"You fool," Basterga returned, "we have but to call the watch from the +Tertasse and you will be haled to the lock-up, and jailed and whipped, +if not worse! And that jade with you! _Stultus es?_ Do you hear? Messer +Syndic, will you be thwarted in this fashion? Call these lawbreakers to +order and bid them have done!" + +"Put up!" the Syndic cried, hoarse with rage. He was beside himself, +when he thought of the position in which he had placed himself. He +looked at the two as if he would fain have slain them where they stood. +"Or I call the watch, and it will be the worse for you," he continued. +"Do you hear me? Put up?" + +"He shall not go upstairs!" Claude answered, breathing quickly. He was +pale, but utterly and fixedly resolved. If Basterga made a movement to +attack him, he would run him through whatever the consequences. + +"Then, fool, I will call the watch!" Blondel babbled, fairly beside +himself. + +Claude had no answer to that; only they should not go up. It was the +girl's readier wit furnished the answer. + +"Call them!" she cried, in a clear voice. "Call the watch, Messer +Syndic, and I will tell them the whole story. What Messer Blondel would +have had me do, and get, and give." + +"It was for the State!" the Syndic hissed. + +"And is it for the State that you come to-day with that man?" she +retorted, and with her outstretched finger she accused Basterga of +unspoken things. "That man! Last night you would have had me rob him. +The day before he was a traitor. To-day he and you are one. Are one! +What are you plotting together?" + +The Syndic shrank from the other's side under the stab of her +words--words that, uttered at random, flew, straight as the arrow that +slew Ahab, to the joint of his armour. "To-day you and that man are +one," she repeated. "One! What are you plotting together?" + +She knew as much as that, did she? She knew that they were one, and that +they were plotting together; while in the Council men were clamouring +for the Paduan's arrest, and were growing suspicious because he was not +arrested--Baudichon, whom he had called a fat hog, and Petitot, that +slow, plodding sleuth-hound of a patriot. What if light fell on the true +state of things--and less than the girl had said might cast that light? +Then the warrant might go, not for the Paduan only, but for himself. Ay, +for him! For with an enemy ever lying within a league of the gates +warrants flew quickly in Geneva. Men who sleep ill of nights, and take +the cock-crow for war's alarum, are suspicious, and, once roused, +without ruth or mercy. + +There was the joint in his harness. Once let his name be published with +Basterga's,--as must happen if the watch were summoned and the girl +spoke out--and no one could say where the matter might end, or what +suspicions might not be awakened. Nay, the matter was worse, more +perilous and more lightly balanced; for, setting himself aside, none the +less was a brawl that brought up Basterga's name, a thing to be shunned. +The least thing might precipitate the scholar's arrest; his arrest must +lead to the loss of the _remedium_, if it existed; and the loss of the +_remedium_ to the loss of that which Messer Blondel had come to value +the more dearly the more he sacrificed to keep it--the Syndic's life. + +He dared not call the watch, and he dared not use violence. As he awoke +to those two facts, he stood blinking in dismayed silence, swallowing +his rage, and hating the girl and hating the man with a dumb hatred. +Though the reasons which weighed with him were unknown to the two, they +could not be blind to his fear and his baffled mien; and had he been +alone they might have taken victory for certain. But Basterga was not +one to be so lightly thwarted. His intellect, his wit, his very mass +intimidated. Therefore it was with as much relief as surprise that Anne +read in his face the reflection of the other's doubts, and saw that he, +too, gave back. + +"You are two fools!" he said. "Two great, big fools!" There was +resignation, there was something that was almost approval in his tones. +"You do not know what you are doing! Is there no way of making you hear +reason?" + +"You cannot go up," Anne said. She had won, it seemed, without knowing +how she had won. + +Basterga grunted; and then, "Ah, well," he said, addressing Claude, "if +I had you in the fields, my lad, it would not be that bit of metal would +save you!" And he spouted with appropriate gesture-- + + "--Illum fidi aequales, genua aegra trahentem + Jactantemque utroque caput, crassumque cruorem + Ore ejectantem mixtosque in sanguine dentes + Ducunt ad navis! + +Half an hour in my company, and you would not be so bold." + +Claude smiled with pardonable contempt, but made no reply, nor did he +change his attitude. + +"Come!" Blondel muttered, addressing his ally with his eyes averted. "I +have reasons at present for letting them be!" They were strange reasons, +to judge by the hang-dog look of the proud magistrate. "But I shall know +how to deal with them by-and-by. Come, man, come!" he repeated +impatiently. And he turned towards the door and unlocked it. + +Basterga moved reluctantly after him. "Ay, we go now," he said, with a +look full of menace. "But wait a while! Cæsar Basterga does not forget, +and his turn will come! Where is my cap?" + +He had let it fall on the floor, and he turned to pick it up, stooping +slowly and with difficulty as stout men do. As he raised himself, his +head still low, he butted it suddenly and with an activity for which no +one would have given him credit full into Claude's chest. The unlucky +young man, who had lowered his weapon the instant before, fell back with +a "sough" against the wall, and leant there, pale and breathless. Anne +uttered one scream, then the scholar's huge arm enfolded her neck and +drew her backwards against his breast. + +"Up! up! Messer Blondel!" he cried. "Now is your chance! Up and surprise +her!" And with his disengaged hand he gripped Claude, for further +safety, by the collar. "Up; I will keep them quiet!" + +The Syndic wasted a moment in astonishment, then he took in the +situation and the other's cleverness. Before Basterga had ceased to +speak, he was at the door of the staircase, and had dragged it open. But +as he set his foot on the lowest stair, Anne, held as she was against +Basterga's breast, and almost stifled by the arm which covered her +mouth, managed to clutch the Syndic by his skirts, and, once having +taken hold, held him with the strength of despair. In vain he struggled +and strove and wrestled to jerk himself free; in vain Basterga, hampered +by Claude, tried to drag the girl away--Blondel came away with her! She +clung to him, and even, freeing her mouth for a moment, succeeded in +uttering a scream. + +"Curse her!" Basterga foamed: and had he had a hand to spare, he would +have struck her down. "Pull, man, have you no strength! Let go, you +vixen! Let go, or----" + +He tried to press her throat, but in changing his hold allowed her to +utter a second scream, louder, more shrill, more full of passion than +the other. At the same instant a chair, knocked down by Blondel in his +efforts, fell with a crash, throwing down a pewter platter; and Claude, +white and breathless as he was, began to struggle, seeing his mistress +so handled. The four swayed to and fro. Another moment, and either the +Syndic must have jerked himself free, or the contest must have attained +to dimensions that could not escape the notice of the neighbours, when a +sound--a sound from within, from upstairs--stayed the tumult as by +magic. + +Blondel ceased to struggle, and stood aghast. Basterga relaxed his hold +upon his prisoners and listened. Claude leant back against the wall. The +girl alone--she alone moved. Without speaking, without looking, as a +bird flies to its young, she sprang to the stairs and fled up them. + +The maniacal laugh, the crazy words--a moment only, they heard them: and +then the door above, which the poor woman, so long bedridden, had +contrived in her frenzy of fear to open, closed on the sounds and +stifled them. But enough had been heard: enough to convince Blondel, +enough to justify Basterga, enough to change the fortunes of more than +one in the room. The scholar's eyes met the Syndic's. + +"Are you satisfied?" he asked, in a low voice. + +Blondel, breathing hard, nodded. + +"You heard?" + +He nodded a second time. He looked scared. + +"Then you have enough to burn the old witch and the young one with her!" +Basterga replied. He turned his small eyes, sparkling with malignity, on +the young man, who stood against the wall, pale, and but half recovered +from the blow he had sustained. "You thought to thwart me, did you, +Messer Claude? You thought yourself clever enough to play with Cæsar +Basterga, did you? To hold at bay--oh, clever fellow--a magistrate and a +scholar! And defy us both! Now I will tell you what will come of it!" He +shook his great finger in front of the young man. "Your pretty bit of +pink and white will burn! Burn, see you! A show for the little boys, a +holiday for the young men and the young women, a treat for the old men, +who will see her white limbs writhe in the smoke! Ha!" as Claude, with a +face of horror, would have waved him away, "that touches you, does it? +You had not thought of that? Nay, you had not thought of other things. I +tell you, before the sun sets this evening, this house shall be +anathema! Before night what we have heard will be known abroad, and +there will be much added to it. There was a child died in the fourth +house from this on Sunday! It will be odd if she did not overlook it. +And the young wife of the Lieutenant at the Porte Tertasse, who has +ailed since her marriage--a pale thing; who knows but he looked this way +once and Mistress Anne thought ill of his defection? Ha! Ha! You would +cross Cæsar Basterga, would you? No, Messer Claude," he set his huge +foot on the fallen sword which Claude had made a movement to recover. "I +fight with other weapons than that! And if you lay a finger on me"--he +extended his arms to their widest extent--"I will crush the life out of +you. That is better," as Claude stood glaring helplessly at him--"I +teach you prudence, at any rate. And as," with a sneer, "you are so apt +at learning, I will do you, if you choose, a greater kindness that man +ever did you, or woman either!" + +The young man, breathing quickly, did not speak. Perhaps his eyes were +watching for an opening; at the least appearance of one he would have +flung himself upon his enemy. + +"You do not choose. And yet, I will do it. In one word--Go! + + Teque his, puer, eripe flammis!" + +He pointed to the door with a gesture tragic enough. "Go and live, for +if you stay you die! Wait not until the chain is drawn before the door, +until boards darken the windows, and men cross the street when they +would pass! Until women hide their heads as they go by, and the market +will not sell, nor the water run for you! For then, as surely as she +will perish, you will perish with her!" + +"So be it!" Claude cried. And in his turn he pointed, not without +dignity, to the door. "Go you, and our blood be upon your head!" + +Basterga shrugged his shoulders, and in one moment put the thing and his +grand manner away from him. "Enough! we will go," he said. "You are +satisfied, Messer Syndic? Yes. Farewell, young sir, you have my last +word." And while the young man stood glowering at him, he opened the +street door, and the two passed out. + +"You will not go on with this?" Blondel muttered with a backward +gesture, as the two paused. + +"Nothing," Basterga answered in a low voice, "will suit our purpose +better. It will amuse Geneva and fill men's mouths till the time come. +For you too, Messer Blondel," he continued, with a piercing look, "will +live and not die, I take it?" + +The other knew then that the hour had come to set his seal to the +bargain: and equally, that if at this eleventh hour he would return, the +path was open. But _facilis_--known is the rest, and the grip which a +strong nature gains on a weaker, and how hardly fear, once admitted, is +cast out. Within the Syndic's sight rose one of the gates, almost within +touch rose the rampart of the city, long his own, which he was asked to +betray. The mountains of his native land, pure, cold and sunlit, stood +up against the blue depth of winter sky, eloquent of the permanence of +things, and the insignificance of men. The contemplation of them turned +his cheek a shade paler and struck terror to his heart; but did not stay +him. His eyes avoiding the other's gaze, his face shrinking and +pitiable, shame already his portion, he nodded. + +"Precisely," Basterga said. "Then nothing can better serve our purpose +than this. Let your officers know what you have heard, and know that you +would hear more--of this house. That, and a hint of evil practices and +witch's spells dropped here and there, will give your townsfolk +something to talk of and stare at and swallow--till our time come." + +"But if I bid them watch this house," Blondel muttered weakly--how fast, +how fast the thing was passing out of his hands!--"attention will be +called to you, and then, Messer Basterga----" + +"My work is done here," Basterga replied calmly. "I have crossed that +threshold for the last time. When I leave you--and it is time we +parted--I go out of the gates, not again to return until--until things +have been brought to the point at which we would have them, Messer +Blondel." + +"And that," the Syndic said with a shudder, "will be?" + +"Towards the longest night. Say, in a week or so from now. The precise +moment--that and other things, I will let you know by a safe mouth." + +"But the _remedium_? That first!" the Syndic muttered, a scowl, for a +second, darkening his face. + +Basterga smiled. "Have no fear," he replied. "That first, by all means. +And afterwards--Geneva." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE DEPARTURE OF THE RATS. + + +The wood-ash on the hearth had sunk lower and grown whiter. The last +flame that had licked the black sides of the great pot had died down +among the expiring embers. Only under the largest log glowed a tiny +cavern, carbuncle-hued; and still Claude walked restlessly from the +window to the door, or listened with a frowning face at the foot of the +stairs. One hour, two hours had passed since the Syndic's departure with +Basterga; and still Anne remained with her mother and made no sign. +Once, spurred by anxiety and the thought that he might be of use, Claude +had determined to mount and seek her; but half-way up the stairs his +courage had failed he had recoiled from a scene so tender, and so +sacred. He had descended and fallen again to moving to and fro, and +listening, and staring remorsefully at the weapon--it lay where he had +dropped it on the floor--that had failed him in his need. + +He had their threats in his ears, and by-and-by the horror of inaction, +the horror of sitting still and awaiting the worst with folded hands, +overcame him; and in a panic planning flight for them all, flight, +however hopeless, however desperate, he hurried into his bed-closet, and +began to pack his possessions. He packed impulsively until even the fat +text-books bulked in his bundle, and the folly of flying for life with a +Cæsar and Melancthon on his back struck him. Then he turned all out on +the floor in a fury of haste lest she should surprise him, and think +that he had had it in his mind to desert her. + +Back he went on that to the living-room with its dying fire and +lengthening shadows; and there he resumed his solitary pacing. The room +lay silent, the house lay silent; even the rampart without, which the +biting wind kept clear of passers. He tried to reason on the position, +to settle what would happen, what steps Basterga and Blondel would take, +how the blow they threatened would fall. Would the officers of the +Syndic enter and seize the two helpless women and drag them to the +guard-house? In that case, what should he do, what could he do, since it +was most unlikely that he would be allowed to go with them or see them? +For a time the desperate notion of bolting and barring the house and +holding it against the law possessed his mind; but only to be quickly +dismissed. He was not yet mad enough for that. In the meantime was there +any one to whom he could appeal? Any course he could adopt? + +The sound of the latch rising in its socket drew his eyes to the outer +door. It opened, and he saw Louis Gentilis on the threshold. Holding the +door ajar, the young man peered in. Meeting Claude's eyes, he looked to +the stairs, as if to seek the protection of Anne's presence; failing to +find her, he made for an instant as if he would shut the door again, and +go. But apparently he saw that Claude, thoroughly dispirited, was making +no motion to carry out his threats of vengeance; and he thought better +of it. He came in slowly, and closed the door after him. Turning his cap +in his hand, and with his eyes slyly fixed on Claude, he made without a +word for his bed-closet, entered it, and closed the door behind him. + +His silence was strange, and his furtive manner impressed Claude +unpleasantly. They seemed to imply a knowledge that boded ill; nor was +the impression they made weakened when, two minutes later, the closet +door opened again, and he came out. + +"What is it?" Claude asked, speaking sharply. He was not going to put up +with mystery of this sort. + +For answer Louis' eyes met his a moment; then the young man, without +speaking, slid across the room to a chair on which lay a book. He took +up the volume; it was his. Next he discovered another possession--or so +it seemed--approached it and took seisin of it in the same dumb way; and +so with another and another. Finally, blinking and looking askance, he +passed his eyes from side to side to learn if he had overlooked +anything. + +But Claude's patience, though prolonged by curiosity, was at an end. He +took a step forward, and had the satisfaction of seeing Louis drop his +air of mystery, and recoil two paces. "If you don't speak," Claude +cried, "I will break every bone in your body! Do you hear, you sneaking +rogue? Do you forget that you are in my debt already? Tell me in two +words what this dumb show means, or I will have payment for all!" + +Master Louis cringed, divided between the desire to flee and the fear of +losing his property. "You will be foolish if you make any fuss here," he +muttered, his arm raised to ward off a blow. "Besides, I'm going," he +continued, swallowing nervously as he spoke. "Let me go." + +"Going?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you mean," Claude exclaimed in astonishment, "that you are going for +good?" + +"Yes, and if you will take my advice"--with a look of sinister +meaning--"you will go too. That is all." + +"Why? Why?" Claude repeated. + +Louis' only answer was a shudder, which told Claude that if the other +did not know all, he knew much. Dismayed and confounded, Mercier +stepped back, and, with a secret grin of satisfaction, Louis turned +again to his task of searching the room. He found presently that for +which he had been looking--his cloak. He disentangled it, with a +peculiar look, from a woman's hood, contact with which he avoided with +care. That done, he cast it over his arm, and got back into his closet. +Claude heard him moving there, and presently he emerged a second time. + +Precisely as he did so Claude caught the sound of a light footstep on +the stairs, the stair door opened, and Anne, her face weary, but +composed, came in. Her first glance fell on Louis, who, with his sack +and cloak on his arm, was in the act of closing the closet door. Habit +carried her second look to the hearth. + +"You have let the fire go out," she said. Then, turning to Louis, in a +voice cold and free from emotion, "Are you going?" she asked. + +He muttered that he was, his face a medley of fear and spite and shame. + +She nodded, but to Claude's astonishment expressed no surprise. +Meanwhile Louis, after dropping first his cloak and then his sack, in +his haste to be gone, shuffled his way to the door. The two looked on, +without moving or speaking, while he opened it, carried out his bag, +and, turning about, closed the door upon himself. They heard his +footsteps move away. + +At length Claude spoke. "The rats, I see, are leaving," he muttered. + +"Yes, the rats!" she echoed, and carried for a moment her eyes to his. +Then she knelt on the hearth, and uncovering the under side of the log, +where a little fire still smouldered, she fed it with two or three +fir-cones, and, stooping low, blew steadily on them until they caught +fire and blazed. He stood looking down at her, and marvelled at the +strength of mind that allowed her to stoop to trifles, or to think of +fires at such a time as this. He forgot that habit is of all stays the +strongest, and that to women a thousand trifles make up--God reward them +for it--the work of life: a work which instinct moves them to pursue, +though the heavens fall. + +Several hours had elapsed since he had entered hotfoot to see her; and +the day was beginning to wane. The flame of the blazing fir-cones, a +hundred times reflected in the rows of pewter plates and the surface of +the old oaken dressers, left the corners of the room in shadow. +Immediately within the windows, indeed, the daylight held its own; but +when she rose and turned to him her back was towards the casement, and +the firelight which lit up her face flickered uncertainly, and left him +in doubt whether she were moved or not. + +"You have eaten nothing!" she said, while he stood pondering what she +would say. "And it is four o'clock! I am sorry!" Her tone, which took +shame to herself, gave him a new surprise. + +He stopped her as she turned to the dresser. "Your mother is better?" he +said gently. + +"She is herself now," she replied, with a slight quaver, and without +looking at him. And she went about her work. + +Did she know? Did she understand? In his world was only one fact, in his +mind only one tremendous thought: the fact of their position, the +thought of their isolation and peril. In her treatment of Louis she had +seemed to show knowledge and a comprehension as wide as his own. But if +she knew all, could she be as calm as she was? Could she go about her +daily tasks? Could she cut and lay and fetch with busy fingers, and all +in silence? + +He thought not; and though he longed to consult her, to assure her and +comfort her, to tell her that the very isolation, the very peril in +which they stood were a happiness and a joy to him, whatever the issue, +because he shared them with her, he would not, by reason of that doubt. +He did not yet know the courage which underlies the gentlest natures: +nor did he guess that even as it was a joy to him to stand beside her in +peril, so it was a joy to her, even in that hour, to come and go for +him, to cut his bread and lay for him, to draw his wine from the great +cask under the stairs, and pour for him in the tall horn mug. + +And little said. By him, because he shrank from opening her eyes to the +danger of their position; by her, because her mind was full and she +could not trust herself to speak calmly. But he knew that she, too, had +fasted since morning, and he made her eat with him: and it was in the +thoughts of each that they had never eaten together before. For commonly +Anne took her meal with her mother, or ate as the women of her time +often ate, standing, alone, when others had finished. There are moments +when the simplest things put on the beauty and significance of rites, +and this first eating together at the small table on the fire-lit hearth +was one of such moments. He saw that she did eat; and this care for her, +and the reverence of his manner, so moved her, that at last tears rose +and choked her, and to give her time and to hide his own feelings, he +stood up and affected to get something from the fireside. + +Before he turned again, the latch rattled and the door flew open. The +freezing draught that entered, arrested him between the table and the +fire. The intruder was Grio. He stood an instant scowling on them, then +he entered and closed the door. He eyed the two with a sneering laugh, +and, turning, flung his cloak on a chair. It was ill-aimed and fell to +the ground. + +"Why the devil don't you light?" he cried violently. "Eh?" He added +something in which the words "Old hag's devilry!" were alone audible. +"Do you hear?" he continued, more coherently. "Why don't you light? What +black games are you playing, I'd like to know? I want my things!" + +Claude's fingers tingled, but danger and responsibility are sure +teachers, and he restrained himself. Neither of them answered, but Anne +fetched the lamp, and kindling a splinter of wood lighted it, and placed +it on the table. Then bringing the Spaniard's rushlight from the three +or four that stood on the dresser, she lighted it and held it out to +him. + +"Set it down!" he said, with tipsy insolence. He was not quite sober. +"Set it down! I am not going to--hic!--risk my salvation! Avaunt, Satan! +It is possible to palm the evil one, like a card I am told, +and--hic!--soul out, devil in, all lost as easy as candle goes out!" + +He had taken his candle with an unsteady hand, and unconsciously had +blown it out himself. She restrained Claude by a look, and patiently +taking the rushlight from Grio, she re-lit it and set it on the table +for him to take. + +"As a candle goes out!" he repeated, eyeing it with drunken wisdom. +"Candle out, devil in, soul lost, there you have it in three +words--clever as any of your long-winded preachers! But I want my +things. I am going before it is too late. Advise you to go too, young +man," he hiccoughed, "before you are overlooked. She is a witch! She's +the devil's mark on her, I tell you! I'd like to have the finding it!" +And with an ugly leer he advanced a step as if he would lay hands on +her. + +She shrank back, and Claude's eyes blazed. Fortunately, the bully's mind +passed to the first object of his coming; or it may be that he was sober +enough to read a warning in the younger man's face. + +"Oh! time enough," he said. "You are not so nice always, I'll be bound. +And things come--hic!--to those who wait! I don't belong to your +Sabbaths, I suppose, or you'd be freer! But I want my things, and I am +going to have them! I defy thee, Satan! And all thy works!" + +Still growling under his breath he burst open the staircase door, and +stumbled noisily upwards, the light wavering in his hand. Anne's eyes +followed him; she had advanced to the foot of the stairs, and Claude +understood the apprehension that held her. But the sounds did not +penetrate to the room on the upper floor, or Madame Royaume did not take +the alarm; perhaps she slept. And after assuring herself that Grio had +entered his room the girl returned to the table. + +The Spaniard had spoken with brutal plainness; it was no longer possible +to ignore what he had said, or to lie under any illusion as to the +girl's knowledge of her peril. Claude's eyes met hers: and for a moment +the anguished human soul peered through the mask of constancy, for a +moment the woman in her, shrinking from the ordeal and the fire, from +shame and death, thrust aside the veil, and held out quivering, piteous +hands to him. But it was for a moment only. Before he could speak she +was brave as before, quiet as he had ever seen her, patient, mistress of +herself. "It is as you said," she muttered, smiling wanly, "the rats are +leaving us." + +"Vermin!" he whispered. He could not trust himself to say more. His +voice shook, his eyes were full. + +"They have not lost time," she continued in a low tone. She did not +cease to listen, nor did her eyes leave the staircase door. "Louis +first, and now Grio. How has it reached them so quickly, do you think?" + +"Louis is hand in glove with the Syndic," he murmured. + +"And Grio?" + +"With Basterga." + +She nodded. "What do you think they will do--first?" she whispered. And +again--it went to his heart--the woman's face, fear-drawn, showed as it +were beneath the mask with which love and faith and a noble resignation +had armed her. "Do you think they will denounce us at once?" + +He shook his head in sheer inability to foresee; and then, seeing that +she continued to look anxiously for his answer, that answer which he +knew to be of no value, for minute by minute the sense of his +helplessness was weighing upon him, "It may be," he muttered. "God +knows. When Grio is gone we will talk about it." + +She began, but always with a listening ear and an eye to the open door, +to remove from the table the remains of their meal. Midway in her task, +she glanced askance at the window, under the impression that some one +was looking through it; and in any case now the lamp was lit it exposed +them to the curiosity of the rampart. She was going to close the +shutters when Claude interposed, raised the heavy shutters and bolted +and barred them. He was turning from them when Grio's step was heard +descending. + +Strange to say the Spaniard's first glance was at the windows, and he +looked genuinely taken aback when he saw that they were closed. "Why the +devil did you shut?" he exclaimed, in a rage; and passing Anne with a +sidelong movement, he flung a heavy bundle on the floor by the door. As +he turned to ascend again he met her eyes, and backing from her he made +with two of his fingers the ancient sign which southern people still use +to ward off the evil eye. Then, half shamefacedly, half recklessly, he +blundered upstairs again. A moment, and he came stumbling down; but this +time he was careful to keep the great bundle he bore between himself +and her eyes, until he had got the door open. + +That precaution taken, as if he thought the free cold air which entered +would protect him from spells, he showed himself at his ease, threw down +his bundle and faced her with an air of bravado. + +"I need not have feared," he said with a tipsy grin, "but I had +forgotten what I carry. I have a hocus-pocus here "--he touched his +breast--"written by a wise man in Ravenna, and sealed with a dead Goth's +hand, that is proof against devil or dam! And I defy thee, mistress." + +"Why?" she cried. "Why?" And the note of indignation in her voice, the +passionate challenge of her eyes, enforced the question. In the human +mind is a desire for justice that will not be denied; and even from this +drunken ruffian a sudden impulse bade her demand it. "Why should you +defy me or fear me? What have I done to you, what have I done to any +one," she continued, with noble resentment, "that you should spread this +of me? You have eaten and drunk at my hand a hundred times; have I +poisoned or injured you? I have looked at you a hundred times; have I +overlooked you? You have lain down under this roof by night a hundred +times; have I harmed you sleeping or waking, full moon or no moon?" + +For answer he leered at her slyly. "Not a whit," he said. "No." + +"No?" Her colour rose. + +"No; but you see"--with a grin--"it never leaves me, my girl." He +touched his breast. "While I wear that I am safe." + +She gasped. "Do you mean that I----" + +"I do not know what you would have done--but for that!" he retorted. +"Maimed me or wizened me, perhaps! Or, may be, made me waste away as +you did the child that died three doors away last Sunday!" + +Her face changed slowly. Prepared as she had been for the worst by many +an hour of vigil beside her mother's bed, the horror of this precise +accusation--and such an accusation--overcame her. "What?" she cried. +"You dare to say that I--that I----" She could not finish. + +But her eyes lightened, her form dilated with passion; and tipsy, +ignorant, brutish as he was, the Spaniard could not be blind to the +indignation, the resentment, the very wonder which stopped her breath +and choked her utterance. At the sight some touch of shame, some touch +of pity, made itself felt in the dull recesses even of that brain. "I +don't say it," he muttered awkwardly. "It is what they are saying in the +street." + +"In the street?" + +"Ay, where else?" He knew who said it, for he knew whence his orders +came: but he was not going to tell her. Yet the spark of kindliness +which she had kindled still lived--how could it be otherwise in presence +of her youth and gentleness? "If you'll take my advice," he continued +roughly, "you'll not show yourself in the streets unless you wish to be +mishandled, my girl. It will be time enough when the time comes. Even +now, if you were to leave your old witch of a mother and get good +protection, there is no knowing but you might be got clear! You are a +fair bit of red and white," with a grin. "And it is not far to Savoy! +Will you come if I risk it?" + +A gesture, half refusal, half loathing, answered him. + +"Oh, very well!" he said. The short-lived fit of pity passed from him; +he scowled. "You'll think differently when they have the handling of +you. I'm glad to be going, for where there's one fire there are apt to +be more; and I am a Christian, no matter who's not! Let who will burn, +I'll not!" + +He picked up one bundle and, carrying it out, raised his voice. A man, +who had shrunk, it seemed, from entering the house, showed his face in +the light which streamed from the door. To this fellow he gave the +bundle, and shouldering the other, he went heavily out, leaving the door +wide open behind him. + +Claude strode to it and closed it; but not so quickly that he had not a +glimpse of three or four pairs of eyes staring in out of the darkness; +eyes so curious, so fearful, so quickly and noiselessly withdrawn--for +even while he looked, they were gone--that he went back to the hearth +with a shiver of apprehension. + +Fortunately, she had not seen them. She stood where he had left her, in +the same attitude of amazement into which Grio's accusation had cast +her. As she met his gaze--then, at last, she melted. The lamplight +showed her eyes brimming over with tears; her lips quivered, her breast +heaved under the storm of resentment. + +"How dare they say it?" she cried. "How dare they? That I would harm a +child? A child?" And, unable to go on, she held out protesting hands to +him. "And my mother? My mother, who never injured any one or harmed a +hair of any one's head! That she--that they should say that of her! That +they should set that to her! But I will go this instant," impetuously, +"to the child's mother. She will hear me. She will know and believe me. +A mother? Yes, I will go to her!" + +"Not now," he said. "Not now, Anne!" + +"Yes, now," she persisted, deaf to his voice. She snatched up her hood +from the ground on which it had fallen, and began to put it on. + +He seized her arm. "No, not now," he said firmly. "You shall not go now. +Wait until daylight. She will listen to you more coolly then." + +She resisted him. "Why?" she said. "Why?" + +"People fancy things at night," he urged. "I know it is so. If she saw +you enter out of the darkness"--the girl with her burning eyes, her wet +cheeks, her disordered hair looked wild enough--"she might refuse to +believe you. Besides----" + +"What?" + +"I will not have you go now," he said firmly. That instant it had +flashed upon him that one of the faces he had seen outside was the face +of the dead child's mother. "I will not let you go," he repeated. "Go in +the daylight. Go to-morrow morning. Go then, if you will!" He did not +choose to tell her that he feared for her instant safety if she went +now; that, if he had his will, the streets would see her no more for +many a day. + +She gave way. She took off her hood, and laid it on the table. But for +several minutes she stood, brooding darkly and stormily, her hands +fingering the strings. To foresee is not always to be forearmed. She had +lived for months in daily and hourly expectation of the blow which had +fallen; but not the more easily for that could she brook the concrete +charge. Her heart burned, her soul was on fire. Justice, give us justice +though the heavens fall, is an instinct planted deep in man's nature! Of +the Mysterious Passion of our Lord our finite minds find no part worse +than the anguish of innocence condemned. A child? She to hurt a child? +And her mother? Her mother, so harmless, so ignorant, so tormented! She +to hurt a child? + +After a time, nevertheless, the storm began to subside. But with it died +the hope which is inherent in revolt; in proportion as she grew more +calm the forlornness of her situation rose more clearly before her. At +last that had happened which she had so long expected to happen. The +thing was known. Soon the full consequences would be upon her, the +consequences on which she dared not dwell. Shudderingly she tried to +close her eyes to the things that might lie before her, to the things at +which Grio had hinted, the things of which she had lain thinking--even +while they were distant and uncertain--through many a night of bitter +fear and fevered anticipation. + +They were at hand now, and though she averted her thoughts, she knew it. +But the wind is tempered to the shorn. Even as the prospect of future +ill can dominate the present, embitter the sweetest cup, and render +thorny the softest bed, so, sometimes, present good has the power to +obscure the future evil. As Anne sank back on the settle, her trembling +limbs almost declining to bear her, her eyes fell on her companion. +Failing to rouse her, he had seated himself on the other side of the +hearth, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his hands, in an attitude +of deep thought. And little by little, as she looked at him, her cheeks +grew, if not red, less pale, her eyes lost their tense and hopeless +gaze. She heaved a quivering sigh, and slowly carried her look round the +room. + +Its homely comfort, augmented by the hour and the firelight, seemed to +lap them round. The door was locked, the shutters were closed, the lamp +burned cheerfully. And he sat opposite--sat as if they had been long +married. The colour grew deeper in her face as she gazed; she breathed +more quickly; her eyes shone. What evil cannot be softened, what +misfortune cannot be lightened to a woman by the knowledge that she is +loved by the man she loves? That where all have fled, he remains, and +that neither fear of death nor word of man can keep him from her side? + +He looked up in the end, and caught the look on her face, the look that +a woman bestows on one man only in her life. In a moment he was on his +knees beside her, holding her hands, covering them with kisses, vowing +to save her, to save her--or to die with her! + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +IN THE DARKENED ROOM. + + +Claude flung the cloak from his head and shoulders, and sat up. It was +morning--morning, after that long, dear sitting together--and he stared +confusedly about him. He had been dreaming; all night he had slept +uneasily. But the cry that had roused him, the cry that had started that +quick beating of the heart, the cry that still rang in his waking ears +and frightened him, was no dream. + +As he rose to his feet, his senses began to take in the scene; he +remembered what had happened and where he was. The shutters were lowered +and open. The cold grey light of the early morning at this deadest +season of the year fell cheerlessly on the living-room; in which for the +greater safety of the house he had insisted on passing the night. Anne, +whose daily task it was to open the shutters, had been down then: she +must have been down, or whence the pile of fresh cones and splinters +that crackled, and spirted flame about the turned log. Perhaps it was +her mother's cry that had roused him; and she had re-ascended to her +room. + +He strode to the staircase door, opened it softly and listened. No, all +was silent above; and then a new notion struck him, and he glanced +round. Her hood was gone. It was not on the table on which he had seen +it last night. + +It was so unlikely, however, that she had gone out without telling him, +that he dismissed the notion; and, something recovered from the strange +agitation into which the cry had cast him, he yawned. He returned to the +hearth and knelt and re-arranged the sticks so that the air might have +freer access to the fire. Presently he would draw the water for her, and +fill the great kettle, and sweep the floor. The future might be gloomy, +the prospect might lower, but the present was not without its pleasures. + +All his life his slowness to guess the truth on this occasion was a +puzzle to him. For the materials were his. Slowly, gradually, as he +crouched sleepily before the fire, it grew upon him that there was a +noise in the air; a confused sound, not of one cry, but of many, that +came from the street, from the rampart. A noise, now swelling a little, +now sinking a little, that seemed as he listened not so distant as it +had sounded a while ago. Not distant at all, indeed; quite close--now! A +sound of rushing water, rather soothing; or, as it swelled, a sound of a +crowd, a gibing, mocking crowd. Yes, a crowd. And then in one instant +the change was wrought. + +He was on his feet; he was at the door. He, who a moment before had +nodded over the fire, watching the flames grow, was transformed in five +seconds into a furious man, tugging at the door, wrestling madly with +the unyielding oak. Wrestling, and still the noise rose! And still he +strained in vain, back and sinew, strained until with a cry of despair +he found that he could not win. The door was locked, the key was gone! +He was a prisoner! + +And still the noise that maddened him, rose. He sprang to the right-hand +window, the window nearest the commotion. He tore open a panel of the +small leaded panes, and thrust his head between the bars. He saw a +crowd; for an instant, in the heart of the crowd and raised above it, +he saw an uplifted arm and a white woman's face from which blood was +flowing. He drew in his head, and laid his hands to one of the bars and +flung his weight this way and that, flung it desperately, heedless of +injury. But in vain. The lead that soldered the bar into the strong +stone mullion held, and would have held against the strength of four. +With heaving breast, and hands from which the blood was starting, he +stood back, glared round him, then with a cry flung himself upon the +other window, tore it open and seized a bar--the middle one of the +three. It was loose he remembered. God! why had he not thought of it +before? Why had he wasted time? + +He wasted no more, with those shouts of cruel glee in his ears. The bar +came out in his hands. He thrust himself feet first through the +aperture. Slight as he was, it was small for him, and he stuck fast at +the hips, and had to turn on his side. The rough edges of the bars +scraped the skin, but he was through, and had dropped to his feet, the +bar which he had plucked out still in his hands. For a fraction of a +second, as he alighted, his eyes took in the crowd, and the girl at bay +against the wall. She was raised a little above her tormentors by the +steps on which she had taken refuge. + +On one side her hair hung loose, and the cheek beneath it was cut and +bleeding, giving her a piteous and tragic aspect. Four out of five of +her assailants were women; one of these had torn her face with her +nails. Streaks of mud were mingled with the blood which ran down her +neck; and even as Claude recovered himself after the drop from the +window, a missile, eluding the bent arm with which she strove to shield +her face, struck and bespattered her throat where the collar of her +frock had been torn open--perhaps by the same rough clutch which had +dragged down her hair. The ring about her--like all crowds in the +beginning--were strangely silent; but a yell of derision greeted this +success, and a stone flew, narrowly missing her, and another, and +another. A woman, holding a heavy Bible after the fashion of a shield, +was stooping and striking at her knees with a stick, striving to bring +her to the ground; and with the cruel laughter that hailed the hag's +ungainly efforts were mingled other and more ugly sounds, low curses, +execrations, and always one fatal word, "Witch! Witch!"--fatal word spat +at her by writhing mouths, hissed at her by pale lips, tossed broadcast +on the cold morning wind, to breed wherever it flew fear and hate and +suspicion. For, even while they mocked her they feared her, and shielded +themselves against her power with signs and crossings and the Holy Book. + +To all, curse and blow and threat, she had only one word. Striving +patiently to shield her face, "Let me go!" she wailed pitifully. "Let me +go! Let me go!" Strange to say, she cried even that but softly; as who +should say, "If you will not, kill me quietly, kill me without noise!" +Ay, even then, with the blood running down her face, and with those eyes +more cruel than men's eyes hemming her in, she was thinking of the +mother whom she had sheltered so long. + +"Let me go! Let me go!" she repeated. + +"Witch, you shall go!" they answered ruthlessly. "To hell!" + +"Ay, with her dam! To the water with her! To the water!" + +"Look for the devil's mark! Search her! Again, Martha! Bring her down! +Bring her down, and we'll soon see whether----" + +Then he reached them. The man, one of the few present, who had bidden +them search her fell headlong on his face in the gutter, struck behind +as by a thunder-bolt. The great Bible flew one way, the hag's stick flew +another--and in its flight felled a second woman. In a twinkling Claude +was on the steps, and in the heart of the crowd stood two people, not +one; in a twinkling his arm was round the girl, his pale, furious face +confronted her tormentors, his blazing eyes beat down theirs! More than +all, his iron bar, brandished recklessly this way and that, threatened +the brains of the man or the woman who was bold enough to withstand him. + +For he was beside himself with rage. He learned in that moment that he +was of those who fight with joy and rejoicing, and laugh where others +shake. The sight of that white, bleeding face, of that hanging hair, of +that suppliant arm, above all, the sound of that patient "Let me go! Let +me go!" that expected nothing and hoped nothing, had turned his blood to +fire. The more numerous his opponents--if they were men--the better he +would be pleased; and if they were women, such women, unsexed by hate +and superstition, as he saw before him, women looking a millionfold more +like witches than the girl they accused, the worse for them! His arm +would not falter! + +It seemed of steel indeed. The bar quivered like a reed in his grasp, +his eyes darted hither and thither, he stood an inch taller than at +other times. He was like the war-horse that sniffs the battle. + +And yet he was cool after a fashion. He must get her home, and to do so +he must not lose a moment. The vantage of the steps on which they stood, +raised a hand's breath above their assailants, was a thing to be +weighed; but it would not serve them if these cursed women mustered, and +the cowardly crew before him throve to a mob. He must home with her. But +the door was locked, and she could only go in as he had come out. Still, +she must go. + +He thought all this between one stride and another--and other thoughts +thick as leaves falling in a wind. Then, "Fools!" he thundered, and had +her down the steps, and was dragging her towards her door before they +awoke from their surprise, or thought of attacking him. The woman with +the big Bible had had her fill--though he had not struck her but her +stick--and sat where she had fallen in the mud. The other woman hugged +herself in pain. The man was in no hurry to be up, having once felt +Claude's knee in the small of his back. For a few seconds no one moved; +and when they recovered themselves he was half-way to the Royaumes' +door. + +They snatched up mud, then, and flung it after the pair with shrill +execrations. And the woman who had picked up the stick hurled it in a +frenzy after them, but wide of the mark. A dozen stones fell round them, +and the cry of "The Witch! The Witch!"--cry so ominous, so cruel, cry +fraught with death for so many poor creatures--followed hard on them. +But they were within five paces of the door now, and if he could lift +her to the window---- + +"The key," she murmured in his ear. "The key is in the lock!" + +She had her wits, too, then, and her courage! He felt a glow of pride, +his arm pressed her more closely to him. "Unlock it!" he answered, and +leaving her to it, having now no fear that she would faint or fall, he +turned on the rabble with his bar. + +But they were for words, not blows, a rabble of cowards and women. They +turned tail with screams and fled to a distance, more than one falling +in the sudden _volte-face_. He made no attempt to pursue them along the +rampart, but looked behind him, and found that she had opened the door. +She had taken out the key, and was waiting for him to enter. + +He went up the steps, entered, and she closed the door quickly. It shut +out in a moment the hootings of the returning women. While she locked it +on the inside, he raised the bars and slid them into their places. Then, +not till then, he turned to her. + +Her face averted, she was staunching the blood which trickled from her +cheek. "It was the child's mother!" she faltered, a sob in her voice. "I +went to her. I thought--that she would believe. Get me some water, +please! I must go upstairs. My mother will be frightened." + +He was astonished: on fire himself, with every pulse beating madly, he +was prepared for her to faint, to fall, to fling herself into his arms +in gratitude; prepared for everything but this self-forgetfulness. +"Water?" he said doubtfully, "but had you not better--take some wine, +Anne?" + +"To wash! To wash!" she replied sharply, almost angrily. "How can I go +to her in this state? And do you shut the shutters." + +A stone had that moment passed through a pane of one of the windows. The +rout of women were gathering before the house; the step she advised was +plainly necessary. Fortunately the Royaumes' house, like all in the +Corraterie--which formed an inner line of defence pierced by the +Tertasse gate--had outside shutters of massive thickness, capable of +being lowered from within. He closed these in haste and found, when he +turned from the task and looked for her--a small round hole in each +shutter made things dimly visible--that she was gone to soothe her +mother. + +He could not but love her the more for it. He could not but respect her +the more for her courage, for her thoughtfulness, her self-denial. But +when the heart is full and would unburden itself, when the brain teems +with pent-up thoughts, when the excitement of action and of peril wanes +and the mind would fain tell and hear and compare and remember--then to +be alone, to be solitary, is to sink below one's self. + +For a time, while his pulses still beat high, while the heat of battle +still wrought in him, and the noise without continued, and there seemed +a prospect of things to be done, he stood up against this. Thump! Thump! +They were stoning the shutters. Let them! He placed the settle across +the hearth, and in this way cut off the firelight that might have +betrayed those in the room to eyes peeping through the holes. By-and-by +the shrill vixenish cries rose louder, he caught the sound of voices in +altercation, and of hoarse orders: and slowly and reluctantly the babel +seemed to pass away. An anxious moment followed: fearfully he listened +for the knock of the law, the official summons which must make all his +efforts useless. But it did not come. + +It was when the silence which ensued had lasted some minutes that the +strangeness and aloofness of his position in this darkened room began to +weigh on his spirits. His eyes had adapted themselves to the gloom, and +he could make out the shapes of the furniture. But it was morning! It +was day! Outside, the city was beginning to go about its ordinary work, +its ordinary life. The streets were filling, the classes were mustering. +And he sat here in the dark! The longer he stared into the strange, +depressing gloom, the farther he seemed from life; the more solitary, +the more hopeless, the more ominous seemed the position. + +Alone with two women whom the worst of fates threatened! Whose pains and +ultimate lot the brawl in which he had taken part foreshadowed too +clearly. For thus and with as little cause perished in those days +thousands of the helpless and the friendless. Alone with these two, +under the roof from which all others had fled, barred with them behind +the gloomy shutters until the hour came, and their fellows, shuddering, +cast them out--what chance had he of escaping their lot? + +Or what desire to escape it? None, he told himself. None! But he who +fights best when blows are to be struck and things can be done finds it +hard to sit still where it is the inevitable that must be faced. And +while Claude told himself that he had no desire to escape, since escape +for her was impossible, his mind sought desperately the means of saving +all. The frontier lay but a league away. Conceivably they might lower +themselves from the wall by night; conceivably his strength might avail +to carry her mother to the frontier. But, alas! the crime of witchcraft +knew no frontier; the reputation of a witch once thrown abroad, flew +fast as the swiftest horse. Before they had been three days in Savoy, +the women would be reported, seized and examined; and their fate at +Faucigny or Bonneville would be no less tragic than in the Bourg du Four +of Geneva. + +Yet, something must be done, something could surely be done. But what? +The bravest caught in a net struggles the most desperately, and involves +himself the most hopelessly. And Claude felt himself caught in a net. He +felt the deadly meshes cling about his limbs, the ropes fetter and +benumb him. From the sunshine of youth, from freedom, from a life +without care, he had passed in a few days into the grip of this [Greek: +anagkê], this dire necessity, this dark ante-chamber of death. Was it +wonderful that for a moment, recognising the sacrifice he was called +upon to make and its inefficacy to save, he rebelled against the love +that had drawn him to this fate, that had led him to this, that in +others' eyes had ruined him? Ay, but for a moment only. Then with a +heart bursting with pity for her, with love for her, he was himself. If +it must be, it must be. The prospect was dark as the room in which he +stood, confined and stifling, sordid and shameful; the end one which +would make his name a marvel and an astonishment. But the prospect and +the end were hers too; they would face them together. Haply he might +spare her some one pang, haply he might give her some one moment of +happiness, the support of one at least who knew her pure and spotless. +And while he thought of it--surprise of surprises--he bowed his head on +his folded arms and wept. + +Not in pity for himself, but for her. It was the thought of her +gentleness, her loving nature, her harmlessness--and the end this, the +reward this--which overcame him; which swelled his breast until only +tears could relieve it. He saw her as a dove struggling in cruel hands; +and the pity which, had there been chance or hope, or any to smite, +would have been rage, could find no other outlet. He wept like a woman; +but it was for her. + +And she, who had descended unheard, and stood even now at the door, with +a something almost divine in her face--a something that was neither love +nor compassion, maid's fancy nor mother's care, but a mingling of all +these, saw. And her heart bled for him; her arms in fancy went round +him, in fancy his head was on her breast, she comforted him. She, who a +moment before had almost sunk down on the stairs, worn out by her +sufferings and the strain of hiding them from her mother's eyes, forgot +her weakness in thought for him. + +She had no contempt for his tears. She had seen him stand between +herself and her tormentors, she had seen the flash of his eye, heard his +voice, knew him brave. But the fate, for which long thought and hours on +her knees had prepared her--so that it seemed but a black and bitter +passage with peace beyond--appalled her for him; and might well appal +him. The courage of men is active, of women passive; with a woman's +instinct she knew this, allowed for it, and allowed, too, for another +thing--that he was fasting. + +When he looked up, startled by the tinkle of pewter and the rustle of +her skirt, she was kneeling between the settle and the fire, preparing +food. He flattered himself that in the dark she had not seen him, and +when he had regained his self-control he stepped to the settle-back and +looked over it. + +"You did not see me?" he said. + +She did not answer at once, but finished what she was doing. Then she +stood up and handed him a bowl. "The bread is on the table," she said, +indicating it. She was a woman, and, dark as it was, she kept the +disfigured cheek turned from him. + +He would have replied, but she made a sign to him to eat, and, seating +herself on a stool in the corner with her plate on her lap, she set him +an example. Apart from her weary attitude, and the droop of her head, he +might have deemed the scene in which they had taken part a figment of +his brain. But round them was the gloom of the closed room! + +"You did not see me?" he repeated presently. + +She stood up. "I would I had never seen you!" she cried; and her +anguished tone bore witness to the truth of her words. "It is the worst, +it is the bitterest thing of all! of all!" she repeated. The settle was +between them, and she rested her hands on the back of it. He stooped, +and, in the darkness, covered them with kisses, while his breast heaved +with the swell of the storm which her entrance had cut short. "For all +but that I was prepared," she continued; "I was ready. I have seen for +weeks the hopelessness of it, the certain end, the fate before us. I +have counted the cost, and I have learned to look beyond for--for all we +desire. It is a sharp passage, and peace. But you"--her voice rested on +the same tragic note of monotony--"are outside the sum, and spoil all. A +little suffering will kill my mother, a little, a very little fear. I +doubt if she will live to be taken hence. And I--I can suffer. I have +known all, I have foreseen all--long! I have learned to think of it, and +I can learn by God's help to bear it! And in a little while, a very +little while, it will be over, and I shall be at rest. But you--you, my +love----" + +Her voice broke, her head sunk forward. His lips met hers in a first +kiss; a kiss, salted by the tears that ran unchecked down his face. For +a long minute there was silence in the room, a silence broken only by +the low, inarticulate murmur of his love--love whispered brokenly on her +tear-wet lips, on her cold, closed eyelids. She made no attempt to +withdraw her face, and presently the murmur grew to words of defiance, +of love that mocked at peril, mocked at shame, mocked at death, having +assurance of its own, having assurance of her. + +They fell on her ears as warm thaw-rain on frozen sward; and slowly into +the pallor of her face, the whiteness of her closed eyelids, crept a +tender blush. Strange that for a few brief moments they were happy; +strange, proof marvellous of the dominance of the inner life over the +outer, of love over death. + +"My love, my love!" + +"Again!"--he murmured. + +"My love, my love!" + +But at length she came to herself, she remembered. "You will go?" she +said. She put him from her and held him fondly at arm's length, her +hands on his shoulders. "You will go? It is all you can do for me. You +will go and live?" + +"Without you?" + +"Yes. Better, a hundred times better so--for me." + +"And for me? Why may I not save you and her?" + +"It is impossible!" + +"Nothing is impossible to love," he answered. "The nights are long, the +wall is not too high! No wall is too high for love! It is but a league +to the frontier, and I am strong." + +"Who would receive us?" she asked sadly. "Who would shelter us? In +Savoy, if we were not held for sorcery, we should be delivered to the +Inquisition." + +"We might gain friends?" + +"With what? No," she continued, her hands cleaving more tightly to him; +"you must go, dear love! Dear love! You must go! It is all you can do +for me, and it is much! Oh, indeed, it is much! It is very much!" + +He drew her to him as near as the settle would permit, until she was +kneeling on it, and in spite of her faint resistance he could look into +her eyes. "Were you in my place, would you leave me?" he asked. + +"Yes," she lied bravely, "I would." + +But the flash of resentment in her eyes gave her voice the lie, and he +laughed joyfully. "You would not!" he said. "You would not leave me on +this side of death!" + +She tried to protest. + +"Nor will I you," he continued, stopping her mouth with fresh kisses. +"Nor will I you till death! Did you think me a coward?" He held her from +him and looked into her reproachful eyes. "Or a Tissot? Tissot left you. +Or Louis Gentilis?" + +But she made him know that he was none of these in a way that satisfied +him; and a moment later her mother's voice called her from the room. He +thought, having no experience of a woman's will, that he had done with +that; and in her absence he betook himself to examining the defences of +the house. He replaced the bar which he had wrested from the window; +wedging it into its socket with a morsel or two of molten lead. The +windows of the bedrooms, his own and Louis', looked into a narrow lane, +the Rue de la Cité, that ran at the back of the Corraterie in a line +with the ramparts; but not only were they almost too small to permit the +passage of a full-grown man, they were strongly barred. Against such a +rabble, as had assaulted Anne, or even a more formidable mob, the house +was secure. But if the law intervened neither bar nor bolt could save +them. + +He fell to thinking of this, and stood, arrested in the middle of the +darkened room that, as the hours went by, was beginning to take on a +familiar look. The day was passing, all without remained quiet, nothing +had happened. Was it possible that nothing would happen? Was it possible +that the girl through long brooding exaggerated the peril? And that the +worst to be feared was such an outbreak as had occurred that morning? +Such an outbreak as might not take place again, since mobs were fickle +things. + +He dwelt a while on this more hopeful view of things. Then he recalled +Basterga's threats, the Syndic's face, the departure of Louis and Grio; +and his heart sank as lead sinks. The rumour so quickly spread--by what +hints, what innuendoes, what cunning inquiries, what references to the +old, invisible, bedridden woman, he could but guess--that rumour bore +witness to a malice and a thirst for revenge which were not likely to +stop at words. And Louis' flight? And Grio's? And Basterga's?--for he +did not return. To believe that all these, taken together, these and the +outrage of the morning, portended anything but danger, anything but the +worst, demanded a hopefulness that even his youth and his love could not +compass. + +Yet when she descended he met her with brave looks. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE _REMEDIUM_. + + +Blondel's thin lips were warrant--to such of the world as had eyes to +see--that in the ordinary things of life he would have been one of the +last to put faith in a man of Basterga's stamp: and one of the first, +had the case been other than his own, to laugh at the credulity he was +displaying. He would have seen--no one more clearly--that, in making the +bargain he had made, he was in the position of a drowning man who +clutches at a straw; not because he believes that the straw will support +him, but because he has no other hope, and is loth to sink. + +He would have seen, too, another thing, which indeed he did see dimly. +This was that, talk as he might, make terms as he might, repeat as +firmly as he pleased, "The _remedium_ first and then Geneva," he would +be forced when the time came to take the word for the deed. If he dared +not trust Basterga, neither dared the scholar trust him. Once safe, once +snatched from the dark fate that scared him, he would laugh at the +notion of betraying the city. He would snap his fingers in the Paduan's +face; and Basterga knew it. The scholar, therefore, dared not trust him; +and either there was an end of the matter or he must trust Basterga, +must eat his own words, and, content with the possession of something, +must wait for proof of its efficacy until the die was cast! + +In his heart he knew this. He knew that on the brink of the extremity +to which circumstances and Basterga were slowly pushing him it might not +be in his power to check himself: that he must trust, whether he would +or no, and where instinct bade him place no trust. And this doubt, this +suspicion that when all was done he might find himself tricked, and +learn that for nothing he had given all, added immeasurably to the +torment of his mind; to the misery of his reflections when he awoke in +the small hours and saw things coldly and clearly, and to the fever and +suspense in which he passed his days. + +He clung to one thought and got what consolation he could from it; a +bitter and saturnine comfort it was. The thought was this: if it turned +out that, after all, he had been tricked, he could but die; and die he +must if he made no bargain. And to a dead man what matter was it what +price he had paid that he might live! What matter who won or who lost +Geneva, who lived, who died, who were slaves, who free! + +And again, the very easiness of the thing he was asked to do tempted +him. It was a thing that to one in his position presented no difficulty +and scarcely any danger. He had but to withdraw the guards, or the +greater part of them, from a portion of the wall, and to stop on one +pretext or another--the bitter cold of the wintry weather would +avail--the rounds that at stated intervals visited the various posts. +That was all; as a man of tried loyalty, intrusted with the safeguarding +of the city, and to whom the officer of the watch was answerable, he +might make the necessary arrangements without incurring, even after the +catastrophe, more than a passing odium, a breath of suspicion. + +And Baudichon and Petitot? He tasted, when he thought of them, the only +moments of comfort, of pleasure, of ease, that fell to his lot +throughout these days. They would thwart him no more. Petty worms, +whose vision went no farther than the walls of the city, he would have +done with them when the flag of Savoy fluttered above St. Pierre; and +when for the confines of a petty canton was substituted, for those who +had eyes to see and courage to adapt themselves, the wide horizon of the +Italian Kingdom. When he thought of them--and then only--he warmed to +the task before him; then only he could think of it without a shiver and +without distaste. And not the less because on that side, in their +suspicion, in their grudging jealousy, in their unwinking integrity, lay +the one difficulty. + +A difficulty exasperated by the insult that, in a moment of bitter +disappointment, he had flung in Baudichon's face. That hasty word had +revealed to the speaker a lack of self-control that terrified him, even +as it had revealed to Baudichon a glimpse of something underneath the +Fourth Syndic's dry exterior that might well set a man thinking as well +as talking. This matter Blondel saw plainly he must deal with at once, +or it might do harm. To absent himself from the next day's council might +rouse a storm beyond his power to weather, or short of that might give +rise at a later period to a dangerous amount of gossip and conjecture. + +He was early at the meeting, therefore, but to his surprise found it in +session before the hour. This, and the fact that the hubbub of voices +and discussion died down at his entrance--died down and was succeeded by +a chilling silence--put him on his guard. He had not come unprepared for +opposition; to meet it he had wound himself to a pitch, telling himself +that after this all would be easy; that he had this one peril to face, +this one obstacle to surmount, and having succeeded might rest. +Nevertheless, as he passed up the Great Council Chamber amid that +silence, and met strange looks on faces which were wont to smile, his +courage for one moment, even in that familiar scene--conscience makes +cowards of all--wavered. His smile grew sickly, his nerves seemed +suddenly unstrung, his knees shook under him. It was a dreadful instant +of physical weakness, of mental terror, under the eyes of all. To +himself, he seemed to stand still; to be self-betrayed, self-convicted! + +Then--and so brief was the moment of weakness no eye detected it--he +moved on to his place, and with his usual coolness took his seat. He +looked round. + +"You are early," he said, ignoring the glances, hostile or doubtful, +that met his gaze. "The hour has barely struck, I believe?" + +"We were of opinion," Fabri answered, with a dry cough, "that minutes +were of value." + +"Ah!" + +"That not even one must be lost, Messer Blondel!" + +"In doing?" Blondel asked in a negligent tone, well calculated to annoy +those who were eager in the matter. "In doing what, if I may ask?" + +"In doing, Messer Syndic," Petitot answered sharply, "that which should +have been done a week ago; and better still a fortnight ago. In issuing +a warrant for the arrest of the person whose name has been several times +in question here." + +"Messer Basterga?" + +"The same." + +"You may save yourselves the trouble," the Syndic replied, with a little +contempt. "The warrant has been issued. It was issued yesterday, and +would have been executed in the afternoon, if he had not got wind of it, +and left the town. And on this let me say one more word," Blondel +continued, leaning forward and speaking in sudden heat, before any one +could take up the question. "That word is this. If it had not been for +the importunity of some who are here, the warrant had _not_ been issued, +the man had still been within the walls, and we had been able still to +trace his plans! We had not been as we now are, and as I foretold we +should be, in the dark, ignorant from which quarter the blow may fall, +and not a whit the wiser for the hint given us." + +"You have let him escape!" The words were Petitot's. + +"I? No! I have not let him escape, but those who forced my hand!" +Blondel retorted in passion, so real, or so well simulated, that it +swept away the majority of his listeners. "They have let him escape! +Those who had no patience or craft! Those whose only notion of +statesmanship, whose only method of making use of the document we had +under our hand was to tear it up. Only yesterday morning I was with +him----" + +"Ay?" Baudichon cried, his eyes glowing with dull passion. "You were +with him! And he went in the afternoon! Mark that!" He turned quickly to +his fellows. "He went in the afternoon! Now, I would like to know----" + +Blondel stood up. "Whether I am a traitor?" he said, in a tone of fury; +and he extended his arms in protest. "Whether I am in league with this +Italian, I, Philibert Blondel of Geneva? That is what you ask, what you +wish to know! Whether I sought him yesterday in the hope of worming his +secrets from him, and doing what I could for the benefit of the State in +a matter too delicate to be left to underlings? Or went there, one with +him, to betray my country? To sell the Free City? That--that is what you +ask?" + +His passion was full, overpowering, convincing; so convincing--it almost +stopped his speech--that he believed in it himself, so convincing that +it swept away all but his steady and professed opponents. "No, no!" +cried a dozen voices, in tones that reflected his indignation. "No, no! +Shame!" + +"No?" Blondel took up the word, his eyes sparkling, his adust complexion +heated and full of fire. "But it is--yes, they say! Yes, they say whom +you have to thank if we have lost our clue, they who met me going to him +but yesterday and threatened me! Threatened me!" he repeated, in a voice +of astonishment. "Me, who desired only, sought only, was going only to +do my duty! I used, I admit the fault," he allowed his voice to drop to +a tone more like his own, "words on that occasion that I now regret. But +is blood water? Does no man besides Councillor Baudichon love his +country? Is the suspicion, the open suspicion of such an one, no insult, +that he must cavil if he be repaid in insult? I have given my proofs. If +any man can be trusted to sound the enemy, it is I! But I have done! Had +Messer Baudichon not pressed me to issue the warrant, not driven me +beyond my patience, it had not been issued yesterday. It had been in the +office, and the man within the walls! Ay, and not only within the walls, +but fresh from a conference with the Sieur d'Albigny, primed with all we +need to know, and in doubt by which side he could most profit!" + +"It was about that you saw him?" Petitot said slowly, his eyes fixed +like gimlets to the other's face. + +"It was about that I saw him," Blondel answered. "And I think in a few +hours more I had won him. But in the street he had some secret word or +warning; for when I handed the warrant--against my better sense--to the +officers, they, who had never lost sight of him between gate and gate, +answered that he had crossed the bridge and left the town an hour +before. Mon Dieu!"--he struck his two hands together and snapped his +teeth--"when I think how foolish I was to be over-ridden, I could--I +could say more, Messer Baudichon"--with a saturnine look--"than I said +yesterday!" + +"At any rate the bird is flown!" Baudichon replied, with sullen temper. +"That is certain! And it was you who were set to catch him!" + +"But it was not I who scared him," Blondel rejoined. + +"I don't know what you would have had of him!" + +"Oh, I see that plainly enough," said Fabri. He was an honest man, +without prejudice, and long the peace-maker between the two parties. + +"I thank you," Blondel replied dryly. "But, by your leave, I will make +it clear to Messer Baudichon also, who will doubtless like to know. I +would have had of him the time and place and circumstance of the attack, +if such be in preparation. And then, when I knew all, I would have made +dispositions, not only to safeguard the city, but to give the enemy such +a reception that Italy should ring with it! Ay, and such as should put +an end for the rest of our lives to these treacherous attacks!" + +The picture which he drew thus briefly of a millennium of safety, +charmed not only his own adherents, but all who were neutral, all who +wavered. They saw how easily the thing might have been done, how +completely the treacherous blow might have been parried and returned. +Veering about they eyed Baudichon, on whom the odium of the lost +opportunity seemed to rest, with resentment--as an honest man, but a +simpleton, a dullard, a block! And when Blondel added, after a pause, +"But there, I have done! The office of Fourth Syndic I leave to you to +fill," they barely allowed him to finish. + +"No! No!" came from almost all mouths, and from every part of the +council table. + +"No," Fabri said, when silence was made. "There is no provision for a +change, unless a definite accusation be laid." + +"But Messer Baudichon may have one to make," Blondel said proudly. "In +that case, let him speak." + +Baudichon breathed hard, and seemed to be on the point of pouring forth +a torrent of words. But he said nothing. Instinct told him that his +enemy was not to be trusted, but he had the wit to discern that Blondel +had forestalled him, and had drawn the sting from his charges. He could +have wept in dull, honest indignation; but for accusations, he saw that +the other held the game, and he was silent. "Fat hog!" the man had +called him. "Fat hog!" A tear gathered slowly in his eye as he recalled +it. + +Fabri gave him time to speak; and then with evident relief, "He has none +to make, I am sure," he said. + +"Let him understand, then," Blondel replied firmly, "let all understand, +that while I will do my duty I am no longer in the position to guard +against sudden strokes, in which I should have been, had I been allowed +to go my own way. If a misfortune happen, it is not on me the blame must +rest." He spoke solemnly, laughing in his sleeve at the cleverness with +which he was turning his enemy's petard against him. "All that man can +do in the dark shall be done," he continued. "And I do not--I am free to +confess that--anticipate anything while the negotiations with the +President Rochette are in progress." + +"No, it is when they are broken off, they will fall back on the other +plan," one of the councillors said with an air of much wisdom. + +"I think that is so. Nor do I think that anything will be done during +the present severe weather." + +"They like it no better than we do!" + +"But the roads are good in this frost," Fabri said. "If it be a question +of moving guns or wagons----" + +"But it is not, by your leave, Messer Fabri, as I am informed," the man +who had spoken before objected; supporting his opinion simply because he +had voiced it, a thing seen every day in such assemblies. Fabri replied +on him in the other sense: and presently Blondel had the satisfaction of +listening to a discussion in which the one party said a dozen things +that he saw would be of use to him--some day. + +One only said not a word, and that was Petitot. He listened to all with +a puzzled look. He resented the insult which Blondel had flung at his +friend Baudichon, but he saw all going against them, and no chance of +redress; nay, capital was being made out of that which should have been +a disadvantage. Worst of all, he was uneasy, fancying--he was very +shrewd--that he caught a glimpse, under the Fourth Syndic's manner, of +another man: that he detected signs of emotion, a feverishness and +imperiousness not quite explained by the circumstances. + +He got the notion from this that the Fourth Syndic had learned more from +Basterga than he had disclosed. His notion, even so, went no further +than the suspicion that Blondel was hiding knowledge out of a desire to +reap all the glory. But he did not like it. "He was always for risking, +for risking!" he thought. "This is another case of it. God grant it go +well!" His wife, his children, his daughters, rose in a picture before +him, and he hated Blondel, who had none of these. He would have put him +to death for running the tithe of a risk. + +When the council broke up, Fabri drew Blondel aside. "The bird is flown, +but what of the nest?" he asked. "Has he left nothing?" + +"Between you and me," Blondel replied under his breath, as his eyes +sought the other's, "I hope to make him speak yet. But not a word!" + +"Ah!" + +"Not a word! But there is just a chance. And it will be everything to us +if I can induce him to speak." + +"I see that. But the house? Could you not search it?" + +"That would be to scare him finally." + +"You have made no perquisition there?" + +"None. I have heard," Blondel continued, hesitating as if he had not +quite made up his mind to speak, "some things--strange things in respect +to the house. But I will tell you more of that when I know more." + +He was too clever to state that he held the house in suspicion for +sorcery and kindred things. Charges such as that spread, he knew, +upwards from the lower classes, not downwards to them. The poison, +disseminated as he had known how to disseminate it, by hints and +innuendoes dropped among his officers and ushers, was already in the +air, and would do its work. Fabri, a man of sense, might laugh to-day, +and to-morrow; but the third day, when the report came to him from a +dozen quarters, mainly by women's mouths, he would not laugh. And +presently he would shrug his shoulders and stand aside, and leave the +matter in more earnest hands. + +Blondel dropped no more than that hint, therefore, and as he passed +homeward applauded his discretion. He was proud of the turn things had +taken at the Council; elated by the part he had played, and the proof he +had given of his mastery, he felt able to carry anything through. His +mind, leaping over the immediate future, pictured a wider theatre, in +which his powers would have full scope, and a larger stage on which he +might aspire to play the first part. He saw himself not only wealthy, +but ennobled, the fount of honour, the favourite, and, in time, the +master of princes. Such as he was to-day the Medicis had been, and many +another whom the world held noble. He had but to live and to dare; only +to live and to dare! Only in order to do the one he must--it was no +choice of his--do the other! + +Before he was five minutes older he was reminded of the necessity. At +the door of his house the pains of the disease from which he +suffered--aggravated, perhaps, by the excitement through which he had +just passed, or by the cold of the weather--seized him with unusual +violence. He leant, pale and almost fainting, against the door-jamb, +unable at the moment to do so much as raise the latch. The golden dreams +in which he had lost himself by the way, the visions of power and fame, +vanished as he had so many times seen the after-glow vanish from the +snow-peaks; leaving only cold images of death and desolation. Presently, +with an effort, he staggered within doors, poured out such medicine as +he had, and, bent double and almost without breath, swallowed it; and +so, by-and-by, a wan and wild-eyed image of himself came out of the fit. + +He told himself in after days that it was that decided him; that but for +that sharp fit of pain and the prospect of others like it, he would not +have yielded to the temptation, no, not to be the Grand Duke's +favourite, not to be Minister of Savoy! He ignored, in his looking +backward, the visions of glory and ambition in which he had revelled. He +saw himself on the rack, with life and immunity from pain drawing him +one way, the prospect of a miserable death the other; and he pleaded +that no man would have decided otherwise. After that experience the +straw did not float, so thin that he was not ready to grasp it rather +than die, rather than suffer again. Nor did the fact that the straw at +that moment lay on the table beside him go for much. + +It did lie there. When he felt a little stronger and began to look about +him, he found a note at his elbow. It was a small, common-looking +letter, sealed with a B, that might signify Blondel or Basterga, or, for +the matter of that, Baudichon. He did not know the handwriting, and he +opened it idly, in the scorn of small things that pain induced. + +He had not read a line of the contents, before his countenance changed. +The letter was from Basterga, and cunningly contrived. It gave him the +directions he needed, yet it was so worded that even after the event it +might pass for a trifling communication from a physician. The place and +the hour were specified--the latter so near that for a moment his cheek +grew pale. On that ensued the part which interested him most; but as the +whole was brief, the whole may be given. + + "Sir" (here followed a cabalistic sign such as physicians were in the + habit of using to impose on the vulgar). "After paying a visit in the + Corraterie, where I have an appointment on Saturday evening next + between late and early, I will be with you. But the mixture with the + necessary directions shall be sent to you twelve hours in advance, so + that before my visit you may experience its good effects. As surely as + the wrong potion in the case you wot of deprived of reason, so surely + (as I hope for salvation) will this potion have the desired effect. + + "The Physician of Aleppo." + +"Saturday next, between late and early!" Blondel muttered, gazing at the +words with fascinated eyes. "It is for the day after to-morrow! The day +after to-morrow!" And in his thoughts he passed again over the road he +had travelled since his first visit to Basterga's room, since the hour +when the scholar had unrolled before him the map of the town he called +"Aurelia," and had told him the story of Ibn Jasher and the Physician of +Aleppo. + +"No, I am not well," he answered. He sat, warmly wrapped up, in the high +chair in his parlour, his face so drawn with want of sleep that Captain +Blandano of the city guard, who had come to take his orders, had no +difficulty in believing him. "I am not well," he repeated peevishly. "It +is the weather." He had some soup before him. Beside it stood a tiny +phial of medicine; a phial strangely shaped and strange looking, +containing something not unlike the green cordial of the Carthusians. + +"It troubles me a good deal, too," Blandano said. "There are seven men +absent in the fourth ward. And two men, whose wives are urgent with me +that they should have leave." + +"Leave?" the Syndic cried. "Do they think naught"--leaning forward in a +passion--"of the safety of the city? If I were not ill, I would take +service on the wall myself to set an example!" + +"There is no need of that," the Captain answered respectfully, "if I +might have permission to withdraw a few men from the west side so as to +fill the places on the east----" + +"Ay, ay!" + +"From the Rhone side of the town----" + +"From the Corraterie? That is least open to assault." + +"Yes, from that part perhaps would be best," Blandano assented, nodding. +"Yes, I think so. If I might do that, I think I could manage." + +"Well, then do it," Blondel answered. "And make a note that I assented +to your suggestion to take them from the Corraterie and put them on the +lower part of the wall. After all, the nights are very bitter now, and +there are limits. Do the men grumble much?" + +"It is as much as I can do to make them go the rounds," Blandano +answered. "Some plead the weather; and some argue that, with President +Rochette, whose word is as good as his bond, on the point of coming to +an agreement with us, the rounds are a farce!" + +The Syndic shrugged his shoulders. "Well!" he muttered, rubbing his chin +and looking thoughtfully before him, "we must not wear the men out. +There is no moon now, is there?" + +"No." + +"And the enemy can attempt nothing without light," Blondel continued, +thinking aloud. "See here, Blandano, we must not put too heavy a burden +on our people. I see that. As it is so cold, I think you may pass the +word to pretermit the rounds to-night--save two. At what hours would you +suggest?" + +Blandano considered his own comfort--as the other expected he would--and +answered, "Early and late, say an hour before midnight and an hour +before dawn". + +"Then let be it as you suggest. But see"--with returning asperity--"that +those rounds go, and at their hours. Let there be no remissness. I will +make a note," he continued, "of the hours fixed. An hour before midnight +and an hour before dawn". + +He extended his arm and drew the ink-horn towards him. Midway in the +act, whether it was that his hand shook by reason of his illness, or +that he was in a hurry to close an interview which tried him more +severely than appeared, his sleeve caught the little phial of green +water that stood beside the soup on the table. It reeled an instant on +its edge, toppled on its side, and rolling, in one-tenth of the time it +takes to tell the tale, to the verge of the table--fell over. + +Messer Blondel made a strange noise in his throat. + +But the Captain had seen what was happening. Dexterously he caught the +bottle in his huge palm, and with an air of modest achievement was going +to set it on the table, when he saw that the Syndic had fallen back in +his chair, his face ghastly. Blandano was more used to death in the +field than in the house; and in a panic he took two steps towards the +door to call for help. Before he could take a third, Blondel gasped, and +made an uncertain movement with his hand, as if he would reassure him. + +Blandano returned and leant over him. "You are ill, Messer Syndic," he +said anxiously. "Let me call some one." + +The Syndic could not speak, but he pointed to the table. And when +Blandano, unable to make out what he wanted, and suspecting a stroke of +a mortal disease, turned again to the door, persisting in his intention +of getting aid, the Syndic found strength to seize his sleeve, and +almost instantly regained his speech. "There!" he gasped, "there! The +phial! Put it down!" + +Captain Blandano placed it on the table, wondering much. "I was afraid +you were ill, Messer Blondel," he said. + +"I was ill," the Syndic answered; and he pushed his chair back so that +no part of him was in contact with the table. He looked at the little +bottle with fascinated eyes, and slowly, as he looked, the colour +returned to his face. "I--was ill," he repeated, with a sigh that seemed +to relieve his breast. "I had a fright!" + +"You thought it was broken?" Blandano said, wondering much, and looking +in his turn at the phial. + +"Yes, I thought that it was broken. I am much obliged to you. Much, very +much obliged to you," the Syndic repeated, with a deep sigh, his hands +still moving nervously about his dress. Then, after a moment's pause, +"Will you ring the bell?" he said. + +The Captain, marvelling much, rang the hand-bell which lay on a +neighbouring table. He marvelled still more when he heard Messer +Blondel order the servant to place six bottles of his best wine in a +basket and take them to the Captain's lodging. + +Blandano stared. He knew the wine to be choice and valuable; and he eyed +the tiny phial respectfully. "It is something rare, I expect?" he said. + +The Syndic nodded. + +"And costly too, I doubt not?" with an admiring glance. + +"Costly?" Messer Blondel repeated the word, and when he had done so +turned on the other a look that led the Captain to think that he was +going to be ill again. Then, "It cost me--it will cost me"--again a +spasm contorted the Syndic's face--"I don't know what it will not have +cost me before it is paid for, Messer Blandano!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +TWO NAILS IN THE WALL. + + +The long day during which the lovers had drained a cup at once so sweet +and so bitter, and one of the two had felt alike the throb of pain and +the thrill of kisses, came to an end at last; and without further +incident. Encouraged by the respite--for who that is mortal does not +hope against hope--they ventured on the following morning to lower the +shutters, and this to a great extent restored the house to its normal +aspect. Anne would have gone so far as to attend the morning preaching +at St. Pierre, for it was Friday; but her mother awoke low and nervous, +the girl dared not quit her side, and Claude had no field for the urgent +dissuasions which he had prepared himself to use. + +The greater part of the day she remained above stairs, busied in the +petty offices, and moving to and fro--he could hear her tread--upon the +errands of love, to see her in the midst of which might well have +confuted the slanders that crept abroad. But there were times in the day +when Madame Royaume slept; and then, who can blame Anne, if she stole +down and sat hand in hand with Claude on the settle, whispering +sometimes of those things of which lovers whisper, and will whisper to +the world's end; but more often of the direr things before these two +lovers, and so of faith and hope and the love that does not die. For the +most part it was she who talked. She had so much to tell him of the long +nightmare, the nightmare of months, that had oppressed her; of her +prayers, and fears and fits of terror; of Basterga's discovery of the +secret and the cruel use he had made of it; of the slow-growing +resignation, the steadfast resolve, the onward look to something, beyond +that which the world could do to her, that had come to be hers. With her +face hidden on his breast she told him of her thoughts upon her knees, +of the pain and obloquy through which, if the worst came, she knew she +must pass, and of her trust that she would be able to bear them; +speaking in such terms, so simply, so bravely, and with so lofty a +contemplation, that he who listened, and had been but a week before a +young man as other young men, grew as he listened to another stature, +and thought for himself thoughts that no man can have and remain as he +was, before the tongues of fire touched his heart. + +And then again, once--but that was in the darkening of the Friday +evening when the wound in her cheek burned and smarted and recalled the +wretched moment of infliction--she showed him another side; as if she +would have him know that she was not all heroic. Without warning, she +broke down; overcome by the prospect of death, she clung to him, weeping +and shuddering, and begging him and imploring him to save her. To save +her! Only to save her! At that sight and at those sounds, under the +despairing grasp of her arms about his neck, the young man's heart was +red-hot; his eyes burned. Vainly he held her closer and closer to him; +vainly he tried to comfort her. Vainly he shed tears of blood. He felt +her writhe and shudder in his arms. + +And what could he do? He strove to argue with her. He strove to show her +that accusation of her mother, condemnation of her mother, dreadful as +they must be to her, so dreadful that he scarcely dared speak of them, +need not involve her own condemnation. She was young, of blameless life, +and without enemies. What could any cast up against her, what adduce in +proof of a charge so dark, so improbable, so abnormal? + +For answer she touched the pulsing wound in her cheek. + +"And this?" she said. "And the child that I killed?"--with a bitter +laugh unlike her own. "If they say so much already, if they say that +to-day, what will they say to-morrow? What will they say when they have +heard her ravings? Will it not be, the old and the young, the witch and +her brood--to the fire? To the fire?" + +The spasm that shook her as she spoke defied his efforts to soothe her. +And how could he comfort her? He knew the thing to be too likely, the +argument too reasonable, as men reasoned then; strange and foolish as +their reasoning seems to us now. But what could he do. What? He who sat +there alone with her, a prisoner with her, witness to her agony, scalded +by her tears, tortured by her anguish, burning with pity, sorrow, +indignation--what could he do to help her or save her? + +He had wild thoughts, but none of them effectual; the old thoughts of +defending the house, or of escaping by night over the town wall; and +some new ones. He weighed the possibility of Madame Royaume's death +before the arrest; surely, then, he could save the girl, and they two, +young, active and of ordinary aspect, might escape some whither? Again, +he thought of appealing to Beza, the aged divine, whom Geneva revered +and Calvinism placed second only to Calvin. He was a Frenchman, a man of +culture and of noble birth; he might stand above the common +superstition, he might listen, discern, defend. But, alas, he was so old +as to be bed-ridden and almost childish. It was improbable, nay, it was +most unlikely, that he could be induced to interfere. + +All these thoughts Anne drove out of his head by begging him, in moving +terms of self-reproach, to forgive her her weakness. She had regained +her composure as abruptly, if not as completely, as she had lost it; and +would have had him believe that the passion he had witnessed was less +deep than it seemed, and rather a womanish need of tears than a proof of +suffering. A minute later she was quietly preparing the evening meal, +while he, with a sick heart, raised the shutters and lighted the lamp. +As he looked up from the latter task, he found her eyes fixed upon him, +with a peculiar intentness: and for a while afterwards he remarked that +she wore an absent air. But she said nothing, and by-and-by, promising +to return before bed-time, she went upstairs to her mother. + +The nights were at their longest, and the two had closed and lighted +before five. Outside the cold stillness of a winter night and a freezing +sky settled down on Geneva; within, Claude sat with sad eyes fixed on +the smouldering fire. What could he do? What could he do? Wait and see +her innocence outraged, her tenderness racked, her gentle body given up +to unspeakable torments? The collapse which he had witnessed gave him as +it were a foretaste, a bitter savour of the trials to come. It did not +seem to him that he could bear even the anticipation of them. He rose, +he sat down, he rose again, unable to endure the intolerable thought. He +flung out his arms; his eyes, cast upwards, called God to witness that +it was too much! It was too much! + +Some way of escape there must be. Heaven could not look down on, could +not suffer such deeds in a Christian land. But men and women, girls and +young children had suffered these things; had appealed and called Heaven +to witness, and gone to death, and Heaven had not moved, nor the angels +descended! But it could not be in her case. Some way of escape there +must be. There must be. + +Why should she not leave her mother to her fate? A fate that could not +be evaded? Why need she, whose capacity for suffering was so great, who +had so much of life and love and all good things before her, remain to +share the pains of one whose span in any case was nearing its end? Of +one who had no longer power--or so it seemed--to meet the smallest +shock, and must succumb before she knew more of suffering than the name. +One whom a rude word might almost extinguish, and a rough push thrust +out of life? Why remain, when to remain was to sacrifice two lives in +lieu of one, to give and get nothing, to die for a prejudice? Why +remain, when by remaining she could not save her mother, but, on the +contrary, must inflict the sharpest pang of all, since she destroyed the +being who was dearest to her mother, the being whom her mother would die +to save? + +He grew heated as he dwelt on it. Of what use to any, the feeble +flickering light upstairs, that must go out were it left for a moment +untended? The light that would have gone out this long time back had she +not fostered it and cherished it and sheltered it in her bosom? Of what +avail that weak existence? Or, if it were of avail, why, for its sake, +waste this other and more precious life that still could not redeem it? + +Why? + +He must speak to her. He must persuade her, press her, convince her; +carry her off by force were it necessary. It was his duty, his clear +call. He rose and walked the room in excitement, as he thought of it. He +had pity for the old, abandoned and left to suffer alone; and an +enlightening glimpse of the weight that the girl must carry through life +by reason of this desertion. But no doubt, no hesitation--he told +himself--no scruple. To die that her mother might live was one thing. +To die--and so to die--merely that her mother's last hours might be +sheltered and comforted, was another, and a thing unreasonable. + +He must speak to her. He would not hesitate to tell her what he thought. + +But he did hesitate. When she descended half an hour later, and paused +at the foot of the stairs to assure herself that her passage downstairs +had not roused her mother from sleep, the light fell on her listening +face and tender eyes; and he read that in them which checked the words +on his lips; that which, whether it were folly or wisdom--a wisdom +higher than the serpent's, more perfect than the most accurate +calculation of values and chances--drove for ever from his mind the +thought that she would desert her charge. He said not a word of what he +had thought; the indignant reasoning, the hot, conclusive arguments fell +from him and left him bare. With her hands in his, seeking no more to +move her or convince her, he sat silent; and by mute looks and dumb +love--more potent than eloquence or oratory--strove to support and +console her. + +She, too, was silent. Stillness had fallen on both of them. But her +hands clung to his, and now and again pressed them convulsively; and now +and again, too, she would lift her eyes to his, and gaze at him with a +pathetic intentness, as if she would stamp his likeness on her brain. +But when he returned the look, and tried to read her meaning in her +eyes, she smiled. "You are afraid of me?" she whispered. "No, I shall +not be weak again." + +But even as she reassured him he detected a flicker of pain in her eyes, +he felt that her hands were cold; and but that he feared to shake her +composure he would not have rested content with her answer. + +This sudden silence, this new way of looking at him, were the only +things that perplexed him. In all else, silent as they sat, their +communion was perfect. It was in the mind of each that the women might +be arrested on the morrow; in the mind of each that this was their last +evening together, the last of few, yet not so few that they did not seem +to the man and the girl to bulk large in their lives. On that hearth +they had met, there she had proved to him what she was, there he had +spoken, there spent the clouded never-to-be-forgotten days of their +troubled courtship. No wonder that as they sat hand in hand, their hair +almost mingling, their eyes on the red glow of the smouldering log, and, +not daring to look forward, looked back--no wonder that their love grew +to be something other than the common love of man and maid, something +higher and more beautiful, touched--as the hills are touched at +sunset--by the evening glow of parting and self-sacrifice. + +Silent amid the silence of the house; living moments never to be +forgotten; welcoming together the twin companions, love and death. + +But from the darkest outlook of the mind, as of the eye, morning dispels +some shadows; into the most depressing atmosphere daylight brings hope, +brings actuality, brings at least the need to be doing. Claude's heart, +as he slipped from his couch on the settle next morning, and admitted +the light and turned the log and stirred the embers, was sad and full of +foreboding. But as the room, its disorder abated, took on a more +pleasant aspect, as the fire crackled and blazed on the hearth, and the +flush of sunrise spread over the east, he grew--he could not but grow, +for he was young--more cheerful also. He swept the floor and filled the +kettle and let in the air; and had done almost all he knew how to do, +before he heard Anne's foot upon the stairs. + +She had slept little and looked pale and haggard; almost more pale and +wan than he had ever seen her look. And this must have sunk his heart to +zero, if a certain item in her aspect had not at the same time diverted +his attention. "You are not going out?" he cried in astonishment. She +wore her hood. + +"I am not going to defend myself again," she answered, smiling sadly. +"Have no fear. I shall not repeat that mistake. I am only going----" + +"You are not going anywhere!" he answered firmly. + +She shook her head with the same wan smile. "We must live," she said. + +"Well?" + +"And to live must have water." + +"I have filled the kettle." + +"And emptied the water-pot," she retorted. + +"True," he said. "But surely it will be time to refill it when we want +it." + +"I shall attract less attention now," she answered quietly, "than later +in the day. There are few abroad. I will draw my hood about my face, and +no one will heed me." + +He laughed in tender derision. "You will not go!" he said. "Did you +think that I would let you run a risk rather than fetch the water from +the conduit." + +"You will go?" + +"Where is the pot?" + +He fetched the jar from its place under the stairs, snatched up his cap, +and turning the key in the lock was in the act of passing out when she +seized his arm. "Kiss me," she murmured. She lifted her face to his, her +eyes half closed. + +He drew her to him, but her lips were cold; and as he released her she +sank passively from his embrace, and was near falling. He hesitated. +"You are not afraid to be left?" he said. "You are sure?" + +"I am afraid of nothing if I know you safe," she answered faintly. "Go! +go quickly, and God be with you!" + +"Tut! I run no danger," he rejoined. "I have a strong arm and they will +leave me alone." He thought that she was overwrought, that the strain +was telling on her; his thoughts did not go beyond that. "I shall be +back in five minutes," he continued cheerfully. And he went, bidding her +lock the door behind him and open only at his knock. + +He made the more haste for her fears, passed into the town through the +Porte Tertasse, and hastened to the conduit. The open space in front of +the fountain, which a little later in the day would be the favourite +resort of gossips and idlers, was a desert; the bitter morning wind saw +to that. But about the fountain itself three or four women closely +muffled were waiting their turns to draw. One looked up, and, as he +fancied, recognised him, for she nudged her neighbour. And then first +the one woman and then the other, looking askance, muttered something; +it might have been a prayer, or a charm, or a mere word of gossip. But +he liked neither the glance nor the action, nor the furtive, curious +looks of the women; and as quickly as he could he filled his pot and +carried it away. + +He had splashed his fingers, and the cold wind quickly numbed them. At +the Tertasse Gate, where the view commanding the river valley opened +before him, he was glad to set down the vessel and change hands. On his +left, the watch at the Porte Neuve, the gate in the ramparts which +admitted from the country to the Corraterie--as the Tertasse admitted +from the Corraterie to the town proper--was being changed, and he paused +an instant, gazing on the scene. Then remembering himself, and the need +of haste, he snatched up his jar and, turning to the right, hurried to +the steps before the Royaumes' door, swung up them and, with his eyes +on the windows, set down his burden. + +He knocked gently, sure that she would not keep him waiting. But she did +not come at once; and by-and-by, seeing that a woman at an open door a +little farther down the Corraterie was watching him with scowling +eyes--and that strange look, half fear, half loathing, which he was +growing to know--he knocked more loudly, and stamped to warm his feet. + +Still, to his astonishment, she did not come; he waited, and waited, and +she did not come. He would have begun to feel alarmed for her, but, what +with the cold and the early hour, the place was deserted; no idle gazers +such as a commotion leaves behind it were to be seen. The wind, however, +began to pierce his clothes; he had not brought his cloak, and he +shivered. He knocked more loudly. + +Perhaps she had been called to her mother? That must be it. She had gone +upstairs and could not on the instant leave her charge. He clothed +himself in reproaches; but they did not warm him, and he was beginning +to stamp his feet again when, happening to look down, he saw beside the +water-can and partly hidden by its bulge, a packet about the size of a +letter, but a little thicker. If he had not mounted the steps with his +eyes on the windows, searching for her face, he would have seen it at +once, and spared himself these minutes of waiting. He took it up in +bewilderment, and turned it in his numbed hands; it was heavy, and from +it, leaving only a piece of paper in his grasp, his purse fell to the +ground. More and more astonished, he picked up the purse, and put it in +his pocket. He looked at the window, but no one showed; then at the +paper in his hand. Inside the letter were three lines of writing. + +His face fell as he read them. "_I shall not admit you_," they ran. +"_If you try to enter, you will attract notice and destroy me. Go, and +God bless and reward you. You cannot save me, and to see you perish were +a worse pang than the worst._" + +The words swam before his eyes. "I will beat down the door," he +muttered, tears in his voice, tears welling up in his heart and choking +him. And he raised his hand. "I will----" + +But he did nothing. "_You will attract notice and destroy me._" Ah, she +had thought it out too well. Too well, out of the wisdom of great love, +she had known how to bridle him. He dared not do anything that would +direct notice to the house. + +But desert her? Never; and after a moment's thought he drew off, his +plans formed. As he retired, when he had gone some yards from the door, +he heard the window closed sharply behind him. He looked back and saw +his cloak lying on the ground. Tears rose again to his eyes, as he +returned, took it up, donned it, and with a last lingering look at the +window, turned away. She would think that he had taken her at her word; +but no matter! + +He walked along the Corraterie, and passing the four square watch-towers +with pointed roofs that stood at intervals along the wall, he came to +the two projecting demilunes, or bastions, that marked the angle where +the ramparts met the Rhone; a point from which the wall descended to the +bridge. In one of these bastions he ensconced himself; and selecting a +place whence he could, without being seen, command the length of the +Corraterie, he set himself to watch the Royaumes' house. By-and-by he +would go into the town and procure food, and, returning, keep guard +until nightfall. After dark, if the day passed without event, he would +find his way into the house by force or fraud. In a rapture of +anticipation he pictured his entrance, her reluctant joy, her tears and +smiles, and fond reproaches. As he loved her, as he must love her the +more for the trick she had played him, she must love him the more for +his return in her teeth. And the next day was Sunday, when it was +unlikely that any steps would be taken. That whole day he would have +with her, through it he would sit with her! A whole day without fear? It +seemed an age. He did not, he would not look beyond it! + +He had not broken his fast, and hunger presently drove him into the +town. But within half an hour he was at his post again. A glance at the +Royaumes' house showed him that nothing had happened, and, resuming his +seat in the deserted bastion, he began a watch that as long as he lived +stood clear in his memory of the past. The day was cold and bright, and +frosty with a nipping wind. Mont Blanc and the long range of snow-clad +summits that flanked it rose dazzlingly bright against the blue sky. The +most distant object seemed near; the wavelets on the unfrozen water of +the lake gave to the surface, usually so blue, a rough, grey aspect. The +breeze which produced this appearance kept the ramparts clear of +loiterers; and even those who were abroad preferred the more sheltered +streets, or went hurriedly about their business. The guards were content +to shiver in the guardrooms of the gate-towers, and if Claude blessed +once the kind afterthought which had dropped his cloak from the window, +he blessed it a dozen times. Wrapt in its thick folds, it was all he +could do to hold his ground against the cold. Without it he must have +withdrawn or succumbed. + +Through the morning he watched the house jealously, trembling at every +movement which took place at the Tertasse Gate; lest it herald the +approach of the officers to arrest the women. But nothing happened, and +as the day wore on he grew more hopeful. He might, indeed, have begun +to think Anne over-timid and his fears unwarranted, if he had not seen, +a little before sunset, a thing which opened his eyes. + +Two women and some children came out of a house not far from the +bastion. They passed towards the Tertasse Gate, and he watched them. +Before they came to the Royaumes' house, the children paused, flung +their cloaks over their heads, and, thus protected, ran past the house. +The women followed, more slowly, but gave the house a wide berth, and +each passed with a flap of her hood held between her face and the +windows; when they had gone by they exchanged signals of abhorrence. The +sight was no more than of a piece with the outrage on Anne; but, coming +when it did, coming when he was beginning to think that he had been +mistaken, when he was beginning to hope, it depressed Claude dismally. + +For comfort he looked forward to the hour when it would be dark. "By +hook or by crook," he muttered, "I shall enter then." + +He had barely finished the sentence, when he observed moving along the +ramparts towards him a figure he knew. It was Grio. There was nothing +strange in the man's presence in that place, for he was an idler and a +sot; but Claude did not wish to meet him, and debated in his mind +whether he should retreat before the other came up. Pride said one +thing, discretion another. He wanted no fracas, and he was still hanging +doubtful, measuring the distance between them, when--away went his +thoughts. What was Grio doing? + +The Spaniard had come to a stand, and was leaning on the wall, looking +idly into the fosse. The posture would have been the most natural in the +world on a warm day. On that day it caught Claude's attention; and--was +he mistaken, or were the hands that, under cover of Grio's cloak, +rested on the wall busy about something? + +In any case he must make up his mind whether he moved or stayed. For +Grio was coming on again. Claude hesitated a moment. Then he determined +to stay. The next he was glad he had so determined, for Grio after +strolling on in seeming carelessness to a point not twenty yards from +him, and well commanded from his seat, leant again on the wall, and +seemed to be enjoying the view. This time Claude was sure, from the +movement of his shoulders, that his hands were employed. + +"In what?" The young man asked himself the question; and noted that +beside Grio's left heel lay a piece of broken tile of a peculiar colour. +The next moment he had an inspiration. He drew up his feet on the seat, +drew his cloak over his head and affected to be asleep. What Grio, when +he came upon him, thought of a man who chose to sleep in the open in +such weather he did not learn, for after standing a while--as Claude's +ears told him--opposite the sleeper, the Spaniard turned and walked back +the way he had come. This time, and though he now had the wind at his +back, he walked briskly; as a man would walk in such weather, or as a +man might walk who had done his business. + +Claude waited until his coarse, heavy figure had disappeared through the +Porte Tertasse; nay, he waited until the light began to fail. Then, +while he could still pick out the red potsherd, he approached the wall, +leant over it, and, failing to detect anything with his eyes, passed his +fingers down the stones. + +They alighted on a nail; a nail thrust lightly into the mortar below the +coping stone. For what purpose? His blood beginning to move more quickly +Claude asked himself the question. To support a rope? And so to enable +some one to leave the town? The nail, barely pushed into the mortar, +would hardly support the weight of a dozen yards of twine. + +Perhaps the nail was there by chance, and Grio had naught to do with it. +He could settle that doubt. In a few moments he had settled it. Under +cover of the growing darkness, he walked to the place at which he had +seen Grio pause for the first time. A short search discovered a second +nail as lightly secured as the other. Had he not been careful it would +have fallen beneath his touch. + +What did the nails there? Claude was not stupid, yet he was long in +hitting on an explanation. It was a fanciful, extravagant notion when he +got it, but one that set his chilled blood running, and his hands +tingling, one that might mean much to himself and to others. It was +unlikely, it was improbable, it was out of the common; but it was an +explanation. It was a mighty thing to hang upon two weak nails; but such +as it was--and he turned it over and over in his mind before he dared +entertain it--he could find no other. And presently, his eyes alight, +his pulses riotous, his foot dancing, he walked down the +Corraterie--with scarce a look at the house which had held his thoughts +all day--and passed into the town. As he passed through the gateway he +hung an instant and cast an inquisitive eye into the guard-room of the +Tertasse. It was nearly empty. Two men sat drowsing before the fire, +their boot-heels among the embers, a black jack between them. + +The fact weighed something in the balance of probabilities: and in +growing excitement, Claude hurried on, sought the cookshop at which he +had broken his fast--a humble place, licensed for the scholars--and ate +his supper, not knowing what he ate, nor with whom he ate it. It was +only by chance that his ear caught, at a certain moment, a new tone in +the goodwife's voice; and that he looked up, and saw her greet her +husband. + +"Ay!" the man said, putting off his bandoleer, and answering the +exclamation of surprise which his entrance had evoked. "It's bed for me +to-night. It's so cold they will send but half the rounds." + +"Whose order is that?" asked a scholar at Claude's table. + +"Messer Blondel's." + +"Shows his sense!" the goodwife cried roundly. "A good man, and knows +when to watch and when to ha' done!" + +Claude said nothing, but he rose with burning cheeks, paid his share--it +was seven o'clock--and, passing out, made his way back. It should be +said that in addition to the Tertasse Gate, two lesser gates, the +Treille on the one hand and the Monnaye on the other, led from the town +proper to the Corraterie; and this time he chose to go out by the +Treille. Having ascertained that the guard-room there also was almost +denuded of men, he passed along the Corraterie to his bastion, hugging +the houses on his right, and giving the wall a wide berth. Although the +cold wind blew in his face he paused several times to listen, nor did he +enter his bastion until he had patiently made certain that it was +untenanted. + +The night was very dark: it was the night of December the 12th, old +style, the longest and deadest of the year. Far below him in the black +abyss on which the wall looked down, a few oil lamps marked the island +and the town beyond the Rhone. Behind him, on his left, a glimmer +escaping here and there from the upper windows marked the line of the +Corraterie, of which the width is greatest at the end farthest from the +river. Near the far extremity of the rampart a bright light marked the +Porte Neuve, distant about two hundred yards from his post, and about +seventy or eighty from the Porte Tertasse, the inner gate which +corresponded with it. Straight from him to the Porte Neuve ran the +rampart a few feet high on the inner side, some thirty feet high on the +outer, but shrouded for the present in a black gloom that defied his +keenest vision. + +He waited more than an hour, his ears on the alert. At the end of that +time, he drew a deep breath of relief. A step that might have been the +step of a sentry pacing the rampart, and now pausing, now moving on, +began to approach him. It came on, paused, came on, paused--this time +close at hand. Two or three dull sounds followed, then the sharper noise +of a falling stone. Immediately the foot of the sentry, if sentry it +was, began to retreat. + +Claude drove his nails into the palms of his hands and waited, waited +through an eternity, waited until the retreating foot had almost +reached, as he judged, the Porte Tertasse. Then he stole out, groped his +way to the wall, and passed his hand along the outer side until he came +to the nail. He found it. It had been made secure, and from it depended +a thin string. + +He set to work at once to draw up the string. There was a small weight +attached to it, which rose slowly until it reached his hand. It was a +stone about as large as the fist, and of a whitish colour. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +IN TWO CHARACTERS. + + +After the wave, the trough of the wave; after action, passion. Not to +sink a little after rising to the pitch of self-sacrifice, not to shed, +when the deed is done, some bitter tears of regret and self-pity, were +to be cast in a mould above the human. + +When the cloak--dear garment!--had slipped from her hands and the head +bent that its owner might raise the cloak had passed from sight--when +Anne had fled to the farther side of the room, to the farther side of +the settle, and had heard his step die away, she would have given the +world to see him again, to feel his arm about her, to hear the sound of +his voice. The tears streamed down her face; in vain she tried to stay +them with her hands, in vain she chid herself for her weakness. "It is +for him! for him!" she moaned, and hid her face in her hands. But words +stay no tears; and on the hearth which his coming had changed for her, +standing where she had first seen him, where she had heard his first +words of love, where she had tried him, she wept bitter tears for him. + +The storm died away at last--for after every storm falls a calm--but it +left the empty house, the empty heart, silence. Her mother? She had +still her mother, and with lagging footsteps she went upstairs to her. +But she found her in a deep sleep, and she descended again, and going to +his room began to put together his few belongings, the clothes he had +worn, the books he had read; that if the house were entered they might +not be lost to him. She buried her face in his garments and kissed them, +fondly, tenderly, passionately, lingering over the task, and at last +putting the things from her with reluctance. A knot of ribbon which she +had seen him wear in the neck of his shirt on holidays she took and hid +in her bosom, and fetching a length of her own ribbon she put it in +place of the other. This she thought she could do without fear of +bringing suspicion on him, for he alone would discern the exchange. +Would he notice it? Would he weep when he found the ribbon as she wept +now? And fondle it tenderly? At the thought her tears gushed forth. + +The day wore on. Supported by the knowledge that even a slight shock +might cast her mother into one of her fits, Anne hid her fears from her, +though the effort was as the lifting of a great weight. On the pretext +that the light hurt the invalid's sight, she shaded the window, and so +hid the hollows under her eyes and the wan looks that must have betrayed +the forced nature of her cheerfulness. As a rule Madame Royaume's eyes, +quickened by love, were keen; but this day she slept much, and the night +was fairly advanced when Anne, in the act of preparing to lie down, +turned and saw her mother sitting erect in the bed. + +The old woman's eyes were strangely bright. Her face wore an intent +expression which arrested her daughter where she stood. + +"Mother, what is it?" she cried. + +"Listen!" Madame Royaume answered. "What is that?" + +"I hear nothing," Anne said, hoping to soothe her. And she approached +the bed. + +"I hear much," her mother retorted. "Go! Go and see, child, what it +is!" She pointed to the door, but, before Anne could reach it, she +raised her hand for silence. "They are crossing the ditch," she +muttered, her eyes dilated. "One, two, many, many of them! Many of them! +They are throwing down hurdles, and wattles, and crossing on them! And +there is a priest with them----" + +"Mother!" + +"A priest!" Her voice dropped a little. "The ladders are black," she +whispered. "Black ladders! Ay, swathed in black cloth; and now they set +them against the wall. The priest absolves them, and they begin to +mount. They are mounting! They are mounting now." + +"Mother!" There was sharp pain in Anne's voice. Who does not know the +heartache with which it is seen that the mind of a loved one is +wandering from us? And yet she was puzzled. She dreaded one of those +scenes in which her young strength was barely sufficient to control and +soothe the frail form before her. But they did not begin as a rule in +this fashion; here, though the mind wandered, was an absence of the +wildness to which she had become inured. Here--and yet as she listened, +as she looked, now at her mother, now into the dimly lighted corners of +the room, where those dilated eyes seemed to see things unseen by her, +black things, she found this phase no less disquieting than the other. + +"Hush!" Madame Royaume continued, heeding her daughter's interruption no +farther than by that word and an impatient movement of the hand. "A +stone has fallen and struck one down. They raise him, he is lifeless! +No, he moves, he rises. They set other ladders against the wall. They +mount now by tens and twenties--and--it is growing dark--dark, child. +Dark!" She seemed to try to put away a curtain with her hands. + +"Mother!" Anne cried, bending over the bed and taking her mother's +hand. "Don't, dear! Don't! You frighten me." + +The old woman raised her hand for silence, and continued to gaze before +her. Anne's arm was round her; the girl marked with astonishment, almost +with awe, how strongly and stiffly she sat up. She marvelled still more +when her mother murmured in the same tone, "I can see no more," sighed, +and sank gently back. Anne bent over her. "I can--see no more," Madame +Royaume repeated; "I can----" She was asleep! + +Anne bent over her, and after listening a while to her easy breathing, +heaved a deep sigh of relief. Her mother had been talking in her sleep; +and she, Anne had alarmed herself for nothing. Nevertheless, as she +turned from the bed she looked nervously over her shoulder. The other's +wandering or dream, or what it was, had left a vague disquiet in her +mind, and presently she took the lamp and, opening the door, passed out, +and, with her hands still on the latch, listened. + +Suddenly her heart bounded, her startled eyes leapt upward to the +ceiling. Close to her, above her, she heard a sound. + +It came from a trap-door that led to the tiles; a trap that even as her +eyes reached it, lifted itself with a rending sound. Save for the +bedridden woman, Anne was alone in the house; and for one instant it was +a question whether she held her ground or fled shrieking into the room +she had left. For an instant; then the instinct to shield her mother won +the day, and with fascinated eyes she watched the legs of a man drop +through the aperture, watched a body follow, and--and at last a face! + +Claude's face! But changed. Even while she sank gasping against the +wall--for the surprise was too much for her--even while he took the lamp +from her shaking hand and supported her, and relief and joy began to +run like wine through her veins, she knew it. The forceful look, the +tightened lips, the eyes gleaming with determination--all were new to +her. They gave him an aspect so old, so strange, that when he had kissed +her once she put him from her. + +"What is it?" she said. "Oh, Claude! What is it? What has happened?" + +Letting a smile appear--but such a smile as did not reassure her--he +signed to her to go before him downstairs. She complied; but at the foot +of the first flight she stopped, unable to bear the suspense longer. She +turned to him again. "What is it?" she cried. "Something has happened?" + +"Something is happening," he answered. His eyes shone, exultant. "But it +is a matter for others! We may be easy!" + +"What is it?" + +"The Savoyards are in Geneva." + +She started incredulously. "In Geneva? Here?" she exclaimed. "The +enemy?" + +He nodded. + +"Here? In Geneva?" she repeated. She could not have heard aright. + +"Yes." + +But she still looked at him; she could not reconcile his words with his +manner. This, the greatest calamity that could happen, this which she +had been brought up to fear as the worst and most awful of +catastrophes--could he talk of it, could he announce it after this +fashion? With a smile, in a tone of pleasantry? He must be playing with +her. She passed her hand over her eyes, and tried to be calm. "But all +is quiet?" she said. + +"All is quiet now," he answered. "After midnight the trouble will +begin." + +Still she could not understand him. His face said one thing, his voice +another. Besides, the town was quiet: no sound of riot or disturbance, +no clash of steel, no tramp of feet penetrated the walls. And the house +stood on the ramparts where the first alarm must be given. "Do you +mean," she asked at last, her eyes fixed steadfastly on him, "that they +are going to attack the town after midnight?" + +"They are here now," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "They scaled +the wall after the guard had gone round at eleven, and they are lying by +tens and twenties along the outer side of the Corraterie, waiting for +the hour and the signal." + +She passed her hand across her closed eyes, and looked again, +perplexedly. "And you," she said, "you? I do not understand. If this be +so, what are you doing here?" + +"Here?" + +"Ay, here! Why have you not given the alarm in the town?" + +"Why should I give the alarm?" he retorted coolly. "To save those who +hounded you through the streets two days ago? To save those who +to-morrow may put you to the torture and burn you like the vilest of +creatures? Save them?" with a grim smile. "No, let them save +themselves!" + +"But----" + +"I would save you! not them! I would save your mother! not them! And it +is done. Let the Grand Duke triumph to-night, let Savoy take Geneva, and +our good townsfolk will have other matters to occupy their thoughts +to-morrow! Ay, and through many and many a morrow to come! Save them?" +with a grim note in his voice; "no, I save you. Let them save +themselves! It is God's mercy on us, and His judgment on them! Or why +happens it to-night? To-night of all nights in the year?" + +She was very pale, and for a moment remained silent: whether she felt +the temptation to which he had succumbed, or was seeking what she should +say to move him, is uncertain. At last, "It is impossible," she +murmured, in a low voice. "You have not thought of the women and +children, of the fathers and mothers who will suffer." + +"And your mother!" + +"Is one. God forbid that I should save her at the expense of all! God +forbid!" she wailed, as if she feared her own strength, as if the +temptation almost overcame her. And then laying her hand on his arm and +looking up to him--his face was set so hard--"You will not do this!" she +said. "You will not do this! Could we be happy after? Could we be happy +with blood on our heads, and on our hands, and on our hearts! Happy, oh +no! Claude, dear heart, dear husband, we cannot buy happiness so, or +life so, or love so! We cannot save ourselves--so! We cannot play God's +part--so!" + +"It is not we who do it," he answered stubbornly. + +"It is we who may prevent it!" she answered, leaning more heavily on his +arm, looking up to him more earnestly; with pleading eyes which it was +hard to refuse. "Would you, to save us, have betrayed Geneva?" + +He groaned--she had moved him. "God knows!" he answered. "To save you--I +think I would!" + +"You would not! You would not!" she repeated. "Neither must you do this! +Honour, faith, duty, all forbid it!" + +"And love?" he cried. + +"And love!" she answered. "For who would love dishonoured? Who would +love in shame? No; go as you have come, and give the alarm! And do, and +help! Go, as you have come! But how"--with a startled look as she +thought of the trap-door--"did you come?" + +"By the Tertasse Gate," he explained. "There were but two men on guard, +and they were asleep. I passed them unseen, climbed the stairs to the +leads--I have been up twice before--and crossed the roofs. I knew I +could come this way unseen, and if I had come by the door----" + +She understood and cut him short. "Then go as you came and rouse the +watch in the gate!" she cried feverishly. "Rouse them and all, and +Heaven grant you be not too late! Go, Claude, for the love of me, for +the love of God, go quickly!" Her hands on his arm shook with eagerness. +"So that, if there be treachery here----" + +"There is treachery!" he said darkly. "Grio----" + +"We at least shall have no part in it! You will go? You will go?" she +repeated, clinging to his arm, trembling against him, looking up to him +with eyes which he could not resist. Love wrestled here, on the higher, +the nobler, the unselfish side, and came the stronger out of the +contest. There were tears in his eyes as he answered. + +"I will go. You are right, Anne. But you will be alone." + +"I run no greater risk than others," she answered. He held her to him, +and their lips met once. And in that instant, her heart beating against +his, she comprehended to what she was sending him, into what peril of +life, into what a dark hell of force and fire and blood; and her arms +clung to him as if she could not let him go. Then, "Go, and God keep +you!" she murmured in a choked voice. And she thrust him from her. + +A moment later he was on the roof, and she was kneeling where he had +left her, bowed down, with her face on the bare stairs in an agony of +prayer for him. But not for long; she had her part to do. She hurried +down to the living-room and made sure that the strong shutters were +secured; then up to Basterga's room and to Grio's, and as far as her +strength went she piled the furniture against the iron-barred casements +that looked on to the ramparts. While she worked her ears listened for +the alarm, but, until she had finished and was ascending with the light +to her mother's room she heard nothing. Then a distant cry, a faint +challenge, the drum-drum of running feet, a second cry--and silence. It +might be his death-cry she had heard; and she stood with a white face, +shivering, waiting, bearing the woman's burden of suspense. To lie down +by her mother was impossible; rapine, murder, fire, all the horrors, all +the perils of a city taken by surprise, crowded into her mind. Yet they +moved her not so much as the dangers he ran, whom she had sent forth to +confront them, whom she had plucked from her own breast that he might +face them! + +Meanwhile, Claude, after gaining the tiles, paused a moment to consider +his next step. Far below him, on the narrow, black triangle of the +Corraterie, lay the Savoyards, some three hundred in number, who had +scaled the wall. Out of the darkness of the plain, beyond and below +them, rose the faint, distant quacking of alarmed ducks, proving that +others of the enemy moved there. Even as he listened, the whirr of a +wild goose winging its flight over the city came to his ear. On his +left, with a dim oil lamp marking, here or there, the meeting of four +ways, the town slept unsuspicious, recking nothing of the fate prepared +for it. + +It was a solemn moment, and Claude on the roof under the night sky, felt +it to be so. Restored to his higher self, he breathed a prayer for +guidance and for her, and was as eager now as he had before been cold. +But not the less for that did he ply the wits that, working freely in +this hour of peril, proved him one of those whom battle owns for master. +He had gathered enough, lying on his face in the bastion, to feel sure +that the forlorn hope which had gained a footing on the wall would not +move until the arrival of the main body whom it was its plan to admit by +the Porte Neuve. To carry the alarm to the Porte Neuve, therefore, and +secure that gate, seemed to be the first and most urgent step; since to +secure the Tertasse and the other inner gates would be of little avail, +if the main body of the enemy were once in possession of the ramparts. +The course that at first sight seemed the most obvious--to enter the +town, give the alarm at the town hall, and set the tocsin ringing--he +rejected; for while the town was arming, the three hundred who had +entered might seize the Porte Neuve, and so secure the entrance of the +main body. + +These calculations occupied no more than a few seconds: then, his mind +made up to the course he must pursue, he crawled as quickly, but also as +quietly, as he could along the dark parapets until he gained the leads +of the Tertasse. Safe so far, he proceeded, with equal or greater +caution, to descend the narrow cork-screw staircase, that led to the +guard-room on the ground floor. + +He forgot that it is more easy to ascend without noise than to descend. +With all his care he stumbled when he was within three steps of the +bottom. He tried to save himself, but fell against the half-open door, +flung it wide, and, barely keeping his feet, found himself face to face +with the two watchmen, who, startled by the noise, had sprung to their +feet, thinking the devil was upon them. One, with an oath upon his lips, +reached for his half-pike; his fellow, less sober, steadied himself by +resting a hand on the table. + +If they gave the alarm, his plan was gone. The enemy, finding themselves +discovered, would seize the Porte Neuve. "One minute!" he cried +breathlessly. "Let me explain!" + +"You!" the more sober retorted, glaring fiercely at him. "Who the devil +are you? And where have you been?" + +"Quiet, man, quiet!" + +"What is it?" + +"Treason!" Claude answered, imploring silence by a gesture. "Treason! +That is what it is! But for God's sake, no noise! No noise, man, or our +throats are as good as cut! Savoy has the wall!" + +The man stared, and no wonder. "You are mad," he said, "or drunk! +Savoy----" + +"Fool, it is so!" Claude cried, beside himself with impatience. + +"Savoy?" + +"They are under the trees on the ramparts within a few yards of us now! +Three hundred of them! A word and you will feel their pikes in your +breast! Listen to me!" + +But with a laugh of derision the drunken man cut him short. "Savoy +here--on the wall!" he hiccoughed. "And we on guard!" + +"It is so!" Claude urged. "Believe me, it is so! And we must be wary." + +"You lie, young man! And I'll--hic--I'll prove it! See here! Savoy on +the wall, indeed! Savoy? And we on guard?" + +He lurched in two strides to the outer door, seized it, and supported +himself by it. Claude leant forward to stop him, but could not reach, +being on the other side of the table. He called to the other to do so. +"Stop him!" he said. "Stop him!" + +The man might have done so, but he did not stir; and "Stop him?" the sot +answered, his hand on the door. "Not--two of you--will stop him! Now, +then! Savoy, indeed! On the wall? I'll show you!" + +He let the door go, and reeled three paces into the darkness outside, +waving his hands as if he drove chickens. "Savoy! Savoy!" he cried; but +whether in drunken bravado, in derision, or in pure disbelief, God only +knows! For the word had barely passed his lips the second time before a +gurgling scream followed, freezing the hearts of the two listeners; and, +before the second guard could close the door or move from his place on +the hearth, four men sprang in out of the darkness, and bore him back. +Before he had struck a blow they had pinned him against the wall. + +Claude owed his escape to his position behind the door. They did not see +him as they sprang in, intent on the one they did see. He knew +resistance to be futile, and a bound carried him into the darkness of +the cork-screw staircase. Once there, he dared not move. Thence he saw +and heard what followed. + +The man pinned against the wall, with the point of a knife flickering +before his eyes, begged piteously for his life. + +"Then silence!" Basterga answered--for the foremost who had entered was +he. "A word and you die!" + +"Better let me finish him at once!" Grio growled. The prisoner's face +was ashen, his eyes were starting from his head. "Dead men give no +alarms." + +"Mercy! Mercy!" the man gasped. + +"Ay, ay, let him live," Basterga said good-naturedly. "But he must be +gagged. Turn your face to the wall, my man!" + +The poor wretch complied with gratitude. In a twinkling the Paduan's +huge fingers closed round his neck, and over his wind-pipe. "Now +strike," the big man hissed. "He will make no noise!" + +With a sickening thud Grio's knife sank between the shoulders, a moment +the body writhed in Basterga's herculean grip, then it sank lifeless to +the floor. "Had you struck him, fool," Basterga muttered wrathfully, +wiping a little blood from his sleeve, "as you wanted to strike him, he +had squealed like a pig! Now 'tis the same, and no noise. Ha! Seize +him!" + +He spoke too late. Claude had seen his opportunity, and as the +treacherous blow was struck had crept forth. At the moment the other saw +him he bounded over the threshold. Even as his feet touched the ground a +man who stood outside lunged at him with a pike but missed him--a +chance, for Claude had not seen the striker. The next moment the young +man had launched himself into the darkness and was running for his life +across the Corraterie in the direction of the Porte Neuve. + +He knew that his foes were lying on every side of him, and the cry of +"Seize him! Seize him!" went with him, making every step a separate +peril. He could not see a yard, but he was young and fleet and active; +and the darkness covering him, the men were confused. Over more than one +black object he bounded like a deer. Once a man rising in front of him +brought him heavily to the ground, but by good fortune it was his foot +struck the man, and on the head, and the fellow lay still and let him +rise. A moment later another gripped him, but Claude and he fell +together, and the younger man, rolling nimbly sideways, got clear and to +his feet again, made for the wall on his right, turned left again, and +already thought himself over the threshold of the Porte Neuve. The cry +"Aux Armes! Aux Armes!" was already on his lips, he thought he had +succeeded, when between his eyes and the faintly lighted gateway a +dozen forms rose as by magic and poured in before him--so near to him +that, unable to check himself, he jostled the hindmost. + +He might have entered with them, so near was he. But he saw that he was +too late; he guessed that the outcry behind him had precipitated the +attack, and, arresting himself outside the ring of light, but within a +few paces of the gateway, he threw himself on the ground and awaited the +event. It was not long in declaring itself. For a few seconds a dull +roar of shots and shouts and curses filled the gate. Then out again, +helter-skelter, with a flash of exploding powder and a whirl of steel +and blows, came defenders and assailants in a crowd, the former bent on +escaping, the latter on cutting them off from the Porte Tertasse and the +town. For an instant after they had poured out the gate seemed quiet, +and with his eyes upon it, Claude rose, first to his knees and then to +his feet, paused a moment in doubt, then darted in and entered the +guard-room. + +The firelight--the other lights in the small, dingy chamber had been +trampled under foot--showed him two wounded men groaning on the floor, +and the body of a third who lay apparently dead. Claude bent over one, +found what he wanted--a half-pike--and glided to the door of the stairs +that led to the roof. It was in the same position as in the Tertasse. He +opened it, passed through it, mounted two steps, and in the darkness +came plump against some one who seized him by the throat. + +The man had no weapon--at any rate he did not strike; and Claude, taken +by surprise, could not level his pike in the narrow stairway. For a +moment they wrestled, Claude striving to bring his weapon to bear on his +foe, the latter trying to strangle him. But the advantage of the stairs +lay with the first comer, who was the uppermost, and gradually he bore +Claude back and back. The young man, however, would not let go such hold +as he had, and both were on the point of falling out on the floor of the +guard-room when the light disclosed Claude's face. + +"You are of us!" his opponent panted. And abruptly he released his grip. + +"Geneva!" + +"I know you!" The man was one of the guard who, in the alarm, had +escaped into the stairway. "I know you! You live in the Corraterie!" + +Claude wasted not a second. "Up!" he cried. "We can hold the roof! Up, +man, for your life! For your life! It is our only chance!" + +With the fear of death upon him, the other needed no second telling. He +turned, and groped upwards in haste; and Claude followed, treading on +his heels; nor a moment too soon. While they were still within the +staircase, which their elbows rubbed on either side, they heard the +enemy swarm into the room below. Cries of triumph, of "Savoy! Savoy!" of +"Ville gagnée! gagnée!" hummed dully up to them, and proclaimed the +narrowness of their escape. Then the night air met their faces, they +bent their heads and passed out upon the leads; they had above them the +stars, and below them all the world of night, with its tramp of hidden +feet, its swaying lights so tiny and distant, and here and there its cry +of "Savoy! Savoy!" that showed that the enemy, relying on their capture +of the Porte Neuve, were casting off disguise. + +Claude heard and saw all, but lost not a moment. He had not made this +haste for his life only: before he had risen to his knees or set foot in +the gate, he had formed his plan. "The Portcullis!" he cried. "The +Portcullis! Where are the chains? On this side?" Less than a week +before he had stood and watched the guard as they released it and raised +it again for practice. + +The soldier, familiar with the tower, should have been able to go to the +chains at once. But though he had struggled for his life and was ready +to struggle for it again, he had not recovered his nerve, and he shrank +from leaving the stairs, in holding which their one chance consisted. He +muttered, however, that the winch was on such and such a side, and, with +his head in the stairway, indicated the direction with his hand. Claude +groped his way to the spot, his breath coming fast; fortunately he laid +his hand almost at once on the chains and felt for the spike, which he +knew he must draw or knock out. That done, the winch would fly round, +and the huge machine fall by its own weight. + +On a sudden, "They are coming!" the soldier cried in a terrified +whisper. "My God, they are coming! Come back! Come back!" For Claude had +their only weapon, and the guard was defenceless. Defenceless by the +side of the stairs up which the foe was climbing! + +The hair rose on Claude's head, but he set his teeth; though the man +died, though he died, the portcullis must fall! More than his own life, +more than the lives of both of them, more than lives a hundred or a +thousand hung on that bolt; the fate of millions yet unborn, the freedom +and the future of a country hung on that bolt which would not give +way--though now he had found it and was hammering it. Grinding his +teeth, the sweat on his brow, he beat on it with the pike, struck the +iron with the strength of despair, stooped to see what was amiss--still +with the frenzied prayers of the other in his ears--saw it, and struck +again and again--and again! + +Whirr! The winch flew round, barely missing his head. With a harsh, +grinding sound that rose with incredible swiftness to a scream, piercing +the night, the ponderous grating slid down, crashed home and barred all +entrance--closed the Porte Neuve. It did more, though Claude did not +know it. It cut off the engineer from the outer gate, of which the keys +were at the Town Hall, and against which in another minute, another +sixty seconds, he had set his petard. That set and exploded, Geneva had +lain open to its enemies. As it was, so small was the margin, so fatally +accurate the closing, that when the day rose, it disclosed a portent. +When the victors came to examine the spot they found beneath the +portcullis the mangled form of one of the engineers, and beside him lay +his petard. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +ARMES! ARMES! + + +Claude did not know all that he had done, or the narrow margin of time +by which he had succeeded. But he did know that he had saved the gate; +that gate on the outer side of which four thousand of the picked troops +of Savoy were waiting the word to enter. He knew that he had done it +with death at his elbow and with the cries of his panic-stricken comrade +in his ears. And in the moment of success he rose above the common +level. He felt himself master of fear, lord of death; in the exultation +of his triumph he thought nothing too hard or too dangerous for him. + +It was well perhaps that he had this feeling, for he had not a moment to +waste if he would save himself. As the portcullis struck the ground with +a thunderous crash and rebounded, and he turned from the winch to the +stairhead, a last warning, cut short in the utterance, reached him, and +he saw through the gloom that his companion was already in the grip of a +figure which had succeeded in passing out of the staircase. Claude did +not hesitate. With a roar of rage he ran like a bull at the enemy, +struck him full under the arm with his pike, and drove him doubled up +into the stairhead, with such force that the Genevese had much ado to +free himself. + +The man was struck helpless--dead for aught that appeared at the moment. +But the pike coming in contact with the edge of his corselet had not +penetrated, and Claude recovered it quickly, and levelled it in waiting +for the next comer. At the same time he adjured his comrade to secure +the fallen man's weapon. The guard seized it, and the two waited, with +suspended breath, for the sally which they were sure must come. + +But the stairs were narrow, the fallen body blocked the outlet, and +possibly the assailants had expected no resistance. Finding it, they +thought better of it. A moment and they could be heard beating a +retreat. + +"Pardieu! they are going!" the guard exclaimed; and he began to shake. + +"Ay, but they will return!" Claude answered grimly. "Have no fear of +that! The portcullis is down, and the only way to raise it, is up these +stairs. But it will be hard if, armed as we are now, we cannot baffle +them! Has he no pistol?" + +Marcadel--that was the soldier's name--felt about the prostrate man, but +found none; and bidding him listen and not move for his life--but there +was little need of the injunction--Claude passed over to the inner edge +of the roof, facing the Corraterie. Here he raised his voice and shouted +the alarm with all the force of his lungs, hoping thus to supplement the +cries which here and there had been raised by the Savoyards. + +"Aux Armes! Armes!" he cried. "The enemy is at the gate! To arms! To +arms!" + +A man ran out of the gateway at the sound of his shouting, levelled a +musket and fired at him. The slugs flew wide, and Claude, lifted above +himself, yelled defiance, knowing that the more shots were fired the +more quickly and widely would the alarm be spread. + +That it was spreading, that it was being taken up, his position on the +gateway enabled him to discern, distant as the Porte Neuve lay from the +heart of the town. A flare of light at the rear of the Tertasse, and a +confused hub-bub in that quarter, seemed to show that, though the +Savoyards had seized the gate, they had not penetrated beyond it. Away +on his extreme left, where the Porte de la Monnaye, hard by his old +bastion, overlooked the Rhone and the island, were lights again, and a +sound of a commotion as though there too the enemy held the gate, but +found farther progress closed against them. On the Treille to his right, +the most westerly of the three inner gates, and the nearest to the Town +Hall, the enemy seemed to be preparing an attack, for as he ceased to +shout, muskets exploded in that direction; and as far as he could judge +the shots were aimed outwards. + +With such alarms at three inner points--to say nothing of the noise at +the more distant Porte Neuve--it seemed impossible that any part of the +city could remain in ignorance of the attack. In truth, as he stood +peering down into the dark Corraterie, and listening to the heavy tramp +of unseen feet, now here, now there, and the orders that rose from +unseen throats--even as he prepared to turn, summoned by a warning cry +from Marcadel, the first note of the alarm-bell smote his ear. + +One moment and the air hummed with its heavy challenge, and all of +Geneva that still slept awoke and stood upright. Men ran half naked from +their houses. Boys in their teens snatched arms and sallied forth. White +faces looked into the night from barred windows or lofty dormers; and +across narrow wynds and under dark Gothic entries men dragged huge +chains and hooked them, and hurried on to where the alarm seemed loudest +and the risk most pressing. In an instant in pitch-dark alleys lights +gleamed and steel jarred on stone; out of the darkness deep voices +shouted questions, or answered or gave orders, and from a thousand +houses, alike in the wealthy Bourg du Four with its three-storied piles +and in the sordid lanes about the water and the bridges, went up one +wail of horror and despair. Men who had dreamed of this night for years, +and feared it as they feared God's day, awoke to find their dream a +fact, and never while they lived forgot that awakening. While women left +alone in their homes bolted and barred and fell to prayers; or clasped +to their breasts babes who prattled, not understanding the turmoil, or +why their mothers looked strangely on them. + +Something of this, something of the horror of that sudden awakening, and +of the confusion in the narrow streets, where voices cried that the +enemy were here or there or in a third place, and the bravest knew not +which way to turn, penetrated to Claude on the roof of the tower; and at +the thought of Anne and the perils that encircled her--for about the +house in the Corraterie the uproar rose loudest--his heart melted. But +he had not long to dwell on her peril; not long to dwell on anything. +Before the great bell had hurled its warning abroad three times he had +to go. Marcadel's voice, urgent, insistent, summoned him to the +stairhead. + +"They are mustering at the bottom!" the man whispered over his shoulder. +He was on his knees, his head in the hood of the staircase. The wounded +man, breathing stertorously, still cumbered the upper steps. Marcadel +rested one hand on him. + +Claude thrust in his head and listened. He could hear, above the thick +breathing of the Savoyard, the stir of men muttering and moving in the +darkness below; and now the stealthy shuffle of feet, and again the +faint clang of a weapon against the wall. Doubtless it had dawned on +some one in command below, that here on this tower lay the keys of +Geneva: that by themselves three hundred men could not take, nor hold if +they took, a town manned by five or six thousand; consequently that if +Savoy would succeed in the enterprise so boldly begun, she must by hook +or crook raise this portcullis and open this gate. As a fact, +Brunaulieu, the captain of the forlorn hope, had passed the word that +the tower must be taken at any cost; and had come himself from the Porte +Tertasse, where a brisk conflict was beginning, to see the thing done. + +Claude did not know this, but had he known it, it would not have reduced +his courage. + +"Yes, I hear them," he whispered in answer to the soldier's words. "But +they have not mounted far yet. And when they come, if two pikes cannot +hold this doorway which they can pass but one at a time, there is no +truth in Thermopylæ!" + +"I know naught of that," the other answered, rising nervously to his +feet. "I don't favour heights. Give me the lee of a wall and fair +odds----" + +"Odds?" Claude echoed vain-gloriously--but only the stars attended to +him--"I would not have another man!" + +Marcadel seized him by the sleeve. His voice rose almost to a scream. +"But, by Heaven, there is another man!" he cried. "There!" He pointed +with a shaking hand to the outer corner of the leads, in the +neighbourhood of the place where the winch of the portcullis stood. "We +are betrayed! We are dead men!" he babbled. + +Claude made out a dim figure, crouching against the battlement; and the +thought, which was also in Marcadel's mind, that the enemy had set a +ladder against the wall and outflanked them, rendered him desperate. At +any rate there was but one on the roof as yet: and quick as thought the +young man lowered his pike and charged the figure. + +With a shrill scream the man fell on his knees before him. "Mercy!" +cried a voice he knew. "Mercy! Don't kill me! Don't kill me!" + +It was Louis Gentilis. Claude halted, looked at him in amazement, +spurned him with his foot. "Up, coward, and fight for your life then!" +he said. "Or others will kill you. How come you here?" + +The lad still grovelled. "I was in the guard-room," he whimpered. "I had +come with a message--from the Syndic." + +"The Syndic Blondel?" + +"Yes! To remind the Captain that he was to go the rounds at eleven +exactly. It was late when I got there and they--oh, this dreadful +night--they broke in, and I, hid on the stairs." + +"Well, you can hide no longer. You have got to fight now!" Claude +answered grimly, "There are no more stairs for any of us except to +heaven! I advise you to find something, and do your worst. Take the +winch-bar if you can find nothing else! And----" + +He broke off. Marcadel, who had remained at the stairhead, was calling +to him in a voice that could no longer be resisted--a voice of despair. +Claude ran to him. He found him with his head in the stairway, but with +his pike shortened to strike. "They are coming!" he muttered over his +shoulder. "They are more than half-way up now. Be ready and keep your +eyes open. Be ready!" he continued after a pause. "They are nearly--here +now!" His breath began to come quickly; at last stepping back a pace and +bringing his point to the charge. "They are here!" he shouted. "On +guard!" + +Claude stooped an inch lower, and with gleaming eyes, and feet set +warily apart, waited the onset; waited with suspended breath for the +charge that must come. He could hear the gasps of the wounded man who +lay on the uppermost step; and once close to him he caught a sound of +shuffling, moving feet, that sent his heart into his mouth. But seconds +passed, and more seconds, and glare as he might into the black mouth of +the staircase, from which the hood averted even the light of the stars, +he could make out nothing, no movement, no sign of life! + +The suspense was growing intolerable. And all the time behind him the +alarm-bell was flinging "Doom! Doom!" down on the city, and a thousand +sounds of fear and strife clutched at his mind and strove to draw it +from the dark gap at which he waited, as a dog waits for a rat at the +mouth of its hole. His breath began to come quickly, his knees shook. He +heard his companion gasp--human nerves could stand it no longer. And +then, just as he felt that, come what might, he must plunge his pike +into the darkness, and settle the question, the shuffling sound came +anew and steadied him, and he set his teeth and waited--waited still. + +But nothing happened, nothing moved. Again the seconds, almost the +minutes passed, and the deep note of the alarm-bell swelled louder and +heavier, filling all the air, all the night, all the world, with its +iron tongue--setting the tower reeling, the head swimming. In spite of +himself, in spite of the fact that he knew his life hung on his +vigilance, his thoughts wandered; wandered to Anne, alone and +defenceless in that hell below him, from which such wild sounds were +beginning to rise; to his own fate if he and Marcadel got the worst; to +the advantage a light properly shaded would have given them, had they +had it. But, alas, they had no light. + +And then, while he thought of that, the world was all light. A sheet of +flame burst from the hood, dazzled, blinded, scorched him; a crashing +report filled his ears; he recoiled. The ball had missed him, had gone +between him and Marcadel and struck neither. But for a moment in pure +amazement, he stood gaping. + +That moment had been his last had the defence lain with him only, or +even with him and Marcadel. It was the senseless form that cumbered the +uppermost step which saved them. The man who had fired tripped over it +as he sprang out. He fell his length on the roof. The next man, less +hasty or less brave, sank down on the obstacle, and blocked the way for +others. + +Before either could rise all was over. Claude brought down his pike on +the head of the first to issue, and laid him lifeless on the leads. The +guard, who was a better man at a pinch than in the anticipation of it, +drove the other back--as he tried to rise--with a wound in the face. +Then with a yell, assured that in the narrow stairhead the enemy could +not use their weapons, the two charged their pikes into the obscurity, +and thrust and thrust, and thrust again, in the cruelty of rage and +fear. + +What they struck, or where they struck, they could not see; but their +ears told them that they did not strike in vain. A shrill scream and the +gurgling cry of a dying man proved it, and the wild struggle that ensued +on the stairs; where the uppermost, weighed down by the fallen men, +turned in a panic on those below and fought with them to force them to +descend. + +Claude shuddered as he listened, as he waited, his pike still levelled; +shuddered at the pitiful groaning that issued from the blackness, +shuddered at the blows he had struck, and the scream that still echoed +in his ears. He had not trembled when he fought, but he trembled at the +thought of it. + +"They are beaten," he muttered huskily. + +"Ay, they are beaten!" Marcadel--he who had trembled before the +fight--answered with exultation. "You were right. We wanted no more men! +But it was near. If this rogue had not tripped our throats would have +suffered." + +"He was a brave man," Claude answered, leaning heavily on his pike. He +needed its support. + +Marcadel knelt down and felt the man over. "Ay," he said, "he was, to +give the devil his due! And that reminds me. We've a skulker here who +has escaped so far. He shall play his part now. We must have their arms, +but it is dirty work groping in the dark for them; and maybe life enough +in one of them to drive a dagger between one's ribs. He shall do it. +Where is he?" + +Claude was feeling the reaction which ensues upon intense excitement. He +did not answer. Nor did he interfere when Marcadel, pouncing on Louis, +where he crouched in the darkest corner, forced him forward to the head +of the staircase. There the lad fell on his knees weeping futilely, +wailing prayers. But the guard kicked him forward. + +"In!" he said. "You know what you have to do! In, and strip them! Do you +hear? And if you leave as much as a knife----" + +"I won't! I daren't!" Louis screamed. And grovelling on his face on the +leads he clung to whatever offered itself. + +But men who have just passed through a life and death struggle, are +hard. "You won't?" Marcadel answered, applying his boot brutally, but +without effect. "You will! Or you will feel my pike between your ribs! +In! In, my lad!" + +A scream answered each repetition of the word, and proved that the +threat was no empty one. Claude might have intervened, but he remembered +Anne and the humiliations she had suffered in this craven's presence. + +"In!" Marcadel repeated a third time. "And if you leave so much as a +knife upon them I will throw you off the tower. You understand, do you? +Then in, and strip them!" + +And driven by sheer torture--for the pike had thrice drawn blood from +his writhing body--Louis crept, weeping and quaking, into the staircase; +and on one of her tormentors Anne was avenged. But Claude was thinking +more of her present peril than of this; he had moved from the stairhead. +A swell in the volume of sound which rose from the Corraterie had drawn +him to that side of the tower, where shaking off the exhaustion which +for a time had overcome him, he was straining his eyes to learn what was +passing in the babel below. + +The sight was a singular one. The Monnaye Gate far to the left, the +Tertasse immediately before him, and the Treille on his right, were the +centres of separate conflagrations. In one place a house, fired by the +petard employed to force the door, was actually alight. In other places +so great was the conflux of torches, the flash and gleam of weapons, and +the babel of sounds that it wrought on the mind the impression of a fire +blazing up in the night. Behind the Porte Tertasse, in the narrow +streets of the Tertasse and the Cité--immediately, therefore, behind the +Royaumes' house--the conflict seemed to rage most hotly, the shots to be +most frequent, the uproar greatest, even the light strongest; for the +reflection of the combat below bathed the Tertasse tower in a lurid +glow. Claude could distinguish the roof of the Royaumes' house; and to +see so much yet to be cut off as completely as if he stood a hundred +miles away, to be so near yet so hopelessly divided, stung him to a new +impatience and a greater daring. + +He returned to Marcadel. "Are we going to stay on this tower?" he cried. +"Shut up here, while this goes forward and we may be of use?" + +"I think we have done our part," the other answered soberly. "If any man +has saved Geneva, it is you! There, man, I give you the credit," he +continued, in a burst of generosity, "and it is no small thing! For it +might make my fortune. But I have done some little too!" + +"Ay! But cannot we----" + +"What would you have us do more?" the man continued, and with reason. +"Leave the roof to them? 'Tis all they want! Leave them to raise the old +iron grate, and let in--what I hear yonder?" He indicated the darker +outer plain below the wall, whence rose the murmur of halted battalions, +waiting baffled, and uncertain, the opening of the gate. + +"Ay, but if we descend?" + +"May we not win the gate from a score?" Marcadel answered, between +contempt and admiration. "Is that what you mean? And when we have won +it, hold it? No, not if each of us were Gaston of Foix, Bayard, and M. +de Crillon rolled into one! But what is this? We are winning or we are +losing! Which is it?" + +From the Treille Gate had burst a rabble of men; a struggling crowd +illumined by the glare of three or four lights. Pikes and halberds +flashed in the heart of the mob as it swirled and struggled down the +Corraterie in the direction of the gate from which the two men viewed +it. Half-way thither, in the open, its progress seemed to be checked; it +hung and paused, swaying this way and that; it recoiled. But at length, +with a roar of triumph, it rolled on anew over half a dozen prostrate +forms, and in a trice burst about the base of the Porte Neuve, swept, as +it seemed to those above, into the gateway, and--in a twinkling broke +back, repelled by a crashing volley that shook the tower. + +"They are our people!" cried Claude. + +"Ay!" + +"And now is our time!" The lad waved his weapon. "A diversion in the +rear--and 'tis done!" + +"In Heaven's name stop!" cried Marcadel, and he gripped Claude's sleeve. +"A diversion, ay!" he continued. "But a moment too soon or a moment too +late--and where will we be?" + +He spoke in vain. His words were wasted on the air. Claude, not to be +restrained, had entered the staircase. Pike in hand he felt his way over +the bodies that choked it; by this time he was half-way down the stairs. +Marcadel hesitated, waited a moment, listened; then, partly because +success begets success, and courage courage, partly because he would not +have the triumph taken from him, he too risked all. He snatched from +Gentilis' feeble hands a long pistol, part of the spoils of the +staircase; and, staying only to assure himself that a portion of the +priming still lay in the pan, he hurried after his leader. + +By this time Claude was within four stairs of the guard-room. The low +door that admitted to it stood open; and towards it a man, hearing the +hasty tread of feet, had that moment turned a startled face. There was +no room for anything but audacity, and Claude did not flinch. In two +bounds, he hurled himself through the door on to the man, missed him +with his pike--but was himself missed. In a flash the two were rolling +together on the floor. + +In their fall they brought down a third man, who, swearing horribly, +made repeated stabs at Claude with a dagger. But the only light in the +room came from the fire, the three were interlaced, and Claude was young +and agile as an eel: he evaded the first thrust, and the second. The +third went home in his shoulder, but desperate with pain he seized the +hand that held the poniard, and clung to it; and before the man who had +been the first to fall could regain his pike, or a third man who was +present, but who was wounded, could drag himself, swearing horribly, to +the spot, Marcadel fired from the stairs, and killed the wounded man. +The next instant with a yell of "Geneva!" he sprang on the others under +cover of the smoke that filled the room. + +The combat was still but of two to two; and without the guard-room but +almost within arm's length, were a dozen Savoyards, headed by Picot the +engineer; any one of whom might, by entering, turn the scale. But the +pistol-shot had come to the ears of the attacking party: that instant, +guessing that they had allies within, they rallied and with loud cries +returned to the attack. Even while Marcadel having disposed of one more, +stood over the struggling pair on the floor, doubting where to strike, +the burghers burst a second time into the gateway--on which the +guard-room opened--struck down Picot, and, hacking and hewing, with +cries of "Porte Gagnée! Porte Gagnée!" bore the Savoyards back. + +For the half of a minute the low-groined archway was a whirl of arms and +steel and flame. Half a dozen single combats were in progress at once; +amid yells and groans, and the jar and clash of a score of weapons. But +the burghers, fighting bareheaded for their wives and hearths, were not +to be denied; by-and-by the Savoyards gave back, broke, and saved +themselves. One fierce group cut its way out and fled into the darkness +of the Corraterie. Of the others four men remained on the ground, while +two turned and tried to retreat into the guard-room. + +But on the threshold they met Claude, vicious and wounded, his eyes in a +flame; and he struck and killed the foremost. The other fell under the +blows of the pursuing burghers, and across the two bodies Claude and +Marcadel met their allies, the leaders of the assault. Strange to say, +the foremost and the midmost of these was a bandy-legged tailor, with a +great two-handed sword, red to the hilt; to such a place can valour on +such a night raise a man. On his right stood Blandano, Captain of the +Guard, bareheaded and black with powder; on his left Baudichon the +councillor, panting, breathless, his fat face running with sweat and +blood--for he bore an ugly wound--but with unquenchable courage in his +eyes. A man may be fat and yet a lion. + +It was a moment in the lives of the five men who thus met which none of +them ever forgot. "Was it one of you two who lowered the portcullis?" +Blandano gasped, as he leaned an instant on his sword. + +"He did," Marcadel answered, laying his hand on Claude's shoulder. "And +I helped him." + +"Then he has saved Geneva, and you have helped him!" Blandano rejoined +bluntly. "Your name, young man." + +Claude told him. + +"Good!" Blandano answered. "If I live to see the morning light, it shall +not be forgotten!" + +Baudichon leant across the dead, and shook Claude's hand. "For the women +and children!" he said, his fat face shaking like a jelly; though no man +had fought that night with a more desperate valour. "If I live to see +the morning inquire for Baudichon of the council." + +Jehan Brosse, the bandy-legged tailor with the huge sword--he was but +five feet high and no one up to that night had known him for a +hero--squared his shoulders and looked at Claude, as one who takes +another under his protection. "Baudichon the councillor, whom all men +know in Geneva," he said with an affectionate look at the great man--he +was proud of the company to which his prowess had raised him. "You will +not forget the name! no fear of that! And now on!" + +"Ay, on!" Blandano answered, looking round on his panting followers, of +whom some were staunching their wounds and some, with dark faces and +gleaming eyeballs, were loading and priming their arms. "But I think +the worst is over and we shall win through now. We have this gate safe, +and it is the key, as I told you. If all be well elsewhere, and the main +guards be held----" + +"Ay, but are they?" Baudichon muttered nervously: he reeled a little, +for the loss of blood was beginning to tell upon him. "That is the +question!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +BASTERGA AT ARGOS. + + +The fear that Blandano might postpone the night-round, to a time which +would involve discovery, haunted Blondel; and late on this eventful +evening he despatched Louis, as we have seen, to the Porte Neuve to +remind the Captain of his orders. That done--it was all he could do--the +Syndic sat down in his great chair, and prepared himself to wait. He +knew that he had before him some hours of uncertainty almost +intolerable; and a peril, a hundred times more hard to face, because in +the pinch of it he must play two parts; he must run with the hare and +hunt with the hounds, and, a traitor standing forward for the city he +had betrayed, he must have an eye to his reputation as well as his life. + +He had no doubt of the success of Savoy, the walls once passed. +Moreover, the genius of Basterga had imposed itself upon him as that of +a man unlikely to fail. But some resistance there must be, some +bloodshed--for the town held many devoted men; one hour at least of +butchery, and that followed, he shuddered to think it, by more than one +hour of excess, of cruelty, of rapine. From such things the captured +cities of that day rarely escaped. In all that happened, the resistance +and the peril, he must, he knew, show himself; he must take his part and +run his risk if he would not be known for what he was, if he would not +leave a name that men would spit on! + +Strangely enough it was the moment of discovery and his conduct in that +moment--it was the anticipation of this, that weighed most heavily on +his guilty mind as he sat in his parlour, his hour of retiring long +past, his household in bed. The city slept round him; how long would it +sleep? And when it awoke, how long dared he, how long would it be +natural for him to ignore the first murmur, the succeeding outcry, the +rising alarm? It was not his cue to do overmuch, to precipitate +discovery, or to assume at once the truth to be the truth. But on the +other hand he must not be too backward. + +Try as he would he could not divert his thoughts from this. He saw +himself skulking in his house, listening with a white face to the rush +of armed men along the street. He heard the tumult rising on all sides, +and saw himself stand, guilty and irresolute, between hearth and door, +uncertain if the time had come to go forth. Finally, and before he had +made up his mind to go out, he fancied himself confronted by an entering +face, and in an instant detected. And this it was, this initial +difficulty, oddly enough--and not the subsequent hours of horror, +confusion and danger, of dying men and wailing women--that rode his +mind, dwelt on him and shook his nerves as the crisis approached. + +One consolation he had, and one only; but a measureless one. Basterga +had kept his word. He was cured. Six hours earlier he had taken the +_remedium_ according to the directions, and with every hour that had +elapsed since he had felt new life course through his veins. He had had +no return of pain, no paroxysm; but a singular lightness of body, +eloquent of the change wrought in him and the youth and strength that +were to come, had done what could be done to combat the terrors of the +soul, natural in his situation. Pale he was, despite the potion; in +spite of it he trembled and sweated. But he knew himself changed, and +sick at heart as he was, he could only guess at the depths of nervous +despair to which he must have fallen had he not taken the wondrous +draught. + +There was that to the good. That to the good. He would live. And life +was the great thing after all; life and health, and strength. If he had +sold his soul, his country, his friends, at least he would live--if +naught happened to him to-night. If naught--but ah, the thought pierced +him to the heart. He who had proved himself in old days no mean soldier +in the field, who had won honour in more than one fight, felt his brow +grow damp, his knees grow flaccid, knew himself a coward. For the life +which he must risk was not the old life, but the new one which he had +bought so dearly; the new one for which he had given his soul, his +country, and his friends. And he dared not risk that! He dared not let +the winds of heaven blow too roughly on that! If aught befel him this +night, the irony of it! The mockery of it! The deadly, deadly folly of +it! + +He sweated at the thought. He cursed, cursed frantically his folly in +omitting to give himself out for worse than he was; in omitting to take +to his bed early in the day! Then he might have kept it through the +night, through the fight; then he might have avoided risks. Now he felt +that every ball discharged at a venture must strike him; that if he +showed so much as his face at a window death must find its opportunity. +He would not have dared to pass through a street on a windy day now--for +if a tile fell it must fall on him. And he must fight! He must fight! + +His manhood shrivelled within him at the thought. He shuddered. He was +still shuddering, when on the shutter which masked the casement came a +knock, thrice repeated. A cautious knock of which the mere sound implied +an understanding. + +The Syndic remained motionless, glaring at the window. Everything on a +night like this, and to an uneasy conscience, menaced danger. At length +it occurred to him that the applicant might be Louis, whom he had sent +with the message to the Porte Neuve: and he took the lamp and went to +admit him, albeit reluctantly, for what did the booby mean by returning? +It was late, and only to open at this hour might, in the light cast by +after events, raise suspicions. + +But it was not Louis. The lamp flickering in the draught of the doorway +disclosed a huge dusky form, glimmering metallic here and there, that in +a trice pushed him back, passed by him, entered. It was Basterga. The +Syndic shut the door, and staggered rather than walked after him to the +parlour. There the Syndic set down the lamp, and turned to the scholar, +his face a picture of guilty terror. "What is it?" he muttered. "What +has happened? Is--the thing put off?" + +The other's aspect answered his question. A black corselet with shoulder +pieces, and a feathered steel cap raised Basterga's huge stature almost +to the gigantic. Nor did it need this to render him singular; to draw +the eye to him a second time and a third. The man himself in this hour +of his success, this moment of conscious daring, of reliance on his star +and his strength, towered in the room like a demi-god. "No," he +answered, with a ponderous, exultant smile, slow to come, slow to go. +"No, Messer Blondel. Far from it. It has not been put off." + +"Something has been discovered?" + +"No. We are here. That is all." + +The Syndic supported himself by a hand pressed hard against the table +behind him. "Here?" he gasped. "You are here? You have the town already? +It is impossible." + +"We have three hundred men in the Corraterie," Basterga answered. "We +hold the Tertasse Gate, and the Monnaye. The Porte Neuve is cut off, and +at our mercy; it will be taken when we give the signal. Beyond it four +thousand men are waiting to enter. We hold Geneva in our grip at +last--at last!" And in an accent half tragic, half ironic, he +declaimed:-- + + "Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus + Dardaniae! Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium et ingens + Gloria Teucrorum! Ferus omnia Jupiter Argos + Transtulit!" + +And then more lightly, "If you doubt me, how am I here?" he asked. And +he extended his huge arms in the pride of his strength. "Exercise your +warrant now--if you can, Messer Syndic. Syndic," he continued in a tone +of mockery, "where is your warrant now? I have but this moment," he +pointed to wet stains on his corselet, "slain one of your guards. Do +justice, Syndic! I have seized one of your gates by force. Avenge it, +Syndic! Syndic? ha! ha! Here is an end of Syndics." + +The Syndic gasped. He was a hard man, not to say an arrogant one, little +used to opposition; one who, times and again, had ridden rough-shod over +the views of his fellows. To be jeered at, after this fashion, to be +scorned and mocked by this man who in the beginning had talked so +silkily, moved so humbly, evinced so much respect, played the poor +scholar so well, was a bitter pill. He asked himself if it was for this +he had betrayed his city; if it was for this he had sold his friends. +And then--then he remembered that it was not for this--not for this, but +for life, dear life, warm life, that he had done this thing. And, +swallowing the rage that was rising within him, he calmed himself. + +"It is better to cease to be Syndic than cease to live," he said +coldly. + +But the other had no mind to return to their former relations. "True, O +sage!" he answered contemptuously. "But why not both? Because--shall I +tell you?" + +"I hear----" + +"Yes, and I hear too! The city is rising!" Basterga listened a moment. +"Presently they will ring the alarm-bell, and----" + +"If you stay here some one may find you!" + +"And find me with you?" Basterga rejoined. He knew that he ought to go, +for his own sake as well as the Syndic's. He knew that nothing was to be +made and much might be lost by the disclosure that was on his tongue. +But he was intoxicated with the success which he had gained; with the +clang of arms, and the glitter of his armed presence. The true spirit of +the man, as happens in intoxication of another kind, rose to the +surface, cruel, waggish, insolent--of an insolence long restrained, the +insolence of the scholar, who always in secret, now in the light, panted +to repay the slights he had suffered, the patronage of leaders, the +scoffs of power. "Ay," he continued, "they may find me with you! But if +you do not mind, I need not. And I was just asking you--why not both? +Life and power, my friend?" + +"You know," Blondel answered, breathing quickly. How he hated the man! +How gladly would he have laid him dead at his feet! For if the fool +stayed here prating, if he were found here by those who within a few +moments would come with the alarm, he was himself a lost man. All would +be known. + +That was the fear in Blondel's mind; the alarm was growing louder each +moment, and drawing nearer. And then in a twinkling, in two or three +sentences, Basterga put that fear into the second place, and set in its +seat emotions that brooked no rival. + +"Why not both?" he said, jeering. "Live and be Syndic, both? Because you +had the scholar's ill, eh, Messer Blondel? Or because your physician +_said_ you had it--to whom I paid a good price--for the advice?" The +devil seemed to look out of the man's eyes, as he spoke in short +sentences, each pointed, each conveying a heart-stab to its hearer. + +"To whom--you gave?" Blondel muttered, his eyes dilated. + +"A good price--for the advice! A good price to tell you, you had it." + +The magistrate's face swelled till it was almost purple, his hands +gripped the front of his coat, and pressed hard against his breast. +"But--the pains?" he muttered. "Did you--but no," with a frightful +grimace, "you lie! you lie!" + +"Did I bribe him--to give you those too?" the other answered, with a +ruthless laugh. "You have alighted on it, most grave and reverend sage. +You have alighted on the exact fact, so clever are you! That was +precisely what I did some months back, after I heard that you, being +fearful as rich men are, had been to him for some fancied ill. You had +two medicines? You remember? The one gave, the other soothed your +trouble. And now that you understand, now that your mind is free from +care, and you can sleep without fear of the scholar's ill--will you not +thank me for your cure, Messer Blondel?" + +"Thank you?" the magistrate panted. "Thank you?" He stepped back two +paces, groping with his hands, as if he sought to support himself by the +table from which he had advanced. + +"Ay, thank me!" + +"No, but I will pay you!" and with the word Blondel snatched from the +table a pistol which he had laid within his reach an hour earlier. +Before the giant, confident in his size, discovered his danger, the +muzzle was at his breast. It was too late to move then--three paces +divided the men; but, in his haste to raise the pistol, Blondel had not +shaken from it the handkerchief under which he had hidden it, and the +lock fell on a morsel of the stuff. The next moment Basterga's huge hand +struck aside the useless weapon, and flung Blondel gasping against the +wall. + +"Fool!" the scholar cried, towering above the baffled, shrinking man +whose attempt had placed him at his mercy. "Think you that Cæsar +Basterga was born to perish by your hand? That the gods made me what I +am, I who carry to-night the fortunes of a nation and the fate of a +king, that I might fall by so pitiful a creature as you! Ay, 'tis the +alarm-bell, you are right. And by-and-by your friends will be here. It +is a wonder," he continued, with a cruel look, "that they are not here +already; but perhaps they have enough to fill their hands! And come or +stay--if they be like you, poor fool, weak in body as in wit--I care +not! I, Cæsar Basterga, this night lord of Geneva, and in the time to +come, and thanks to you----" + +"Curse you!" Blondel gasped. + +"That which I dare be sworn you have dreamt of being!"--the scholar +continued with a subtle smile. "The Grand Duke's _alter ego_, Mayor of +the Palace, Adviser to his Highness! Yes, I hit you there? I touch you +there! Oh, vanity of little men, I thought so! "He broke off and +listened, as sharp on one another two gun-shots rang out at no great +distance from the house. A third followed as he hearkened: and on it a +swelling wave of sound that rose with each second louder and nearer. +"Ay, 'tis known now!" Basterga resumed, in a tone more quiet, but not +less confident. "And I must go, my dear friend--who thought a minute +ago to speed me for ever. Know that it lies not in hands mean as yours +to harm Cæsar Basterga of Padua! And that to-night, of all nights, I +bear a charmed life! I carry, Syndic, a kingdom and its fortunes!" + +He seemed to swell with the thought, and in comparison of the sickly man +scowling darkly on him from the wall, he did indeed look a king, as he +turned to the door, flung it wide and passed into the passage. With only +the street door between him and the hub-bub that was beginning to fill +the night, he could measure the situation. He had stayed late. The beat +of many feet hastening one way--towards the Porte Tertasse--the clatter +of weapons as here and there a man trailed his pike on the stones, the +roar of rising voices, the rattle of metal as some one hauled a chain +across the end of the Bourg du Four and hooked it--sounds such as these +might have alarmed an ordinary man who knew himself cut off from his +party, and isolated among foes. + +But Basterga did not quail. His belief in his star was genuine; he was +intoxicated with the success which he fancied lay within his grasp. He +carried Cæsar and his fortunes! was it in mean men to harm him? Nay, so +confident was he, that when he had opened the door he stood an instant +on the threshold viewing the strange scene, and quoted with an +appreciation as strange-- + + "At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu + Miscetur, penitusque cavae plangoribus aedes + Femineis ululant; ferit aurea sidera clamor"-- + +from his favourite poet. After which without hesitation but also without +hurry he turned and plunged into the stream of passers that was hurrying +towards the Porte Tertasse. + +He had been right not to quail. In the medley of light and shadow which +filled the Bourg du Four and the streets about the Town Hall, in the +confusion, in the rush of all in one direction and with one intent, no +one paid heed to him, or supposed him to belong to the enemy. Some cried +"To the Treille! They are there! To the Treille!" And these wheeled that +way. But more, guided by the sounds of conflict, held on to the point +where the short, narrow street of the Tertasse turned left-handed out of +the equally narrow Rue de la Cité--the latter leading onwards to the +Porte de la Monnaye, and the bridges. Here, at the meeting of the two +confined lanes, overhung by timbered houses, and old gables of strange +shapes, a desperate conflict was being fought. The Savoyards, masters of +the gate, had undertaken to push their way into the town by the Rue +Tertasse; not doubting that they would be supported by-and-by, upon the +entrance of their main body through the Porte Neuve. They had proceeded +no farther, however, than the junction with the Rue de la Cité--a point +where darkness was made visible by two dim oil lamps--before, the alarm +being given, they found themselves confronted by a dozen half-clad +townsfolk, fresh from their beds; of whom five or six were at once laid +low. The survivors, however, fought with desperation, giving back, foot +by foot; and as the alarm flew abroad and the city rose, every moment +brought the defenders a reinforcement--some father just roused from +sleep, armed with the chance weapon that came to hand, or some youth +panting for his first fight. The assailants, therefore, found themselves +stayed; slowly they were driven back into the narrow gullet of the +Tertasse. Even there they were put to it to hold their ground against an +ever-increasing swarm of citizens, whom despair and the knowledge that +they were fighting on their hearths, for their wives, and for their +children, brought up in renewed strength. + +In the Tertasse, however, where it was not possible to outflank them, +and no dark side-alley, vomiting now and again a desperate man, gave one +to death, a score could hold out against a hundred. Here then, with the +gateway at their backs--whence three or four could fire over their +heads--the Savoyards stood stubbornly at bay, awaiting the +reinforcements which they were sure would come from the Porte Neuve. +They were picked troops not easily discouraged; and they had no fear +that aught serious had happened. But they asked impatiently why +D'Albigny with the main body did not come; why Brunaulieu with the +Monnaye in his hands did not see that the time was opportune. They +chafed at the delay. Give the city time to array itself, let it recover +from its first surprise, and all their forces might scarcely avail to +crush opposition. + +It was at this moment, when the burghers had drawn back a little that +they might deliver a decisive attack, that Basterga came up. Fabri the +Syndic had taken the command, and had shouted to all who had windows +looking on the lane to light them. He had arrayed his men in some sort +of order and was on the point of giving the word to charge, when he +heard the steps of Basterga and some others coming up; he waited to +allow them to join him. The instant they arrived he gave the word, and +followed by some thirty burghers armed with half-pikes, halberds, +anything the men had been able to snatch up, he charged the Savoyards +bravely. + +In the narrow lane but four or five could fight abreast, and the Grand +Duke's men were clad in steel and well armed. Nevertheless Fabri bore +back the first line, pressed on them stoutly, and amid a wild _mêlée_ of +struggling men and waving weapons, began to drive the troop, in spite of +a fierce resistance, into the gate. If he could do this and enter with +them, even though he lost half his men, he might save the city. + +But the Savoyards, though they gave back, gave back slowly. Within +twenty paces of the gate the advance wavered, stopped, hung an instant. +Of that instant Basterga took advantage. He had moved on undetected, +with the rearmost burghers: now he saw his opportunity and seized it. He +flung to either side the man to right and left of him. He struck down, +almost with the same movement, the man in front. He rushed on Fabri, who +in the middle of the first line was supporting, though far from young, a +single combat with one of the Savoyard leaders. On him Basterga's coward +weapon alighted without warning, and laid him low. To strike down +another, and turning, range himself in the van of the foreigners with a +mighty "Savoy! Savoy!" was Basterga's next action; and it sufficed. The +panic-stricken burghers, apprised of treason in their ranks, gave back +every way. The Savoyards saw their advantage, rallied, and pressed them. +Speedily the Italians regained the ground they had lost, and with the +tall form of their champion fighting in the van, began to sweep the +towns-folk back into the Rue de la Cité. + +But arrived at the meeting of the ways, Basterga's followers paused, +hesitating to expose their flank by entering this second street. The +Genevese saw this, rallied in their turn, and for a moment seemed to be +holding their own. But three or four of their doughtiest fighters lay +stark in the kennel, they had no longer a leader, they were poorly armed +and hastily collected; and devoted as they were, it needed little to +renew the panic and start them in utter rout. Basterga saw this, and +when his men still hung back, neglecting the golden opportunity, he +rushed forward, almost alone, until he stood conspicuous between the two +bands--the one hesitating to come on, the other hesitating to fly. + +"Savoy!" he thundered, "Ville gagnée! The city is ours! Cowards, come +on!" And waving his halberd above his head, he beckoned to his followers +to advance. + +Had they done so, had they charged on the instant, they had changed all +for him, and perhaps all for Geneva. But they hung a moment, and the +next, as in shame they drew themselves together for the charge, their +champion stooped forward with a shrill scream. The next instant he +received full on his nape a heavy iron pot, that descending with +tremendous force from a window above him, rolled from him broken into +three pieces. + +He went down under the blow as if a sledge-hammer had struck him; and so +sudden, so dramatic was the fall--his armour clanging about him--that +for an instant the two bands held their hands and stood staring, as +indifferent crowds stand and gaze in the street. A dozen on the +patriots' side knew the house from which the _marmite_ fell, and marked +it; and half as many saw at the small window whence it came the grey +locks and stern wrinkled face of an aged woman. The effect on the +burghers was magical. As if the act symbolised not only the loved ones +for whom they fought, but the dire distress to which they were come, +they rushed on the foreign men-at-arms with a spirit and a fury hitherto +unknown. With a ringing shout of "Mère Royaume! Mère Royaume!"--raised +by those who knew the old woman, and taken up by many who did not--they +swept the foe, shaken by the fall of their leader, along the narrow +Tertasse, pressed on them, and, still shouting the new war-cry, entered +the gateway along with them. + +"Mère Royaume! Mère Royaume!" The name rang savagely in the groining of +the arch, echoed dully in the obscurity in which the fierce struggle +went on. And men struck to its rhythm, and men died to it. And men who +heard it thus and lived never forgot it, nor ever went back in their +minds to that night without recalling it. + +To one man, flurried already, and a coward at heart, the name carried a +paralysing assurance of doom. He had seen Basterga fall--by this woman's +hand of all hands in the world--and he had been the first to flee. But +in the lane he tripped over Fabri, he fell headlong, and only raised +himself in time to gain the gateway a few feet in front of the avenging +pikes. Still, he might escape, he hoped to escape, through the gate and +into the open Corraterie. But the first to reach the gates had taken in +hand to shut them, and so to prevent the townsfolk reaching the +Corraterie. One of the great doors, half-closed, blocked his way, and +instinctively--ignorant how far behind him the pike-points were--he +sprang aside into the guard-room. + +His one chance now--for he was cut off, and knew it--lay in reaching the +staircase and mounting to the roof. A bound carried him to the door, he +grasped the handle. But a fugitive who had only a second before saved +himself that way, took him for a pursuer, dragged the door close and +held it--held it in spite of his efforts and his imprecations. + +Five seconds, ten, perhaps, Grio--for he it was--wasted in struggling +vainly with the door. The man on the other side clung to it with a +despair equal to his own. Five seconds, ten, perhaps; but in that space +of time, short as it was, the man paid smartly for the sins of his life. +When the time of grace had elapsed, with a pike-point a few inches from +his back and the gleaming eyes of an avenging burgher behind it, he fled +shrieking round the table. He might even yet have escaped by a chance; +for all was confusion, and though there was a glare there was no light. +But he stumbled over the body of the man whom he had slain without pity +a few hours before. He fell writhing, and died on the floor, under a +dozen blows, as beasts die in the shambles. + +"Mère Royaume! Mère Royaume!" The cry--the last cry he heard--swelled +louder and louder. It swept through the gate, it passed through to the +open, and bore far along the Corraterie, far along the ramparts, ay, to +the open country, the earnest of victory, the earnest of vengeance. + +Geneva was saved. He who would have betrayed it, slain like Pyrrhus the +Epirote by a woman's hand, lay dead in the dark lane behind the house in +which he had lived. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE DAWN. + + +Anne was but one of some thousands of women who passed through the trial +of that night; who heard the vague sounds of disquiet that roused them +at midnight grow to sharp alarms, and these again--to the dull, pulsing +music of the tocsin--swell to the uproar of a deadly conflict waged by +desperate men in narrow streets. She was but one of thousands who that +night heard fate knocking at their hearts; who praying, sick with fear, +for the return of their men, showed white faces at barred windows, and +by every tossing light that passed along the lane viewed long years of +loneliness or widowhood. + +But Anne had this burden also; that she had of herself sent her man into +danger; her man, who, but for her pleading, but for her bidding, might +not have gone. And that thought, though she had done her duty, laid a +cold grip upon her heart. Her work it was if he lay at this moment stark +in some dark alley, the first victim of the assault; or, sorely wounded, +cried for water; or waited in pain where none but the stricken heard +him. The thought bowed her to the ground, sent her to her prayers, took +from her alike all memory of the danger that had menaced her this +morning, and all consciousness of that which now threatened her, a +helpless woman, if the town were taken. + +The house, having its back on the Rue de la Cité, at the point where +that street joined the Tertasse, stood in the heart of the conflict; and +almost from the moment of the first attack on the Porte Neuve, which +Claude was in time to witness, was a centre of fierce and deadly +fighting. Anne dared not leave her mother, who, strange to say, slept +through the early alarms; and it was bowed on the edge of her mother's +bed--that bed beside which she had tasted so much of happiness and so +much of grief--that she passed, not knowing what the turning page might +show, the first hour of anxiety and suspense. + +The report of a shot shook her frame. A scream stabbed her like a knife. +Lower and lower she thrust her face amid the bed-clothes, striving to +shut out sound and knowledge; or, woman-like, she raised her pale, +beseeching face that she might listen, that she might hope. If he fell +would they tell her? And how he fell, and where? Or would they hold her +strange to him? Would she never hear? + +Suddenly her mother opened her eyes, lay a while listening, then slowly +sat up and looked at her. Anne saw the awakening alarm in the dear face, +that in some mysterious way recalled its youth; and she fancied that to +her other troubles, the misery of one of the old paroxysms was going to +be added. At such an hour, with such sounds of terror filling the night, +with such a glare dancing on the ceiling the first attack had come on, +years before. Then the alarm had been fictitious; to-night the calamity +which the poor woman had imagined, was happening with every circumstance +of peril and alarm. + +But Madame Royaume's face, though anxious and serious, retained to an +astonishing extent its sanity. Whether the strange dream which she had +had earlier in the night had prepared her for the state of things to +which she awoke, or the weeks and months which had elapsed since that +old alarm of fire dropped in some inexplicable way from her--and as one +shock had upset, another restored the balance of her mind--certain it is +that Anne, watching her with a painful interest, found her sane. Nor did +Madame Royaume's first words dispel the impression. + +"They hold out?" she asked, grasping her daughter's hand and pressing +it. "They hold out?" + +"Yes, yes, they hold out," Anne answered, hoping to soothe her. And she +patted the hand that clasped hers. "Have no fear, dear, all will go +well." + +"If they have faith and hold out," the aged woman replied, listening to +the strange medley of sounds that rose to them. + +"They will, they will," Anne faltered. + +"But there is need of every one!" + +"They are gone, dear," the girl answered, repressing a sob with +difficulty. "We are alone in the house." + +"So it should be," Madame Royaume replied, with sternness. "The man to +the wall, the maid to the pall! It was ever so!" + +A low cry burst from Anne's lips. "God forbid!" she wailed. "God forbid! +God have mercy!" + +The next moment she could have bitten out her tongue; she knew that such +words and such a cry were of all others the most likely to excite her +patient. But after some obscure fashion their positions seemed this +night to be reversed. It was the mother who in her turn patted her +daughter's hand and sought to soothe her. + +"Ay, God forbid," she said softly. "But man must do his part. I mind +when----" She paused. Her eyes travelling round the room, fixed their +gaze on the fireplace. She seemed to be perplexed by something she saw +there, and Anne, still fearing a recurrence of her illness, asked her +hurriedly what it was. "What is it; mother?" she said, leaning over her, +and following the direction of her eyes. "Is it the great pot you are +looking at?" + +"Ay," Madame Royaume answered slowly. "How comes it here?" + +"There was no one below," Anne explained. "I brought it up this morning. +Don't you remember? There is no fire below." + +"No?" + +"That is all, mother. You saw me bring it up." + +"Ay?" And then after a pause: "Let it down a hook." + +"But----" + +"Let it down, child!" And when Anne, to soothe her, had obeyed and let +the great pot down until the fire licked its sides, "Is it full?" Madame +asked. + +"Half-full, mother." + +"It will do." And for a time the woman in the bed was silent. + +Outside there was noise enough. The windows in the room looked into the +Corraterie, from which side no more than passing sounds of conflict rose +to them; the pounding of running feet, sharp orders, a shot, and then +another. But the landing without the bedroom door looked down by a +high-set window into the narrow Tertasse; and from this, though the door +was shut, rose an inferno of noise, the clash of steel, the cries of the +wounded, the shouts of the fighters. The townsfolk, rallying from their +first alarm, were driving the enemy out of the Rue de la Cité, penning +him into the Tertasse, and preparing to carry that street. + +On a sudden there came, not a cessation of the uproar, but a change in +its character. It was as if the current of a river were momentarily +stayed and pent up; and then with a mighty crashing of timbers and +shifting of pebbles, and a din as of the world's end, began to run the +other way. Anne's face turned a shade paler; so appalling was the noise, +she would fain have stopped her ears. But her mother sat up. + +"What is it?" she asked eagerly. "What is it?" + +"Dear mother, do not fret! It must be----" + +"Go and see, child! Go to the window in the passage, and see!" Madame +Royaume persisted. + +Anne had no wish to go, no wish to see. She pictured her lover in the +_mêlée_ whence rose those appalling cries; and gladly would she have +hidden her head in the bedclothes and poured out her heart in prayer for +him. But Madame persisted, and she yielded, went into the passage and +opened the small window. With the cold air entered a fresh volume of +sound. On the walls and timbered gables opposite her--and so near that +she could well-nigh touch them with her extended arm--strange lights +played luridly; and here and there, at dormers on a level with her, pale +faces showed and vanished by turns. + +She looked down. For a moment, in the confusion, in the medley of moving +forms, she could discern little or nothing. Then, as her eyes became +more accustomed to the sight, she made out that the tide of conflict was +running inward into the town, a sign that the invaders were gaining the +mastery. + +"Well?" Madame Royaume asked, her voice querulous. + +Anne strove to say something that would soothe her mother. But a sob +choked her, and when she regained her speech she felt herself impelled, +she knew not why, to tell the truth. "I fear our people are falling +back," she murmured, trembling so violently that she could barely stand. + +"How far? Where are they, child?" Her mother's voice was eager. "Where +are they?" + +"They are almost under the window!" And then withdrawing her head with a +shudder, while she clung for support to the frame of the window: "They +are fighting underneath me now," she said. "God pity them!" + +"And who is--are we still getting the worst of it?" + +Forced by a kind of fascination, Anne looked out again. "Yes, there is +one man, a big man, leads them on," she said, in the voice of one who, +painfully absorbed in a sight, reports it involuntarily. "He is driving +our people before him. Ah! he has struck one down this moment. He is +almost underneath us now. But his people will not follow him! They are +standing. He--he waves them on!" + +"He is beneath us?" Madame's voice sounded strangely near, strangely +insistent. But Anne, wrapt in what she saw, did not heed it. + +"Yes! He is a dozen paces in front of his men. He is underneath us now. +He urges them to follow him! He towers above them! He is----" + +She broke off; close to her sounded a heavy breathing, that even above +the babel of the street caught her ear. She drew in her head, looked, +and, overwrought by that which she had been witnessing, she shrieked +aloud. + +Beside her, bending under the weight of the great steaming pot, stood +her mother! Her mother, who had scarcely left her bedroom twice in a +twelvemonth, nor crossed it as many times in a week. But it was her +mother; endowed at this pass, and for the instant, with supernatural +strength. For even as Anne recoiled thunderstruck, the old woman lifted +the huge _marmite_, half-full and steaming as it was, to the ledge of +the window, steadied it there an instant, and then, with the gleaming +eyes and set pale face of an avenging prophetess, thrust it forth. + +A second they gazed at one another with suspended breath. Then from the +street below rose a wild shriek, a crash, and lo, the huge pot lay +shattered in the kennel beside the man whom, Heaven directed, it had +slain. As if the shock of its fall stayed for an instant even the +movement of the world, a silence fell on all: then, as the roar of +conflict rose again, louder, more vengeful, with a new note in it, she +caught her mother in her arms. + +"Mother! Mother!" she cried. "Mother!" + +The elder woman was white to the lips. "Get me to bed!" she muttered. +"Get me to bed!" She had lost the power even to stand. That she had ever +borne, even for a yard, the great pot which it taxed Anne's utmost +strength to carry upstairs was a miracle. But a miracle were all the +circumstances connected with the act. + +Anne carried her back and laid her on the bed, greatly fearing for her. +And thenceforth for a while the girl's horizon, so wide and stormy an +instant before, was narrowed to the bed beside which she stood, narrowed +to the dear face on which the lamplight fell, disclosing its death-like +pallor. For the time Anne forgot even her lover, was deaf to the +struggle outside, was unmindful of the flight of the hours. For her, +Geneva might have lain at peace, the night been as other nights, the +house below been heavy with the breathing of tired sleepers. She looked +neither to the right nor the left, until under her loving hands Madame +Royaume revived, opened her eyes and smiled--the smile she had for one +face only in the world. + +By that time Anne had lost count of the time. It might be hard on +morning, it might be a little after midnight. One thing only was clear, +the lamp required oil, and to get it she must descend to the ground +floor. She opened the door and listened, wondering dully how the +conflict had gone. She had lost count of that also. + +The small window at the head of the stairs remained open as they had +left it; and through it a ceaseless hum, as of a hive of bees swarming, +poured in from the night, and told of multitudes astir. The alarm-bell +had ceased to ring, the wilder sounds of conflict had died down; in the +parts about the Tertasse the combat appeared to be at an end. But this +might be either because resistance had ceased, or because the battle had +rolled away to other quarters, or--which she scarcely dared to +hope--because the foe had been driven out. + +As she stood listening, she shivered in the cold air that came from the +window. She felt as if she had been beaten, and knew that this came of +the shocks she had suffered and the long strain. She feared for her +nerves, and hated to go down into the dark parts of the house as if some +danger lurked there. She longed for morning, for the light; and thought +of Claude and his fate, and wondered why the thought of his danger did +not move her to weeping, as it had moved her a few hours earlier. + +In truth she was worn out. The effort to revive her mother had cost her +the last remains of strength. Her feet as she descended the stairs were +of lead, the brazen notes of the alarm-bell hummed in her ears. When she +reached the living-room she set the lamp on one of the tables and sat +down wearily, with her eyes on the cold, empty hearth and on the settle +where she had sat with his arms about her. And now, if ever, she must +weep; but she could not. + +The lamp burned low, and cast smoky shadows on the ceiling and the +walls. The shuttered windows showed their dead faces. The cheerful soul +of the room had passed from it with the fire, leaving the shell gloomy, +lifeless, repellent. Anne drowsed a moment in sheer exhaustion, and +would have slept, if the lamp on the point of expiring had not emitted +a sound and roused her. She rose reluctantly, dragged herself to the +great cupboard under the stairs, and, having lighted a rushlight at the +dying flame, put out the lamp and refilled it. + +She was about to re-light it, and had taken the rushlight in her hand +for the purpose, when she heard through the shuttered windows and the +barred door a growing clamour; the tramp of heavy feet, the hum of many +voices, the buzz of a crowd that, almost as soon as she awoke to its +near presence, came to a stand before the house. The tumult of voices +raised all at once in different keys did not entirely drown the clash of +arms; and while she stood, sullenly regarding the door, and resigned to +the inevitable, whatever it might be, thin shafts of light pierced the +shutters and stabbed the gloom about her. + +With that a hail-storm of knocks fell on the door and on the shutters. A +dozen voices cried, "Open! Open!" The jangle of a halberd as its bearer +let the butt drop heavily on the stone steps added force to the summons. + +Anne's first impulse was to retreat upstairs, and leave them to do their +worst. Her next--she was in a state of collapse in which resistance +seemed useless--was to open. She moved to the door, and with cold hands +removed the huge bars and let down the chain. It was only when she had +done so much, when it remained only to unlock, that she wavered; that +she trembled to think on what the crowd might be bent, and what might be +her fate at their hands. She paused then, with her fingers on the key; +but not for long. She remembered that, before she descended, she had +heard neither shot nor cry. Resistance therefore had ceased, and that of +a single house, held by two helpless women, could avail nothing, could +but excite to fury and reprisals. + +She turned the key and opened. The lights dazzled her. The doorway, as +she stood faltering, almost fainting, before it, seemed to be full of +grotesque dancing faces, some swathed in bandages, others +powder-blackened, some hot with excitement, others pallid with fatigue. +They were such faces, piled one above the other, as are seen in bad +dreams. + +On the intruders' side, those who pressed in first saw a girl strangely +quiet, who held the door wide for them. "My mother is ill," she said in +a voice that strove for composure; if they were the enemy, her only +hope, her only safety, lay in courage. "And she is old," she continued. +"Do not harm her." + +"We come to do harm neither to you nor to her," a voice replied. And the +foremost of the troop, a thick dwarfish man with a huge two-handed +sword, stood aside. "Messer Baudichon," he said to one behind him, "this +is the daughter." + +She knew the fat, sturdy councillor--who in Geneva did not?--and through +her stupor she recognised him, although a great bandage swathed half his +head, and he was pale. And, beginning to have an inkling that things +were well, she began also to tremble. By his side stood Messer +Petitot--she knew him, too, he had been Syndic the year before--and a +man in hacked and blood-stained armour with his arm in a sling and his +face black with powder. These three, and behind them a dozen others--men +whom she had seen on high days robed in velvet, but who now wore, one +and all, the ugly marks of that night's work--looked on her with a +strange benevolence. And Baudichon took her hand. + +"We do not come to harm you," he said. "On the contrary we come to thank +you and yours. In the name of the city of Geneva, and of all those here +with me----" + +"Ay! Ay!" shouted Jehan Brosse, the tailor. And he rang his sword on the +doorstep. "Ay! Ay!" + +"We come to thank you for the blow struck this night from this house! +That it rid us of one of our worst foes was a small thing, girl. But +that it put heart into our burghers and strength into their arms at a +critical moment was another and a greater thing. Which shall not, if +Geneva stand--as stand by God's pleasure she shall, the stronger for +this night's work--be forgotten! The name of Mère Royaume will at the +next meeting of the Greater Council be inscribed among the names of +those whom the Free City thanks for their services this night!" + +A murmur of stern approval that began with those in the house rolled +through the doorway and was echoed by the waiting throng that filled the +street. + +She was weeping. All it meant, all it might mean, what warranty of +powerful friends, what fame beyond the reach of dark stories, or a +woman's spite, she could not yet understand, she could not yet +appreciate. But something, the city's safety, the city's gratitude, the +countenance of these men who came to her door blood-stained, dark with +smoke, reeling with fatigue--came that they might thank her mother and +do her honour--something of this she did grasp as she wept before them. + +She had but one thing to ask, to desire; and in a moment it was given +her. + +"Nor is that all!" The voice that broke in was harsher and blunter than +Baudichon's. "If it be true, as I am told, that a young man of the name +of Mercier lives here? He does, does he? Ay, he lives, my girl. He is +safe, have no fear. For the matter of that he has nine lives, +and"--Captain Blandano continued with an oath--"he has had need of all +this night, God forgive me for the word! But, as I said, that is not +all. For if there is any one man who has saved Geneva, it is he, the man +who let down the portcullis. And if the city does not dower you, my +girl----" + +"The city shall dower her!" The speaker's voice came from somewhere in +the neighbourhood of the doorway, and was something tremulous and +uncertain. But what it lacked in strength it made up in haste and +eagerness. "The city shall dower her! If not, I will!" + +"Good, Messer Blondel, and spoken like you!" Blandano answered heartily. +And though one or two of the foremost, on hearing Blondel's voice, +looked askance at one another, and here and there a whisper passed of +"The Syndic of the guard? How came----" the majority drowned such +murmurings under a chorus of applause. + +"We are of one mind, I think!" Baudichon said. And with that he turned +to the door. "Now, good friends," he continued, "it wants but little of +daylight, and some of us were best in our beds. Let us go. That we lie +down in peace and honour"--he went on, solemnly raising his hand over +the happy weeping girl beside him, as if he blessed her--"that our wives +and children lie safe within our walls is due, under God, to this roof. +And I call all here to witness that while I live the city of Geneva +shall never forget the debt that is due to this house and to the name of +Royaume!" + +"Ay, ay!" cried the bandy-legged tailor. "I too! The small with the +great, the rich with the poor, as we have fought this night!" + +"Ay! Ay!" + +Some shook her by the hand, and some called Heaven to bless her, and +some with tears running down their faces--for no man there was his +common everyday self--did naught but look on her with kindness. And so, +each having done after his fashion, they trooped out again into the +street. A moment later, as the winter sun began to colour the distant +snows, and the second Sunday in December of the year 1602 broke on +Geneva, the voices of the multitude rose in the one hundred and +twenty-fourth psalm; to the solemn thunder of which, poured from +thankful hearts, the assembly accompanied Baudichon to his home a little +farther down the Corraterie. + +Anne was about to close the door and secure it after them--with feelings +how different from those with which she had opened that door!--when it +resisted her shaking hands. She did not on the instant understand the +reason or what was the matter. She pushed more strongly, still it came +back on her, it opened widely and more widely. And then one who had +heard all, yet had not shown himself, one who had entered with +Baudichon's company, but had held himself hidden in the background, +pushed in, uninvited. + +Uninvited? The rushlight still burned low and smokily, and she had not +relighted the lamp. The corners were dark with shadows, the hearth was +cold and empty and ugly, the shutters still blinded the windows. But the +coming of this uninvited one--love comes ever unexpected and +uninvited--how strangely, how marvellously, how beautifully did it +change all for her, light all, fill all. + +As she felt his arms about her, as she clung to him, and sobbed on his +shoulder, as she strove for words and could not utter them for the +happiness of her heart, as she felt his kisses rain on her face in joy +and safety, who had not left her in sorrow, no, nor in the shadow of +death, nor for any fears of what man could do to him--let it be said +that her reward was as her trial. + +Madame Royaume lived four years after that famous attack on the Free +City of Geneva which is called the Escalade; and during that time she +experienced no return of the mysterious malady that came with one shock, +and passed from her with another. Nor, so far as can be ascertained at +the distant time at which I write, did the suspicions which the night of +the Escalade found in the bud survive it. Probably the Corraterie and +the neighbouring quarter, ay, and the whole city of Geneva, had for many +a week to come matter for gossip and to spare. It is certain, at any +rate, that whatever whispers were current in this house or that, no +tongue wagged openly against the favourites of the council, who were +also the favourites of the crowd. For Mère Royaume's act hit +marvellously the public fancy, and, passing from mouth to mouth, and +from generation to generation, is still the first, the best loved, and +the most picturesque of the legends of Geneva. + +And Messer Blondel? Did he evade the penalty of his act? Ask any man in +the streets of Geneva, even to-day, and he will tell you the fate of +Philibert Blondel, Fourth Syndic. He will tell you how the magistrate +triumphed for a time, as he had triumphed in the council before, how he +closed the mouths of his accusers, how not once, but twice and thrice, +by the sheer force and skill of a man working in a medium which he +understood, he won his acquittal from his compeers. But though +punishment be slow to overtake, it does overtake at last; nor has the +world witnessed many instances more pertinent or more famous than that +of Messer Blondel. Strive as he might, tongues would wag within the +council, and without. Silence as he might Baudichon and Petitot, smaller +men would talk; and their talk persisted and grew, and was vigorous when +months and even years had passed. What the great did not know the small +knew or guessed, and fixed greedy eyes on the head of the man who had +dared to sell Geneva. The end came four years after the Escalade. To +conceal the old negotiation he committed a further crime, and being +betrayed by the tool he employed was seized and convicted. On the 1st +September, 1606, he lost his head on a scaffold erected before his own +house in the Bourg du Four. + +The Merciers had at least one son--probably he was the eldest, for he +bore his father's name--who lived into middle life, and proved himself +their worthy descendant. For precisely fifty years after the date of +these events a poor woman of the name of Michée Chauderon was put to +death in Geneva, on a charge of sorcery; and among those--and they were +not few--who strove most manfully and most obstinately to save her, we +find the name of a physician of great note in the Canton at that +time--one Claude Mercier. He did not prevail, though he struggled +bravely; the long night of superstition, though nearing its close, still +reigned; that woman suffered. But he carried it so far and so boldly +that from that day to this--and the city may be proud of the fact--no +person has suffered death in Geneva on that dreadful charge. + + +THE END. + + +THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Long Night, by Stanley Weyman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONG NIGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 19485-8.txt or 19485-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/4/8/19485/ + +Produced by Stacy Brown, Dave Morgan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Long Night + +Author: Stanley Weyman + +Release Date: October 7, 2006 [EBook #19485] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONG NIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Stacy Brown, Dave Morgan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<h1>THE LONG NIGHT</h1> + +<h4 style="margin-top: 3em;">BY</h4> + +<h2>STANLEY WEYMAN</h2> +<h4>AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," ETC.</h4> + +<h4 style="margin-top: 2em;"><i>SECOND IMPRESSION</i></h4> + +<h3>LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.<br /> +39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON<br /> +AND BOMBAY<br /> +1903</h3> + +<table summary="works" class="bbox" style="margin-top: 2em;"><tbody> +<tr><td class="center" style="padding: 1em;"> +WORKS BY STANLEY WEYMAN.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">The House of the Wolf.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">The New Rector.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Story of Francis Cludde.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Gentleman of France.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Man in Black.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">Under the Red Robe.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">My Lady Rotha.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Red Cockade.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">Shrewsbury.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">Sophia.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Castle Inn.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">From the Memoirs of a Minister of France.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">Count Hannibal.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">In Kings' Byways.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Long Night.</span></td> +</tr></tbody></table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%; margin-top: 2em;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<table summary="contents"><tbody><tr> + +<td class="left">I.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Student of Theology</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">II.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The House on the Ramparts</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">III.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Quintessential Stone</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">IV.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Cæsar Basterga</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">V.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Elixir Vitæ</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">VI.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">To Take or Leave</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">VII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Second Tissot</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">VIII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">On the Threshold</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">IX.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Melusina</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">X.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Auctio Fit: Venit Vita</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XI.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">By This or That</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Cup and the Lip</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XIII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Mystery Solved</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XIV.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">"And Only One Dose in all the World!"</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XV.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">On the Bridge</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XVI.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Glove and What Came of It</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XVII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The <i>Remedium</i></span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XVIII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Bargain Struck</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XIX.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Departure of the Rats</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XX.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">In the Darkened Room</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XXI.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The <i>Remedium</i></span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XXII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Two Nails in the Wall</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_301">301</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XXIII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">In Two Characters</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_318">318</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XXIV.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Armes! Armes!</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_335">335</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XXV.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Basterga at Argos</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_350">350</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left">XXVI.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Dawn</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_365">365</a></td> +</tr></tbody></table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>A STUDENT OF THEOLOGY.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">They</span> were about to shut the Porte St. Gervais, the north gate of Geneva. +The sergeant of the gate had given his men the word to close; but at the +last moment, shading his eyes from the low light of the sun, he happened +to look along the dusty road which led to the Pays de Gex, and he bade +the men wait. Afar off a traveller could be seen hurrying two donkeys +towards the gate, with now a blow on this side, and now on that, and now +a shrill cry. The sergeant knew him for Jehan Brosse, the bandy-legged +tailor of the passage off the Corraterie, a sound burgher and a good man +whom it were a shame to exclude. Jehan had gone out that morning to +fetch his grapes from Möens; and the sergeant had pity on him.</p> + +<p>He waited, therefore; and presently he was sorry that he had waited. +Behind Jehan, a long way behind him, appeared a second wayfarer; a young +man covered with dust who approached rapidly on long legs, a bundle +jumping and bumping at his shoulders as he ran. The favour of the gate +was not for such as he—a stranger; and the sergeant anxious to bar, yet +unwilling to shut out Jehan, watched his progress with disgust. As he +feared, too, it turned out. Young legs caught up old ones: the stranger +overtook Jehan, overtook the donkeys. A moment, and he passed under the +arch abreast of them, a broad smile of acknowledgment on his heated +face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> He appeared to think that the gate had been kept open out of +kindness to him.</p> + +<p>And to be grateful. The war with Savoy—Italian Savoy which, like an +octopus, wreathed clutching arms about the free city of Geneva—had come +to an end some months before. But a State so small that the frontier of +its inveterate enemy lies but two short leagues from its gates, has need +of watch and ward, and curfews and the like, so that he was fortunate +who found the gates of Geneva open after sunset in that year, 1602; and +the stranger seemed to know this.</p> + +<p>As the great doors clanged together and two of the watch wound up the +creaking drawbridge, he turned to the sergeant, the smile still on his +face. "I feared that you would shut me out!" he panted, still holding +his sides. "I would not have given much for my chance of a bed a minute +ago."</p> + +<p>The sergeant answered only by a grunt.</p> + +<p>"If this good fellow had not been in front——"</p> + +<p>This time the sergeant cut him short with an imperious gesture, and the +young man seeing that the guard also had fallen stiffly into rank, +turned to the tailor. He was overflowing with good nature: he must speak +to some one. "If you had not been in front," he began, "I——"</p> + +<p>But the tailor also cut him short—frowning and laying his finger to his +lip and pointing mysteriously to the ground. The stranger stooped to +look more closely, but saw nothing: and it was only when the others +dropped on their knees that he understood the hint and hastened to +follow the example. The soldiers bent their heads while the sergeant +recited a prayer for the safety of the city. He did this reverently, +while the evening light—which fell grey between walls and sobered those +who had that moment left the open sky and the open country—cast its +solemn mantle about the party.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<p>Such was the pious usage observed in that age at the opening and the +closing of the gates of Geneva: nor had it yet sunk to a form. The +nearness of the frontier and the shadow of those clutching arms, ever +extended to smother the free State, gave a reality to the faith of those +who opened and shut, and with arms in their hands looked back on ten +years of constant warfare. Many a night during those ten years had +Geneva gazed from her watch-towers on burning farms and smouldering +homesteads; many a day seen the smoke of Chablais hamlets float a dark +trail across her lake. What wonder if, when none knew what a night might +bring forth, and the fury of Antwerp was still a new tale in men's ears, +the Genevese held Providence higher and His workings more near than men +are prone to hold them in happier times?</p> + +<p>Whether the stranger's reverent bearing during the prayer gained the +sergeant's favour, or the sword tied to his bundle and the bulging +corners of squat books which stuffed out the cloak gave a new notion of +his condition, it is certain that the officer eyed him more kindly when +all rose from their knees. "You can pass in now, young sir," he said +nodding. "But another time remember, if you please, the earlier here the +warmer welcome!"</p> + +<p>"I will bear it in mind," the young traveller answered, smiling. +"Perhaps you can tell me where I can get a night's lodging?"</p> + +<p>"You come to study, perhaps?" The sergeant puffed himself out as he +spoke, for the fame of Geneva's college and its great professor, +Theodore Beza, was a source of glory to all within the city walls. +Learning, too, was a thing in high repute in that day. The learned +tongues still lived and were passports opening all countries to +scholars. The names of Erasmus and Scaliger were still in the mouths of +men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," the youth answered, "and I have the name of a lodging in which I +hope to place myself. But for to-night it is late, and an inn were more +convenient."</p> + +<p>"Go then to the 'Bible and Hand,'" the sergeant answered. "It is a +decent house, as are all in Geneva. If you think to find here a +roistering, drinking, swearing tavern, such as you'd find in Dijon——"</p> + +<p>"I come to study, not to drink," the young man answered eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Well, the 'Bible and Hand,' then! It will answer your purpose well. +Cross the bridge and go straight on. It is in the Bourg du Four."</p> + +<p>The youth thanked him with a pleased air, and turning his back on the +gate proceeded briskly towards the heart of the city. Though it was not +Sunday the inhabitants were pouring out from the evening preaching as +plentifully as if it had been the first day of the week; and as he +scanned their grave and thoughtful faces—faces not seldom touched with +sternness or the scars of war—as he passed between the gabled +steep-roofed houses and marked their order and cleanliness, as he saw +above him and above them the two great towers of the cathedral, he felt +a youthful fervour and an enthusiasm not to be comprehended in our age.</p> + +<p>To many of us the name and memory of Geneva stand for anything but +freedom. But to the Huguenot of that generation and day, the name of +Geneva stood for freedom; for a fighting aggressive freedom, a full +freedom in the State, a sober measured freedom in the Church. The city +was the outpost, southwards, of the Reformed religion and the Reformed +learning; it sowed its ministers over half Europe, and where they went, +they spread abroad not only its doctrines but its praise and its honour. +If, even to the men of that day there appeared at times a something too +stiff in its attitude, a something too near<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> the Papal in its decrees, +they knew with what foes and against what odds it fought, and how little +consistent with the ferocity of that struggle were the compromises of +life or the courtesies of the lists.</p> + +<p>At any rate, in some such colours as these, framed in such a halo, +Claude Mercier saw the Free City as he walked its narrow streets that +evening, seeking the "Bible and Hand". In some such colours had his +father, bred under Calvin to the ministry, depicted it: and the young +man, half French, half Vaudois, sought nothing better, set nothing +higher, than to form a part of its life, and eventually to contribute to +its fame. Good intentions and honest hopes tumbled over one another in +his brain as he walked. The ardour of a new life, to be begun this day, +possessed him. He saw all things through the pure atmosphere of his own +happy nature: and if it remained to him to discover how Geneva would +stand the test of a closer intimacy, at this moment, the youth took the +city to his heart with no jot of misgiving. To follow in the steps of +Theodore Beza, a Frenchman like himself and gently bred, to devote +himself, in these surroundings to the Bible and the Sword, and find in +them salvation for himself and help for others—this seemed an end +simple and sufficing: the end too, which all men in Geneva appeared to +him to be pursuing that summer evening.</p> + +<p>By-and-by a grave citizen, a psalm-book in his hand, directed him to the +inn in the Bourg du Four; a tall house turning the carved ends of two +steep gables to the street. On either side of the porch a long low +casement suggested the comfort that was to be found within; nor was the +pledge unfulfilled. In a trice the student found himself seated at a +shining table before a simple meal and a flagon of cool white wine with +a sprig of green floating on the surface. His companions were two +merchants of Lyons, a vintner of Dijon, and a taciturn,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> soberly clad +professor. The four elders talked gravely of the late war, of the +prevalence of drunkenness in Zurich, of a sad case of witchcraft at +Basle, and of the state of trade in Lausanne and the Pays de Vaud; while +the student, listening with respect, contrasted the quietude of this +house, looking on the grey evening street, with the bustle and chatter +and buffoonery of the inns at which he had lain on his way from +Chatillon. He was in a mood to appraise at the highest all about him, +from the demure maid who served them to the cloaked burghers who from +time to time passed the window wrapped in meditation. From a house hard +by the sound of the evening psalms came to his ears. There are moods and +places in which to be good seems of the easiest; to err, a thing +well-nigh impossible.</p> + +<p>The professor was the first to rise and retire; on which the two +merchants drew up their seats to the table with an air of relief. The +vintner looked after the retreating figure. "Of Lausanne, I should +judge?" he said, with a jerk of the elbow.</p> + +<p>"Probably," one of the others answered.</p> + +<p>"Is he not of Geneva, then?" our student asked. He had listened with +interest to the professor's talk and between whiles had wondered if it +would be his lot to sit under him.</p> + +<p>"No, or he would not be here!" one of the merchants replied, shrugging +his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Why not, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" The merchant fixed the questioner with eyes of surprise. +"Don't you know, young man, that those who live in Geneva may not +frequent Geneva taverns?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed?" Mercier answered, somewhat startled. "Is that so?"</p> + +<p>"It is very much so," the other returned with something of a sneer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And they do not!" quoth the vintner with a faint smile.</p> + +<p>"Well, professors do not!" the merchant answered with a grimace. "I say +nothing of others. Let the Venerable Company of Pastors see to it. It is +their business."</p> + +<p>At this point the host brought in lights. After closing the shutters he +was in the act of retiring when a door near at hand—on the farther side +of the passage if the sound could be trusted—flew open with a clatter. +Its opening let out a burst of laughter, nor was that the worst: alas, +above the laughter rang an oath—the ribald word of some one who had +caught his foot in the step.</p> + +<p>The landlord uttered an exclamation and went out hurriedly, closing the +door behind him. A moment and his voice could be heard, scolding and +persuading in the passage.</p> + +<p>"Umph!" the vintner muttered, looking from one to the other with a +humorous eye. "It seems to me that the Venerable Company of Pastors have +not yet expelled the old Adam."</p> + +<p>Open flew the door and cut short the word. But it had been heard, +"Pastors?" a raucous voice cried. "Passers and Flinchers is what I call +them!" And a stout heavy man, whose small pointed grey beard did but +emphasise the coarse virility of the face above it, appeared on the +threshold, glaring at the four. "Pastors?" he repeated defiantly. +"Passers and Flinchers, I say!"</p> + +<p>"In Heaven's name, Messer Grio!" the landlord protested, hovering at his +shoulder, "these are strangers——"</p> + +<p>"Strangers? Ay, and flinchers, they too!" the intruder retorted, +heedless of the remonstrance. And he lurched into the room, a bulky, +reeling figure in stained green and tarnished lace. "Four flinchers! But +I'll make them drink a cup with me or I'll prick their hides! Do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> you +think we shed blood for you and are to be stinted of our liquor!"</p> + +<p>"Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" the landlord cried, wringing his hands. "You +will be my ruin!"</p> + +<p>"No fear!"</p> + +<p>"But I do fear!" the host retorted sharply, going so far as to lay a +hand on his shoulder. "I do fear." Behind the man in green his +boon-fellows, flushed with drink, had gathered, and were staring half +curious, half in alarm into the room. The landlord turned and appealed +to them. "For Heaven's sake get him away quietly!" he muttered. "I shall +lose my living if this be known. And you will suffer too! Gentlemen," he +turned to the party at the table, "this is a quiet house, a quiet house +in general, but——"</p> + +<p>"Tut-tut!" said the vintner good-naturedly. "We'll drink a cup with the +gentleman if he wishes it!"</p> + +<p>"You'll drink or be pricked!" quoth Messer Grio; he was one of those who +grow offensive in their cups. And while his friends laughed, he swished +out a sword of huge length, and flourished it. "Ça! Ça! Now let me see +any man refuse his liquor!"</p> + +<p>The landlord groaned, but thinking apparently that soonest broken was +soonest mended, he vanished, to return in a marvellously short space of +time with four tall glasses and a flask of Neuchatel. "'Tis good wine," +he muttered anxiously. "Good wine, gentlemen, I warrant you. And Messer +Grio here has served the State, so that some little indulgence——"</p> + +<p>"What art muttering?" cried the bully, who spoke French with an accent +new and strange in the student's ears. "Let be! Let be, I say! Let them +drink, or be pricked!"</p> + +<p>The merchants and the vintner took their glasses without demur: and, +perhaps, though they shrugged their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> shoulders, were as willing as they +looked. The young man hesitated, took with a curling lip the glass which +was presented to him, and then, a blush rising to his eyes, pushed it +from him.</p> + +<p>"'Tis good wine," the landlord repeated. "And no charge. Drink, young +sir, and——"</p> + +<p>"I drink not on compulsion!" the student answered.</p> + +<p>Messer Grio stared. "What?" he roared. "You——"</p> + +<p>"I drink not on compulsion," the young man repeated, and this time he +spoke clearly and firmly. "Had the gentleman asked me courteously to +drink with him, that were another matter. But——"</p> + +<p>"Sho!" the vintner muttered, nudging him in pure kindness. "Drink, man, +and a fico for his courtesy so the wine be old! When the drink is in, +the sense is out, and," lowering his voice, "he'll let you blood to a +certainty, if you will not humour him."</p> + +<p>But the grinning faces in the doorway hardened the student in his +resolution. "I drink not on compulsion," he repeated stubbornly. And he +rose from his seat.</p> + +<p>"You drink not?" Grio exclaimed. "You drink not? Then by the living——"</p> + +<p>"For Heaven's sake!" the landlord cried, and threw himself between them. +"Messer Grio! Gentlemen!"</p> + +<p>But the bully, drunk and wilful, twitched him aside. "Under compulsion, +eh!" he sneered. "You drink not under compulsion, don't you, my lad? Let +me tell you," he continued with ferocity, "you will drink when I please, +and where I please, and as often as I please, and as much as I please, +you meal-worm! You half-weaned puppy! Take that glass, d'you hear, and +say after me, Devil take——"</p> + +<p>"Messer Grio!" cried the horrified landlord.</p> + +<p>"Devil take"—for a moment a hiccough gave him pause—"all flinchers! +Take the glass, young man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> That is well! I see you will come to it! Now +say after me, Devil take——"</p> + +<p>"That!" the student retorted, and flung the wine in the bully's face.</p> + +<p>The landlord shrieked; the other guests rose hurriedly from their seats, +and got aside. Fortunately the wine blinded the man for a moment, and he +recoiled, spitting curses and darting his sword hither and thither in +impotent rage. By the time he had cleared his eyes the youth had got to +his bundle, and, freeing his blade, placed himself in a posture of +defence. His face was pale, but with the pallor of excitement rather +than of fear; and the firm set of his mouth and the smouldering fire in +his eyes as he confronted the drunken bravo, no less than the manner in +which he handled his weapon, showed him as ready to pursue as he had +been hardy to undertake the quarrel.</p> + +<p>He gave proof of forethought, too. "Witness all, he drew first!" he +cried; and his glance quitting Grio for the briefest instant sought to +meet the merchants' eyes. "I am on my defence. I call all here to +witness that he has thrust this quarrel upon me!"</p> + +<p>The landlord wrung his hands. "Oh dear! oh dear!" he cried. "In Heaven's +name, gentlemen, put up! put up! Stop them! Will no one stop them!" And +in despair, seeing no one move to arrest them, he made as if he would +stand between them.</p> + +<p>But the bully flourished his blade about his ears, and with a cry the +goodman saved himself "Out, skinker!" Grio cried grimly. "And you, say +your prayers, puppy. Before you are five minutes older I will spit you +like a partridge though I cross the frontier for it. You have basted me +with wine! I will baste you after another fashion! On guard! On guard, +and——"</p> + +<p>"<i>What is this?</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<p>The voice stayed Grio's tongue and checked his foot in the very instant +of assault. The student, watching his blade and awaiting the attack, was +surprised to see his point waver and drop. Was it a trick, he wondered? +A stratagem? No, for a silence fell on the room, while those who held +the floor hastened to efface themselves against the wall, as if they at +any rate had nothing to do with the fracas. And next moment Grio +shrugged his shoulders, and with a half-stifled curse stood back.</p> + +<p>"What is this?"</p> + +<p>The same question in the same tone. This time the student saw whose +voice it was had stayed Grio's arm. Within the door a pace in front of +two or three attendants, who had displaced the roisterers on the +threshold, appeared a spare dry-looking man of middle height, wearing +his hat, and displaying a gold chain of office across the breast of his +black velvet cloak. In age about sixty, he had nothing that at a first +glance seemed to call for a second: his small pinched features, and the +downward curl of the lip, which his moustache and clipped beard failed +to hide, indicated a nature peevish and severe rather than powerful. On +nearer observation the restless eyes, keen and piercing, asserted +themselves and redeemed the face from insignificance. When, as on this +occasion, their glances were supported by the terrors of the State, it +was not difficult to understand why Messer Blondel, the Syndic, though +no great man to look upon, had both weight with the masses, and a hold +not to be denied over his colleagues in the Council.</p> + +<p>No one took on himself to answer the question he had put, and in a voice +thin and querulous, but with a lurking venom in its tone, "What is +this?" the great man repeated, looking from one to another. "Are we in +Geneva, or in Venice? Under the skirts of the scarlet woman, or where +the magistrates bear not the sword in vain?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> Good Mr. Landlord, are +these your professions? Your bailmen should sleep ill to-night, for they +are likely to answer roundly for this! And whom have we sparking it +here? Brawling and swearing and turning into a profligate's tavern a +place that should be for the sober entertainment of travellers? Whom +have we here—eh! Let me see them! Ah!"</p> + +<p>He paused rather suddenly, as his eyes met Grio's: and a little of his +dignity fell from him with the pause. His manner underwent a subtle +change from the judicial to the paternal. When he resumed, he wagged his +head tolerantly, and a modicum of sorrow mingled with his anger. "Ah, +Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" he said, "it is you, is it? For shame! For +shame! This is sad, this is lamentable! Some indulgence, it is true"—he +coughed—"may be due after late events, and to certain who have borne +part in them. But this goes too far! Too far by a long way!"</p> + +<p>"It was not I began it!" the bully muttered sullenly, a mixture of +bravado and apology in his bearing. He sheathed his blade, and thrust +the long scabbard behind him. "He threw a glass of wine in my face, +Syndic—that is the truth. Is an old soldier who has shed blood for +Geneva to swallow that, and give God thanks?"</p> + +<p>The Syndic turned to the student, and licked his lips, his features more +pinched than usual. "Are these your manners?" he said. "If so, they are +not the manners of Geneva! Your name, young man, and your dwelling +place?"</p> + +<p>"My name is Claude Mercier, last from Chatillon in Burgundy," the young +man answered firmly. "For the rest, I did no otherwise than you, sir, +must have done in my case!"</p> + +<p>The magistrate snorted. "I!"</p> + +<p>"Being treated as I was!" the young man protested.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> "He would have me +drink whether I would or no! And in terms no man of honour could bear."</p> + +<p>"Honour?" the Syndic retorted, and on the word exploded in great wrath. +"Honour, say you? Then I know who is in fault. When men of your race +talk of honour 'tis easy to saddle the horse. I will teach you that we +know naught of honour in Geneva, but only of service! And naught of +punctilios but much of modest behaviour! It is such hot blood as yours +that is at the root of brawlings and disorders and such-like, to the +scandal of the community: and to cool it I will commit you to the town +jail until to-morrow! Convey him thither," he continued, turning sharply +to his followers, "and see him safely bestowed in the stocks. To-morrow +I will hear if he be penitent, and perhaps, if he be in a cooler +temper——"</p> + +<p>But the young man, aghast at this sudden disgrace, could be silent no +longer. "But, sir," he broke in passionately, "I had no choice. It was +no quarrel of my beginning. I did but refuse to drink, and when he——"</p> + +<p>"Silence, sirrah!" the Syndic cried, and cut him short. "You will do +well to be quiet!" And he was turning to bid his people bear their +prisoner out without more ado when one of the merchants ventured to put +in a word.</p> + +<p>"May I say," he interposed timidly, "that until this happened, Messer +Blondel, the young man's conduct was all that could be desired?"</p> + +<p>"Are you of his company?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Then best keep out of it!" the magistrate retorted sharply.</p> + +<p>"And you," to his followers, "did you hear me? Away with him!"</p> + +<p>But as the men advanced to execute the order, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> young man stepped +forward. "One moment!" he said. "A moment only, sir. I caught the name +of Blondel. Am I speaking to Messer Philibert Blondel?"</p> + +<p>The Syndic nodded ungraciously. "Yes," he said, "I am he. What of it?"</p> + +<p>"Only this, that I have a letter for him," the student answered, groping +with trembling fingers in his pouch. "From my uncle, the Sieur de +Beauvais of Nocle, by Dijon."</p> + +<p>"The Sieur de Beauvais?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"He is your uncle?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"So! Well, I remember now," Blondel continued, nodding. "His name was +Mercier. Certainly, it was. Well, give me the letter." His tone was +still harsh, but it was not the same; and when he had broken the seal +and read the letter—with a look half contemptuous, half uneasy—his +brow cleared a little. "It were well young people knew better what +became them," he cried, peevishly shrugging his shoulders. "It would +save us all a great deal. However, for this time as you are a stranger +and well credited, I find, you may go. But let it be a lesson to you, do +you hear? Let it be a lesson to you, young man. Geneva," pompously, "is +no place for brawling, and if you come hither for that, you will quickly +find yourself behind bars. See that you go to a fit lodging to-morrow, +and do you, Mr. Landlord, have a care that he leaves you."</p> + +<p>The young man's heart was full, but he had the wisdom to keep his temper +and to say no more. The Syndic on his part was glad, on second thoughts, +to be free of the matter. He was turning to go when it seemed to strike +him that he owed something more to the bearer of the letter. He turned +back. "Yes," he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> said, "I had forgotten. This week I am busy. But next +week, on some convenient day, come to me, young sir, and I may be able +to give you a word of advice. In the forenoon will be best. Until +then—see to your behaviour!"</p> + +<p>The young man bowed and waited, standing where he was, until the bustle +attending the Syndic's departure had quite died away. Then he turned. +"Now, Messer Grio," he said briskly, "for my part I am ready."</p> + +<p>But Messer Grio had slipped away some minutes before.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>THE HOUSE ON THE RAMPARTS.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> affair at the inn which had threatened to turn out so unpleasantly +for our hero, should have gone some way towards destroying the illusions +with which he had entered Geneva. But faith is strong in the young, and +hope stronger. The traditions of his boyhood and his fireside, and the +stories, animate with affection for the cradle of the faith, to which he +had listened at his father's knee, were not to be over-ridden by the +shadow of an injustice, which in the end had not fallen. When the young +man went abroad next morning and viewed the tall towers of St. Peter, of +which his father had spoken—when, from those walls which had defied +through so many months the daily and nightly threats of an ever-present +enemy, he looked on the sites of conflicts still famous and on +farmsteads but half risen from their ruins—when, above all, he +remembered for what those walls stood, and that here, on the borders of +the blue lake, and within sight of the glittering peaks which charmed +his eyes—if in any one place in Europe—the battle of knowledge and +freedom had been fought, and the rule of the monk and the Inquisitor +cast down, his old enthusiasm revived. He thirsted for fresh conflicts, +for new occasions: and it is to be feared dreamt more of the Sword than +of the sacred Book, which he had come to study, and which, in Geneva, +went hand in hand with it.</p> + +<p>In the fervour of such thoughts and in the multitude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> of new interests +which opened before him, he had well-nigh forgotten the Syndic's tyranny +before he had walked a mile: nor might he have given a second thought to +it but for the need which lay upon him of finding a new lodging before +night. In pursuit of this he presently took his way to the Corraterie, a +row of gabled houses, at the western end of the High Town, built within +the ramparts, and enjoying over them a view of the open country, and the +Jura. The houses ran for some distance parallel with the rampart, then +retired inwards, and again came down to it; in this way enclosing a +triangular open space or terrace. They formed of themselves an inner +line of defence, pierced at the point farthest from the rampart by the +Porte Tertasse: a gate it is true, which was often open even at night, +for the wall in front of the Corraterie, though low on the town side, +looked down from a great height on the ditch and the low meadows that +fringed the Rhone. Trees planted along the rampart shaded the triangular +space, and made it a favourite lounge from which the inhabitants of that +quarter of the town could view the mountains and the sunset while +tasting the freshness of the evening air.</p> + +<p>A score of times had Claude Mercier listened to a description of this +row of lofty houses dominating the ramparts. Now he saw it, and, charmed +by the position and the aspect, he trembled lest he should fail to +secure a lodging in the house which had sheltered his father's youth. +Heedless of the suspicious glances shot at him by the watch at the Porte +Tertasse, he consulted the rough plan which his father had made for +him—consulted it rather to assure himself against error than because he +felt doubt. The precaution taken, he made for a house a little to the +right of the Tertasse gate as one looks to the country. He mounted by +four steep steps to the door and knocked on it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was opened so quickly as to disconcert him. A lanky youth about his +own age bounced out and confronted him. The lad wore a cap and carried +two or three books under his arm as if he had been starting forth when +the summons came. The two gazed at one another a moment: then, "Does +Madame Royaume live here?" Claude asked.</p> + +<p>The other, who had light hair and light eyes, said curtly that she did.</p> + +<p>"Do you know if she has a vacant room?" Mercier asked timidly.</p> + +<p>"She will have one to-night!" the youth answered with temper in his +tone: and he dashed down the steps and went off along the street without +ceremony or explanation. Viewed from behind he had a thin neck which +agreed well with a small retreating chin.</p> + +<p>The door remained open, and after hesitating a moment Claude tapped once +and again with his foot. Receiving no answer he ventured over the +threshold, and found himself in the living-room of the house. It was +cool, spacious and well-ordered. On the left of the entrance a wooden +settle flanked a wide fireplace, in front of which stood a small heavy +table. Another table a little bigger occupied the middle of the room; in +one corner the boarded-up stairs leading to the higher floors bulked +largely. Two or three dark prints—one a portrait of Calvin—with a +framed copy of the Geneva catechism, and a small shelf of books, took +something from the plainness and added something to the comfort of the +apartment, which boasted besides a couple of old oaken dressers, highly +polished and gleaming, with long rows of pewter ware. Two doors stood +opposite the entrance and appeared to lead—for one of them stood +open—to a couple of closets: bedrooms they could hardly be called, yet +in one of them Claude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> knew that his father had slept. And his heart +warmed to it.</p> + +<p>The house was still; the room was somewhat dark, for the windows were +low and long, strongly barred, and shaded by the trees, through the cool +greenery of which the light filtered in. The young man stood a moment, +and hearing no footstep or movement wondered what he should do. At +length he ventured to the door of the staircase and, opening it, +coughed. Still no one answered or came, and unwilling to intrude farther +he turned about and waited on the hearth. In a corner behind the settle +he noticed two half pikes and a long-handled sword; on the seat of the +settle itself lay a thin folio bound in stained sheepskin. A log +smouldered on the hearth, and below the great black pot which hung over +it two or three pans and pipkins sat deep among the white ashes. Save +for these there was no sign in the room of a woman's hand or use. And he +wondered. Certainly the young man who had departed so hurriedly had said +it was Madame Royaume's. There could be no mistake.</p> + +<p>Well, he would go and come again. But even as he formed the resolution, +and turned towards the outer door—which he had left open—he heard a +faint sound above, a step light but slow. It seemed to start from the +uppermost floor of all, so long was it in descending; so long was it +before, waiting on the hearth cap in hand, he saw a shadow darken the +line below the staircase door. A second later the door opened and a +young girl entered and closed it behind her. She did not see him; +unconscious of his presence she crossed the floor and shut the outer +door.</p> + +<p>There was a something in her bearing which went to the heart of the +young man who stood and saw her for the first time; a depression, a +dejection, an I know not what, so much at odds with her youth and her +slender<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> grace, that it scarcely needed the sigh with which she turned +to draw him a pace nearer. As he moved their eyes met. She, who had not +known of his presence, recoiled with a low cry and stared wide-eyed: he +began hurriedly to speak.</p> + +<p>"I am the son of M. Gaston Mercier, of Chatillon," he said, "who lodged +here formerly. At least," he stammered, beginning to doubt, "if this be +the house of Madame Royaume, he lodged here. A young man who met me at +the door said that Madame lived here, and had a room."</p> + +<p>"He admitted you? The young man who went out?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>She gazed hard at him a moment, as if she doubted or suspected him. +Then, "We have no room," she said.</p> + +<p>"But you will have one to-night," he answered</p> + +<p>"I do not know."</p> + +<p>"But—but from what he said," Claude persisted doggedly, "he meant that +his own room would be vacant, I think."</p> + +<p>"It may be," she answered dully, the heaviness which surprise had lifted +for a moment settling on her afresh. "But we shall take no new lodgers. +Presently you would go," with a cold smile, "as he goes to-day."</p> + +<p>"My father lodged here three years," Claude answered, raising his head +with pride. "He did not go until he returned to France. I ask nothing +better than to lodge where my father lodged. Madame Royaume will know my +name. When she hears that I am the son of M. Gaston Mercier, who often +speaks of her——"</p> + +<p>"He fell sick here, I think?" the girl said. She scanned him anew with +the first show of interest that had escaped her. Yet reluctantly, it +seemed; with a kind of ungraciousness hard to explain.</p> + +<p>"He had the plague in the year M. Chausse, the pastor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> of St. Gervais, +died of it," Claude answered eagerly. "When it was so bad. And Madame +nursed him and saved his life. He often speaks of it and of Madame with +gratitude. If Madame Royaume would see me?"</p> + +<p>"It is useless," she answered with an impatient shrug. "Quite useless, +sir. I tell you we have no room. And—I wish you good-morning." On the +word she turned from him with a curt gesture of dismissal, and kneeling +beside the embers began to occupy herself with the cooking pots; +stirring one and tasting another, and raising a third a little aslant at +the level of her eyes that she might peer into it the better. He +lingered, watching her, expecting her to turn. But when she had skimmed +the last jar and set it back, and screwed it down among the embers, she +remained on her knees, staring absently at a thin flame which had sprung +up under the black pot. She had forgotten his presence, forgotten him +utterly; forgotten him, he judged, in thoughts as deep and gloomy as the +wide dark cavern of chimney which yawned above her head and dwarfed the +slight figure kneeling Cinderella-like among the ashes.</p> + +<p>Claude Mercier looked and looked, and wondered, and at last longed: +longed to comfort, to cherish, to draw to himself and shelter the +budding womanhood before him, so fragile now, so full of promise for the +future. And quick as the flame had sprung up under her breath, a magic +flame awoke in his heart, and burned high and hot. If he did not lodge +here,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The sky might fall, fish fly, and sheep pursue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tawny monarch of the Libyan strand!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But he would lodge here. He coughed.</p> + +<p>She started and turned, and seeing him, seeing that he had not gone, she +rose with a frown. "What is it?" she said. "For what are you waiting, +sir?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I have something in charge for Madame Royaume," he answered.</p> + +<p>"I will give it her," she returned sharply. "Why did you not say so at +once?" And she held out her hand.</p> + +<p>"No," he said hardily. "I have it in charge for her hand only."</p> + +<p>"I am her daughter."</p> + +<p>He shook his head stubbornly.</p> + +<p>What she would have done on that—her face was hard and promised +nothing—is uncertain. Fortunately for the young man's hopes, a dull +report as of a stick striking the floor in some room above reached their +ears; he saw her eyes flicker, alter, grow soft. "Wait!" she said +imperiously; and stooping to take one of the pipkins from the fire, she +poured its contents into a wooden bowl which stood beside her on the +table. She added a horn-spoon and a pinch of salt, fetched a slice of +coarse bread from a cupboard in one of the dressers, and taking all in +skilled steady hands, hands childishly small, though brown as nuts, she +disappeared through the door of the staircase.</p> + +<p>He waited, looking about the room, and at this, and at that, with a new +interest. He took up the book which lay on the settle: it was a learned +volume, part of the works of Paracelsus, with strange figures and +diagrams interwoven with the crabbed Latin text. A passage which he +deciphered, abashed him by its profundity, and he laid the book down, +and went from one to another of the black-framed engravings; from these +to an oval piece in coarse Limoges enamel, which hung over the little +shelf of books. At length he heard a step descending from the upper +floors, and presently she appeared in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"My mother will see you," she said, her tone as ungracious as her look. +"But you will say nothing of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> lodging here, if it please you. Do you +hear?" she added, her voice rising to a more imperious note.</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>She turned on the lowest step. "She is bed-ridden," she muttered, as if +she felt the need of explanation. "She is not to be disturbed with house +matters, or who comes or goes. You understand that, do you?"</p> + +<p>He nodded, with a mental reservation, and followed her up the confined +staircase. Turning sharply at the head of the first flight he saw before +him a long narrow passage, lighted by a window that looked to the back. +On the left of the passage which led to a second set of stairs, were two +doors, one near the head of the lower flight, the other at the foot of +the second. She led him past both—they were closed—and up the second +stairs and into a room under the tiles, a room of good size but with a +roof which sloped in unexpected places.</p> + +<p>A woman lay there, not uncomely; rather comely with the beauty of +advancing years, though weak and frail if not ill. It was the woman of +whom he had so often heard his father speak with gratitude and respect. +It was neither of his father, however, nor of her, that Claude Mercier +thought as he stood holding Madame Royaume's hand and looking down at +her. For the girl who had gone before him into the room had passed to +the other side of the bed, and the glance which she and her mother +exchanged as the daughter leant over the couch, the message of love and +protection on one side, of love and confidence on the other—that +message and the tone, wondrous gentle, in which the girl, so curt and +abrupt below, named him—these revealed a bond and an affection for +which the life of his own family furnished him with no precedent.</p> + +<p>For his mother had many children, and his father still lived. But these +two, his heart told him as he held<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> Madame Royaume's shrivelled hand in +his, were alone. They had each but the other, and lived each in the +other, in this room under the tiles with the deep-set dormer windows +that looked across the Pays de Gex to the Jura. For how much that +prospect of vale and mountain stood in their lives, how often they rose +to it from the same bed, how often looked at it in sunshine and shadow +with the house still and quiet below them, he seemed to know—to guess. +He had a swift mental vision of their lives, and then Madame Royaume's +voice recalled him to himself.</p> + +<p>"You are newly come to Geneva?" she said, gazing at him.</p> + +<p>"I arrived yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, of course," she answered. She spoke quickly and nervously. +"Yes, you told me so." And she turned to her daughter and laid her hand +on hers as if she talked more easily so. "Your father, Monsieur +Mercier," with an obvious effort, "is well, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly, and he begged me to convey his grateful remembrances. Those +of my mother also," the young man added warmly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he was a good man! I remember when, when he was ill, and M. +Chausse—the pastor, you know"—the reminiscence appeared to agitate +her—"was ill also——"</p> + +<p>The girl leant over her quickly. "Monsieur Mercier has brought something +for you, mother," she said.</p> + +<p>"Ah?"</p> + +<p>"His grateful remembrances and this letter," Claude murmured with a +blush. He knew that the letter contained no more than he had already +said; compliments, and the hope that Madame Royaume might be able to +receive the son as she had received the father.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" Madame Royaume repeated, taking the letter with fingers that shook +a little.</p> + +<p>"You shall read it when Monsieur Mercier is gone,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> her daughter said. +With that she looked across at the young man. Her eyes commanded him to +take his leave.</p> + +<p>But he was resolute. "My father expresses the hope," he said, "that you +will grant me the same privilege of living under your roof, Madame, +which was so highly prized by him."</p> + +<p>"Of course, of course," she answered eagerly, her eyes lighting up. "I +am not myself, sir, able to overlook the house—but, Anne, you will see +to—to this being done?"</p> + +<p>"My dear mother, we have no room!" the girl replied; and stooping, hid +her face while she whispered in her mother's ear. Then aloud, "We are so +full, so—it goes so well," she continued gaily. "We never have any +room. I am sure, sir,"—again she faced him across the bed—"it is a +disappointment to my mother, but it cannot be helped."</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear, it is unfortunate!" Madame Royaume exclaimed; and then with +a fond look at her daughter, "Anne manages so well!"</p> + +<p>"Yet if there be a room at any time vacant?"</p> + +<p>"You shall assuredly have it."</p> + +<p>"But, mother dear," the girl cried, "M. Grio and M. Basterga are +permanent on the floor below. And Esau and Louis are now with us, and +have but just entered on their course at college. And you know," she +continued softly, "no one ever leaves your house before they are obliged +to leave it, mother dear!"</p> + +<p>The mother patted the daughter's hand. "No," she said proudly. "It is +true. And we cannot turn any one away. And yet," looking up at Anne, +"the son of Messer Mercier? You do not think—do you think that we could +put him——"</p> + +<p>"A closet however small!" Claude cried.</p> + +<p>"Unfortunately the room beyond this can only be entered through this +one."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is out of the question!" the girl responded quickly; and for the +first time her tone rang a little hard. The next instant she seemed to +repent of her petulance; she stooped and kissed the thin face sunk in +the pillow's softness. Then, rising, "I am sorry," she continued stiffly +and decidedly. "But it is impossible!"</p> + +<p>"Still—if a vacancy should occur?" he pleaded.</p> + +<p>Her eyes met his defiantly. "We will inform you," she said.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he answered humbly. "Perhaps I am fatiguing your mother?"</p> + +<p>"I think you are a little tired, dear," the girl said, stooping over +her. "A little fatigues you."</p> + +<p>Madame's cheeks were flushed; her eyes shone brightly, even feverishly. +Claude saw this, and having pushed his plea and his suit as far as he +dared, he hastened to take his leave. His thoughts had been busy with +his chances all the time, his eyes with the woman's face; yet he bore +away with him a curiously vivid picture of the room, of the bow-pot +blooming in the farther dormer, of the brass skillet beside the green +boughs which filled the hearth, of the spinning wheel in the middle of +the floor, and the great Bible on the linen chest beside the bed, of the +sloping roof, and a queer triangular cupboard which filled one corner.</p> + +<p>At the time, as he followed the girl downstairs, he thought of none of +these things. He only asked himself what mystery lay in the bosom of +this quiet house, and what he should say when he stood in the room below +at bay before her. Of one thing he was still sure—sure, ay and surer, +since he had seen her with her mother,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The sky might fall, fish fly, and sheep pursue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tawny monarch of the Libyan strand!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>but he lodged here. The mention of his adversary of last night, which +had not escaped his ear, had only hardened him in his resolution. The +room of Esau—or was it Louis' room—must be his! He must be Jacob the +Supplanter.</p> + +<p>She did not speak as she preceded him down the stairs, and before they +emerged one after the other into the living-room, which was still +unoccupied, he had formed his plan. When she moved towards the outer +door to open it he refused to follow: he stood still. "Pardon me," he +said, "would you mind giving me the name of the young man who admitted +me?"</p> + +<p>"I do not see——"</p> + +<p>"I only want his name."</p> + +<p>"Esau Tissot."</p> + +<p>"And his room? Which was it?"</p> + +<p>Grudgingly she pointed to the nearer of the two closets, that of which +the door stood open.</p> + +<p>"That one?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He stepped quickly into it, and surveyed it carefully. Then he laid his +cap on the low truckle-bed. "Very good," he said, raising his voice and +speaking through the open door, "I will take it." And he came out again.</p> + +<p>The girl's eyes sparkled. "If you think," she cried, her temper showing +in her face, "that that will do you any good——"</p> + +<p>"I don't think," he said, cutting her short, "I take it. Your mother +undertook that I should have the first vacant room. Tissot resigned this +room this morning. I take it. I consider myself fortunate—most +fortunate."</p> + +<p>Her colour came and went. "If you were a boor," she cried, "you could +not behave worse!"</p> + +<p>"Then I am a boor!"</p> + +<p>"But you will find," she continued, "that you cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> force your way +into a house like this. You will find that such things are not done in +Geneva. I will have you put out!"</p> + +<p>"Why?" he asked, craftily resorting to argument. "When I ask only to +remain and be quiet? Why, when you have, or to-night will have, an empty +room? Why, when you lodged Tissot, will you not lodge me? In what am I +worse than Tissot or Grio," he continued, "or—I forget the other's +name? Have I the plague, or the falling sickness? Am I Papist or Arian? +What have I done that I may not lie in Geneva, may not lie in your +house? Tell me, give me a reason, show me the cause, and I will go."</p> + +<p>Her anger had died down while he spoke and while she listened. Instead, +the lowness of heart to which she had yielded when she thought herself +alone before the hearth showed in every line of her figure. "You do not +know what you are doing," she said sadly. And she turned and looked +through the casement. "You do not know what you are asking, or to what +you are coming."</p> + +<p>"Did Tissot know when he came?"</p> + +<p>"You are not Tissot," she answered in a low tone, "and may fare worse."</p> + +<p>"Or better," he answered gaily. "And at worst——"</p> + +<p>"Worse or better you will repent it," she retorted. "You will repent it +bitterly!"</p> + +<p>"I may," he answered. "But at least you never shall."</p> + +<p>She turned and looked at him at that; looked at him as if the curtain of +apathy fell from her eyes and she saw him for the first time as he was, +a young man, upright and not uncomely. She looked at him with her mind +as well as her eyes, and seeing felt curiosity about him, pity for him, +felt her own pulses stirred by his presence and his aspect. A faint +colour, softer than the storm-flag<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> which had fluttered there a minute +before, rose to her cheeks; her lips began to tremble. He feared that +she was going to weep, and "That is settled!" he said cheerfully. +"Good!" and he went into the little room and brought out his cap. "I lay +last night at the 'Bible and Hand,' and I must fetch my cloak and pack."</p> + +<p>She stayed him by a gesture. "One moment," she said. "You are determined +to—to do this? To lodge here?"</p> + +<p>"Firmly," he answered, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Then wait." She passed by him and, moving to the fireplace, raised the +lid of the great black pot. The broth inside was boiling and bubbling to +within an inch of the lip, the steam rose from it in a fragrant cloud. +She took an iron spoon and looked at him, a strange look in her eyes. +"Stand where you are," she said, "and I will try you, if you are fit to +come to us or no. Stand, do you hear," she repeated, a note of +excitation, almost of mockery, in her voice, "where you are whatever +happens! You understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am to stand here, whatever happens," he answered, wondering. +What was she going to do?</p> + +<p>She was going to do a thing outside the limits of his imagination. She +dipped the iron spoon in the pot and, extending her left arm, +deliberately allowed some drops of the scalding liquor to fall on the +bare flesh. He saw the arm wince, saw red blisters spring out on the +white skin, he caught the sharp indraw of her breath, but he did not +move. Again she dipped the spoon, looking at him with defiant eyes, and +with the same deliberation she let the stuff fall on the living flesh. +This time the perspiration sprang out on her brow, her face burned +suddenly hot, her whole frame shrank under the torture.</p> + +<p>"Don't!" he cried hoarsely. "I will not bear it! Don't!" And he uttered +a cry half-articulate, like a beast's.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Stand there!" she said. And still he stood: stood, his hands clenched +and his lips drawn back from his teeth, while she dipped the spoon +again, and—though her arm shook now like an aspen and there were tears +of pain in her eyes—let the dreadful stuff fall a third time.</p> + +<p>She was white when she turned to him. "If you do it again," he cried +furiously, "I will upset—the cursed pot."</p> + +<p>"I have done," she said, smiling faintly. "I am not very brave—after +all!" And going to the dresser, her knees trembling under her, she +poured out some water and drank it greedily. Then she turned to him, "Do +you understand?" she said with a long tense look. "Are you prepared? If +you come here, you will see me suffer worse things, things a hundred +times, a thousand times worse than that. You will see me suffer, and you +will have to stand and see it. You will have to stand and suffer it. You +will have to stand! If you cannot, do not come."</p> + +<p>"I stood it," he answered doggedly. "But there are things flesh and +blood cannot stand. There is a limit——"</p> + +<p>"The limit I shall fix," she said proudly. "Not you."</p> + +<p>"But you will fix it?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. At any rate, that is the bargain. You may accept or refuse. +You do not know where I stand, and I do. You must see and be blind, feel +and be dumb, hear and make no answer, unless I speak—if you are to come +here."</p> + +<p>"But you will speak—sometime?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know," she answered wearily, and her whole form wilting she +looked away from him. "I do not know. Go now, if you please—and +remember!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>THE QUINTESSENTIAL STONE.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> old town of Geneva, pent in the angle between lake and river, and +cramped for many generations by the narrow corselet of its walls, was +not large; it was still high noon when Mercier, after paying his +reckoning at the "Bible and Hand," and collecting his possessions, found +himself again in the Corraterie. A pleasant breeze stirred the leafy +branches which shaded the ramparts, and he stood a moment beside one of +the small steep-roofed watch-towers, and resting his burden on the +breast-high wall, gazed across the hazy landscape to the mountains, +beyond which lay Chatillon and his home.</p> + +<p>Yet it was not of his home he was thinking as he gazed; nor was it his +mother's or his father's face that the dancing heat of mid-day mirrored +for him as he dreamed. Oh, happy days of youth when an hour and a face +change all, and a glance from shy eyes, or the pout of strange lips +blinds to the world and the world's ambitions! Happy youth! But alas for +the studies this youth had come so far to pursue, for the theology he +had crossed those mountains to imbibe—at the pure source and fount of +evangelical doctrine! Alas for the venerable Beza, pillar and pattern of +the faith, whom he had thirsted to see, and the grave of Calvin, aim and +end of his pilgrimage! All Geneva held but one face for him now, one +presence, one gracious personality. A scarlet blister on a round white +arm, the quiver of a girl's lip a-tremble on the verge of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> tears—these +and no longing for home, these and no memory of father or mother or the +days of childhood, filled his heart to overflowing. He dreamed with his +eyes on the hills, but it was not</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the things he had come to study; but of a woman's trouble and the secret +life of the house behind him, of which he was about to form part.</p> + +<p>At length the call of a sentry at the Porte Tertasse startled him from +his thoughts. He roused himself, and uncertain how long he had lingered +he took up his cloak and bag and, turning, hastened across the street to +the door at the head of the four steps. He found it on the latch, and +with a confident air, which belied his real feelings, he pushed it open +and presented himself.</p> + +<p>For a moment he fancied that the room held only one person. This was a +young man who sat at the table in the middle of the room and, surprised +by the appearance of a stranger, suspended his spoon in the air that he +might the better gaze at him. But when Claude had set down his bag +behind the door, and turned to salute the other, he discovered his +error; and despite himself he paused in the act of advancing, unable to +hide his concern. At the table on the hearth, staring at him in silence, +sat two other men. And one of the two was Grio.</p> + +<p>Mercier paused we have said; he expected an outburst of anger if not an +assault. But a second glance at the old ruffian's face relieved him: a +stare of vacant wonder made it plain that Grio sober retained little of +the doings of Grio drunk. Nevertheless, the silent gaze of the +three—for no one greeted him—took Claude aback; and it was but +awkwardly and with embarrassment that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> approached the table, and +prepared to add himself to the party. Something in their looks as well +as their silence whispered him unwelcome. He blushed, and addressing the +young man at the larger table—</p> + +<p>"I have taken Tissot's room," he said shyly. "This is his seat, I +suppose. May I take it?" And indicating an empty bowl and spoon on the +nearer side of the table, he made as if he would sit down before them.</p> + +<p>In place of answering, the young man looked from him to the two on the +hearth, and laughed—a foolish, frightened laugh. The sound led +Mercier's eyes in the same direction, and he appreciated for the first +time the aspect of the man who sat with Grio; a man of great height and +vast bulk, with a large plump face and small grey eyes. It struck +Mercier as he met the fixed stare of those eyes, that he had entered +with less ceremony than was becoming, and that he ought to make amends +for it; and, in the act of sitting down in the vacant seat, he turned +and bowed politely to the two at the other table.</p> + +<p>"Tissotius timuit, jam peregrinus adest!" the big man murmured in a +voice at once silky and sonorous. Then ignoring Mercier, but looking +blandly at the young man who sat facing him at the table, "What is this +of Tissot?" he continued. "Can it be," with a side-glance at the +newcomer, "that we have lost our—I may not call him our quintessence or +alcahest—rather shall I say our baser ore, that at the virgin touch of +our philosophical stone blushed into ruddy gold? And burned ever +brighter and hotter in her presence! Tissot gone, and with him all those +fair experiments! Is it possible?"</p> + +<p>The young man's grin showed that he savoured a jest. But, "I know +nothing," he muttered sheepishly. "'Tis new to me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Tissot gone!" the big man repeated in a tone humorously melancholy. "No +more shall we</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Upon his viler metal test our purest pure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And see him transmutations three endure!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Tissot gone! And you, sir, come in his place. What change is here! A +stranger, I believe?"</p> + +<p>"In Geneva, yes," Claude answered, wondering and a little abashed. The +man spoke with an air of power and weight.</p> + +<p>"And a student, doubtless in our Academia? Like our Tissot? Yes. It may +be," he continued in the same smooth tones wherein ridicule and +politeness appeared to be so nicely mingled that it was difficult to +judge if he spoke in jest or earnest, "like him in other things! It may +be that we have gained and not lost. And that qualities finer and more +susceptible underlie an exterior more polished and an ease more +complete," he bowed, "than our poor Tissot could boast! But here is</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Our stone angelical whereby<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All secret potencies to light are brought!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Doubtless"—with a wave of the hand he indicated the girl who had that +moment entered—"you have met before?"</p> + +<p>"I could not otherwise," Claude answered coldly—he began to resent both +the man and his manner—"have engaged the lodging." And he rose to take +from the girl's hand the broth she was bringing him. She, on her side, +made no sign that she noticed a change, or that it was no longer Tissot +she served. She gave him what he needed, mechanically and without +meeting his eyes. Then turning to the others, she waited on them after +the same fashion. For a minute or two there was silence in the room.</p> + +<p>A strange silence, Claude thought, listening and wondering: as strange +and embarrassing as the talk of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> man who shared with Grio the table +by the fireplace: as strange as the atmosphere about them, which hung +heavy, to his fancy, and oppressive, fraught with unintelligible +railleries, with subtle jests and sneers. The girl went to and fro, from +one to another, her face pale, her manner quiet. And had he not seen her +earlier with another look in her eyes, had he not detected a sinister +something underlying the big man's good humour, he would have learned +nothing from her; he would have fancied that all was as it should be in +the house and in the company.</p> + +<p>As it was he understood nothing. But he felt that a something was wrong, +that a something overhung the party. Seated as he was he could not +without turning see the faces of the two at the other table, nor watch +the girl when she waited on them. But the suspicion of a smile which +hovered on the lips of the young man who sat opposite him—whom he could +see—kept him on his guard. Was a trick in preparation? Were they about +to make him pay his footing? No, for they had no notice of his coming. +They could not have laid the mine. Then why that smile? And why this +silence?</p> + +<p>On a sudden he caught the sound of a movement behind him, the swirl of a +petticoat, and the clang of a pewter plate as it fell noisily to the +floor. His companion looked up swiftly, the smile on his face broadening +to a snigger. Claude turned too as quickly as he could and looked, his +face hot, his mind suspecting some prank to be played on him; to his +astonishment he discovered nothing to account for the laugh. The girl +appeared to be bending over the embers on the hearth, the men to be +engaged with their meal; and baffled and perplexed he turned again and, +his ears burning, bent over his plate. He was glad when the stout man +broke the silence for the second time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Agrippa," he said, "has this of amalgams. That whereas gold, silver, +tin are valuable in themselves, they attain when mixed with mercury to a +certain light and sparkling character, as who should say the bubbles on +wine, or the light resistance of beauty, which in the one case and the +other add to the charm. Such to our simple pleasures"—he continued with +a rumble of deep laughter—"our simple pleasures, which I must now also +call our pleasures of the past, was our Tissot! Who, running fluid +hither and thither, where resistance might be least of use, was as it +were the ultimate sting of enjoyment. Is it possible that we have in our +friend a new Tissot?"</p> + +<p>The young man at the table giggled. "I did not know Tissot!" Claude +replied sharply and with a burning face—they were certainly laughing at +him. "And therefore I cannot say."</p> + +<p>"Mercury, which completes the amalgam," the stout man muttered absently +and as if to himself, "when heated sublimes over!" Then turning after a +moment's silence to the girl, "What says our Quintessential Stone to +this?" he continued. "Her Tissot gone will she still work her wonders? +Still of base Grios and the weak alloys red bridegrooms make? +Still—kind Anne, your hand!"</p> + +<p>Silence! Silence again. What were they doing? Claude, full of suspicion, +turned to see what it meant; turned to learn what it was on which the +greedy eyes of his table-fellow were fixed so intently. And now he saw, +more or less. The stout man and Grio had their heads together and their +faces bent over the girl's hand, which the former held. On them, +however, Claude scarcely bestowed a glance. It was the girl's face which +caught and held his eyes, nay, made them burn. Had it blushed, had it +showed white, he had borne the thing more lightly, he had understood it +better. But her face<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> showed dull and apathetic; as she stood looking +down at the men, suffering them to do what they would with her hand, a +strange passivity was its sole expression. When the big man (whose name +Claude learned later was Basterga), after inspecting the palm, kissed it +with mock passion, and so surrendered it to Grio, who also pressed his +coarse lips to it, while the young man beside Claude laughed, no change +came over her. Released, she turned again to the hearth, impassive. And +Claude, his heart beating, recognised that this was the hundredth +performance; that so far from being a new thing it was a thing so old as +to be stale to her, moving her less, though there were insult and +derision in every glance of the men's eyes, than it moved him.</p> + +<p>And noting this he began in a dim way to understand. This was the thing +which Tissot had not been able to bear; which in the end had driven the +young man with the small chin from the house. This was the pleasantry to +which his feeble resistance, his outbursts of anger, of jealousy, or of +protest had but added piquancy, the ultimate sting of pleasure to the +jaded palate of the performers. This was the obsession under which she +lay, the trial and persecution which she had warned him he would find it +hard to witness.</p> + +<p>Hard? He believed her, trifling as was the thing he had seen. For behind +it he had a glimpse of other and worse things, and behind all of some +shadowy brooding mystery which compelled her to suffer them and forbade +her to complain. What that was he could not conceive, what it could be +he could not conceive: nor had he long to consider the question. He +found the shifty eyes of his table-fellow fixed upon him, and, though +the moment his own eyes met them they were averted, he fancied that they +sped a glance of intelligence to the table behind him, and he hastened +to curb, if not his feelings, at least<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> the show of them. He had his +warning. It was not as Tissot he must act if he would help her, but more +warily, more patiently, biding her time, and letting the blow, when the +time came, precede the word. Unwarned, he had acted it is probable as +Tissot had acted, weakly and stormily: warned, he had no excuse if he +failed her. Young as he was he saw this. The fault lay with him if he +made the position worse instead of better.</p> + +<p>Whether, do what he would, his feelings made themselves known—for the +shoulders can speak, and eloquently, on occasion—or the reverse was the +case, and his failure to rise to the bait disappointed the tormentor, +the big man, Basterga, presently resumed the attack.</p> + +<p>"Tissotius pereat, Tissotianus adest!" he muttered with a sneer. "But +perhaps, young sir, Latinity is not one of your subjects. The tongue of +the immortal Cicero——"</p> + +<p>"I speak it a little," Claude answered quietly. "It were foolish to +approach the door of learning without the key."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are a wit, young sir! Well, with your wit and your Latinity can +you construe this:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Stultitiam expellas, furca tamen usque recurret<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tissotius periit terque quaterque redit!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"I think so," Claude replied gravely.</p> + +<p>"Good, if it please you! And the meaning?"</p> + +<p>"Tissot was a fool, and you are another!" the young man returned. "Will +you now solve me one, reverend sir, with all submission?"</p> + +<p>"Said and done!" the big man answered disdainfully.</p> + +<p>"Nec volucres plumæ faciunt nec cuspis Achillem! Construe me that then +if you will!"</p> + +<p>Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "Fine feathers do not make fine birds!" +he said. "If you apply it to me," he continued with a contemptuous face, +"I——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, no, to your company," Claude answered. Self-control comes hardly to +the young, and he had already forgotten his <i>rôle</i>. "Ask him what +happened last night at the 'Bible and Hand,'" he continued, pointing to +Grio, "and how he stands now with his friend the Syndic!"</p> + +<p>"The Syndic?"</p> + +<p>"The Syndic Blondel!"</p> + +<p>The moment the words had passed his lips, Claude repented. He saw that +he had struck a note more serious than he intended. The big man did not +move, but over his fat face crept a watching expression; he was plainly +startled. His eyes, reduced almost to pin-points, seemed for an instant +the eyes of a cat about to spring. The effect was so evident indeed that +it bewildered Claude and so completely diverted his attention from Grio, +the real target, that when the bully, who had listened stupidly to the +exchange of wit, proved by a brutal oath his comprehension of the +reference to himself, the young man scarcely heard him.</p> + +<p>"The Syndic Blondel?" Basterga muttered after a pregnant pause. "What +know you of him, pray?"</p> + +<p>Before the young man could answer, Grio broke in. "So you have followed +me here, have you?" he cried, striking his jug on the table and glaring +across the board at the offender. "You weren't content to escape last +night it seems. Now——"</p> + +<p>"Enough!" Basterga muttered, the keen expression of his face unchanged. +"Softly! Softly! Where are we? I don't understand. What is this? Last +night——"</p> + +<p>"I want not to rake up bygones if you will let them be," Claude answered +with a sulky air, half assumed. "It was you who attacked me."</p> + +<p>"You puppy!" Grio roared. "Do you think——"</p> + +<p>"Enough!" Basterga said again: and his eyes leaving the young man fixed +themselves on his companion. "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> begin to understand," he murmured, his +voice low, but not the less menacing for that, or for the cat-like purr +in it. "I begin to comprehend. This is one of your tricks, Messer Grio. +One of the clever tricks you play in your cups! Some day you'll do that +in them will—No!" repressing the bully as he attempted to rise. "Have +done now and let us understand. The 'Bible and Hand,' eh? 'Twas there, I +suppose, you and this youth met, and——"</p> + +<p>"Quarrelled," said Claude sullenly. "That's all."</p> + +<p>"And you followed him hither?"</p> + +<p>"No, I did not."</p> + +<p>"No? Then how come you here?" Basterga asked, his eyes still watchful. +"In this house, I mean? 'Tis not easy to find."</p> + +<p>"My father lodged here," Claude vouchsafed. And he shrugged his +shoulders, thinking that with that the matter was clear.</p> + +<p>But Basterga continued to eye him with something that was not far +removed from suspicion. "Oh," he said. "That is it, is it? Your father +lodged here. And the Syndic—Blondel, was it you said? How comes he into +it? Grio was prating of him, I suppose?" For an instant, while he waited +the answer to the question, his eyes shrank again to pin-points.</p> + +<p>"He came in and found us at sword-play," Claude answered. "Or just +falling to it. And though the fault was not mine, he would have sent me +to prison if I had not had a letter for him."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" And returning with a manifest effort to the tone and manner of a +few minutes before:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Impiger, Iracundus, Inexorabilis, acer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he hummed. "I doubt if such manners will be appreciated in Geneva, young +man," and furtively he wiped his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> brow. "To old stagers like my friend +here who has given his proofs of fidelity to the State, some indulgence +is granted——"</p> + +<p>"I see that," Claude answered with sarcasm.</p> + +<p>"I am saying it. But you, if you will not be warned, will soon find or +make the town too hot for you."</p> + +<p>"He will find this house too hot for him!" growled his companion, who +had made more than one vain attempt to assert himself. "And that to-day! +To-day! Perdition, I know him now," he continued, fixing his bloodshot +eyes on the young man, "and if he crows here as he crowed last night, +his comb must be cut! As well soon as late, for there will be no living +with him! There, don't hold me, man! Let me at him!" And he tried to +rise.</p> + +<p>"Fool, have done!" Basterga replied, still restraining him, but only by +the exertion of considerable force. And then in a lower tone but one +partially audible, "Do you want to draw the eyes of all Geneva this +way?" he continued. "Do you want the house marked and watched and every +gossip's tongue wagging about it? You did harm enough last night, I'll +answer, and well if no worse comes of it! Have done, I say, or I shall +speak, you know to whom!"</p> + +<p>"Why does he come here? Why does he follow me?" the sot complained.</p> + +<p>"Cannot you hear that his father lodged here?"</p> + +<p>"A lie!" Grio cried vehemently. "He is spying on us! First at the 'Bible +and Hand' last night, and then here! It is you who are the fool, man. +Let me go! Let me at him, I say!"</p> + +<p>"I shall not!" the big man answered firmly. And he whispered in the +other's ear something which Claude could not catch. Whatever it was it +cooled Grio's rage. He ceased to struggle, nodded sulkily and sat back. +He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> stretched out his hand, took a long draught, and having emptied his +jug, "Here's Geneva!" he said, wiping his lips with the air of a man who +had given a toast. "Only don't let him cross me! That is all. Where is +the wench?"</p> + +<p>"She has gone upstairs," Basterga answered with one eye on Claude. He +seemed to be unable to shake off a secret doubt of him.</p> + +<p>"Then let her come down," Grio answered with a grin, half drunken, half +brutal, "and make her show sport. Here, you there," to the young man who +shared Claude's table, "call her down and——"</p> + +<p>"Sit still!" Basterga growled, and he trod—Claude was almost sure of +it—on the bully's foot. "It is late, and these young gentlemen should +be at their themes. Theology, young sir," he turned to Claude with the +slightest shade of over-civility in his pompous tone, "like the pursuit +of the Alcahest, which some call the Quintessence of the Elements, +allows no rival near its throne!"</p> + +<p>"I attend my first lecture to-morrow," Claude answered drily. And he +kept his seat. His face was red and his hand trembled. They would call +her down for their sport, would they! Not in his presence, nor again in +his absence, if he could avoid it.</p> + +<p>Grio struck the table. "Call her down!" he ordered in a tone which +betrayed the influence of his last draught. "Do you hear!" And he looked +fiercely at Louis Gentilis, the young man who sat opposite Claude.</p> + +<p>But Louis only looked at Basterga and grinned.</p> + +<p>And Basterga it was plain was not in the mood to amuse himself. Whatever +the reason, the big man was no longer at his ease in Mercier's company. +Some unpleasant thought, some suspicion, born of the incident at the +"Bible and Hand," seemed to rankle in his mind,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> and, strive as he +would, betrayed its presence in the tone of his voice and the glance of +his eye. He was uneasy, nor could he hide his uneasiness. To the look +which Gentilis shot at him he replied by one which imperatively bade the +young man keep his seat. "Enough fooling for to-day," he said, and +stealthily he repressed Grio's resistance. "Enough! Enough! I see that +the young gentleman does not altogether understand our humours. He will +come to them in time, in time," his voice almost fawning, "and see we +mean no harm. Did I understand," he continued, addressing Claude +directly, "that your father knew Messer Blondel?"</p> + +<p>"Who is now Syndic? My uncle did," Claude answered rather curtly. He was +more and more puzzled by the change in Basterga's manner. Was the big +man a poltroon whom the bold front shown to Grio brought to heel? Or was +there something behind, some secret upon which his words had unwittingly +touched?</p> + +<p>"He is a good man," Basterga said. "And of the first in Geneva. His +brother too, who is Procureur-General. Their father died for the State, +and the sons, the Syndic in particular, served with high honour in the +war. Savoy has no stouter foe than Philibert Blondel, nor Geneva a more +devoted son." And he drank as if he drank a toast to them.</p> + +<p>Claude nodded.</p> + +<p>"A man of great parts too. Probably you will wait on him?"</p> + +<p>"Next week. I was near waiting on him after another fashion," Claude +continued rather grimly. "Between him and your friend there," with a +glance at Grio, who had relapsed into a moody glaring silence, "I was +like to get more gyves than justice."</p> + +<p>The big man laughed. "Our friend here has served the State," he +remarked, "and does what another may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> not. Come, Messer Grio," he +continued, clapping him on the shoulder, as he rose from his seat. "We +have sat long enough. If the young ones will not stir, it becomes the +old ones to set an example. Will you to my room and view the +precipitation of which I told you?"</p> + +<p>Grio gave a snarling assent, and got to his feet; and the party broke up +with no more words. Claude took his cap and prepared to withdraw, well +content with himself and the line he had taken. But he did not leave the +house until his ears assured him that the two who had ascended the +stairs together had actually repaired to Basterga's room on the first +floor, and there shut themselves up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>CÆSAR BASTERGA.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Had</span> it been Mercier's eye in place of his ear which attended the two men +to the upper room, he would have remarked—perhaps with surprise, since +he had gained some knowledge of Grio's temper—that in proportion as +they mounted the staircase, the toper's crest drooped, and his arrogance +ebbed away; until at the door of Basterga's chamber, it was but a +sneaking and awkward man who crossed the threshold.</p> + +<p>Nor was the reason far to seek. Whatever the standpoint of the two men +in public, their relations to one another in private were delivered up, +stamped and sealed in that moment of entrance. While Basterga, leaving +the other to close the door, strode across the room to the window and +stood gazing out, his very back stern and contemptuous, Grio fidgeted +and frowned, waiting with ill-concealed penitence, until the other chose +to address him. At length Basterga turned, and his gleaming eyes, his +moon-face pale with anger, withered his companion.</p> + +<p>"Again! Again!" he growled—it seemed he dare not lift his voice. "Will +you never be satisfied until we are broken on the wheel? You dog, you! +The sooner you are broken the better, were that all! Ay, and were that +all, I could watch the bar fall with pleasure! But do you think I will +see the fruit of years of planning, do you think that I will see the +reward of this brain—this! this,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> you brainless idiot, who know not +what a brain is"—and he tapped his brow repeatedly with an earnestness +almost grotesque—"do you think that I will see this cast away, because +you swill, swine that you are! Swill and prate in your cups!"</p> + +<p>"'Fore God, I said nothing!" Grio whined. "I said nothing! It was only +that he would not drink and I——"</p> + +<p>"Made him?"</p> + +<p>"No, he would not, I say, and we were coming to blows. And then——"</p> + +<p>"He gave back, did he?"</p> + +<p>"No, Messer Blondel came in."</p> + +<p>Cæsar Basterga stretched out his huge arms. "Fool! Fool! Fool!" he +hissed, with a gesture of despair. "There it is! And Blondel, who should +have sent you to the whipping-post, or out of Geneva, has to cloak you! +And men ask why, and what there is between our most upright Syndic and a +drunken, bragging——"</p> + +<p>"Softly," Grio muttered, with a flash of sullen resentment. "Softly, +Messer Basterga! I——"</p> + +<p>"A drunken, swilling, prating pig!" the other persisted. "A broken +soldier living on an hour of chance service? Pooh, man," with contempt, +"do not threaten me! Do you think that I do not know you more than half +craven? The lad below there would cut your comb yet, did I suffer it. +But that is not the point. The point is that you must needs advertise +the world that you and the Syndic, who has charge of the walls, are +hail-fellows, and the world will ask why! Or he must deal with you as +you deserve and out you go from Geneva!"</p> + +<p>"Per Bacco! I am not the only soldier," Grio muttered, "who ruffles it +here!"</p> + +<p>"No! And is not that half our battle?" Basterga rejoined, gazing on him +with massive scorn. "To make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> use of them and their grumbling, and their +distaste for the Venerable Company of Pastors who rule us! Such men are +our tools; but tools only, and senseless tools, for Geneva won for the +Grand Duke, and what will they be the better, save in the way of a +little more licence and a little more drink? But for you I had something +better! Is the little farm in Piedmont not worth a month's abstinence? +Is drink-money for your old age, when else you must starve or stab in +the purlieus of Genoa, not worth one month's sobriety? But you must +needs for the sake of a single night's debauch ruin me and get yourself +broken on the wheel!"</p> + +<p>Grio shrank under his eye. "There is no harm done," he muttered at last. +"Nobody suspects what is between us."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?" came the retort. "What? You think it is natural +Blondel should favour such as you?"</p> + +<p>"It will not be the first time Geneva cloak has covered Genoa velvet!"</p> + +<p>"Velvet!" Basterga repeated with a sneer. "Rags rather!" And then more +quickly, "But that is not all, nor the half. Do you think Blondel, who +is on the point, Blondel, who will and will not and on whom all must +turn, Blondel the upright, the impeccable, the patriotic, without whom +we can do nothing, and who, I tell you, hangs in the balance—do you +think he likes it, blockhead? Or is the more inclined to trust his life +with us when he sees us brawlers, toss-pots, common swillers? Do you +think he on whom I am bringing to bear all the resources of this +brain—this!"—and again the big man tapped his forehead with tragic +earnestness—"and whom you could as much move to side with us as you +could move yonder peak of the Jura from its base—do you think he will +deem better of our part for this?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No! No, a thousand times!"</p> + +<p>"But I count drunk the same as sober for that!" Grio cried, plucking up +spirit and speaking with a gleam of defiance in his eye. "For it is my +opinion that you have no more chance of moving him than I have! And so +to be plain you have it, Messer Basterga. For how are you going to move +him? With what? Tell me that!"</p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p> + +<p>"With money?" Grio continued with a fluency which showed he spoke on a +subject to which he had given much thought. "He is rich and ten thousand +crowns would not buy him. And the Grand Duke, much as he craves Geneva, +will not spend over boldly."</p> + +<p>"No, I shall not move him with money."</p> + +<p>"With power and rank, then? Will the Grand Duke make him Governor of +Geneva? No, for he dare not trust him. And less than that, what is it to +Syndic Blondel, whose word to-day is all but law in Geneva?"</p> + +<p>"No, nor with power," Basterga answered quietly.</p> + +<p>"Is it with revenge, then? There are men I know who love revenge. But he +is not of the south, and at such a risk revenge were dearly bought."</p> + +<p>"No, nor with revenge," Basterga replied.</p> + +<p>"A woman, then? For that is all that is left," Grio rejoined in triumph. +Once he had spoken out, he had put himself on a level with his master; +he had worsted him, or he was much mistaken. "Perhaps, from the way you +have played with the little prude below, it is a woman. But they are +plenty, even in Geneva, and he is rich and old."</p> + +<p>"No, nor with a woman."</p> + +<p>"Then with what?"</p> + +<p>"With this!" Basterga replied. And for the third time, drawing himself +up to his full height, he tapped his brow. "Do you doubt its power?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<p>For answer Grio shrugged his shoulders, his manner sullen and +contemptuous.</p> + +<p>"You do?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see how it works, Messer Basterga," the veteran muttered. "I +say not you have not good wits. You have, I grant it. But the best of +wits must have their means and method. It is not by wishing and +willing——"</p> + +<p>"How know you that?"</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"How know you that?" Basterga repeated with sudden energy, and he shook +a massive finger before the other's eyes. "But how know you anything," +he continued with disdain, as he dropped the hand again, and turned on +his heel, "dolt, imbecile, rudiment that you are? Ay, and blind to boot, +for it was but the other day I worked a miracle before you, and you +learned nothing from it."</p> + +<p>"It is no question of miracles," the other muttered doggedly. "But of +how you will persuade the Syndic Blondel to betray Geneva to Savoy!"</p> + +<p>"Is it so? Then tell me this: the girl below who smacked your face a +month back because you laid a hand upon her wrist, and who would have +had you put to the door the same day—how did I tame her? Can you answer +me that?"</p> + +<p>Grio's face fell remarkably. "No, master," he said, nodding +thoughtfully. "I grant it. I cannot. A wilder filly was never handled."</p> + +<p>"So! And yet I tamed her. And she suffers you! She's sport for us within +bounds. Yet do you think she likes it when you paw her hand or lay your +dirty arm about her waist, or steal a kiss? Think you the blood mounts +and ebbs for nothing? Or the tears rise and the lip trembles and the +limbs shake for sheer pleasure.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> I tell you, if eyes could slay, you had +breathed your last some weeks ago."</p> + +<p>"I know," Grio answered, nodding thoughtfully. "I have wondered and +wondered, ay, many a time, how you did it."</p> + +<p>"Yet I did it? You grant that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And you do not understand—with what?"</p> + +<p>Grio shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Then why mistrust me now, blockhead," the other retorted, "when I say +that as I charmed her, I can charm Blondel? Ay, and more easily. You +know not how I did the one, nor how I shall do the other," the big man +continued. "But what of that?" And in a louder voice, and with a gusto +which showed how genuine was his delight in the metre,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"Pauci quos æquus amavit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jupiter aut ardens evexit ad æthera virtus<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dis geniti potuere,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he mouthed. "But that," he added, looking scornfully at his confederate, +"is Greek to you!"</p> + +<p>Grio's altered aspect, his crestfallen air owned the virtue of the +argument if not of the citation; which he did not understand. He drew a +deep breath. "Per Bacco," he said, "if you succeed in doing it, Messer +Basterga——"</p> + +<p>"I shall do it," Basterga retorted, "if you do not spoil all with your +drunken tricks!"</p> + +<p>Grio was silent a moment, sunk plainly in reflection. Presently his +bloodshot eyes began to travel respectfully and even timidly over the +objects about him. In truth the room in which he found himself was +worthy of inspection, for it was no common room, either in aspect or +furnishing. It boasted, it is true, none of the weird<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> properties, the +skulls and corpse-lights, dead hands, and waxen masks with which the +necromancer of that day sought to impress the vulgar mind. But in place +of these a multitude of objects, quaint, curious, or valuable, filled +that half of the room which was farther from the fire-hearth. On the +wall, flanked by a lute and some odd-looking rubrical calendars, were +three or four silver discs, engraved with the signs of the Zodiac; these +were hung in such a position as to catch the light which entered through +the heavily leaded casement. On the window-seat below them, a pile of +Plantins and Elzevirs threatened to bury a steel casket. On the table, +several rolls of vellum and papyrus, peeping from metal cylinders, leant +against a row of brass-bound folios. A handsome fur covering masked the +truckle-bed, but this, too, bore its share of books, as did two or three +long trunks covered with stamped and gilded leather which stood against +the wall and were so long that the ladies of the day had the credit of +hiding their gallants in them. On stools lay more books, and yet more +books, with a medley of other things: a silver flagon, and some weapons, +a chess-board, an enamelled triptych and the like.</p> + +<p>In a word, this half of the room wore the aspect of a library, +low-roofed, dark and richly furnished. The other half, partly divided +from it by a curtain, struck the eye differently. A stove of peculiar +fashion, equipped with a powerful bellows, cumbered the hearth; before +this on a long table were ranged a profusion of phials and retorts, +glass vessels of odd shapes, and earthen pots. Crucibles and alembics +stood in the ashes before the stove, and on a sideboard placed under the +window were scattered a set of silver scales, a chemist's mask, and a +number of similar objects. Cards bearing abstruse calculations hung +everywhere on the walls; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> over the fireplace, inscribed in gold and +black letters, the Greek word "EUREKA" was conspicuous.</p> + +<p>The existence of such a room in the quiet house in the Corraterie was +little suspected by the neighbours, and if known would have struck them +with amazement. To Grio its aspect was familiar: but in this case +familiarity had not removed his awe of the unknown and the magical. He +looked about him now, and after a pause:—</p> + +<p>"I suppose you do it—with these," he murmured, and with an almost +imperceptible shiver he pointed to the crucibles.</p> + +<p>"With those?" Basterga exclaimed, and had the other ascribed +supernatural virtues to the cinders or the bellows he could not have +thrown greater scorn into his words. "Do you think I ply this base +mechanic art for aught but to profit by the ignorance of the vulgar? Or +think by pots and pans and mixing vile substances to make this, which by +nature is this, into that which by nature it is not! I, a scholar? A +scholar? No, I tell you, there was never alchemist yet could transmute +but one thing—poor into rich, rich into poor!"</p> + +<p>"But," Grio murmured with a look and in a voice of disappointment, "is +not that the true transmutation which a thousand have died seeking, and +one here and there, it is rumoured, has found? From lead to gold, Messer +Basterga?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, but the lead is the poor alchemist, who gets gold from his patron +by his trick. And the gold is the poor fool who finds him in his living, +and being sucked, turns to lead! There you have your transmutation."</p> + +<p>"Yet——"</p> + +<p>"There is no yet!"</p> + +<p>"But Agrippa," Grio persisted, "Cornelius Agrippa, who sojourned here in +Geneva and of whom, master, you speak daily—was he not a learned man?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ay, even as I am!" Cæsar Basterga answered, swelling visibly with +pride. "But constrained, even as I am, to ply the baser trade and stoop +to that we see and touch and smell! Faugh! What lot more cursed than to +quit the pure ether of Latinity for the lower region of matter? And in +place of cultivating the <i>literæ humaniores</i>, which is the true +cultivation of the mind, and sets a man, mark you, on a level with +princes, to stoop to handle virgin milk and dragon's blood, as they +style their vile mixtures; or else grope in dead men's bodies for the +thing which killed them. Which is a pure handicraft and cheirergon, +unworthy a scholar, who stoops of right to naught but the goose-quill!"</p> + +<p>"And yet, master, by these same things——"</p> + +<p>"Men grow rich," Basterga continued with a sneer, "and get power? Ay, +and the bastard sits in the chair of the legitimate; and pure learning +goes bare while the seekers after the Stone and the Elixir (who, in +these days are descending to invent even lesser things and smaller +advantages that in the learned tongues have not so much as names) grow +in princes' favour and draw on their treasuries! But what says Seneca? +'It is not the office of Philosophy to teach men to use their hands. The +object of her lessons is to form the soul and the taste.' And Aldus +Manucius, vir doctissimus, magister noster," here he raised his hand to +his head as if he would uncover, "says also the same, but in a Latinity +more pure and translucent, as is his custom."</p> + +<p>Grio scratched his head. The other's vehemence, whether he sneered or +praised, flew high above his dull understanding. He had his share of the +reverence for learning which marked the ignorant of that age: but to +what better end, he pondered stupidly, could learning be directed than +to the discovery of that which must make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> its owner the most enviable of +mortals, the master of wealth and youth and pleasure! It was not to +this, however, that he directed his objection: the <i>argumentum ad +hominem</i> came more easily to him. "But you do this?" he said, pointing +to the paraphernalia about the stove.</p> + +<p>"Ay," Basterga rejoined with vehemence. "And why, my friend? Because the +noble rewards and the consideration which former times bestowed on +learning are to-day diverted to baser pursuits! Erasmus was the friend +of princes, and the correspondent of kings. Della Scala was the +companion of an emperor; Morus, the Englishman, was the right arm of a +king. And I, Cæsar Basterga of Padua, bred in the pure Latinity of our +Master Manucius, yield to none of these. Yet am I, if I would live, +forced to stoop 'ad vulgus captandum!' I must kneel that I may rise! I +must wade through the mire of this base pursuit that I may reach the +firm ground of wealth and learned ease. But think you that I am the dupe +of the art wherewith I dupe others? Or, that once I have my foot on firm +ground I will stoop again to the things of matter and sense? No, by +Hercules!" the big man continued, his eye kindling, his form dilating. +"This scheme once successful, this feat that should supply me for life, +once performed, Cæsar Basterga of Padua will know how to add, to those +laurels which he has already gained,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The bays of Scala and the wreath of More,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Erasmus' palm and that which Lipsius wore."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And in a kind of frenzy of enthusiasm the scholar fell to pacing the +floor, now mouthing hexameters, now spurning with his foot a pot or an +alembic which had the ill-luck to lie in his path. Grio watched him, and +watching him, grew only more puzzled—and more puzzled. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> could have +understood a moral shrinking from the enterprise on which they were both +embarked—the betrayal of the city that gave them shelter. He could have +understood—he had superstition enough—a moral distaste for alchemy and +those practices of the black art which his mind connected with it. But +this superiority of the scholar, this aloofness, not from the treachery, +but from the handicraft, was beyond him. For that reason it imposed on +him the more.</p> + +<p>Not the less, however, was he importunate to know wherein Basterga +trusted. To rave of Scholarship and Scaliger was one thing, to bring +Blondel into the plot which was to transfer Geneva to Savoy and strike +the heaviest blow at the Reformed that had been struck in that +generation, was another thing and one remote. The Syndic was a trifle +discontented and inclined to intrigue; that was true, Grio knew it. But +to parley with the Grand Duke's emissaries, and strive to get and give +not, that was one thing; while to betray the town and deliver it tied +and bound into the hands of its arch-enemy, was another and a far more +weighty matter. One, too, to which in Grio's judgment—and in the dark +lanes of life he had seen and weighed many men—the magistrate would +never be brought.</p> + +<p>"Shall you need my aid with him?" he asked after a while, seeing the +scholar still wrapt in thought. The question was not lacking in craft.</p> + +<p>"Your aid? With whom?"</p> + +<p>"With Messer Blondel."</p> + +<p>"Pshaw, man," Basterga answered, rousing himself from his reverie. "I +had forgotten him and was thinking of that villain Scioppius and his +tract against Joseph Justus. Do you know," he continued with a snort of +indignation, "that in his <i>Hyperbolimæus</i>, not content with the +statement that Joseph Justus left his laundress's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> bill at Louvain +unpaid, he alleges that I—I, Cæsar Basterga of Padua—was broken on the +wheel at Munster a year ago for the murder of a gentleman!"</p> + +<p>Grio turned a shade paler. "If this business miscarry," he said, "the +statement may prove within a year of the mark. Or nearer, at any rate, +than may please us."</p> + +<p>Basterga smiled disdainfully. "Think it not!" he answered, extending his +arms and yawning with unaffected sincerity. "There was never scholar yet +died on the wheel."</p> + +<p>"No?"</p> + +<p>"No, friend, no. Nor will, unless it be Scioppius, and he is unworthy of +the name of scholar. No, we have our disease, and die of it, but it is +not that. Nevertheless," he continued with magnanimity, "I will not deny +that when Master Pert-Tongue downstairs put our names together so pat, +it scared me. It scared me. For how many chances were there against such +an accident? Or what room to think it an accident, when he spoke clearly +with the <i>animus pugnandi</i>? No, I'll not deny he touched me home."</p> + +<p>Grio nodded grimly. "I would we were rid of him!" he growled. "The young +viper! I foresee danger from him."</p> + +<p>"Possibly," Basterga replied. "Possibly. In that case measures must be +taken. But I hope there may be no necessity. And now, I expect Messer +Blondel in an hour, and have need, my friend, of thought and solitude +before he comes. Knock at my door at eight this evening and I may have +news for you."</p> + +<p>"You don't think to resolve him to-night?" Grio muttered with a look of +incredulity.</p> + +<p>"It may be. I do not know. In the meantime silence, and keep sober!"</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But it is more than ay, ay!" Basterga retorted with irritation; with +something of the temper, indeed, which he had betrayed at the beginning +of the interview. "Scholars die otherwise, but many a broken soldier has +come to the wheel! So do you have a care of it! If you do not——"</p> + +<p>"I have said I will!" Grio cried sharply. "Enough scolding, master. I've +a notion you'll find your own task a little beyond your hand. See if I +am not right!" he added. And with this show of temper on his side, he +went out and shut the door loudly behind him.</p> + +<p>Basterga stood a few moments in thought. At length,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Dimidium facti, qui bene cœpit, habet!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he muttered. And shrugging his shoulders he looked about him, judging +with an artistic eye the effect which the room would have on a stranger. +Apparently he was not perfectly content with it, for, stepping to one of +the long trunks, he drew from it a gold chain, some medals and a +jewelled dagger, and flung these carelessly on a box in a corner. He set +up the alembics and pipkins which he had overturned, and here and there +he opened a black-lettered folio, discovered an inch or two of crabbed +Hebrew, or the corner of an illuminated script. A cameo dropped in one +place, a clay figure of Minerva set up in another, completed the +picture.</p> + +<p>His next proceeding was less intelligible. He unearthed from the pile of +duo-decimos on the window-seat the steel casket which has been +mentioned. It was about twelve inches long and as many wide; and as deep +as it was broad. Wrought in high relief on the front appeared an +elaborate representation of Christ healing the sick; on each end, below +a massive ring, appeared a similar design. The box had an appearance of +strength out of proportion to its size; and was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> furnished with two +locks, protected and partly hidden by tiny shields.</p> + +<p>Basterga handling it gently polished it awhile with a cloth, then +bearing it to the inner end of the room he set it on a bracket beside +the hearth. This place was evidently made for it, for on either side of +the bracket hung a steel chain and padlock; with which, and the rings, +the scholar proceeded to secure the casket to the wall. This done, he +stepped back and contemplated the arrangement with a smile of +contemptuous amusement.</p> + +<p>"It is neither so large as the Horse of Troy," he murmured complacently, +"nor so small as the Wafer that purchased Paris. It is neither so deep +as hell, nor so high as heaven, nor so craftily fastened a wise man may +not open it, nor so strong a fool may not smash it. But it may suffice. +Messer Blondel is no Solomon, and may swallow this as well as another +thing. In which event, Ave atque vale, Geneva! But here he comes. And +now to cast the bait!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>THE ELIXIR VITÆ.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">As</span> the Syndic crossed the threshold of the scholar's room, he uncovered +with an air of condescension that, do what he would, was not free from +uneasiness. He had persuaded himself—he had been all the morning +persuading himself—that any man might pay a visit to a learned +scholar—why not? Moreover, that a magistrate in paying such a visit was +but in the performance of his duty, and might plume himself accordingly +on the act.</p> + +<p>Yet two things like worms in the bud would gnaw at his peace. The first +was conscience: if the Syndic did not know he had reason to suspect that +Basterga bore the Grand Duke's commission, and was in Geneva to further +his master's ends. The second source of his uneasiness he did not +acknowledge even to himself, and yet it was the more powerful: it was a +suspicion—a strong suspicion, though he had met Basterga but +twice—that in parleying with the scholar he was dealing with a man for +whom he was no match, puff himself out as he might; and who secretly +despised him.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the fact that the latter feeling ceased to vex him before he had +been a minute in the room, was the best testimony to Basterga's tact we +could desire. Not that the scholar was either effusive or abject. It was +rather by a frank address which took equality for granted, and by an +easy assumption that the visit had no importance, that he calmed Messer +Blondel's nerves and soothed his pride.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<p>Presently, "If I do not the honour of my poor apartment so pressingly as +some," he said, "it is out of no lack of respect, Messer Syndic. But +because, having had much experience of visitors, I know that nothing +fits them so well as to be left at liberty, nothing irks them so much as +to be over-pressed. Here now I have some things that are thought to be +curious, even in Padua, but I do not know whether they will interest +you."</p> + +<p>"Manuscripts?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, manuscripts and the like. This," Basterga lifted one from the +table and placed it in his visitor's hands, "is a facsimile, prepared +with the utmost care, of the 'Codex Vaticanus,' the most ancient +manuscript of the New Testament. Of interest in Geneva, where by the +hands of your great printer, Stephens, M. de Beza has done so much to +advance the knowledge of the sacred text. But you are looking at that +chart?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. What is it, if it please you?"</p> + +<p>"It is a plan of the ancient city of Aurelia," Basterga replied, "which +Cæsar, in the first book of his Commentaries places in Switzerland, but +which, some say, should be rather in Savoy."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, Aurelia?" the Syndic muttered, turning it about. It was a plan +beautifully and elaborately finished, but, like most of the plans of +that day, it was without names. "Aurelia?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Aurelia."</p> + +<p>"But I seem to—is this water?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, a lake," Basterga replied, stooping with a faint smile to the +plan.</p> + +<p>"And this a river?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Aurelia? But—I seem to know the line of this wall, and these bastions. +Why, it is—Messer Basterga," in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> tone of surprise, not unmingled with +anger—"you play with me! it is Geneva!"</p> + +<p>Basterga permitted his smile to become more apparent. "Oh no, Aurelia," +he said lightly and almost jocosely. "Aurelia in Savoy, I assure you. +Whatever it is, however, we have no need to take it to heart, Messer +Blondel. Believe me, it comes from, and is not on its way to, the Grand +Duke's library at Turin."</p> + +<p>The Syndic showed his displeasure by putting the map from him.</p> + +<p>"Your taste is rather for other things," Basterga continued, affecting +to misunderstand the act. "This illuminated manuscript, now, may +interest you? It is in characters which are probably strange to you?"</p> + +<p>"Is it Hebrew?" the Syndic muttered stiffly, his temper still asserting +itself.</p> + +<p>"No, it is in the ancient Arabic character; that into which the works of +Aristotle were translated as far back as the ninth century of our era. +It is a curious treatise by the Arabic sage, Ibn Jasher, who was the +teacher of Ibn Zohr, who was the teacher of Averroes. It was carried +from Spain to Rome about the year 1000 by the learned Pope Sylvester the +Second, who spoke Arabic and of whose library it formed part."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" Blondel responded, staring at it. "It must be of great value. +How came it into your possession, Messer Basterga?"</p> + +<p>Basterga opened his mouth and shut it again. "I do not think I can tell +you that," he said.</p> + +<p>"It contains, I suppose, many curious things?"</p> + +<p>"Curious?" Basterga replied impulsively, "I should say so! Why, it was +in that volume I found——" And there in apparent confusion he broke +off. He laughed awkwardly, and then, "Well, you know," he resumed, "we +students find many things interest us which would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> fail to touch the man +of affairs". As if he wished to change the subject, he took the +manuscript from the Syndic's hand and threw it carelessly on the table.</p> + +<p>Messer Blondel thought the carelessness overdone, and, his interest +aroused, he followed the manuscript, he scarcely knew why, with his +eyes. "I think I have heard the name of Averroes?" he said. "Was he not +a physician?"</p> + +<p>"He was many things," Basterga answered negligently. "As a physician he +was, I believe, rather visionary than practical. I have his <i>Colliget</i>, +his most famous work in that line, but for my part, in the case of an +ordinary disease, I would rather trust myself," with a shrug of +contempt, "to the Grand Duke's physician."</p> + +<p>"But in the case of an extraordinary disease?" the Syndic asked +shrewdly.</p> + +<p>Basterga frowned. "I meant in any disease," he said. "Did I say +extraordinary?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Messer Blondel answered stoutly. The frown had not escaped him. +"But I take it, you are something of a physician yourself?"</p> + +<p>"I have studied in the school of Fallopius, the chirurgeon of Padua," +the scholar answered coldly. "But I am a scholar, Messer Blondel, not a +physician, much less a practitioner of the ancillary art, which I take +to be but a base and mechanical handicraft."</p> + +<p>"Yet, chemistry—you pursue that?" the other rejoined with a glance at +the farther table and its load of strange-looking phials and retorts.</p> + +<p>"As an amusement," Basterga replied with a gesture of haughty +deprecation. "A parergon, if you please. I take it, a man may dip into +the mystical writings of Paracelsus without prejudice to his Latinity; +and into the cabalistic lore of the school of Cordova without losing his +taste for the pure oratory of the immortal Cicero.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> Virgil himself, if +we may believe Helinandus, gave the weight of his great name to such +sports. And Cornelius Agrippa, my learned forerunner in Geneva——"</p> + +<p>"Went something farther than that!" the Syndic struck in with a meaning +nod, twice repeated. "It was whispered, and more than whispered—I had +it from my father—that he raised the devil here, Messer Blondel; the +very same that at Louvain strangled one of Agrippa's scholars who broke +in on him before he could sink through the floor."</p> + +<p>Basterga's face took on an expression of supreme scorn. "Idle tales!" he +said. "Fit only for women! Surely you do not believe them, Messer +Blondel?"</p> + +<p>"I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you, Messer Syndic."</p> + +<p>"But this, at any rate, you'll not deny," Blondel retorted eagerly, +"that he discovered the Philosopher's Stone?"</p> + +<p>"And lived poor, and died no richer?" Basterga rejoined in a tone of +increasing scorn.</p> + +<p>"Well, for the matter of that," the Syndic answered more slowly, "that +may be explained."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"They say, and you must have heard it, that the gold he made in that way +turned in three days to egg-shells and parings of horn."</p> + +<p>"Yet having it three days," Basterga asked with a sneer, "might he not +buy all he wanted?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I can only say that my father, who saw him more than once in the +street, always told me—and I do not know any one who should have known +better——"</p> + +<p>"Pshaw, Messer Blondel, you amaze me!" the scholar struck in, rising +from his seat and adopting a tone at once contemptuous and dictatorial. +"Do you not know," he continued, "that the Philosopher's Stone was and +is but a figure of speech, which stands as some say for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> perfect +element in nature, or as others say for the vital principle—that +vivifying power which evades and ever must evade the search of men? Do +you not know that the sages whose speculations took that direction were +endangered by accusations of witchcraft; and that it was to evade these +and to give their researches such an aspect as would command the +confidence of the vulgar, that they gave out that they were seeking +either the Philosopher's Stone, which would make all men rich, or the +Elixir Vitæ, which would confer immortality. Believe me, they were +themselves no slaves to these expressions; nor were the initiated among +their followers. But as time went on, tyros, tempted by sounds, and +caught by theories of transmutation, began to interpret them literally, +and, straying aside, spent their lives in the vain pursuit of wealth or +youth. Poor fools!"</p> + +<p>Messer Blondel stared. Had Basterga, assailing him from a different +side, broached the precise story to which, in the case of Agrippa or +Albertus Magnus, the Syndic was prepared to give credence, he had +certainly received the overture with suspicion if not with contempt. He +had certainly been very far from staking good florins upon it. But when +the experimenter in the midst of the apparatus of science, and +surrounded by things which imposed on the vulgar, denied their value, +and laughed at the legends of wealth and strength obtained by their +means—this fact of itself went very far towards convincing him that +Basterga had made a discovery and was keeping it back.</p> + +<p>The vital principle, the essential element, the final good, these were +fine phrases, though they had a pagan ring. But men, the Syndic argued, +did not spend money, and read much and live laborious days, merely to +coin phrases. Men did not surround themselves with costly apparatus only +to prove a theory that had no practical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> value. "He has discovered +something," Blondel concluded in his mind, "if it be not the +Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Life. I am sure he has discovered +something." And with eyes grown sharp and greedy, the magistrate raked +the room.</p> + +<p>The scholar stood thoughtful where he had paused, and did not seem to +notice him.</p> + +<p>"Then do you mean," Blondel resumed after a while, "that all your work +there"—he indicated by a nod the chemical half of the room—"has been +thrown away?"</p> + +<p>"Well——"</p> + +<p>"Not quite, I think?" the Syndic said, his small eyes twinkling. "Eh, +Messer Basterga, not quite? Now be candid."</p> + +<p>"Well, I would not say," Basterga answered coldly, and as it seemed +unwillingly, "that I have not derived something from the researches with +which I have amused my leisure. But nothing of value to the general."</p> + +<p>"Yet something of value to yourself," Blondel said, his head on one +side.</p> + +<p>Basterga frowned, then shrugged his shoulders. "Well, yes," he said at +length, "as it happens, I have. But a thing of no use to any one else, +for the simple reason——"</p> + +<p>"That you have only enough for yourself!"</p> + +<p>The scholar looked astonished and a little offended.</p> + +<p>"I do not know how you learned that," he said curtly, "but you are +right. I had no intention of telling you as much, but, as you have +guessed that, I do not mind adding that it is a remedy for a disease +which the most learned physicians do not pretend to cure."</p> + +<p>"A remedy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, vital and certain."</p> + +<p>"And you discovered it?"</p> + +<p>"No, I did not discover it," Basterga replied modestly. "But the story +is so long that I will ask you to excuse me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I shall not excuse you if you do not favour me with it," the Syndic +answered eagerly. As he leaned forward there was a light in his eyes +that had not been in them a few minutes before. His hand, too, shook as +he moved it from the arm of his chair to his knee. "Nay, but, I pray +you, indulge me," he continued, in a tone anxious and almost submissive. +"I shall not betray your secrets. I am no philosopher, and no physician, +and, had I the will, I could make no use of your confidence."</p> + +<p>"That is true," Basterga replied. "And, after all, the matter is simple. +I do not know why I should refuse to oblige you. I have said that I did +not discover this remedy. That is so. But it happened that in trying, by +way of amusement, certain precipitations, I obtained not that which I +sought—nor had I expected," he continued, smiling, "to obtain that, for +it was the Elixir of Life, which, as I have told you, does not +exist—but a substance new in my experience, and which seemed to me to +possess some peculiar properties. I tested it in all the ways known to +me, but without benefit or enlightenment; and in the end I was about to +cast it aside, when I chanced on a passage in the manuscript of Ibn +Jasher—the same, in fact, that I showed you a few minutes ago."</p> + +<p>"And you found?" The Syndic's attitude as he leaned forward, with parted +lips and a hand on each knee, betrayed an interest so abnormal that it +was odd that Basterga did not notice it.</p> + +<p>Instead, "I found that he had made," the scholar replied quietly, "as +far back as the tenth century the same experiment which I had just +completed. And with the same result."</p> + +<p>"He obtained the substance?"</p> + +<p>Basterga nodded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And discovered? What?" Blondel asked eagerly. "Its use?"</p> + +<p>"A certain use," the other replied cautiously. "Or, rather, it was not +he, but an associate, called by him the Physician of Aleppo, who +discovered it. This man was the pupil of the learned Rhazes, and the +tutor of the equally learned Avicenna, the link, in fact, between them; +but his name, for some reason, perhaps because he mixed with his +practice a greater degree of mysticism than was approved by the Arabian +schools of the next generation, has not come down to us. This man +identified the product which had defied Ibn Jasher's tests with a +substance even then considered by most to be fabulous, or to be +extracted only from the horn of the unicorn if that animal existed. That +it had some of the properties of the fabled substance, he proceeded to +prove to the satisfaction of Ibn Jasher by curing of a certain incurable +disease five persons."</p> + +<p>"No more than five?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"The substance was exhausted."</p> + +<p>Blondel gasped. "Why did he not make more?" he cried. His voice was +querulous, almost savage.</p> + +<p>"The experiment," Basterga answered, "of which it was the product was +costly."</p> + +<p>Blondel's face turned purple. "Costly?" he cried. "Costly? When the +lives of men hung in the balance."</p> + +<p>"True," Basterga replied with a smile; "but I was about to say that, +costly as it was, it was not its price which hindered the production of +a further supply. The reason was more simple. He could not extract it."</p> + +<p>"Could not? But he had made it once?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely."</p> + +<p>"Then why could he not make it again?" the Syndic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> asked. He was +genuinely, honestly angry. It was strange how much he took the matter to +heart.</p> + +<p>"He could not," Basterga answered. "He repeated the process again and +again, but the peculiar product, which at the first trial had resulted +from the precipitation, was not obtained."</p> + +<p>"There was something lacking!"</p> + +<p>"There was something lacking," Basterga answered. "But what that was +which was lacking, or how it had entered into the alembic in the first +instance, could not be discovered. The sage tried the experiment under +all known conditions, and particularly when the moon was in the same +quarter and when the sun was in the same house. He tried it, indeed, +thrice on the corresponding day of the year, but—the product did not +issue."</p> + +<p>"How do you account for that?"</p> + +<p>"Probably, in the first instance, an impurity in one of the drugs +introduced a foreign substance into the alembic. That chance never +occurred again, as far as I can learn, until, amusing myself with the +same precipitation, I—I, Cæsar Basterga of Padua," the scholar +continued, not boastfully but in a tone thoughtful and almost absent, +"in the last year of the last century, hit at length upon the same +result."</p> + +<p>The Syndic leaned forward; his hands gripped his knees more tightly. +"And you," he said, "can repeat it?"</p> + +<p>Basterga shook his head sorrowfully. "No," he said, "I cannot. Not that +I have myself essayed the experiment more than thrice. I could not +afford it. But a correspondent, M. de Laurens, of Paris, physician to +the King, has, at the expense of a wealthy patient, spent more than +fifteen thousand florins in essays. Alas, without result."</p> + +<p>The big man spoke with his eyes on the floor. Had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> he turned them on the +Syndic he must have seen that he was greatly agitated. Beads of moisture +stood on his brow, his face was red, he swallowed often and with +difficulty. At length, with an effort at composure, "Possibly your +product—is not, after all, the same as Ibn Jasher's?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I tested it in the same way," Basterga answered quietly.</p> + +<p>"What? By curing persons of that disease?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Basterga rejoined. "And I would to Heaven," he continued, with +the first spirt of feeling which he had allowed to escape him, "that I +had held my hand after the first proof. Instead, I must needs try it +again and again, and again."</p> + +<p>"For nothing?"</p> + +<p>Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "No," he said, "not for nothing." By a +gesture he indicated the objects about him. "I am not a poor man now, +Messer Blondel. Not for nothing, but too cheaply. And so often that I +have now remaining but one portion of that substance which all the +science of Padua cannot renew. One portion, only, alas!" he repeated +with regret.</p> + +<p>"Enough to cure one person?" the Syndic exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And the disease?" Blondel rose as he spoke. "The disease?" he repeated. +He extended his trembling arms to the other. No longer, even if he +wished it, could Basterga feign himself blind to the agitation which +shook, which almost convulsed, the Syndic's meagre frame. "The disease? +Is it not that which men call the Scholar's? Is it not that? But I know +it is."</p> + +<p>Basterga with something of astonishment in his face inclined his head.</p> + +<p>"And I have that disease! I!" the Syndic cried, standing before him a +piteous figure. He raised his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> hands above his head in a gesture which +challenged the compassion of gods and men. "I! In two years——" His +voice failed, he could not go on.</p> + +<p>"Believe me, Messer Blondel," Basterga answered after a long and +sorrowful pause, "I am grieved. Deeply grieved," he continued in a tone +of feeling, "to hear this. Do the physicians give no hope?"</p> + +<p>"Sons of the Horse-Leech!" the Syndic cried, a new passion shaking him +in its turn. "They give me two years! Two years! And it may be less. +Less!" he cried, raising his voice. "I, who go to and fro here and +there, like other men with no mark upon me! I, who walk the streets in +sunshine and rain like other men! Yet, for them the sky is bright, and +they have years to live. For me, one more summer, and—night! Two more +years at the most—and night! And I, but fifty-eight!"</p> + +<p>The big man looked at him with eyes of compassion. "It may be," he said, +after a pause, "that the physicians are wrong, Messer Blondel. I have +known such a case."</p> + +<p>"They are, they shall be wrong!" Blondel replied. "For you will give me +your remedy! It was God led me here to-day, it was God put it in your +heart to tell me this. You will give me your remedy and I shall live! +You will, will you not? Man, you can pity!" And joining his hands he +made as if he would kneel at the other's feet. "You can pity, and you +will?"</p> + +<p>"Alas, alas," Basterga replied, much and strongly moved. "I cannot."</p> + +<p>"Cannot?"</p> + +<p>"Cannot."</p> + +<p>The Syndic glared at him. "Why?" he cried, "Why not? If I give you——"</p> + +<p>"If you were to give me the half of your fortune," Basterga answered +solemnly, "it were useless! I myself have the first symptoms of the +disease."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I."</p> + +<p>The Syndic fell back in his chair. A groan broke from him that bore +witness at once to the bitterness of his soul and the finality of the +argument. He seemed in a moment shrunk to half his size. In a moment +disease and the shadow of death clouded his features; his cheeks were +leaden; his eyes, without light or understanding, conveyed no meaning to +his brain. "You, too!" he muttered mechanically. "You, too!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Basterga replied in a sorrowful voice. "I, too. No wonder I feel +for you. I have not known it long, nor has it proceeded far in my case. +I have even hopes, at least there are times when I have hopes, that the +physicians may be mistaken."</p> + +<p>Blondel's small eyes bulged suddenly larger. "In that event?" he cried +hoarsely. "In that event surely——"</p> + +<p>"Even in that event I cannot aid you," the big man answered, spreading +out his hands. "I am pledged by the most solemn oath to retain the one +portion I have for the use of the Grand Duke, my patron. And apart from +that oath, the benefits I have received at his hand are such as to give +him a claim second only to my necessity. A claim, Messer Blondel, +which—I say it sorrowfully—I dare not set aside for any private +feeling or private gain."</p> + +<p>Blondel rose violently, his hands clawing the air. "And I must die?" he +cried, his voice thick with rage. "I must die because he <i>may</i> be ill? +Because—because——" He stopped, struggling with himself, unable, it +seemed, to articulate. By-and-by it became apparent that the pause had +another origin, for when he spoke he had conquered his passion. "Pardon +me," he said, still hoarsely, but in a different tone—the tone of one +who saw that violence could not help him. "I was forgetting myself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +Life—life is sweet to all, Messer Basterga, and we cannot lightly see +it pass from us. To have life within sight, to know it within this room, +perhaps within reach——"</p> + +<p>"Not quite that," Basterga murmured, his eyes wandering to the steel +casket, chained to the wall beside the hearth. "Still, I understand; +and, believe me," he added in a tone of sympathy, "I feel for you, +Messer Blondel. I feel deeply for you."</p> + +<p>"Feel?" the Syndic muttered. For an instant his eyes gleamed savagely, +the veins of his temples swelled. "Feel!"</p> + +<p>"But what can I do?"</p> + +<p>Blondel could have answered, but to what advantage? What could words +profit him, seeing that it was a life for a life, and that, as all that +a man hath he will give for his life, so there is nothing another hath +that he will take for it. Argument was useless; prayer, in view of the +other's confession, beside the mark. The magistrate saw this, and made +an effort to resume his dignity. "We will talk another day," he +murmured, pressing his hand to his brow, "another day!" And he turned to +the door. "You will not mention what I have said to you, Messer +Basterga?"</p> + +<p>"Not a syllable," his host answered, as he followed him out. The +abruptness of the departure did not surprise him. "Believe me, I feel +for you, Messer Blondel."</p> + +<p>The Syndic acknowledged the phrase by a gesture not without pathos, and, +passing out, stumbled blindly down the narrow stairs. Basterga attended +him with respect to the outer door, and there they parted in silence. +The magistrate, his shoulders bowed, walked slowly to the left, where, +turning into the town through the inner gate, the Porte Tertasse, he +disappeared. The big man waited a while, sunning himself on the steps, +his face towards the ramparts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He will come back, oh, yes, he will come back," he purred, smiling all +over his large face. "For I, Cæsar Basterga, have a brain. And 'tis +better a brain than thews and sinews, gold or lands, seeing that it has +all these at command when I need them. The fish is hooked. It will be +strange if I do not land him before the year is out. But the bribe to +his physician—it was a happy thought: a happy thought of this brain of +Cæsar Basterga, graduate of Padua, <i>viri valde periti, doctissimique</i>!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>TO TAKE OR LEAVE.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> house in the Corraterie, near the Porte Tertasse, differed in no +outward respect from its neighbours. The same row of chestnut trees +darkened its lower windows, the same breezy view of the Rhone meadows, +the sloping vineyards and the far-off Jura lightened its upper rooms. A +kindred life, a life apparently as quiet and demure, moved within its +walls. Yet was the house a house apart. Silently and secretly, it had +absorbed and sucked and drawn into itself the hearts and souls and minds +of two men. It held for the one that which the old prize above all +things in the world—life; and for the other, that which the young set +above life—love.</p> + +<p>Life? The Syndic did not doubt; the bait had been dangled before his +eyes with too much cunning, too much skill. In a casket, in a room in +that house in the Corraterie, his life lay hidden; his life, and he +could not come at it! His life? Was it a marvel that waking or sleeping +he saw only that house, and that room, and that casket chained to the +wall; that he saw at one time the four steps rising to the door, and the +placid front with its three tiers of windows; at another time, the room +itself with its litter of scripts and dark-bound books, and rich +furnishings, and phials and jars and strangely shaped alembics? Was it a +marvel that in the dreams of the night the sick man toiled up and up and +up the narrow staircase, of which every point remained fixed in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +mind; or that waking, whatever his task, or wherever he might be, alone +or in company, in his parlour or in the Town House, he still fell +a-dreaming of the room and the box—the room and the box that held his +life?</p> + +<p>Had this been the worst! But it was not. There were times, bitter times, +dark hours, when the pains were upon him, and he saw his fate clear +before him; for he had known men die of the disease which held him in +its clutches, and he knew how they had died. And then he must needs lock +himself into his room that other eyes might not witness the passionate +fits of revolt, of rage and horror, and weak weeping, into which the +knowledge cast him. And out of which he presently came back to—<i>the +house</i>. His life lay there, in that room, in that house, and he could +not come at it! He could not come at it! But he would! He would!</p> + +<p>It issued in that always; in some plan or scheme for gaining possession +of the philtre. Some of the plans that occurred to him were wild and +desperate; dangerous and hopeless on the face of them. Others were +merely violent; others again, of which craft was the mainspring, held +out a prospect of success. For a whole day the notion of arresting +Basterga on a charge of treason, and seizing the steel casket together +with his papers, was uppermost. It seemed feasible, and was feasible; +nay, it was more than feasible, it was easy; for already there were +rumours of the man abroad, and his name had been mentioned at the +council table. The Syndic had only to give the word, and the arrest +would be made, the search instituted, the papers and casket seized. Nay, +if he did not give the word, it was possible that others might.</p> + +<p>But when he thought of that step, that irrevocable step, he knew that he +would not have the courage to take it. For if Basterga had so much as +two minutes' notice, if his ear so much as caught the tread of those who +came to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> take him, he might, in pure malignity, pour the medicine on the +floor, or he might so hide it as to defy search. And at the thought—at +the thought of the destruction of that wherein lay his only chance of +life, his only hope of seeing the sun and feeling again the balmy breath +of spring, the Syndic trembled and shook and sweated with rage and fear. +No, he would not have the courage. He would not dare. For a week and +more after the thought occurred to him, he dared not approach the +scholar's lodging, or be seen in the neighbourhood, so great was his +fear of arousing Basterga's suspicions and setting him on his guard.</p> + +<p>At the end of a fortnight or so, the choice of ways was presented to him +in a concrete form; and with an abruptness which placed him on the edge +of perplexity. It was at a morning meeting of the smaller council. The +day was dull, the chamber warm, the business to be transacted +monotonous; and Blondel, far from well and interested in one thing +only—beside which the most important affairs of Geneva seemed small as +the doings of an ant-hill viewed through a glass—had fallen asleep, or +nearly asleep. Naturally a restless and wakeful man, of thin habit and +nervous temperament, he had never done such a thing before: and it was +unfortunate that he succumbed on this occasion, for while he drowsed the +current of business changed. The debate grew serious, even vital. +Finally he awoke to the knowledge of place and time with a name ringing +in his ears; a name so fixed in his waking thoughts that, before he knew +where he was or what he was doing, he repeated it in a tone that drew +all eyes upon him.</p> + +<p>"Basterga!"</p> + +<p>Some knew he had slept and smiled; more had not noticed it, and turned, +struck by the strange tone in which he echoed the name. Fabri, the First +Syndic,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> who sat two places from him, and had just taken a letter from +the secretary, leaned forward so as to view him. "Ay, Basterga," he +said, "an Italian, I take it. Do you know him, Messer Blondel?"</p> + +<p>He was awake now, but, confused and startled, inclined to believe that +he was on his trial; and that the faint parleyings with treason, small +things hard to define, to which he had stooped, were known. +Mechanically, to gain time, he repeated the name: "Basterga?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Fabri repeated. "Do you know him?"</p> + +<p>"Cæsar Basterga, is it?"</p> + +<p>"That is his name."</p> + +<p>He was himself now, though his nerves still shook; himself so far as he +could be, while ignorant of what had passed, and how he came to be +challenged. "Yes, I know him," he said slowly, "if you mean a Paduan, a +scholar of some note, I believe. Who applied to me—I dare say it would +be six weeks back—for a licence to stay a while in the town."</p> + +<p>"Which you granted?"</p> + +<p>"In the usual course. He had letters from"—Blondel shrugged his +shoulders—"I forget from whom. What of him?" with a steady look at +Baudichon the councillor, his life-long rival, and the quarter whence if +trouble were brewing it was to be expected. "What of him?" he repeated, +throwing himself back in his chair, and tapping the table with his +fingers.</p> + +<p>"This," Fabri answered, waving the letter which he had in his hands.</p> + +<p>"But I do not know what that is," Blondel replied coolly. "I am +afraid"—he looked at his neighbour on either side—"was I asleep?"</p> + +<p>"I fear so," said one, while the other smiled. They were his very good +friends and allies.</p> + +<p>"Well, it is not like me. I can say that I am not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> often," with a keen +look at Baudichon, "caught napping! And now, M. Fabri," he continued +with his usual practical air, "I have delayed the business long enough. +What is it? And what is that?" He pointed to the letter in the First +Syndic's hands.</p> + +<p>"Well, it is really your affair in the main," Fabri answered, "since as +Fourth Syndic you are responsible for the guard and the city's safety; +and ours afterwards. It is a warning," he continued, his eyes reverting +to the page before him, "from our secret agent in Turin, whose name I +need not mention"—Blondel nodded—"informing us of a fresh attempt to +be made on the city before Christmas; by means of rafts formed of +hurdles and capable of transporting whole companies of soldiers. These +he has seen tried in the River Po, and they performed the work. Having +reached the walls by their means the assailants are to mount by ladders +which are being made to fit into one another. They are covered with +black cloth, and can be laid against the wall without noise. It +sounds—circumstantial?" Fabri commented, breaking off and looking at +Blondel.</p> + +<p>The Syndic nodded thoughtfully. "Yes," he said, "I think so. I think +also," he continued, "that with the aid of my friend, Captain Blandano, +I shall be able to give a good account of the rafts and the ladders."</p> + +<p>Baudichon the councillor interposed. "But that is not all," he muttered, +rolling ponderously in his chair as he spoke. He was a stout man with a +double chin and a weighty manner; honest, but slow, and the spokesman of +the more wealthy burghers. His neighbour Petitot, a man of singular +appearance, lean, with a long thin drooping nose, commonly supported +him. Petitot, who bore the nickname of "the Inquisitor," represented the +Venerable Company of Pastors, and was viewed with especial distaste by +the turbulent spirits whom the war had left in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> the city, as well as by +the lower ranks, who upheld Blondel. In sense and vigour the Fourth +Syndic was more than a match for the two precisians: but honesty of +purpose has a weight of its own that slowly makes itself felt. "That is +not all," Baudichon repeated after a glance at his neighbour and ally +Petitot, "I want to know——"</p> + +<p>"One moment, M. Baudichon, if you please," Fabri said, cutting him +short, amid a partial titter; the phrase "I want to know" was so often +on the councillor's lips that it had become ridiculous. "One moment; as +you say, that is not all. The writer proceeds to warn us that the Grand +Duke's lieutenant, M. d'Albigny, has taken a house on the Italian side +of the frontier, and is there constructing a huge petard on wheels which +is to be dragged up to the gate——"</p> + +<p>"With the ladders and rafts?"</p> + +<p>"They seem to belong to another scheme," Fabri said, as he turned back +and conned the letter afresh.</p> + +<p>"With M. d'Albigny at the bottom of both?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, if he be not more successful with this," Blondel answered +contemptuously, "than he was with the attempt to mine the Arsenal—which +ended in supplying us with two or three casks of powder—I think Captain +Blandano and I may deal with him."</p> + +<p>A murmur of assent approved the boast; but it did not proceed from all. +There were men at the table who had children, who had wives, who had +daughters, whose faces were grave. Just thirty years had passed over the +world since the horrors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew—to be +speedily followed by the sack of Antwerp—had paled the cheek of Europe. +Just thirty years were to elapse and the sack of Magdeburg was to prove +a match and more than a match for both in horror and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> cruelty. That the +Papists, if they entered, would deal more gently with Geneva, the head +and front of offence, or extend to the Mother of Heretics mercy which +they had refused to her children, these men did not believe. The +presence of an enemy ever lurking within a league of their gates, ever +threatening them by night and by day, had shaken their nerves. They +feared everything, they feared always. In fitful sleep, in the small +hours, they heard their doors smashed in; their dreams were disturbed by +cries and shrieks, by the din of bells, and the clash of weapons.</p> + +<p>To these men Blondel seemed over confident. But no one took on himself +to gainsay him in his particular province, the superintendence of the +guard; and though Baudichon sighed and Petitot shook his head, the word +was left with him. "Is that all, Messer Fabri?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, if we lay it to heart."</p> + +<p>"But I want to know," Baudichon struck in, puffing pompously, "what is +to be done about—Basterga."</p> + +<p>"Basterga? To be sure I was forgetting him," Fabri answered. "What is to +be done? What do you say, Messer Blondel? What are we to do about him?"</p> + +<p>"I will tell you if you will tell me what the point is that touches him. +You forget, Messer Syndic"—with a somewhat sickly smile—"that I was +asleep."</p> + +<p>"The letter," Fabri replied, returning to it, "touches him seriously. It +asserts that a person of that name is here in the Grand Duke's interest, +that he is in the secret of these plots, and that we should do well to +expel him, if we do not seize and imprison him."</p> + +<p>"And you want to know——"</p> + +<p>"I want to know," Baudichon answered, rolling in his chair as was his +habit when delivering himself, "what you know of him, Messer Blondel."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<p>Blondel turned rudely on him, perhaps to hide a slight ebb of colour +from his cheeks. "What I know?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay."</p> + +<p>"No more than you know!"</p> + +<p>"But," Petitot retorted in his dry, thin voice, "it was you, Messer +Blondel, not Messer Baudichon, who gave him permission to reside in the +town."</p> + +<p>"And I want to know," Baudichon chimed in remorselessly, "what +credentials he had. That is what I want to know!"</p> + +<p>"Credentials? Oh, something formal! I don't know what," Blondel replied +rudely. He looked to the secretary who sat at the foot of the table. "Do +you know?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No, Messer Syndic," the man replied. "I remember that a licence was +granted to him in the name of Cæsar Basterga, graduate of Padua; and +doubtless—for licences to reside are not granted without such—he had +letters, but I do not recall from whom. They would be returned to him +with the licence."</p> + +<p>"And that is all," Petitot said, his long nose drooping, his inquisitive +eyes looking over his glasses, "that you know about him, Messer +Blondel?"</p> + +<p>Did they know anything, and, if so, what did they know? Blondel +hesitated. This persistence, this continual harping on one point, began +to alarm him. But he carried it bravely. "Do you mean as to his +convictions?" he asked with a sneer.</p> + +<p>"No, I mean at all!"</p> + +<p>"I want to know," Baudichon added—the parrot phrase began to carry to +Blondel's ears the note of fate—"what you know about him."</p> + +<p>This time a pause betrayed Blondel's hesitation. Should he admit that he +had been to Basterga's lodging; or dared he deny a fact that might imply +an intimacy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> greater than he had acknowledged? A faint perspiration rose +on his brow as he decided that he dare not. "I know that he lives in a +house in the Corraterie," he answered, "a house beside the Porte +Tertasse, and that he is a scholar—I believe of some repute. I know so +much," he continued boldly, "because he wrote to thank me for the +licence, and, by way of acknowledgment, invited me to visit his lodging +to view a rare manuscript of the Scriptures. I did so, and remained a +few minutes with him. That is all I know of him. I suppose," with a grim +look at Baudichon and the Inquisitor, who had exchanged meaning glances, +"it is not alleged that I am in the plot with him? Or that he has +confided to me the Grand Duke's plans?"</p> + +<p>Fabri laughed heartily at the notion, and the laugh, which was echoed by +four-fifths of those at the table, cleared the air. Petitot, it is true, +limited himself to a smile, and Baudichon shrugged his shoulders. But +for the moment the challenge silenced them. The game passed to Blondel's +hands, and his spirits rose. "If M. Baudichon wants to know more about +him," he said contemptuously, "I dare say that the information can be +obtained."</p> + +<p>"The point is," Fabri answered, "what are we to do?"</p> + +<p>"As to—what?"</p> + +<p>"As to expelling him or seizing him."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" The exclamation fell from Blondel's lips before he could stay it. +He saw what was coming, and the dilemma in which he was to be placed.</p> + +<p>"We have the letter before us," the First Syndic continued, "and apart +from it, we know nothing for this person or against him." He looked +round the table and met assenting glances. "I think, therefore, that it +will be well, to leave it to Messer Blondel. He is responsible for the +safety of the city, and it should be for him to say what is to be +done."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," several voices agreed. "Leave it to Messer Blondel."</p> + +<p>"You assent to that, Messer Baudichon?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," the councillor muttered reluctantly.</p> + +<p>"Very good," said Fabri. "Then, Messer Blondel, it remains with you to +say what is to be done."</p> + +<p>The Fourth Syndic hesitated, and with reason; had Baudichon, had the +Inquisitor known the whole, they could hardly have placed him in a more +awkward dilemma. If he took the course that prudence in his own +interests dictated, and shielded Basterga, his action might lay him open +to future criticism. If, on the other hand, he gave the word to expel or +seize him, he broke at once and for ever with the man who held his last +chance of life in the hollow of his hand.</p> + +<p>And yet, if he dared adopt the latter course, if he dared give the word +to seize, there was a chance, and a good chance, that he would find the +<i>remedium</i> in the casket; for with a little arrangement Basterga might +be arrested out of doors, or be allured to a particular place and there +be set upon. But in that way lay risk; a risk that chilled the current +of the Syndic's blood. There was the chance that the attempt might fail; +the chance that Basterga might escape; the chance that he might have the +<i>remedium</i> about him—and destroy it; the chance that he might have +hidden it. There were so many chances, in a word, that the Syndic's +heart stood still as he enumerated them, and pictured the crash of his +last hope of life.</p> + +<p>He could not face the risk. He could not. Though duty, though courage +dictated the venture, craven fear—fear for the loss of the new-born +hope that for a week had buoyed him up—carried it. Hurriedly at last, +as if he feared that he might change his mind, he pronounced his +decision.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I doubt the wisdom of touching him," he said. "To seize him if he be +guilty proclaims our knowledge of the plot; it will be laid aside, and +another, of which we may not be informed, will be hatched. But let him +be watched, and it will be hard if with the knowledge we have we cannot +do something more than frustrate his scheme."</p> + +<p>After an interval of silence, "Well," Fabri said, drawing a deep breath +and looking round, "I believe you are right. What do you say, Messer +Baudichon?"</p> + +<p>"Messer Blondel knows the man," Baudichon answered drily. "He is, +therefore, the best judge."</p> + +<p>Blondel reddened. "I see you are determined to lay the responsibility on +me," he cried.</p> + +<p>"The responsibility is on you already!" Petitot retorted. "You have +decided. I trust it may turn out as you expect."</p> + +<p>"And as you do not expect!"</p> + +<p>"No; but you see"—and again the Inquisitor looked over his +glasses—"you know the man, have been to his lodging, have conversed +with him, and are the best judge what he is! I have had naught to do +with him. By the way," he turned to Fabri, "he is at Mère Royaume's, is +he not? Is there not a Spaniard of the name of Grio lodging there?"</p> + +<p>Blondel did not answer and the secretary looked up from his register. +"An old soldier, Messer Petitot?" he said. "Yes, there is."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you know him also, Messer Blondel?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know him. He served the State," Blondel answered quietly. He had +winked at more than one irregularity on the part of Grio, and at the +sound of the name anger gave place to caution. "I have also," he +continued, "my eye upon him, as I shall have it upon Basterga. Will that +satisfy you, Messer Petitot?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p>The councillor leaned forward. "Fac salvam Genevam!" he replied in a +voice low and not quite steady. "Do that, keep Geneva safe—guard well +our faith, our wives and little ones—and I care not what you do!" And +he rose from his seat.</p> + +<p>The Fourth Syndic did not answer. Those few words that in a moment +raised the discussion from the low level of detail on which the +Inquisitor commonly wasted himself, and set it on the true plane of +patriotism—for with all his faults Petitot was a patriot—silenced +Blondel while they irritated and puzzled him. Why did the man assume +such airs? Why talk as if he and he alone cared for Geneva? Why bear +himself as if he and he alone had shed and was prepared to shed his +blood for the State? Why, indeed? Blondel snarled his indignation, but +made no other answer.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later, as he descended the stairs, he laughed at the +momentary annoyance which he had felt. What did it matter to him, a +dying man, who had the better or who the worse, who posed, or who +believed in the pose? It was of moment indeed that his enemies had +contrived to fix him with the responsibility of arresting Basterga, or +of leaving him at large: that they had contrived to connect him with the +Paduan, and made him accountable to an extent which did not please him +for the man's future behaviour. But yet again what did that +matter—after all? Of what moment was it—after all? He was a dying man. +Was anything of moment to him except the one thing which Basterga had it +in his power to grant or to withhold, to give or to deny?</p> + +<p>Nothing! Nothing!</p> + +<p>He pondered on what had passed, and wondered if he had not done +foolishly. Certainly he had let slip a grand, a unique opportunity of +seizing the man and of snatching the <i>remedium</i>. He had put the chance +from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> him at the risk of future blame. Now he was of two minds about it. +Of two minds: but of one mind only about another thing. As he veered +this way and that in his mind, now cursing his cowardice, and now +thanking God that he had not taken the irrevocable step,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Opportunity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That work'st our thoughts into desires, desires<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To resolutions,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>kindled in him a burning impatience to act. If he did not act, if he +were not going to act, if he were not going to take some surer and safer +step, he had been foolish and trebly foolish to let slip the opportunity +that had been his.</p> + +<p>But he would act. For a fortnight he had abstained from visiting +Basterga, and had even absented himself from the neighbourhood of the +house lest the scholar's suspicions should be wakened. But to what +purpose if he were not going to act? If he were not going to build on +the ground so carefully prepared, to what end this wariness and this +abstention?</p> + +<p>Within an hour the Syndic, long so wary, had worked himself into a fever +and, rather than remain inactive, was ripe for any step, however +venturesome, provided it led to the <i>remedium</i>. He had still the +prudence to postpone action until night; but when darkness had fairly +set in and the bell of St. Peter, inviting the townsfolk to the evening +preaching, had ceased to sound—an indication that he would meet few in +the streets—he cloaked himself, and, issuing forth, bent his steps +across the Bourg du Four in the direction of the Corraterie.</p> + +<p>Even now he had no plan in his mind. But amid the medley of schemes that +for a week had been hatching in his brain, he hoped to be guided by +circumstances to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> that one which gave surest promise of success. Nor was +his courage as deeply rooted as he fancied: the day had told on his +nerves; he shivered in the breeze and started at a sound. Yet as often +as he paused or hesitated, the words "A dying man! A dying man!" rang in +his ears and urged him on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>A SECOND TISSOT.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Messer Blondel's</span> sagacity in forbearing completely and for so long a +period the neighbourhood of Basterga proved an unpleasant surprise to +one man; and that was the man most concerned. For a day or two the +scholar lived in a fool's paradise, and hugging himself on certain +success, anticipated with confidence the entertainment which he would +derive from the antics of the fish as it played about the bait, now +advancing and now retreating. He had formed a low opinion of the +magistrate's astuteness, and forgetting that there is a cunning which is +rudimentary and of the primitives, he entertained for some time no +misgiving. But when day after day passed by and still, though more than +a week had elapsed, Blondel did not appear, nor make any overture, when, +watch he never so carefully in the dusk of the evening or at the quiet +hours of the day, he caught no glimpse of the Syndic's lurking figure, +he began to doubt. He began to fear. He began to wait about the door +himself in the hope of detecting the other: and a dozen times between +dawn and dark he was on his feet at the upper window, looking warily +down, on the chance of seeing him in the Corraterie.</p> + +<p>At last, slowly and against his will, the fear that the fish would not +bite began to take hold of him. Either the Syndic was honest, or he was +patient as well as cunning. In no other way could Basterga explain his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +dupe's inaction. And presently, when he had almost brought himself to +accept the former conclusion, on an evening something more than a week +later, a thing happened that added sharpness to his anxiety. He was +crossing the bridge from the Quarter of St. Gervais, when a man cloaked +to the eyes slipped from the shadow of the mills, a little before him, +and with a slight but unmistakable gesture of invitation proceeded in +front of him without turning his head.</p> + +<p>There was mist on the face of the river that rushed in a cataract below; +a steady rain was falling, and darkness itself was not far off. There +were few abroad, and those were going their ways without looking behind +them. A better time for a secret rendezvous could not be, and Messer +Basterga's heart leapt up and his spirits rose as he followed the +cloaked figure. At the end of the bridge the man turned leftwards on to +a deserted wharf between two mills; Basterga followed. Near the water's +edge the projecting upper floor of a granary promised shelter from the +rain; under this the stranger halted, and turning, lowered with a +brusque gesture his cloak from his face. Alas, the eager "Why, Messer +Blondel——" that leapt to Basterga's lips died on them. He stood +speechless with disappointment, choking with chagrin. The stranger noted +it and laughed.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said in French, his tone dry and sarcastic, "you do not seem +overpleased to see me, Monsieur Basterga! Nor am I surprised. Large +promises have ever small fulfilments!"</p> + +<p>"His Highness has discovered that?" Basterga replied, in a tone no less +sarcastic. For his temper was roused.</p> + +<p>The stranger's eyes flickered, as if the other's words touched a sore. +"His Highness is growing impatient!" he returned, his tone somewhat +warmer. "That is what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> he has sent me to say. He has waited long, and he +bids me convey to you that if he is to wait longer he must have some +security that you are likely to succeed in your design."</p> + +<p>"Or he will employ other means?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely. Had he followed my advice," the stranger continued with an +air of lofty arrogance, "he would have done so long ago."</p> + +<p>"M. d'Albigny," Basterga answered, spreading out his hands with an +ironical gesture, "would prefer to dig mines under the Tour du Pin near +the College, and under the Porte Neuve! To smuggle fireworks into the +Arsenal and the Town House; and then, on the eve of execution, to fail +as utterly as he failed last time! More utterly than my plan can fail, +for I shall not put Geneva on its guard—as he did! Nor set every enemy +of the Grand Duke talking—as he did!"</p> + +<p>M. d'Albigny—for he it was—let drop an oath. "Are you doing anything +at all?" he asked savagely, dropping the thin veil of irony that +shrouded his temper. "That is the question. Are you moving?"</p> + +<p>"That will appear."</p> + +<p>"When? When, man? That is what his Highness wants to know. At present +there is no appearance of anything."</p> + +<p>"No," Basterga replied with fine irony. "There is not. I know it. It is +only when the fireworks are discovered and the mines opened and the +engineers are flying for their lives—that there is really an appearance +of something."</p> + +<p>"And that is the answer I am to carry to the Grand Duke?" d'Albigny +retorted in a tone which betrayed how deeply he resented such taunts at +the lips of his inferior. "That is all you have to tell him?"</p> + +<p>Basterga was silent awhile. When he spoke again, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> was in a lower and +more cautious tone. "No; you may tell his Highness this," he said, after +glancing warily behind him. "You may tell him this. The longest night in +the year is approaching. Not many weeks divide us from it. Let him give +me until that night. Then let him bring his troops and ladders and the +rest of it—the care whereof is your lordship's, not mine—to a part of +the walls which I will indicate, and he shall find the guards withdrawn, +and Geneva at his feet."</p> + +<p>"The longest night? But that is some weeks distant," d'Albigny answered +in a grumbling tone. Still it was evident that he was impressed by the +precision of the other's promise.</p> + +<p>"Was Rome built in a day? Or can Geneva be destroyed in a day?" Basterga +retorted.</p> + +<p>"If I had my hand on it!" d'Albigny answered truculently, "the task +would not take more than a day!" He was a Southern Frenchman and an +ardent Catholic; an officer of high rank in the employ of Savoy; for the +rest, proud, brave, and difficult.</p> + +<p>"Ay, but you have not your hand on it, M. d'Albigny!" Basterga retorted +coolly. "Nor will you ever have your hand on it, without help from me."</p> + +<p>"And that is all you have to say?"</p> + +<p>"At present."</p> + +<p>"Very good," d'Albigny replied, nodding contemptuously. "If his Highness +be wise——"</p> + +<p>"He is wise. At least," Basterga continued drily, "he is wiser than M. +d'Albigny. He knows that it is better to wait and win, than leap and +lose."</p> + +<p>"But what of the discontented you were to bring to a head?" d'Albigny +retorted, remembering with relief another head of complaint, on which he +had been charged to deliver himself. "The old soldiers and rufflers +whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> the peace has left unemployed, and with whom the man Grio was to +aid you? Surely waiting will not help you with them! There should be +some in Geneva who like not the rule of the Pastors and the drone of +psalms and hymns! Men who, if I know them, must be on fire for a change! +Come, Monsieur Basterga, is no use to be made of them?"</p> + +<p>"Ay," Basterga answered, after stepping back a pace to assure himself by +a careful look that no one was remarking a colloquy which the time and +the weather rendered suspicious. "Use them if you please. Let them drink +and swear and raise petty riots, and keep the Syndics on their guard! It +is all they are good for, M. d'Albigny; and I cannot say that aught +keeps back the cause so much as Grio's friends and their line of +conduct!"</p> + +<p>"So! that is your opinion, is it, Monsieur Basterga?" d'Albigny +answered. "And with it I must go as I came! I am of no use here, it +seems?"</p> + +<p>"Of great use presently, of none now," Basterga replied with greater +respect than he had hitherto exhibited. "Frankly, M. d'Albigny, they +fear you and suspect you. But if President Rochette of Chambery, who has +the confidence of the Pastors, were to visit us on some pretext or +other, say to settle such small matters as the peace has left in doubt, +it might soothe their spirits and allay their suspicions. He, rather +than M. d'Albigny, is the helper I need at present."</p> + +<p>D'Albigny grunted, but it was evident that the other's boldness +impressed him. "You think, then, that they suspect us?" he said.</p> + +<p>"How should they not? Tell me that. How should they not? Rochette's task +must be to lull those suspicions to sleep. In the meantime I——"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Will be at work," Basterga replied. He laughed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> drily as if it pleased +him to baulk the other's curiosity. Softly he added under his breath,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"Captique dolis, lacrimisque coactis,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quos neque Tydides, nec Larrissæus Achilles<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Non anni domuere decem, non mille carinæ!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>D'Albigny nodded. "Well, I trust you are really counting on something +solid," he answered. "For you are taking a great deal upon yourself, +Monsieur Basterga. I hope you understand that," he added with a +searching look.</p> + +<p>"I take all on myself," the big man answered.</p> + +<p>The Frenchman was far from content, but he argued no more. He reflected +a moment, considering whether he had forgotten anything: then, muttering +that he would convey Basterga's views to the Grand Duke, he pulled his +cloak more closely about his face, and with a curt nod of farewell, he +turned on his heel and was gone. A moment, and he was lost to sight +between the wooden mills and sheds which flanked the bridge on either +side, and rendered it at once as narrow and as picturesque as were most +of the bridges of the day. Basterga, left solitary, waited a while +before he left his shelter. Satisfied at length that the coast was +clear, he continued his way into the town, and thinking deeply as he +went came presently to the Corraterie. It cannot be said that his +meditations were of the most pleasant; and perhaps for this reason he +walked slowly. When he entered the house, shaking the moisture from his +cloak and cap, he found the others seated at table and well advanced in +their meal. He was twenty minutes late.</p> + +<p>He was a clever man. But at times, in moments of irritation, the sense +of his cleverness and of his superiority to the mass of men led him to +do the thing which he had better have left undone. It was so this +evening.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> Face to face with d'Albigny, he had put a bold face on the +difficulties which surrounded him: he had let no sign of doubt or +uncertainty, no word of fear respecting the outcome escape him. But the +moment he found himself at liberty, the critical situation of his +affairs, if the Syndic refused to take the bait, recurred to his mind, +and harassed him. He had no <i>confidante</i>, no one to whom he could +breathe his fears, no one to whom he could explain the situation, or +with whom he could take credit for his coolness: and the curb of +silence, while it exasperated his temper, augmented a hundredfold the +contempt in which he held the unconscious companions among whom chance +and his mission had thrown him. A spiteful desire to show that contempt +sparkled in his eyes as he took his seat at the table this evening; but +for a minute or two after he had begun his meal he kept silence.</p> + +<p>On a mind such as his, outward things have small effect; otherwise the +cheerful homeliness of the scene must have soothed him. The lamp, +telling of present autumn and approaching winter, had been lit: a +wood-fire crackled pleasantly in the great fireplace and was reflected +in rows of pewter plates on either dresser: a fragrant stew scented the +air; all that a philosopher of the true type could have asked was at his +service. But Basterga belonged rather to the fifteenth century, the +century of the south, which was expiring, than to the century of the +north which was opening. Splendour rather than comfort, the gorgeousness +of Venice, of red-haired dames, stiff-clad in Titian velvets, of tables +gleaming with silk and gold and ruby glass, rather than the plain +homeliness which Geneva shared with the Dutch cities, held his mind. +To-night in particular his lip curled as he looked round. To-night in +particular ill-pleased and ill-content he found the place and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +company well matched, the one and the other mean and contemptible!</p> + +<p>One there—Gentilis—marked the great man's mood, and, cringing, after +his kind, kept his eyes low on his platter. Grio, too, knew enough to +seek refuge in sullen silence. Claude alone, impatient of the constraint +which descended on the party at the great man's coming, continued to +talk in a raised voice. "Good soup to-night, Anne," he said cheerfully. +For days past he had been using himself to speak to her easily and +lightly, as if she were no more to him than to the others.</p> + +<p>She did not answer—she seldom did. But "Good?" Basterga sneered in his +most cutting tone. "Ay, for schoolboys! And such as have no palate save +for pap!"</p> + +<p>Claude being young took the thrust a little to heart. He returned it +with a boy's impertinence. "We none of us grow thin on it," he said with +a glance at the other's bulk.</p> + +<p>Basterga's eyes gleamed. "Grease and dish-washings," he exclaimed. And +then, as if he knew where he could most easily wound his antagonist, he +turned to the girl.</p> + +<p>"If Hebe had brought such liquor to Jupiter," he sneered, "do you think +he had given her Hercules for a husband, as I shall presently give you +Grio? Ha! You flush at the prospect, do you? You colour and tremble," he +continued mockingly, "as if it were the wedding-day. You'll sleep little +to-night, I see, for thinking of your Hercules!" With grim irony he +pointed to his loutish companion, whose gross purple face seemed the +coarser for the small peaked beard that, after the fashion of the day, +adorned his lower lip. "Hercules, do I call him? Adonis rather."</p> + +<p>"Why not Bacchus?" Claude muttered, his eyes on his plate. In spite of +the strongest resolutions, he could not keep silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Bacchus? And why, boy?" frowning darkly.</p> + +<p>"He were better bestowed on a tun of wine," the youth retorted, without +looking up.</p> + +<p>"That you might take his place, I suppose?" Basterga retorted swiftly. +"What say you, girl? Will you have him?" And when she did not answer, +"Bread, do you hear?" he cried harshly and imperiously. "Bread, I say!" +And having forced her to come within reach to serve him, "What do you +say to it?" he continued, his hand on the trencher, his eyes on her +face. "Answer me, girl, will you have him?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer, but that which he had quite falsely attributed to +her before, a blush, slowly and painfully darkened her cheeks and neck. +He seized her brutally by the chin, and forced her to raise her face. +"Blushing, I see?" he continued. "Blushing, blushing, eh? So it is for +him you thrill, and lie awake, and dream of kisses, is it? For this new +youth and not for Grio? Nay, struggle not! Wrest not yourself away! Let +Grio, too, see you!"</p> + +<p>Claude, his back to the scene, drove his nails into the palms of his +hands. He would not turn. He would not, he dared not see what was +passing, or how they were handling her, lest the fury in his breast +sweep all away, and he rise up and disobey her! When a movement told him +that Basterga had released her—with a last ugly taunt aimed as much at +him as at her—he still sat bearing it, curbing, drilling, compelling +himself to be silent. Ay, and still to be silent, though the voice that +so cruelly wounded her was scarcely mute before it began again.</p> + +<p>"Tissot, indeed!" Basterga cried in the same tone of bitter jeering. "A +fig for Tissot! No more shall we</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Upon his viler metal test our purest pure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And see him transmutations three endure!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>And why? Because a mightier than Tissot is here! Because," with a coarse +laugh,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"Our stone angelical whereby<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All secret potencies to light are brought<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>has itself suffered a transmutation! A transmutation do I say! Rather an +eclipse, a darkening! He, whom matrons for their maidens fear, has come, +has seen, has conquered! And we poor mortals bow before him."</p> + +<p>Still Claude, his face burning, his ears tingling, put force upon +himself and sat mute, his eyes on the board. He would not look round, he +would not acknowledge what was passing. Basterga's tone conveyed a +meaning coarser and more offensive than the words he spoke; and Claude +knew it, and knew that the girl, at whom he dared not look knew it, as +she stood helpless, a butt, a target for their gloating eyes. He would +not look for he remembered. He saw the scalding liquid blister the skin, +saw the rounded arm quiver with pain; and remembering and seeing, he was +resolved that the lesson should not be lost on him. If it was only by +suffering he could serve her, he would serve her.</p> + +<p>He dared not look even at Gentilis, who sat opposite him; and who was +staring in gross rapture at the girl's confusion, and the burning +blushes, so long banished from her pale features. For to look at that +mean mask of a man was the same thing as to strike! Unfortunately, as it +happened, his silence and lack of spirit had a result which he had not +foreseen. It encouraged the others to carry their brutality to greater +and even greater lengths. Grio flung a gross jest in the girl's face: +Basterga asked her mockingly how long she had loved. They got no answer; +on which the big man asked his question again, his voice grown menacing; +and still she would not answer. She had taken refuge from Grio's +coarseness in the farthest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> corner of the hearth: where stooping over a +pot, she hid her burning face. Had they gone too far at last? So far, +that in despair she had made up her mind to resist? Claude wondered. He +hoped that they had.</p> + +<p>Basterga, too, thought it possible; but he smiled wickedly, in the pride +of his resources. He struck the table sharply with his knife-haft. +"What?" he cried. "You don't answer me, girl? You withstand me, do you? +To heel! To heel! Stand out in front of me, you jade, and answer me at +once. There! Stand there! Do you hear?" With a mocking eye he indicated +with his knife the spot that took his fancy.</p> + +<p>She hesitated a moment, scarlet revolt in her face; she hesitated for a +long moment; and the lad thought that surely the time had come. But then +she obeyed. She obeyed! And at that Claude at last looked up; he could +look up safely now for something, even as she obeyed, had put a bridle +on his rage and given him control over it. That something was doubt. Why +did she comply? Why obey, endure, suffer at this man's hands that which +it was a shame a woman should suffer at any man's? What was his hold +over her? What was his power? Was it possible, ah, was it possible that +she had done anything to give him power? Was it possible——</p> + +<p>"Stand there!" Basterga repeated, licking his lips. He was in a cruel +temper: harassed himself, he would make some one suffer. "Remember who +you are, wench, and where you are! And answer me! How long have you +loved him?"</p> + +<p>The face no longer burned: her blushes had sunk behind the mask of +apathy, the pallid mask, hiding terror and the shame of her sex, which +her face had worn before, which had become habitual to her. "I have not +loved him," she answered in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"Louder!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I have not loved him."</p> + +<p>"You do not love him?"</p> + +<p>"No." She did not look at Claude, but dully, mechanically, she stared +straight before her.</p> + +<p>Grio laughed boisterously. "A dose for young Hopeful!" he cried. "Ho! +Ho! How do you feel now, Master Jackanapes?"</p> + +<p>The big man smiled.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Galle, quid insanis? inquit, Tua cura Lycoris<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Perque nives alium perque horrida castra secuta est!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he murmured. He bowed ironically in Claude's direction. "The gentleman +passes beyond the jurisdiction of the court," he said. "She will have +none of him, it seems; nor we either! He is dismissed."</p> + +<p>Claude, his eyes burning, shrugged his shoulders and did not budge. If +they thought to rid themselves of him by this fooling they would learn +their mistake. They wished him to go: the greater reason he should stay. +A little thing—the sight of a small brown hand twitching painfully, +while her face and all the rest of her was still and impassive, had +expelled his doubts for the time—had driven all but love and pity and +burning indignation from his breast. All but these, and the memory of +her lesson and her will. He had promised and he must suffer.</p> + +<p>Whether Basterga was deceived by his inaction, or of set purpose was +minded to try how far they could go with him, the big man turned again +to his victim. "With you, my girl," he said, "it is otherwise. The soup +was bad, and you are mutinous. Two faults that must be paid for. There +was something of this, I remember, when Tissot—our good Tissot, who +amused us so much—first came. And we tamed you then. You paid forfeit, +I think. You kissed Tissot, I think; or Tissot kissed you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, it was I kissed her," Gentilis said with a smirk. "She chose me."</p> + +<p>"Under compulsion," Basterga retorted drily. "Will you ransom her +again?"</p> + +<p>"Willingly! But it should be two this time," Gentilis said grinning. +"Being for the second offence, a double——"</p> + +<p>"Pain," quoth Basterga. "Very good. Do you hear, my girl? Go to +Gentilis, and see you let him kiss you twice! And see we see and hear +it. And have a care! Have a care! Or next time your modesty may not +escape so easily! To him at once, and——"</p> + +<p>"No!" The cry came from Claude. He was on his feet, his face on fire. +"No!" he repeated passionately.</p> + +<p>"No?"</p> + +<p>"Not while I am here! Not under compulsion," the young man cried. "Shame +on you!" He turned to the others, generous wrath in his face. "Shame on +you to torture a woman so—a woman alone! And you three to one!"</p> + +<p>Basterga's face grew dark. "You are right! We are three," he muttered, +his hand slowly seeking a weapon in the corner behind him. "You speak +truth there, we are three—to one! And——"</p> + +<p>"You maybe twenty, I will not suffer it!" the lad cried gallantly. "You +may be a hundred——"</p> + +<p>But on that word, in the full tide of speech he stopped. His voice died +as suddenly as it had been raised, he stammered, his whole bearing +changed. He had met her eyes: he had read in them reproach, warning, +rebuke. Too late he had remembered his promise.</p> + +<p>The big man leaned forward. "What may we be?" he asked. "You were going, +I think, to say that we might be—that we might be——"</p> + +<p>But Claude did not answer. He was passing through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> a moment of such +misery as he had never experienced. To give way to them now, to lower +his flag before them after he had challenged them! To abandon her to +them, to see her—oh, it was more than he could do, more than he could +suffer! It was——</p> + +<p>"Pray go on," Basterga sneered, "if you have not said your say. Do not +think of us!"</p> + +<p>Oh, bitter! But he remembered how the scalding liquor had fallen on the +tender skin. "I have said it," he muttered hoarsely. "I have said it," +and by a movement of his hand, pathetic enough had any understood it, he +seemed to withdraw himself and his opposition.</p> + +<p>But when, obedient to Basterga's eye, the girl moved to Gentilis' side +and bent her cheek—which flamed, not by reason of Gentilis or the +coming kisses, but of Claude's presence and his cry for her—he could +not bear it. He could not stay and see it, though to go was to abandon +her perhaps to worse treatment. He rose with a cry and snatched his cap, +and tore open the door. With rage in his heart and their laughter, their +mocking, triumphant laughter, in his ears, he sprang down the steps.</p> + +<p>A coward! That was what he must seem to them. A coward's part, that was +the part they had seen him play. Into the darkness, into the night, what +mattered whither, when such fierce anger boiled within him? Such +self-contempt. What mattered whither when he knew how he had failed! Ay, +failed and played the Tissot! The Tissot and the weakling!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>ON THE THRESHOLD.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">He</span> hurried along the ramparts in a rage with those whom he had left, in +a still greater rage with himself. He had played the Tissot with a +vengeance. He had flown at them in weak passion, he had recoiled as +weakly, he had left them to call him coward. Now, even now, he was +fleeing from them, and they were jeering at him. Ay, jeering at him; +their laughter followed him, and burned his ears.</p> + +<p>The rain that beat on his fevered face, the moist wind from the Rhone +Valley below, could not wipe out <i>that</i>—the defeat and the shame. The +darkness through which he hurried could not hide it from his eyes. Thus +had Tissot begun, flying out at them, fleeing from them, a thing of +mingled fury and weakness. He knew how they had regarded Tissot. So they +now regarded him.</p> + +<p>And the girl? What shame lay on his manhood who had abandoned her, who +had left her to be their sport! His rage boiled over as he thought of +her, and with the rain-laden wind buffeting his brow he halted and made +as if he would return. But to what end if she would not have his aid, to +what end if she would not suffer him? With a furious gesture, he hurried +on afresh, only to be arrested, by-and-by, at the corner of the ramparts +near the Bourg du Four, by a dreadful thought. What if he had deceived +himself? What if he had given back before them, not because she had +willed it, not because she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> looked at him, not in compliance with +her wishes; but in face of the odds against him, and by virtue of some +streak of cowardice latent in his nature? The more he thought of it, the +more he doubted if she had looked at him; the more likely it seemed that +the look had been a straw, at which his craven soul had grasped!</p> + +<p>The thought maddened him. But it was too late to return, too late to +undo his act. He must have left them a full half-hour. The town was +growing quiet, the sound of the evening psalms was ceasing. The rustle +of the wind among the branches covered the tread of the sentries as they +walked the wall between the Porte Neuve and the Mint tower; only their +harsh voices as they met midway and challenged came at intervals to his +ears. It must be hard on ten o'clock. Or, no, there was the bell of St. +Peter's proclaiming the half-hour after nine.</p> + +<p>He was ashamed to return to the house, yet he must return; and +by-and-by, reluctantly and doggedly, he set his face that way. The wind +and rain had cooled his brow, but not his brain, and he was still in a +fever of resentment and shame when his lagging feet brought him to the +house. He passed it irresolutely once, unable to make up his mind to +enter and face them. Then, cursing himself for a poltroon, he turned +again and made for the door.</p> + +<p>He was within half a dozen strides of it when a dark figure detached +itself from the doorway, and stumbled down the steps. Its aim seemed to +be to escape, and leaping to the conclusion that it was Gentilis, and +that some trick was being prepared for him, Claude sprang forward. His +hand shot out, he grasped the other's neck. His wrath blazed up.</p> + +<p>"You rogue!" he said. "I'll teach you to lie in wait for me!" And +shifting his grasp from the man's neck to his shoulder, he turned him +round regardless of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> struggles. As he did so the man's hat fell off. +With amazement Claude recognised the features of the Syndic Blondel.</p> + +<p>The young man's arm fell, and he stared, open-mouthed and aghast, the +passion with which he had seized the stranger whelmed in astonishment.</p> + +<p>The Syndic, on the other hand, behaved with a strange composure. +Breathing rather quickly, but vouchsafing no word of explanation, he +straightened the crumpled linen about his neck, and set right his coat. +He was proceeding, still in silence, to pick up his hat, when Claude, +anticipating the action, secured the hat and restored it to him.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he said. And then, stiffly, "Come with me," he continued.</p> + +<p>He turned as he spoke and led the way to a spot at some distance from +the house, yet within sight of the door; there he wheeled about. "I was +coming to see you," he said, steadfastly confronting Claude. "Why have +you not called upon me, young man, in accordance with the invitation I +gave you?"</p> + +<p>Claude stared. The Syndic's matter-of-factness and the ease with which +he ignored what had just passed staggered him. Perhaps after all Blondel +had come for this, and had been startled while waiting at the door by +the quickness of his approach. "I—I had overlooked it," he murmured, +trying to accept the situation.</p> + +<p>"Then," the Syndic answered shrewdly, "I can see that you have not +wanted anything."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You lodge there?" Blondel continued, pointing to the house. "But I know +you do. And keep late hours, I fear. You are not alone in the house, I +think?"</p> + +<p>"No," Claude replied; and on a sudden, as his mind went back to the +house and those in it, there leapt into it the temptation to tell all to +this man, a magistrate, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> appeal to him in the girl's behalf. He +could not speak to a more proper person, if he sought the city through; +and here was the opportunity, brought unsought, to his door. But then he +had not the girl's leave to speak; could he speak without her leave? He +shifted his feet, and to gain time, "No," he said slowly, "there are two +or three who lodge in the house."</p> + +<p>"Is not the person with whom you quarrelled at the inn one of them?" the +Syndic asked. "Eh? Is not he one?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Claude answered; and the recollection of the scene and of the +support which the Syndic had given to Grio checked the impulse to speak. +Perhaps after all the girl knew best.</p> + +<p>"And a person of the name of Basterga, I think?"</p> + +<p>Claude nodded. He dared not trust himself to speak now. Could it be that +a whisper of what was passing in the house had reached the magistrates?</p> + +<p>The Syndic coughed. He glanced from the distant door, now a mere blur in +the obscurity, to his companion's face and back again to the door—of +which he seemed reluctant to lose sight. For a moment he seemed at a +loss how to proceed. When he did speak, after a long pause, it was in a +dry curt tone. "It is about him I wish to hear something," he said. "I +look to you as a good citizen to afford such information as the State +requires. The matter is more important than you think. I ask you what +you know of that man."</p> + +<p>"Messer Basterga!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Claude stared. "I know no good," he answered, more and more surprised. +"I do not like him, Messer Syndic."</p> + +<p>"But he is a learned man, I believe. He passes for such, does he not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yet you do not like him. Why?"</p> + +<p>Claude's face burned. "He puts his learning to no good use," he blurted +out. "He uses it to—to torture women. If I could tell you all—all, +Messer Blondel," the young man continued, in growing excitement, "you +would understand me better! He gains power over people, a strange power, +and abuses it."</p> + +<p>"Power? What do you mean? What kind of power?"</p> + +<p>"God knows."</p> + +<p>The Syndic stared a moment, his face expressive of contempt. This was +not the line he had meant his questions to take. What did it matter to +him how the man treated women? Pshaw! Then suddenly a light—as of +satisfaction, or discovery—gleamed in his eyes. "Do you mean," he +muttered, lowering his voice, "by sorcery?"</p> + +<p>"God knows."</p> + +<p>"By evil arts?"</p> + +<p>The young man shook his head. "I do not know," he answered, almost +pettishly. "How should I? But he has a power. A secret power! I do not +understand him or it!"</p> + +<p>The Syndic looked at him darkly thoughtful. "You did not know that that +was said of him?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"That he——"</p> + +<p>"Has magical arts?"</p> + +<p>Claude shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Nor that he has a laboratory upstairs?" Blondel continued, fixing the +young man gravely with his eyes. "A laboratory in which he reads much in +unknown tongues? And speaks much when no one is present? And tries +experiments with strange substances?"</p> + +<p>Claude shook his head. "No!" he said. "Never! I never heard it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> + +<p>He never had; but in his eyes dawned none the less a look of horror. No +man in those days doubted the existence of the devilish arts at which +Blondel hinted—arts by the use of which one being could make himself +master of the will and person of another. No man doubted their +existence: and that they were rare, were difficult, were seldom brought +within a man's experience, made them only the more hateful without +making them seem to the men of that day the less probable. That they +were often exercised at the cost of the innocent and pure, who in this +way were added to the accursed brood—few doubted this too; but the full +horror of it could be known only to the man who loved, and who +reverenced where he loved. Fortunately, men who never doubted the +reality of witchcraft, seldom conceived of it as touching those about +them; and it was only slowly that Claude took in the meaning of the +Syndic's suggestion, or discerned how perfectly it accounted for a thing +otherwise unaccountable—the mysterious sway which the scholar held over +the young girl.</p> + +<p>But he reached, he came to that point at last; and his silence and +agitation were more eloquent than words. The Syndic, who had not shot +his bolt wholly at a venture—for to accuse Basterga of the black art +had passed through his mind before—saw that he had hit the mark; and he +pushed his advantage. "Have you noted aught," he asked, "to bear out the +idea that he is given to such practices?"</p> + +<p>Claude was silent in sheer horror: horror of the thing suggested to him, +horror of the punishment in which he might involve the innocent.</p> + +<p>"I don't know!" he stammered at last, and almost incoherently. "I know +nothing! Don't ask me! God grant it be not so!" And he covered his face.</p> + +<p>"Amen! Amen, indeed," Blondel answered gravely.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> "But now for the woman, +over whom you said he had power?"</p> + +<p>"I said?"</p> + +<p>"Aye, you, a minute ago! Who is she? Is she one of the household? Come, +young man, you must answer me," the Syndic continued with severity +proportioned to the other's hesitation. "I know much, and a little more +light may enable us to act and to bring the guilty to punishment. Does +she live in the house?"</p> + +<p>Only the darkness hid Claude's pallor. "There is a woman," he muttered +reluctantly, "who lives in the house. But I know nothing! I have no +proof! Nothing, nothing!"</p> + +<p>"But you suspect! You suspect, young man," the Syndic continued, eyeing +him sternly, "and suspecting you would leave her in the clutches of the +devil whose she must become, body and soul! For shame!"</p> + +<p>"But I do not believe it!" Claude cried fiercely. "I do not believe it!"</p> + +<p>"Of her?"</p> + +<p>"Of her? No! <i>Mon dieu!</i> No! She is a child! She is innocent! Innocent +as——"</p> + +<p>"The day! you would say?" the Syndic struck in, almost solemnly. "The +likelier prey? The choicest are ever the devil's morsels."</p> + +<p>"And you think that she——"</p> + +<p>"God help her, if she be in his power! This man," the Syndic continued, +laying his hand on the other's arm, "has ruined hundreds by his secret +arts, by his foul practices, by his sorceries. He has made Venice too +hot for him. In Padua they will have him no more. Genoa has driven him +forth. If you doubt this character of him there is an easy proof; for it +is whispered, nay, it is almost certain, in what his power lies. Do you +know his room?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"No?" in a tone of dismay. "But is it not on a level with yours?"</p> + +<p>"No," Claude answered, shivering; "it is over mine."</p> + +<p>"No matter, there is an easy mode of proving him," the Syndic replied; +and despite himself his tone was eager. "If he be the man they say he +is, there is in his room a box of steel chained to the wall. It contains +the spell he uses. By means of it he can enter where he pleases, he can +enslave women to his will, he——"</p> + +<p>"And you do not seize it?" Claude cried in a tone of horror.</p> + +<p>"He has the Grand Duke's protection," the Syndic answered smoothly, "and +to touch him without clear proof might cause much trouble to the State."</p> + +<p>"And for that you suffer him," Claude exclaimed, his voice trembling. +"You suffer him to work his will? You suffer him——"</p> + +<p>"I must follow the law," Blondel answered, shaking his head. He looked +warily round; the dark ramparts were quiet. "I act but as a magistrate. +Were I a mere man and knew him, as I know him now, for what he is—a +foul magician weaving his spells about the young, ensnaring, with his +sorceries, the souls of innocent women, corrupting—but what is it, +young man?"</p> + +<p>"He is within?"</p> + +<p>"No; he left the house a minute or so before you arrived. But what is +it?" Seizing the young man's arm he restrained him. "Where are you +going?"</p> + +<p>"To his room!" Claude answered between his set teeth. "Be he man or +devil—to his room!"</p> + +<p>"You dare?"</p> + +<p>"I dare and I will!" Resisting the Syndic's feigned efforts to hold him +back, he strode towards the door. "That spell shall not be his another +hour."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>But Blondel terrified by his sudden success, and loth, now the time was +come, to put all on a cast, kept his hand on him. "Stay! Stay!" he +babbled, dragging him back. "Do not be rash!"</p> + +<p>"Stay, and leave him to ruin her!"</p> + +<p>"Still, listen! Whatever you do, listen!" the Syndic answered; and +insisted, clinging to him. His agitation was such, that had Claude +retained his powers of observation, he must have found something strange +in this anxiety. "Listen! If you find the casket, on your life touch +nothing in it! On your life!" Blondel repeated, his hands clinging more +tightly to the other's arm. "Bring it entire—touch nothing! If you do +not promise me I will raise the alarm here and now! To open it, I warn +you, is to risk all!"</p> + +<p>"I will bring it!" Claude answered, his foot on the steps, his hand on +the latch. "I will bring it!"</p> + +<p>"Ay, but you do not know what hangs on it! You will bring it as you find +it?"</p> + +<p>His persistence was so strange, he clung to the young man's arm with so +complete an abandonment of his ordinary manner, that, with the latch +half raised, Claude looked at him in wonder. "Very well, I will bring it +as I find it!" he muttered. Then, notwithstanding a movement which the +Syndic made to restrain him, he pushed the door.</p> + +<p>It was not locked, and, in a moment, he stood in the living-room which +he had left little more than an hour before. It was untenanted, but not +in darkness; a rushlight, set in an earthen vessel on the hearth, flung +long shadows on the walls and ceiling, and gave to the room, so homely +in its every-day aspect, a sinister look. The door of Gentilis' room was +shut; probably he was asleep. That at the foot of the staircase was also +shut. Claude stood a moment, frowning; then he crossed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> the floor +towards the staircase door. But though his mind was fixed, the spell of +the other's excitement told on him: the flicker of the rushlight made +him start; and half-way across the room a sound at his elbow brought him +up as if he had been stabbed. He turned his head, expecting to find the +big man's eyes bent on him from some corner. He found instead the +Syndic, who had stolen in after him, and with a dark anxious face was +standing like a shadow of guilt between him and the door.</p> + +<p>The young man resented the alarm which the other had caused him. "If you +are going, go," he muttered. "And if you will do it yourself, Messer +Syndic, so much the better." He pointed to the door of the staircase.</p> + +<p>The Syndic recoiled, his beard wagging senilely. "No, no," he babbled. +"No, I will go back."</p> + +<p>It was no longer the formal magistrate, but a frightened man who stood +at Claude's elbow. And this was so clear that superstition, which is of +all things the most infectious, began to shake the young man's +resolution. Desperately he threw it off, and went to open the door. Then +he reflected that it would be dark upstairs, he must have a light; and +re-crossing the floor he brought the rushlight from the hearth. Holding +it aloft he opened the creaking door and began to ascend the stairs.</p> + +<p>With every step the awe of the other world grew on him; while the +shadow, which he had found at his elbow below, followed him upwards. +When he paused at the head of the flight the Syndic's face was on a +level with his knee, the Syndic's eyes were fixed on his.</p> + +<p>Claude did not understand this; but the man's company was welcome now; +and the sight of Basterga's door, not three paces from the place where +he stood, diverted his thoughts. He had not been above stairs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> since the +day of his arrival, but he knew that Basterga's room was the nearest to +the stairs. That was the door then; behind that door the Italian wrought +his devilish spells!</p> + +<p>His light, smoky and wavering, cast black shadows on the walls of the +passage as he moved. The air seemed heavy, laden with some strange drug; +the house was still, with the stillness which precedes horror. Not many +men of his time, suspecting what he suspected, would have opened that +door, or at that hour of the night would have entered that room. But +Claude, though he feared, though he shuddered, though unearthly terrors +pressed upon him, possessed a charm that supported his courage: the +memory of the scene in the room below, of the scalding drops falling on +the white skin, of the girl looking at him with that face of pain. The +devil was strong, but there was a stronger; and in the strength of love +the young man approached the door and tried it. It was locked.</p> + +<p>Somehow the fact augmented his courage. "Where the devil is, is no need +of locks," he muttered, and he felt above the door, then, stooping, +groped under it. In the latter place he found the key, thrust out of +sight between door and floor, where doubtless it was Basterga's custom +to hide it. He drew it out, and with a grim face set it in the lock.</p> + +<p>"Quick!" muttered a voice in his ear, and turning he saw that the Syndic +was trembling with eagerness. "Quick, quick! Or he may return!"</p> + +<p>Claude smiled. If he did not fear the devil he certainly did not fear +Basterga. He was about to turn the key in the lock when a sound stayed +his hand, ay, and rooted him to the spot. Yet it was only a laugh—but a +laugh such as his ears had never caught before, a laugh full of ghastly, +shrill, unearthly mirth. It rang through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> passage, through the +house, through the night; but whence it proceeded, whether from some +being at his elbow, or from above stairs, or below, it was impossible to +say; and the blood gone from his face, Claude stood, peering over his +shoulder into the dark corners of the passage. Again that laugh rose, +shrill, mocking, unearthly; and this time his hand fell from the lock.</p> + +<p>The Syndic, utterly unmanned, leant sweating against the wall. He called +upon the name of his Maker. "My God!" he muttered. "My God!"</p> + +<p>"<i>There is no God!</i>"</p> + +<p>The words, each syllable of them clear, though spoken in a voice shrill +and cracked and strange, and such as neither of them had ever heard +before, were beyond doubt. Close on them followed a shriek of weird +laughter, and then the blasphemy repeated in the same tone of mockery. +The hair crept on Claude's head, the blood withdrew to his heart. The +key which he had drawn out of the lock fell from the hand it seemed to +freeze.</p> + +<p>With distended eyes he glared down the passage. The words were still in +the air, the laughter echoed in his brain, the shadows cast by the +shaking rushlight danced and took weird shapes. A rustling as of black +wings gathered about him, unseen shapes hovered closer and closer—was +it his fancy or did he hear them?</p> + +<p>He tried to disbelieve, he strove to withstand his terror; and a moment +his fortitude held. Then, as the Syndic, shaking as with the palsy, +tottered, with a hand on either wall down the stairs, and moaning aloud +in his terror, felt his way across the room below, Claude's courage, +too, gave way; not in face of that he saw, but of that which he fancied. +He turned too, and with a greater show of composure, and still carrying +the light, he stumbled down the stairs and into the room below.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + +<p>There, for an instant sense and nerve returned, and he stood. He turned +even, and made as if he would re-ascend the staircase. But he had no +sooner thrust his head into it, and paused an instant to listen ere he +ventured, than a faint echo of the same mirthless laughter reached him, +and he turned shuddering, and fled—fled out of the room, out of the +house, out of the light, to the same spot under the trees whence he had +started with so bold a heart a few minutes earlier.</p> + +<p>The Syndic was there before him—or no, not the Syndic, but a stricken +man, clinging to a tree; seized now and again with a fresh fit of +trembling. "Take me home," he babbled. "There is no hope! There is no +hope. Take me home!"</p> + +<p>His house was not far off, and Claude, when he had a little recovered +himself, assented, gave the tottering man his arm and supported him—he +needed support—until they reached the dwelling in the Bourg du Four. +Still a wreck Blondel was by this time a little more coherent. He +foresaw solitude, and dreaded it; and would have had the other enter and +pass the night with him. But the young man, already ashamed of his +weakness, already doubting and questioning, refused, and would say no +more than that he would return on the morrow. With an aspect apparently +composed, he insisted on taking his leave, turned from the door and +retraced his steps to the Corraterie. But when he came to the house, he +lacked, brave as he was, the heart to enter; and passing it, he spent +the time until daybreak, in walking up and down the rampart within +hearing of the sentries.</p> + +<p>His mind grown somewhat calmer, he set himself to recall, precisely and +exactly, the thing that had happened. But recall it as he might, he +could not account for it. The words of blasphemy that had scorched his +ears as the key entered the lock, had been uttered, he was sure,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> in no +voice known to him; nay more, in no voice of human intonation. How could +he explain them? How account for them save in one way? How defend his +cowardice save on one ground? He shuddered, gazing at the house, and +murmuring now a prayer, and now a word of exorcism. But the day had +come, the sky was red, and the sun was near its rising before he took +courage and dared to cross the threshold.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3>MELUSINA.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Even</span> then, with the daylight about him, he crept into the house under a +weight of awe and dread. He left the door ajar that the daylight might +enter with him and dispel the shadows: and when he had crossed the +threshold it was with a pale and frowning face that he advanced to the +middle of the floor, and stood peering round the deserted living-room. +No one was stirring above or below, the house and all within it slept: +the rushlight stand, its wick long extinguished, remained where he had +set it down in the panic of his flight.</p> + +<p>With that exception—he eyed it darkly—no trace of the mysterious event +of the night was visible. The room wore, or minute by minute assumed, +its daylight aspect. Nor had he stood long gazing upon it before he +breathed more freely and felt his heart lightened. What was to be +thought, what could be thought in the circumstances, he was not prepared +to say. But the panic of the night was gone with the darkness; and with +it all thought—if in the depths he had really sunk so low—of +relinquishing the woman he loved to the powers of evil.</p> + +<p>To the powers of evil! To a fate as much worse than death as the soul +and the mind are higher than the body! Was he really face to face with +that? Was this house, so quiet, so peaceful, so commonplace, in reality +the theatre of one of those manifestations of Satan's power which were +the horror of the age? His senses affirmed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> it, and yet he doubted. Such +things were, he did not deny it. Few men of the time denied it. But +presented to him, brought within his experience, they shocked him to the +point of disbelief. He found that from the thing which he was prepared +to admit in the general, he dissented fiercely and instinctively in the +particular.</p> + +<p>What, the woman he loved! Was he to believe her delivered, soul and +body, to the power of Satan? Never! All that was sane and wholesome and +courageous in the man rebelled against the thought. He would not believe +it. The pots and pans on the hearth, the simple implements of work and +life, on which his eyes alighted wherever he turned them, and to none of +which her hand was stranger, his memory of the love that was between her +and her mother, his picture of the sacred life led by those two above +stairs, all gave the lie to it! Her subjection to Basterga, her +submission to contumely and to insult—there must be a reason for these, +a natural and innocent reason could he hit on it. The strange +occurrences of the night, the blasphemous words, the mocking laughter, +at the worst they might not import a mastery over her. He shuddered as +he recalled them, they rang in his ears and brain, the vividness of his +memory of them was remarkable. But they might not have relation to her.</p> + +<p>He stood long in moody thought, but his ears never for an instant +relaxed their vigil, their hearkening for he knew not what. At length he +passed into his bedcloset, and cooled his hot face with water and +repaired his dress. Coming out again, he found the house still quiet, +the door as he had left it, the daylight pouring in through the +aperture. No one was moving, he was still safe from interruption; and a +curiosity to visit the passage above and learn if aught abnormal was to +be seen, took possession of him. It was just possible that Basterga<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> had +not returned; that the key still lay where he had dropped it!</p> + +<p>He opened the door of the staircase and listened. He heard nothing, and +he stole half-way up the flight and again stood. Still all was silent. +He mounted more boldly then, and he was within four steps of the +top—whence, turning his head a little, he could command the +passage—when a sound arrested him. It was a sound easily explicable +though it startled him; for a moment later Anne Royaume appeared at the +foot of the upper flight of stairs, and moved along the passage towards +him.</p> + +<p>She did not see him, and he could have escaped unnoticed, had he retired +at once. But he stood fixed to the spot by something in her appearance; +a something that, as she moved slowly towards him, fancying herself +alone, filled him with dread, and with something worse than +dread—suspicion.</p> + +<p>For if ever woman looked as if she had come from a witch's Sabbath, if +ever girl, scarce more than child, walked as if she had plucked the +fruit of the Tree and savoured it bitter, it was the girl before him. +Despair—it seemed to him—rode her like a hag. Dejection, fear, misery, +were in her whole bearing. Her eyes looked out from black hollows, her +cheeks were pallid, her mouth was nerveless. Three sleepless nights, he +thought, could not have changed a woman thus—no, nor thrice three; and +he who had seen her last night and saw her now, gazed fascinated and +bewildered, asking himself what had happened, what it meant.</p> + +<p>Alas, for answer there rose the spectre which he had been striving to +lay; the spectre that had for the men of that day so appalling, so +shocking a reality. Witchcraft! The word rang in his brain. Witchcraft +would account for this, ay, for all; for her long submission to vile +behests and viler men; for that which he had heard in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> this house at +midnight; for that which the Syndic had whispered of Basterga; for that +which he noted in her now! Would account for it; ay, but by fixing her +with a guilt, not of this world, terrible, abnormal: by fixing her with +a love of things vile, unspeakable, monstrous, a love that must deprive +her life of all joy, all sweetness, all truth, all purity! A guilt and a +love that showed her thus!</p> + +<p>But thus, for a moment only. The next she espied his face above the +landing-edge, perceived that he watched her, detected, perhaps, +something of his feeling. With startling abruptness her features +underwent a change. Her cheeks flamed high, her eyes sparkled with +resentment. "You!" she cried—and her causeless anger, her impatience of +his presence, confirmed the dreadful idea he had conceived. "You!" she +repeated. "How dare you come here? How dare you? What are you doing +here? Your room is below. Go down, sir!"</p> + +<p>He did not move, but he met her eyes; he tried to read her soul, his own +quaking. And his look, sombre and stern—for he saw a gulf opening at +his feet—should have given her pause. Instead, her anger faced him down +and mastered him. "Do you hear me?" she flung at him. "Do you hear me? +If you have aught to say, if you are not as those others, go down! Go +down, and I will hear you there!"</p> + +<p>He went down then, giving way to her, and she followed him. She closed +the staircase door behind them; and that done, in the living-room with +her he would have spoken. But with a glance at Gentilis' door, she +silenced him, and led the way through the outer door to the open air. +The hour was still early, the sun was barely risen. Save for a sentry +sleeping at his post on the ramparts, there was no one within sight, and +she crossed the open space to the low wall that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> looked down upon the +Rhone. There, in a spot where the partly stripped branches which shaded +the rampart hid them from the windows, she turned to him. "Now," she +said—there was a smouldering fire in her eyes—"if you have aught to +say to me, say it. Say it now!"</p> + +<p>He hesitated. He had had time to think, and he found the burden laid +upon him heavy. "I do not know," he answered, "that I have any right to +speak to you."</p> + +<p>"Right!" she cried; and let her bitterness have way in that word. +"Right! Does any stay for that where I am concerned? Or ask my leave, or +crave my will, sir? Right? You have the same right to flout and jeer and +scorn me, the same right to watch and play the spy on me, to hearken at +my door, and follow me, that they have! Ay, and the same right to bid me +come and go, and answer at your will, that others have! Do you scruple a +little at beginning?" she continued mockingly. "It will wear off. It +will come easy by-and-by! For you are like the others!"</p> + +<p>"No!"</p> + +<p>"You are as the others! You begin as they began!" she repeated, giving +the reins to her indignation. "The day you came, last night even, I +thought you different. I deemed you"—she pressed her hand to her bosom +as if she stilled a pain—"other than you are! I confess it. But you are +their fellow. You begin as they began, by listening on stairs and at +doors, by dogging me and playing eavesdropper, by hearkening to what I +say and do. Right?" she repeated the word bitterly, mockingly, with +fierce unhappiness. "You have the right that they have! The same right!"</p> + +<p>"Have I?" he asked slowly. His face was sombre and strangely old.</p> + +<p>"Yes!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then how did I gain it?" he retorted with a dark look. "How"—his tone +was as gloomy as his face—"did they gain it? Or—he?"</p> + +<p>"He?" The flame was gone from her face. She trembled a little.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he—Basterga," he replied, his eyes losing no whit of the change +in her. "How did he gain the right which he has handed on to others, the +right to shame you, to lay hand on you, to treat you as he does? This is +a free city. Women are no slaves here. What then is the secret between +you and him?" Claude continued grimly. "What is your secret?"</p> + +<p>"My secret!" Her passion dwindled under his eyes, under his words.</p> + +<p>"Ay," Claude answered, "and his! His secret and yours. What is the thing +between you and him?" he continued, his eyes fixed on her, "so dark, so +weighty, so dangerous, you must needs for it suffer his touch, bear his +look, be smooth to him though you loathe him? What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps—love," she muttered, with a forced smile. But it did not +deceive him.</p> + +<p>"You loathe him!" he said.</p> + +<p>"I may have loved him—once," she faltered.</p> + +<p>"You never loved him," he retorted. All the shyness of youth, all the +bashfulness of man with maiden were gone. Under the weight of that +thought, that dreadful thought, he had grown old in a few minutes. His +tone was hard, his manner pitiless. "You never loved him!" he repeated, +the very immodesty of her excuse confirming his fears. "And I ask you, +what is it? What is it that is between you and him? What is it that +gives him this power over you?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," she stammered, pale to the lips.</p> + +<p>"Nothing! And was it for nothing that you were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> startled when you found +me upstairs? When you found me watching you five minutes ago, was it for +nothing that you flamed with rage——"</p> + +<p>"You had no right to be there."</p> + +<p>"No? Yet it was an innocent thing enough—to be there," he answered. "To +be there, this morning." And then, giving the words all the meaning of +which his voice was capable, "To have been there last night," he +continued, "were a different thing perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Were you there?" Her voice was barely audible.</p> + +<p>"I was."</p> + +<p>It was dreadful to see how she sank under that, how she cringed before +him, her anger gone, her colour gone, the light fled from her eyes—eyes +grown suddenly secretive. It was a minute, it seemed a minute at least, +before she could frame a word, a single word. Then, "What do you know?" +she whispered. But for the wall against which she leant, she must have +fallen.</p> + +<p>"What do I know?"</p> + +<p>She nodded, unable to repeat the words.</p> + +<p>"I was at the door of Basterga's room last night."</p> + +<p>"Last night!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I had the key of his room in my hand. I was putting it into the +lock when I heard——"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" She stepped forward, she would have put her hand over his mouth. +"Hush! Hush!"</p> + +<p>The terror of her eyes, the glance she cast behind her, echoed the word +more clearly than her lips. "Hush! Hush!"</p> + +<p>He could not bear to look at her. Her voice, her terror, the very +defence she had striven to make confirmed him in his worst suspicions. +The thing was too certain, too apparent; in mercy to himself as well as +to her, he averted his eyes.</p> + +<p>They fell on the hills on which he had gazed that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> morning barely a +fortnight earlier, when the autumn haze had mirrored her face; and all +his thoughts, his heart, his fancy had been hers, her prize, her easy +capture. And now he dared not look on her face. He could not bear to see +it distorted by the terrors of an evil conscience. Even her words when +she spoke again jarred on him.</p> + +<p>"You knew the voice?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"I did not know it," he answered brokenly. "I knew—whose it was."</p> + +<p>"Mine?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." He scarcely breathed the word.</p> + +<p>She did not cry "Hush!" this time, but she caught her breath; and after +a moment's pause, "Still—you did not recognise it?" she murmured. "You +did not know that it was my voice?" Could it be that after all she hoped +to blind him?</p> + +<p>"I did not."</p> + +<p>"Thank God!"</p> + +<p>"Thank God?" He stared at her, echoing the words in his astonishment. +How dared she name the sacred name?</p> + +<p>She read his thoughts. "Yes," she said hardily, "why not?"</p> + +<p>He turned on her. "Why not?" he cried. "Why not? You dare to thank Him, +who last night denied Him? You dare to name His name in the light, who +in the darkness——You! And you are not afraid?"</p> + +<p>"Afraid?" she repeated. There was a strange light, almost a smile he +would have deemed it had he thought that possible, in her face, "Nay, +perhaps; perhaps. For even the devils, we are told, believe and +tremble."</p> + +<p>His jaw fell; for a moment he gazed at her in sheer bewilderment. Then, +as the full import of her words and her look overwhelmed him, he turned +to the wall and bowed his face on his arms. His whole being shook,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> his +soul was sick. What was he to say to her? What was he to do? Flee from +her presence as from the presence of Antichrist? Avoid her henceforth as +he valued his soul? Pluck even the memory of her from his mind? Or +wrestle with her, argue with her, snatch her from the foul spells and +enchantments that now held her, the tool and chosen instrument of the +evil one, in their fiendish grip?</p> + +<p>He felt a Churchman's horror—Protestant as he was—at the thought of a +woman possessed. But for that reason, and because he was in the way of +becoming a minister, was it not his duty to measure his strength with +the Adversary? Alas! he could conceive of no words, no thoughts, no +arguments adequate to that strife. Had he been a Papist he might have +turned with hope, even with pious confidence, to the Holy Stoup, the +Bell and Book and Candle, to the Relics, and hundred Exorcisms of his +Church. But the colder and more abstract faith of Calvin, while it +admitted the possibility of such possessions, supplied no weapons of a +material kind.</p> + +<p>He groaned in his impotence, stifled by the unwholesome atmosphere of +his thoughts. He dared not even ponder too long on what she was who +stood beside him; nor peer too closely through the murky veil that hid +her being. To do so might be to risk his soul, to become a partner in +her guilt. He might conjecture what dark thoughts and dreadful aptitudes +lurked behind the girl's gentle mask, he might strive to learn by what +black arts she had been seduced, what power over visible things had been +the price of her apostasy, what Sabbath-mark, seal and pledge of that +apostasy she bore—but at what peril! At what risk of soul and body! His +brain reeled, his blood raced at the thought.</p> + +<p>Such things had lately been, he knew. Had there not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> been a dreadful +outbreak in Alsace—Alsace, the neighbour almost of Geneva—within the +last few years. In Thann and Turckheim, places within a couple of days' +journey of Geneva, scores had suffered for such practices; and some of +these not old and ugly, but young and handsome, girls and pages of the +Court and young wives! Had not the most unlikely persons confessed to +practices the most dreadful? The most innocent in appearance to things +unspeakable!</p> + +<p>But—with a sudden revulsion of feeling—that was in Alsace, he told +himself. That was in Alsace! Such things did not happen here at men's +elbows! He must have been mad to think it or dream it. And, lifting his +head, he looked about him. The sun had risen higher, the rich vale of +the Rhone, extended at his feet, lay bathed in air and light and +brightness. The burnished hills, the brown, tilled slopes, the gleaming +river, the fairness of that rare landscape clad in morning freshness, +gave the lie to the suspicions he had been indulging, gave the lie, +there and then, to possibilities he dared not have denied in school or +pulpit. Nature spoke to his heart, and with smiling face denied the +unnatural. In Bamberg and Wurzburg and Alsace, but not here! In +Magdeburg, but not here! In Edinburgh, but not here! The world of beauty +and light and growth on which he looked would have none of the dark +devil's world of which he had been dreaming: the dark devil's world +which the sophists and churchmen and the weak-witted of twoscore +generations had built up!</p> + +<p>He turned and looked at her, the scales fallen from his eyes. Though she +was still pale, she had recovered her composure and she met his gaze +without blenching. But now, behind the passive defiance, grave rather +than sullen, which she presented to his attack, the weakness, the +helplessness, the heart pain of the woman were plain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<p>He discerned them, and while he hungered for a more explicit denial, for +a cry of indignant protest, for a passionate repudiation, he found some +comfort in that look. And his heart spoke. "I do not believe it!" he +cried impetuously, in perfect forgetfulness of the fact that he had not +put his charge into words. "I do not—I will not! Only say that it is +false! And I will say no more."</p> + +<p>Her answer was as cold water thrown upon him. "I will tell you nothing," +she answered.</p> + +<p>"Why not? Why not?" he cried.</p> + +<p>"You ask why not," she answered slowly. "Are you so short of memory? Is +it so long since, against my will and prayers, you came into yonder +house—that you forget what I said and what I did? And what you +promised?"</p> + +<p>"My God!" he cried in excitement. "You do not know where you stand! You +do not know what perils threaten you. This is no time," he continued, +holding out his hands to her in growing agitation, "for sticking on +scruples or raising trifles. Tell me all!"</p> + +<p>"I will tell you nothing!" she replied with the same quiet firmness. "I +have suffered. I suffer. Can you not suffer a little?"</p> + +<p>"Not blasphemy!" he said. "Not that! Tell me"—his voice, his face grew +suppliant—"tell me only that it was not your voice, Anne. Tell me that +it was not you who spoke! Tell me—but that."</p> + +<p>"I will tell you nothing!" she answered in the same tone.</p> + +<p>"You do not know——"</p> + +<p>"I know what it is you have in your mind!" she replied. "What it is you +are thinking of me. That they will burn me in the Bourg du Four +presently, as they burned the girl in Aix last year! As they burned the +woman in Besançon not many months since; I have seen those who saw it. +As they did to two women<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> in Zurich—my mother was there! As they did to +five hundred people in Geneva in my grandfather's time. It is that," she +continued, a strange wild light in her eyes, "that you think they will +do to me?"</p> + +<p>"God forbid!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"Nay, you may do it, too, if you choose," she answered, gravely +regarding him. "But I do not think you will, for you are young, almost +as young as I am, and, having done it, you would have many years to live +and think. You would remember in those years that it was my mother who +nursed your father, that it was you who came to us not we to you, that +it was you who promised to aid us, not I who sought your aid! You would +remember all these things of a morning when you awoke early: and +this—that in the end you gave me up to the law and burned me."</p> + +<p>"God forbid!" he cried, and hid his face with his hands. The very +quietness of her speech set an edge on horror. "God forbid!"</p> + +<p>"Ay, but men allow!" she answered drearily. "What if I was mad last +night, and in my madness denied my Maker? I am sane to-day, but I must +burn, if it be known! I must burn!"</p> + +<p>"Not by my mouth!" he cried, his brow damp with sweat. "Never, I swear +it! If there be guilt, on my head be the guilt!"</p> + +<p>"You mean it? You mean that?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"You will be silent?"</p> + +<p>"I will."</p> + +<p>Her lips parted, hope in her eyes shone—hope which showed how deep her +despair had been. "And you will ask no questions?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"I will ask no questions," he answered. He stifled a sigh.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + +<p>She drew a deep breath of relief, but she did not thank him. It was a +thing for which no thanks could be given. She stood a while, sad and +thoughtful, reflecting, it seemed, on what had passed; then she turned +slowly and left him, crossed the open space, and entered the house, +walking as one under a heavy burden.</p> + +<p>And he? He remained, troubled at one time by the yearning to follow and +comfort and cherish her; cast at another into a cold sweat by the +recollection of that voice in the night, and the strange ties which +bound her to Basterga. Innocent, it seemed to him, that connection could +not be. Based on aught but evil it could hardly be. Yet he must endure, +witness, cloak it. He must wait, helpless and inactive, the issue of it. +He must lie on the rack, drawn one way by love of her, drawn the other +by daily and hourly suspicions, suspicions so strong and so terrible +that even love could hardly cast them out.</p> + +<p>For the voice he had heard at midnight, and the horrid laughter, which +greeted the words of sacrilege—were facts. And her subjection to +Basterga, the man of evil past the evil name, was a fact. And her terror +and her avowal were facts. He could not doubt, he could not deny them. +Only—he loved her. He loved her even while he doubted her, even while +he admitted that women as young and as innocent had been guilty of the +blackest practices and the most evil arts. He loved her and he suffered: +doubting, though he could not abandon her. The air was fresh about him, +the world lay sunlit under his eyes. But the beauty of the world had not +saved young and tender women, who on such mornings had walked barefoot, +none comforting them, to the fiery expiation of their crimes. +Perhaps—perhaps among the thousands who had witnessed their last agony, +one man hidden in the crowd, had vainly closed ears and eyes, one man +had died a hundred deaths in one.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3>AUCTIO FIT: VENIT VITA.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> his spacious chestnut-panelled parlour, in a high-backed oaken chair +that had throned for centuries the Abbots of Bellerive, Messer Blondel +sat brooding with his chin upon his breast. The chestnut-panelled +parlour was new. The shields of the Cantons which formed a frieze above +the panels shone brightly, the or and azure, gules and argent of their +quarterings, undimmed by time or wood-smoke. The innumerable panes of +the long heavily leaded windows which looked out on the Bourg du Four +were still rain-proof; the light which they admitted still found +something garish in the portrait of the Syndic—by Schouten—that formed +the central panel of the mantelpiece. New and stately, the room had not +its pair in Geneva; and dear to its owner's heart had it been a short, a +very short time before. He had anticipated no more lasting pleasure, +looked forward to no safer gratification for his declining years, than +to sit, as he now sat, surrounded by its grandeur. In due time—not at +once, lest the people take alarm or his enemies occasion—he had +determined to rebuild the whole house after the same fashion. The plans +of the oaken gallery, the staircase and dining-chamber, prepared by a +trusty craftsman of Basle, lay at this moment in the drawer of the +bureau beside his chair.</p> + +<p>Now all was changed. A fiat had gone forth, which placed him alike +beyond the envy of his friends, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> hatred of his foes. He must +die. He must die, and leave these pleasant things, this goodly room, +that future of which he had dreamed. Another man would lie warm in the +chamber he had prepared; another would be Syndic and bear his wand. The +years of stately plenty which he had foreseen, were already as last +year's harvest. No wonder that the sheen of portrait and panel, the +pride of echoing oak, were fled; or that the eyes with which he gazed on +the things about him were dull and lifeless.</p> + +<p>Dull and lifeless at one moment, and clouded by the apathy of despair; +at another bright with the fierce fever of revolt. In the one phase or +the other he had passed many hours of late, some of them amid the +dead-sea grandeur of this room. And he had had his hours of hope also. A +fortnight back a ray of hope, bright as the goblin light which shines +the more brilliantly the darker be the night, had shone on him and +amused and enchanted him. And then, in one moment, God and man—or if +not God, the devil—had joined to quench the hope; and this morning he +sat sunk in deepest despair, all in and around him dark. Hitherto he had +regarded appearances. He had hidden alike his malady and his fears, his +apathy and his mad revolt; he had lived as usual. But this morning he +was beyond that. He could not rouse himself, he could not be doing. His +servants, wondering why he did not go abroad or betake himself to some +task, came and peeped at him, and went away whispering and pointing and +nudging one another. And he knew it. But he paid no heed to them or to +anything, until it happened that his eyes, resting dully on the street, +marked a man who paused before the door and looked at the house, in +doubt it seemed, whether he should seek to enter or should pass on.</p> + +<p>For an appreciable time the Syndic watched the loiterer without seeing +him. What did it matter to a dying man—a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> man whom heaven, impassive, +abandoned to the evil powers—who came or who went? But by-and-by his +eyes conveyed the identity of the man to his brain; and he rose to his +feet, laying his hands on a bell which stood on the table beside him. In +the act of ringing he changed his mind, and laying the bell down, he +strode himself to the outer door, the house door, and opened it. The man +was still in the street. Scarcely showing himself, Blondel caught his +eye, signed to him to enter, and held the door while he did so.</p> + +<p>Claude Mercier—for he it was—entered awkwardly. He followed the Syndic +into the parlour, and standing with his cap in his hand, began +shamefacedly to explain that he had come to learn how the Syndic was, +after—after that which had happened——He did not finish the sentence.</p> + +<p>For that matter, Blondel did not allow him to finish. He had passed at +sight of the youth into the other of the two conditions between which +his days were divided. His eyes glittered, his hands trembled. "Have you +done anything?" he asked eagerly; and the voice in which he said it +surprised the young man. "Have you done anything?"</p> + +<p>"As to Basterga, do you mean, Messer Syndic?"</p> + +<p>"As to what else? What else?"</p> + +<p>"No, Messer Blondel, I have not."</p> + +<p>"Nor learned anything?"</p> + +<p>"No, nothing."</p> + +<p>"But you don't mean—to leave it there?" Blondel cried, his voice rising +high. And he sat down and rose up again. "You have done nothing, but you +are going to do something? What will it be? What?" And then as he +discerned the other's surprise, and read suspicion in his eyes, he +curbed himself, lowered his tone, and with an effort was himself. "Young +man,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> he said, wiping his brow, "I am still ridden—by what happened +last night. I have lain, since we parted, under an overwhelming sense of +the presence of evil. Of evil," he repeated, still speaking a little +wildly, "such as this God-fearing town should not know even by repute! +You think me over-anxious? But I have felt the hot blast of the furnace +on my cheek, my head bears even now the smell of the burning. Hell gapes +near us!" He was beginning to tremble afresh, partly with impatience of +this parleying, partly with anxiety to pluck from the other his answer. +The glitter was returning to his eyes. "Hell gapes near us," he +repeated. "And I ask you, young man, what are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you!"</p> + +<p>Claude stared. "What would you have me do?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"What would you have done last night?" the Syndic retorted. "Did you ask +me then? Did you wait for my permission? Did you wait even for my +presence?"</p> + +<p>"No, but——"</p> + +<p>"But what?"</p> + +<p>"Things are changed."</p> + +<p>"Changed? How?" Blondel's tone sank to one of unnatural calm; but his +frame shook and his face was purple with the pressure he put upon +himself. "What is changed? Who has changed it?" he continued; to see his +chance of life hang on the will of this imbecile was almost more than he +could bear. "Speak out! Let me know what has happened."</p> + +<p>"You know what happened as well as I do," Claude answered slowly. He had +given his word to the girl that he would not interfere, but he began to +see difficulties of which he had not thought. "It was enough for me! He +may be all you said he was, Messer Syndic, but——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But you no longer burn to break the spell?" Blondel cried. "You no +longer desire to snatch from him the woman you love? You will stand by +and see her perish body and soul in this web of iniquity? You are +frightened, and will leave her to the law!" He thrust out his thin +flushed face, his pointed beard wagging malignantly. "For that is what +will come of it! To the law, you understand! I warn you, the magistrates +in Geneva bear not the sword in vain."</p> + +<p>The young man's brow grew damp. The crisis was nearer than he had +feared. "But—she has done nothing!" he faltered.</p> + +<p>"The tool with the hand that uses it! The idol and him who made it!" the +Syndic cried, swaying himself to and fro.</p> + +<p>Claude stared. "But you know nothing!" he made shift to say after a +pause. "You have nothing against her, Messer Blondel. He may be all you +say, but she——"</p> + +<p>"I have ears!"</p> + +<p>The tone said more than the words, and Claude trembled. He knew the +width of the net where witchcraft or blasphemy was in question. He knew +that, were Basterga seized, all in the house would be taken with him, +and though men often escaped for the fright, it was seldom that women +went free so cheaply. The knowledge of this tied his tongue; and urgent +as he felt the need to be, he could only glare helplessly at the +magistrate.</p> + +<p>Blondel, on his part, saw the effect of his words, and desperately +resolved to force the young man to his will, he followed up the blow. +"If you would see her burn, well and good!" he cried. "It is for you to +choose. Either break the spell, bring me the box, and set her free; or +see the law take its course! Last night——"</p> + +<p>"Last night," Claude replied, hurt to the quick, "you were not so bold, +Messer Blondel!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Syndic winced, but merged his wrath in an anxiety a thousand times +deeper. "Last night is not to-day," he answered. "Midnight is not +daylight! I have told you where the spell is, where, at least, it is +reputed to be, what it does, and under what sway it lays her; you who +love her—and I see you do—you who have access to the house at all +hours, who can watch him out——"</p> + +<p>"We watched him out last night!" Claude muttered.</p> + +<p>"Ay, but day is day! In the daylight——"</p> + +<p>"But it is not laid on me to do this! I am not the only one——"</p> + +<p>"You love her!"</p> + +<p>"Who has access to the house."</p> + +<p>"Are you a coward?"</p> + +<p>Claude breathed hard. He was driven to the wall. Between his promise to +her, and the Syndic's demand, he found himself helpless. And the demand +was not so unreasonable. For it was true that he loved her, and that he +had access to the house; and if the plan suggested seemed unusual, if it +was not the course most obvious or most natural, it was hardly for him +to cavil at a scheme which promised to save her, not only from the evil +influence which mysteriously swayed her, but from the law, and the +danger of an accusation of witchcraft. Apart from his promise he would +have chosen this course; as it had been his first impulse to pursue it +the evening before. But now he had given his word to her that he would +not interfere, and he was conscious that he understood but in part how +she stood. That being so——</p> + +<p>"A coward!" the Syndic repeated, savagely and coarsely. He had waited in +intolerable suspense for the other's answer. "That is what you are, with +all your boasting!—A coward! Afraid of—why, man, of what are you +afraid? Basterga?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It may be," Claude answered sullenly.</p> + +<p>"Basterga? Why——" But on the word Blondel stopped; and over his face +came a startling change. The rage died out of it and the flush; and +fear, and a cringing embarrassment, took the place of them. In the same +instant the change was made, and Claude saw that which caused it. +Basterga himself stood in the half-open doorway, looking towards them.</p> + +<p>For a few seconds no one spoke. The magistrate's tongue clave to the +roof of his mouth, as the scholar advanced, cap in hand, and bowed to +one and the other. The florid politeness of his bearing thinly veiling +the sarcasm of his address when he spoke.</p> + +<p>"O mire conjunctio!" he said. "Happy is Geneva where age thinks no shame +of consorting with youth! And youth, thrice happy, imbibes wisdom at the +feet of age! Messer Blondel," he continued, looking to him, and dropping +in a degree the irony of his tone, "I have not seen you for so long, I +feared that something was amiss, and I come to inquire. It is not so, I +hope?"</p> + +<p>The Syndic, unable to mask his confusion, forced a sickly phrase of +denial. He had dreaded nothing so much as to be surprised by Basterga in +the young man's company: for his conscience warned him that to find him +with Mercier and to read his plan, would be one and the same thing to +the scholar's astuteness. And here was the discovery made, and made so +abruptly and at so unfortunate a moment that to carry it off was out of +his power, though he knew that every halting word and guilty look bore +witness against him.</p> + +<p>"No? that is well," Basterga answered, smiling broadly as he glanced +from one face to the other. "That is well!" He had the air of a +good-natured pedagogue who espies his boys in a venial offence, and will +not notice it save<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> by a sly word. "Very well! And you, my friend," he +continued, addressing Claude, "is it not true what I said,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Terque Quaterque redit!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>You fled in haste last night, but we meet again! Your method in affairs +is the reverse, I fear, of that which your friend here would advise: +namely, that to carry out a plan one should begin slowly, and end +quickly; thereby putting on the true helmet of Plato, as it has been +called by a learned Englishman of our time."</p> + +<p>Claude glowered at him, almost as much at a loss as the Syndic, but for +another reason. To exchange commonplaces with the man who held the woman +he loved by an evil hold, who owned a power so baneful, so foul—to +bandy words with such an one was beyond him. He could only glare at him +in speechless indignation.</p> + +<p>"You bear malice, I fear," the big man said. There was no doubt that he +was master of the situation. "Do you know that in the words of the same +learned person whom I have cited—a marvellous exemplar amid that +fog-headed people—vindictive persons live the life of witches, who as +they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate."</p> + +<p>The blood left Claude's face. "What do you mean?" he muttered, finding +his voice at last.</p> + +<p>"Who hates, burns. Who loves, burns also. But that is by the way."</p> + +<p>"Burns?"</p> + +<p>"Ay," with a grin, "burns! It seems to come home to you. Burns! Fie, +young man; you hate, I fear, beyond measure, or love beyond measure, if +you so fear the fire. What, you must leave us? It is not very mannerly," +with sarcasm, "to go while I speak!"</p> + +<p>But Claude could bear no more. He snatched his cap from the table, and +with an incoherent word, aimed at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> the Syndic and meant for +leave-taking, he made for the door, plucked it open and disappeared.</p> + +<p>The scholar smiled as he looked after him. "A foolish young man," he +said, "who will assuredly, if he be not stayed, end unfortunate. It is +the way of Frenchmen, Messer Blondel. They act without method and strike +without intention, bear into age the follies of youth, and wear the +gravity neither of the north nor of the south. But that reminds me," he +continued, speaking low and bending towards the other with a look of +sympathy—"you are better, I hope?"</p> + +<p>The words were harmless, but they conveyed more than their surface +meaning, and they touched the Syndic to the quick. He had begun to +compose himself; now he had much ado not to gnash his teeth in the +scholar's face. "Better?" he ejaculated bitterly. "What chance have I of +being better? Better? Are you?" He began to tremble, his hands on the +arms of his chair. "Otherwise, if you are not, you will soon have cause +to know what I feel."</p> + +<p>"I am better," Basterga answered with fervour. "I thank Heaven for it."</p> + +<p>Blondel rose to his feet, his hands still clutching the chair. "What!" +he cried. "You—you have not tried the——"</p> + +<p>"The <i>remedium</i>?" The scholar shook his head. "No, on the contrary, I am +relieved from my fears. The alarm was baseless. I have it not, I thank +Heaven. I have not the disease. Nor, if there be any certainty in +medicine, shall have it."</p> + +<p>The Syndic, alas for human nature, could have struck him in the face!</p> + +<p>"You have it not?" he snarled. "You have it not?" And then regaining +control of himself, "I suppose I ought," with a forced and ghastly +smile, "to felicitate you on your escape."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Rather to felicitate yourself," Basterga answered. "Or so I had hoped +two days ago."</p> + +<p>"Myself?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Basterga replied lightly. "For as soon as I found that I had no +need of the <i>remedium</i>, I thought of you. That was natural. And it +occurred to me—nay, calm yourself!"</p> + +<p>"Quick! Quick!</p> + +<p>"Nay, calm yourself, my dear Messer Blondel," Basterga repeated with +outward solicitude and inward amusement. "Be calm, or you will do +yourself an injury; you will indeed! In your state you should be +prudent; you should govern yourself—one never knows. And besides, the +thought, to which I refer—I see you recognise what it was——"</p> + +<p>"Yes! yes! Go on! Go on!"</p> + +<p>"Proved futile."</p> + +<p>"Futile?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am sorry to say it. Futile."</p> + +<p>"Futile!" The wretched man's voice rose almost to a scream as he +repeated the word. He rose and sat down again. "Then how did you—why +did you——" He stopped, fighting for words, and, unable to frame them, +clutched the air with his hands. A moment he mouthed dumbly, then "Tell +me!" he gasped. "Speak, man, speak! How was it? Cannot you see—that you +are killing me?"</p> + +<p>Basterga saw indeed that he had gone nearer to it than he had intended: +for a moment the starting eyes and purple face alarmed him. In all +haste, he gave up playing with the others fears. "It occurred to me," he +said, "that as I no longer needed the medicine myself, there was only +the Grand Duke to be considered, I thought that he might be willing to +waive his claim, since he is as yet free from the disease. And four +days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> ago I despatched a messenger whom I could trust to him at Turin. I +had hopes of a favourable reply, and in that event, I should not have +lost a minute in waiting upon you. For I am bound to say, Messer +Blondel"—the big man rubbed his chin and eyed the other +benevolently—"your case appealed to me in an especial manner. I felt +myself moved, I scarcely know why, to do all I could on your behalf. +Alas, the answer dashed my hopes."</p> + +<p>"What was it?" Blondel's voice sounded hollow and unnatural. Sunk in the +high-backed chair, his chin fallen on his breast, it was in his eyes +alone, peering from below bent brows, that he seemed to live.</p> + +<p>"He would not waive his claim," Basterga answered gently, "save on +a—but in substance that was all."</p> + +<p>Blondel raised himself slowly and stiffly in the chair. His lips parted. +"In substance?" he muttered hoarsely, "There was more then?"</p> + +<p>Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "There was. Save, the Grand Duke added, +on the condition—but the condition which followed was inadmissible."</p> + +<p>Blondel gave vent to a cackling laugh. "Inadmissible?" he muttered. +"Inadmissible." And then, "You are not a dying man, Messer Basterga, or +you would think—few things inadmissible."</p> + +<p>"Impossible, then."</p> + +<p>"What was it? What was it?"—with a gesture eloquent of the impatience +that was choking him.</p> + +<p>"He asked," Basterga replied reluctantly, "a price."</p> + +<p>"A price?"</p> + +<p>The big man nodded.</p> + +<p>The Syndic rose up and sat down again. "Why did you not say so? Why did +you not say so at once?" he cried fiercely. "Is it about that you have +been fencing all this time? Is that what you were seeking?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> And I +fancied—A price, eh? I suppose"—in a lower tone, and with a gleam of +cunning in his eyes—"he does not really want—the impossible? I am not +a very rich man, Messer Basterga—you know that; and I am sure you would +tell him. You would tell him that men do not count wealth here as they +do in Genoa or Venice, or even in Florence. I am sure you would put him +right on that," with a faint whine in his tone. "He would not strip a +man to the last rag. He would not ask—thousands for it."</p> + +<p>"No," Basterga answered, with something of asperity and even contempt in +his tone. "He does not ask thousands for it, Messer Blondel. But he +asks, none the less, something you cannot give."</p> + +<p>"Money?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Then—what is it?" Blondel leant forward in growing fury. "Why do you +fence with me? What is it, man?"</p> + +<p>Basterga did not answer for a moment. At length, shrugging his +shoulders, and speaking between jest and earnest, "The town of Geneva," +he said. "No more, no less."</p> + +<p>The Syndic started violently, then was still. But the hand which in the +first instant of surprise he had raised to shield his eyes, trembled; +and behind it great drops of sweat rose on his brow, and bore witness to +the conflict in his breast.</p> + +<p>"You are jesting," he said presently, without removing his hand.</p> + +<p>"It is no jest," Basterga answered soberly. "You know the Grand Duke's +keen desire. We have talked of it before. And were it only a matter," he +shrugged his shoulders, "of the how—of ways and means in fact—there +need be no impossibility, your position being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> what it is. But I know +the feeling you entertain on the subject, Messer Blondel; and though I +do not agree with you, for we look at the thing from different sides, I +had no hope that you would come to it."</p> + +<p>"Never!"</p> + +<p>"No. So much so, that I had it in my mind to keep the condition to +myself. But——"</p> + +<p>"Why did you not, then?"</p> + +<p>"Hope against hope," the big man answered, with a shrug and a laugh. +"After all, a live dog is better than a dead lion—only you will not see +it. We are ruled, the most of us, by our feelings, and die for our side +without asking ourselves whether a single person would be a ducat the +worse if the other side won. It is not philosophical," with another +shrug. "That is all."</p> + +<p>Apparently Blondel was not listening, for "The Duke must be mad!" he +ejaculated, as the other uttered his last word.</p> + +<p>"Oh no."</p> + +<p>"Mad!" the Syndic repeated harshly, his eyes still shaded by his hand. +"Does he think," with bitterness, "that I am the man to run through the +streets crying 'Viva Savoia!' To raise a hopeless <i>émeute</i> at the head +of the drunken ruffians who, since the war, have been the curse of the +place! And be thrown into the common jail, and hurried thence to the +scaffold! If he looks for that——"</p> + +<p>"He does not."</p> + +<p>"He is mad."</p> + +<p>"He does not," Basterga repeated, unmoved. "The Grand Duke is as sane as +I am."</p> + +<p>"Then what does he expect?"</p> + +<p>But the big man laughed. "No, no, Messer Blondel," he said. "You push me +too far. You mean nothing, and meaning nothing, all's said and done. I +wish," he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> continued, rising to his feet, and reverting to the tone of +sympathy which he had for the moment laid aside, "I wish I might +endeavour to show you the thing as I see it, in a word, as a philosopher +sees it, and as men of culture in all ages, rising above the prejudices +of the vulgar, have seen it. For after all, as Persius says,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Live while thou liv'st! for death will make us all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A name, a nothing, but an old wife's tale.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But I must not," reluctantly. "I know that."</p> + +<p>The Syndic had lowered his hand; but he still sat with his eyes averted, +gazing sullenly at the corner of the floor.</p> + +<p>"I knew it when I came," Basterga resumed after a pause, "and therefore +I was loth to speak to you."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You understand, I am sure?"</p> + +<p>The Syndic moved in his chair, but did not speak, and Basterga took up +his cap with a sigh. "I would I had brought you better news, Messer +Blondel," he said, as he rose and turned to go. "But <i>Cor ne edito!</i> I +am the happier for speaking, though I have done no good!" And with a +gesture of farewell, not without its dignity, he bowed, opened the door, +and went out, leaving the Syndic to his reflections.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3>BY THIS OR THAT.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Long</span> after Basterga, with an exultant smile and the words "I have limed +him!" on his lips, had passed into the Bourg du Four and gone to his +lodging, the Syndic sat frowning in his chair. From time to time a sigh +deep and heart-rending, a sigh that must have melted even Petitot, even +Baudichon, swelled his breast; and more than once he raised his eyes to +his painted effigy over the mantel, and cast on it a look that claimed +the pity of men and Heaven.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless with each sigh and glance, though sigh and glance lost no +whit of their fervour, it might have been observed that his face grew +brighter; and that little by little, as he reflected on what had passed, +he sat more firmly and strongly in his chair.</p> + +<p>Not that he purposed buying his life at the price which Basterga had put +on it. Never! But when a ship is on the lee-shore it is pleasant to know +that if one anchor fails to hold there is a second, albeit a borrowed +one. The knowledge steadies the nerves and enables the mind to deal more +firmly with the crisis. Or—to put the image in a shape nearer to the +fact—though the power to escape by a shameful surrender may sap the +courage of the garrison, it may also enable it to array its defences +without panic. The Syndic, for the present at least, entertained no +thought of saving himself by a shameful compliance; it was indeed +because the compliance was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> so shameful, and the impossibility of +stooping to it so complete, that he sighed thus deeply, and raised eyes +so piteous to his own portrait. He who stood almost in the position of +Pater Patriæ to Geneva, to betray Geneva! He the father of his country +to betray his country! Perish the thought! But, alas, he too must +perish, unless he could hit on some other way of winning the <i>remedium</i>.</p> + +<p>Still, it is not to be gainsaid that the Syndic went about the search +for this other way in a more cheerful spirit; and revolved this plan and +that plan in a mind more at ease. The ominous shadow of the night, the +sequent gloom of the morning were gone; in their place rode an almost +giddy hopefulness to which no scheme seemed too fanciful, no plan +without its promise. Betray his country! Never, never! Though, be it +noted, there was small scope in the Republic for such a man as himself, +and he had received and could receive but a tithe of the honour he +deserved! While other men, Baudichon and Petitot for instance, to say +nothing of Fabri and Du Pin, reaped where they had not sown.</p> + +<p>That, by the way; for it had naught to do with the matter in hand—the +discovery of a scheme which would place the <i>remedium</i> within his grasp. +He thought awhile of the young student. He might make a second attempt +to coerce him. But Claude's flat refusal to go farther with the matter, +a refusal on which, up to the time of Basterga's abrupt entrance, the +Syndic had made no impression, was a factor; and reluctantly, after some +thought, Blondel put him out of his mind.</p> + +<p>To do the thing himself was his next idea. But the scare of the night +before had given him a distaste for the house; and he shrank from the +attempt with a timidity he did not understand. He held the room in +abhorrence, the house in dread; and though he told himself that in the +last resort—perhaps he meant the last but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> one—he should venture, +while there was any other way he put that plan aside.</p> + +<p>And there was another way: there were others through whom the thing +could be done. Grio, indeed, who had access to the room and the box, was +Basterga's creature; and the Syndic dared not tamper with him. But there +was a third lodger, a young fellow, of whom the inquiries he had made +respecting the house had apprised him. Blondel had met Gentilis more +than once, and marked him; and the lad's weak chin and shifty eyes, no +less than the servility with which he saluted the magistrate had not +been lost on the observer. The youth, granted he was not under +Basterga's thumb, was unlikely to refuse a request backed by authority.</p> + +<p>As he reflected, the very person who was in his thoughts passed the +window, moving with the shuffling gait and sidelong look which betrayed +his character. The Syndic took his presence for an omen: tempted by it, +he rose precipitately, seized his head-gear and cane, and hurried into +the street. He glanced up and down, and saw Louis in the distance moving +in the direction of the College. He followed. Three or four youths, +bearing books, were hastening in the same direction through the narrow +street of the Coppersmiths, and the Syndic fell in behind them. He dared +not hasten over-much, for a dozen curious eyes watched him from the +noisy beetle-browed stalls on either side; and presently, finding that +he did not gain, he was making up his mind to await a better occasion, +when Louis, abandoning a companion who had just joined him, dived into +one of the brassfounders' shops.</p> + +<p>The Syndic walked on slowly, returning here and there a reverential +salute. He was nearly at the gate of the College, when Louis, late and +in haste, overtook him, and hurried by him. Blondel doubted an instant +what he should do; doubted now the moment for action was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> come the +wisdom of the step he had in his mind. But a feverish desire to act had +seized upon him, and after a moment's hesitation he raised his voice. +"Young man," he said, "a moment! Here!"</p> + +<p>Louis, not quite out of earshot, turned, found the magistrate's eye upon +him, wavered, and at last came to him. He cringed low, wondering what he +had done amiss.</p> + +<p>"I know your face," Blondel said, fixing him with a penetrating look. +"Do you not lodge, my lad, in a house in the Corraterie? Near the Porte +Tertasse?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Messer Syndic," Louis answered, overpowered by the honour of the +great man's address, and still wondering what evil was in store for him.</p> + +<p>"The Mère Royaume's?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Messer Syndic."</p> + +<p>"Then you can do me—or rather"—with an expression of growing +severity—"you can do the State a service. Step this way, and listen to +me, young man!" And his asperity increased by the fear that he was +taking an unwise step, he told the youth, in curt stiff sentences, such +facts as he thought necessary.</p> + +<p>The young student listened thunderstruck, his mouth open, and an +expression of fatuous alarm on his face. "Letters?" he muttered, when +the Syndic had come to a certain point in the story he had decided to +tell.</p> + +<p>"Yes, papers of importance to the State," the Syndic replied weightily, +"of which it is necessary that possession should be taken as quietly as +possible."</p> + +<p>"And they are——"</p> + +<p>"They are in the steel box chained to the wall of his apartment. Be it +your task, young man, to bring the box and the letters unread and +untouched to me. Opportunities of securing them in Messer Basterga's +absence cannot but occur," he continued more benignly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> "Choose one +wisely, use it boldly, and the care of your fortunes will be in better +hands than yours! A word to Basterga, on the other hand," Blondel +continued slowly, and with a deadly look—he had not failed to notice +that Louis winced at the name of Basterga—"and you will find yourself +in the prison of the Two Hundred, destined to share the fate of the +conspirators."</p> + +<p>The young man began to shake. "Conspirators?" he cried faintly. The word +brought vividly before him the horrors of the scaffold and the wheel. +"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Why did I go to that house to lodge?"</p> + +<p>"Do your duty," the Syndic said, "and you need fear nothing."</p> + +<p>"But if I cannot—do it?" the youth stammered, his teeth chattering. He +to penetrate to Basterga's room unbidden! He to rob the formidable man +and perhaps be caught in the act! He to deceive him and meet his eye at +meals! Impossible! "But if I cannot—do it?" he repeated, cowering.</p> + +<p>"The State knows no such word!" the Syndic returned grimly. "Cannot," he +continued slowly, "means will not. Do your duty and fear nothing. Do it +not, pause, hesitate, breathe but a syllable of that which I have told +you, and you will have all to fear. All!"</p> + +<p>He saw too late that it was he himself who had all to fear; that in +taking the lad before him into his confidence, he had placed himself in +the hands of a craven. But he had done it. He had gone too far, moved by +the foolish impulse of the moment, to retreat. His sole chance lay in +showing the lad on which side danger pressed him most closely; on +frightening him completely. And when Louis did not reply:—</p> + +<p>"You do not answer me?" Blondel said in his sternest tones. "You do not +reply? Am I to understand that you decline? That you refuse to perform +the task which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> the State assigns to you? In that case be sure you will +perish with those whom the Two Hundred know to be the enemies of Geneva, +and for whom the rack and the wheel are at this moment prepared."</p> + +<p>"No!" Louis cried passionately; he almost fell on his knees in the open +street. "No, no! I will go anywhere, do anything, Messer Syndic! I swear +I will; I am no enemy! No conspirator!"</p> + +<p>"You may be no enemy. But you must show yourself a friend!"</p> + +<p>"I will! I will indeed."</p> + +<p>"And no syllable of this will pass your lips?"</p> + +<p>"As I live, Messer Syndic! Nothing! Nothing!"</p> + +<p>When he had repeated this several times with the earnestness of extreme +terror, and appeared to have laid to heart such particulars as Blondel +thought he should know, the Syndic dismissed him, letting him go with a +last injunction to be silent and a last threat.</p> + +<p>By mere force of habit the lad would have gone forward and entered the +College; but on the threshold he felt how unfit he was to meet his +fellows' eyes, and he turned and hastened as fast as his trembling limbs +would carry him towards his home. The streets, to his excited +imagination, were full of spies; he fancied his every movement watched, +his footsteps counted. If he lingered they might suppose him lukewarm, +if he paused they might think him ill-affected. His speed must show his +zeal. His poor little heart beat in his breast as if it would spring +from it, but he did not stay nor look aside until the door of the house +in the Corraterie closed behind him.</p> + +<p>Then within the house there fell upon him—alas! what a thing it is to +be a coward—a new fear. The fear was not the fear of Basterga, the +bully and cynic, whom he had known and fawned on and flattered; but of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +Basterga the dark and dangerous conspirator, of whom he now heard, ready +to repay with the dagger the least attempt to penetrate his secrets! On +his entrance he had flung himself face downward on his pallet in the +little closet in which he slept; but at that thought he sprang up, +suffocated by it; already he fancied himself in the hands of the +desperadoes whom he had betrayed, already he pictured slow and lingering +deaths. But again, at the remembrance of the task laid upon him, he +flung himself prostrate, writhing, and cursing his fate, and shedding +tears of panic. He to beard Basterga! He to betray him! Impossible! Yet +if he failed, the rack and the wheel awaited him. Either way lay danger, +on either side yawned torture and death. And he was a coward. He wept +and shuddered, abandoning himself to a very paroxysm of terror.</p> + +<p>When his door was pushed open a minute later, he did not hear the +movement; with his head buried in the pillow he did not see the face of +wonder, mingled with alarm, which viewed him from the doorway. He had +forgotten that it was Anne Royaume's custom to attend to the young men's +rooms during their absence at the afternoon lecture; and when her voice, +asking in startled accents what was amiss and if he were ill, reached +his ears, he sought, with a smothered shriek, to cover his head with the +bedclothes. He fancied that Basterga was upon him!</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" she repeated, advancing slowly to the side of the +bed. Then, getting no answer, she dragged the coverlet off him. "What is +it? Don't you know me?"</p> + +<p>He sat up then, saw who it was and came gradually to himself, but with +many sighs and tears. She stood, looking down on him with contempt. "Has +some one been beating you?" she asked, and searched with hard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> eyes—he +had been no friend to her—for signs of ill-treatment.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "Worse," he sobbed. "Far worse! Oh, what will become +of me? What will become of me? Lord, have mercy upon me! Lord, have +mercy upon me!"</p> + +<p>Her lip curled. Perhaps she was comparing him with another youth who had +spoken to her that morning in a different strain.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it matters much," she said scornfully, "what becomes of +you."</p> + +<p>"Matters?" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"If you are such a coward as this! Tell me what it is. What has +happened? If it is not that some one has beaten you, I don't know what +it is—unless you have been doing something wrong, and they have put you +out of the University? Is it that?"</p> + +<p>"No!" he cried fretfully. "Worse, worse! And do you leave me! You can do +nothing! No one can do anything!"</p> + +<p>She had her own troubles, and to-day was almost sinking under them. But +this was not her way of bearing them. She shrugged her shoulders +contemptuously. "Very well," she said, "I will go if I can do nothing."</p> + +<p>"Do?" he cried vehemently. "What can you do?" And then, in the act of +turning from him, she stood; so startling was the change, so marvellous +the transformation which she saw come over his face. "Do," he repeated, +trembling violently, and speaking in a tone as much altered as his +expression. He rose to his feet. "Do? Perhaps you—you can do +something—still. Wait. Please wait a minute! I—I was not quite +myself." He passed his hand across his brow. She did not know that +behind his face of frightened stupor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> his mind was working cunningly, +following up the idea that had occurred to him.</p> + +<p>She began to think him mad. But though she held him in distaste, she had +no fear of him; and even when he closed the door with a cringing air, +and a look that implored indulgence, she held her ground. "Only, you +need not close the door," she said coldly. "There is no one in the house +except my mother."</p> + +<p>"Messer Basterga?"</p> + +<p>"He has gone out. Is it of him," in sudden enlightenment, "that you are +afraid?"</p> + +<p>He nodded sullenly. "Yes," he said; and then he paused, eyeing her in +doubt if he could trust her. At last, "It is, but, if you dared do it, I +know how I could draw his teeth! How I could"—with the cruel grin of +the coward—"squeeze him! squeeze him!" and he went through the act with +his nervous, shaking fingers. "I could hold him like that! I could hold +him powerless as the dog that would bite and dare not!"</p> + +<p>She stared at him. "You?" she said; it was hard to say whether +incredulity or scorn were written more plainly on her face. "You?"</p> + +<p>"I! I!" he replied, with the same gesture of holding something. "And I +know how to put him in your power also!"</p> + +<p>"In my power!"</p> + +<p>"Ay."</p> + +<p>Her face grew hard as if she too held her enemy passive in her grip. +Then her lip curled, and she laughed in scorn. "Ay! And what must I do +to bring that about? Something, I suppose, you dare not, Louis?"</p> + +<p>"Something you can do more easily than I," he answered doggedly. "A +small thing, too," he continued, clasping his hands in his eagerness and +looking at her with imploring eyes. "A nothing, a mere nothing!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And yet it will do so much?"</p> + +<p>"I swear it will."</p> + +<p>"Then," she retorted, eyeing him shrewdly, "if it is so easy to do why +were you undone a minute ago? And puling like a child in arms?"</p> + +<p>"Because," he said, flushing under her eyes, "it—it is not easy for me +to do. And I did not see my way."</p> + +<p>"It looked like it."</p> + +<p>"But I see it now if you will help me. You have only to take a packet of +letters from his room—and you go there when you please—and he is +yours! While you have the letters he dare not stir hand or foot, lest +you bring him to the scaffold!"</p> + +<p>"Bring him to the scaffold?"</p> + +<p>"Get the letters, give them to me, and I will answer for the rest." +Louis' voice was low, but he shook with excitement. "See!" he continued, +his eyes at all times prominent, almost starting from his head, "it +might be done this minute. This minute!"</p> + +<p>"It might," the girl replied, watching him coldly. "But it will not be +done either this minute or at all unless you tell me what is in the +letters, and how you come to know about them."</p> + +<p>Should he tell her? He fancied that he had no choice. "Messer Blondel +the Syndic wants the letters," he answered sullenly. And, urged farther +by her expression of disbelief, he told the astonished girl the story +which Blondel had told him. The fact that he believed it went far with +her; why, for the rest, doubt a story so extraordinary that it seemed to +bear the stamp of truth?</p> + +<p>"And that is all?" she said when he came to the end.</p> + +<p>"Is it not enough?"</p> + +<p>"It may be enough," she replied, her resolute manner in strange contrast +with his cowardly haste. "Only there is a thing not clear. If the Syndic +knows what is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> in the letters, why does he not seize them and Basterga +with them—the traitor with the proof of his treason?"</p> + +<p>"Because he is afraid of the Grand Duke," Louis cried. "If he seize +Basterga and miss the proof of his treason, what then?"</p> + +<p>"Then he is not sure that the letters are there?" Anne replied keenly.</p> + +<p>"He is not sure that they would be there when he came to seize them," +Louis answered. "Basterga might have a dozen confederates in the house +ready at a sign to destroy the letters."</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>"And that is what they will make us out to be," he continued, his voice +sinking as his fears returned upon him. "The Syndic threatened as much; +and such things have happened a hundred times. I tell you, if we do not +do something, we shall suffer with him. But do it, and he is in your +power! And if he has any hold on you, it is gone!"</p> + +<p>The blood surged to her face. Hold upon her? Ah! Rage—or was it +hope?—lightened in her eyes and transformed her face. She was thinking, +he guessed, of the hundred insults she had undergone at Basterga's +hands, of the shame-compelling taunts to which she had been forced to +listen, of the loathed touch she had been forced to bear. If there was +aught in her mind beyond this, any motive deeper or more divine, he did +not perceive it; enough, that he saw that she wavered, and he pressed +her.</p> + +<p>"You will be free," he cried passionately. "Freed from him! Freed from +fear of him! Say you will do it! Say that you will do it," he continued +fervently, and he made as if he would kneel before her. "Do it, and I +swear that never shall a word to displease you pass my lips."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<p>With a glance of scorn that pierced even his selfishness, "Swear only," +she said, "that you have told me the truth! I ask no more."</p> + +<p>"I swear it on my salvation!"</p> + +<p>She drew a deep breath.</p> + +<p>"I will do it," she said. "The steel box which is chained to the wall?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," he panted, "you cannot mistake it. The key——"</p> + +<p>"I know where he keeps it."</p> + +<p>She said no more, but turned, and regarding his thanks as little as if +they had been the wind passing by her, she opened the door, crossed the +living-room, and vanished up the staircase. He followed her as far as +the foot of the stairs, and there stood listening and shifting his feet +and biting his nails in an agony of suspense. She had not deigned to bid +him watch for Basterga's coming, but he did so; his eyes on the outer +door, through which the scholar must enter, and his tongue and feet in +readiness to warn her or save himself, according as the pressure of +danger directed the one or the other step.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile his ears were on the stretch to catch what she did. He heard +her try the door of the room. It was locked. He heard her shake it. Then +he guessed that she fetched a key, for after an interval, which seemed +an age, he caught the grating of the wards in the lock. After that, she +was quiet so long, that but for the apprehensions of Basterga's coming, +which weighed on his coward soul, he must have gone up in sheer jealousy +so see what she was doing.</p> + +<p>Not that he distrusted her. Even while he waited, and while the thing +hung in the balance, he smiled to think how cleverly he had contrived +it. On the side of the authorities he would gain favour by delivering +the letters: on the other side, if Basterga retained power to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> harm, it +was not he who had taken the letters, nor he who would be exposed to the +first blast of vengeance—but the girl. The blame for her, the credit +for him! From the nettle danger his wits had plucked the flower safety. +But for his fears he could have chuckled; and then he heard her leave +the room, and relock the door. With a gasp of relief, he retired a pace +or two, and waited, his eyes fixed on the doorway through which she must +enter.</p> + +<p>She was long in coming, and when she came his hand, extended to receive +the letters, fell by his side, the whispered question died on his lips. +Her face told him that she had failed. It might have told him also that +she had built far more on the attempt than she had let him perceive. But +what was that to him? It was enough for him that she had not the +letters. He could have torn her with his hands. "Where are they? Where +are they?" he cried, advancing upon her. "You have not got them?"</p> + +<p>"Got them?" And then she straightened herself, and with a passionate +glance at the door, "No! And he has not come in time to take me in the +act, it seems. As I have no doubt you planned, you villain! That I might +be more and deeper in his power!"</p> + +<p>"No! No!" he cried, recoiling. "I never thought of it!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes!" she retorted.</p> + +<p>He wrung his hands. How was he to make her understand? "I swear," he +cried, and he fell on his knees with uplifted hands. "I swear on my +knees I thought of no such thing. The tale I told you was true! True, +every word of it! And the letters——"</p> + +<p>"There are no letters!" she said.</p> + +<p>"In the box?"</p> + +<p>"None."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<p>He sprang to his feet. He shook his fist at her in low ignoble rage. +"You lie!" he cried. "You have not looked. You have played with me. You +have gone into the room and come out again, but you have not looked, you +have not dared to look."</p> + +<p>"I have looked," she answered quietly. "In the box that is chained to +the wall. There are no papers in it. There is nothing in it except a +small phial."</p> + +<p>"A phial?"</p> + +<p>"Of some golden liquid."</p> + +<p>"That is all?"</p> + +<p>"All!"</p> + +<p>Louis Gentilis stared at her, open-mouthed. Had the Syndic deceived him? +Or had some one deceived the Syndic?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3>THE CUP AND THE LIP.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Blondel</span> could not hide the agitation he felt as he listened to his +unexpected visitors, and saw whither their errand tended. Fabri, who was +leader of the deputation of three who had come upon him without warning, +discerned this; much more Baudichon and Petitot, whose eyes were on the +watch for the least sign of weakness. And Blondel was conscious that +they saw it, and on that account strove the more to mask his feelings +under a show of decision. "I have little doubt that I shall have news +within the hour," he said. "Before night, I must have news." And nodding +with the air of a man who knew much which he could not impart, he leant +back in the old abbot's chair.</p> + +<p>But Fabri had not come for that, nor was he to be satisfied with that; +and, after a pause, "Yes," he replied, "I know. That may be so. But you +see, Messer Blondel, this affair is not quite where it was yesterday, or +we should not have come to you to-day. The King of France—I am sure we +are much indebted to him—does not write on light occasions, and his +warning is explicit. From Paris, then, we get the same story as from +Turin. And this being so, and the King's tale agreeing with our +agent's——"</p> + +<p>"He does not mention Basterga!" Blondel objected. He repented the moment +he had said it.</p> + +<p>"By name, no. But he says——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Enough for any one with eyes!" Petitot exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"He says," Fabri repeated, requesting the other by a gesture to be +silent, "that the Grand Duke's emissary is a Paduan expelled from Venice +or from Genoa. That is near enough. And I confess, were I in your place, +Messer Blondel——"</p> + +<p>"With your responsibilities," Petitot muttered through closed teeth.</p> + +<p>"I should want to know—more about him." This from Baudichon.</p> + +<p>Fabri nodded assent. "I think so," he said. "I really think so. In fact, +I may go farther and say that were I in your place, Messer Blondel, I +should seize him to-day."</p> + +<p>"Ay, within the hour!"</p> + +<p>"This minute!" said Baudichon, last of the three. And all three, their +ultimatum delivered, looked at Blondel, a challenge in their eyes. If he +stood out longer, if he still declined to take the step which prudence +demanded, the step on which they were all agreed, they would know that +there was something behind, something of which he had not told them.</p> + +<p>Blondel read the look, and it perturbed him. But not to the point of +sapping the resolution which he had formed at the Council Table, and to +which, once formed, he clung with the obstinacy of an obstinate man. The +<i>remedium</i> first; afterwards what they would, but the <i>remedium</i> first. +He was not going to risk life, warm life, the vista of sunny unending +to-morrows, of springs and summers and the melting of snows, for a +craze, a scare, an imaginary danger! Why at that very minute the lad +whom he had commissioned to seize the thing might be on the way with it. +At any minute a step might sound on the threshold, and herald the +promise of life. And then—then they might deal with Basterga<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> as they +pleased. Then they might hang the Paduan high as Haman, if they pleased. +But until then—his mind was made up.</p> + +<p>"I do not agree with you," he said, his underlip thrust out, his head +trembling a little.</p> + +<p>"You will not arrest him?"</p> + +<p>"No, I shall not arrest him," he replied, hardening himself to meet +their protestant and indignant eyes. "Nor would you," he continued with +bravado, "in my place. If you knew as much as I do."</p> + +<p>"But if you know," Baudichon said, "I would like to know also."</p> + +<p>"The responsibility is mine." Blondel swayed himself from side to side +in his chair as he said it. "The responsibility is mine, and I am +willing to bear it. It is the old difference of policy between us," he +continued, addressing Petitot. "You are willing to grasp at every petty +advantage, I am willing——"</p> + +<p>"To risk much to gain much," Petitot exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"To take some risk to gain a real advantage," Blondel retorted, +correcting him with an eye to Fabri; whom alone, as the one impartial +hearer, he feared. "For to what does the course which you are so eager +to take amount? You seize Basterga: later, you will release him at the +Grand Duke's request. What are we the better? What is gained?"</p> + +<p>"Safety."</p> + +<p>"No, on the other hand, danger. Danger! For, warned that we have +detected their plot, they will hatch another plot, and instead of +working as at present under our eyes, they will work below the surface +with augmented care and secrecy: and will, perhaps, deceive us. No, my +friends"—throwing himself back in his chair with an air of patronage, +almost of contempt—for by dint of repeating his argument he had come to +believe it, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> to plume himself upon it—"I look farther ahead than +you do, and for the sake of future gain am willing to take—present +responsibility."</p> + +<p>They were silent awhile: his old mastery was beginning to assert itself. +Then Petitot spoke. "You take a heavy responsibility," he said, "a heavy +charge, Messer Blondel. What if harm come of it?"</p> + +<p>Blondel shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"You have no wife, Messer Blondel."</p> + +<p>The Fourth Syndic stared. What did the man mean?</p> + +<p>"You have no daughters," Petitot continued, a slight quaver in his tone. +"You have no little children, you sleep well of nights, the fall of +wood-ash does not rouse you, you do not listen when you awake. You do +not——" he paused, the last barrier of reserve broken down, the tears +standing openly in his eyes—"it is foolish perhaps—you do not yearn, +Messer Blondel, to take all you love in your arms, and shelter them and +cover them from the horrors that threaten us, the horrors that may fall +on us—any night! You do not"—he looked at Baudichon and the stout +man's face grew pale, he averted his eyes—"you do not dream of these +things, Messer Blondel, nor awake to fancy them, but we do. We do!" he +repeated in accents which went to the hearts of all, "day and night, +rising and lying down, waking and sleeping. And we—dare run no risks."</p> + +<p>In the silence which followed Blondel's fingers tapped restlessly on the +table. He cleared his throat and voice.</p> + +<p>"But there, I tell you there are no risks," he said. He was moved +nevertheless.</p> + +<p>Petitot bowed, humbly for him. "Very good," he said. "I do not say that +you are not right. But——"</p> + +<p>"And moment by moment I expect news. It might come at this minute, it +might come at any minute," the Syndic continued. With a glance at the +window he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> moved his chair, as if to shake off the spell that Petitot +had cast over him. "Besides—you do not expect the town to be taken in +an hour from now?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"In broad daylight?"</p> + +<p>Petitot shook his head, "God knows what I expect!" he murmured +despondently.</p> + +<p>"When the information we have points to a night attack?"</p> + +<p>Fabri nodded. "That is true," he said.</p> + +<p>"And the walls are well guarded at night."</p> + +<p>Fabri nodded again. "Yes," he said, "it is true. I think, Messer +Petitot," he went on, turning to him, "we are a little over-fearful."</p> + +<p>The two others were silent, and Blondel eyed them harshly, aware that he +had mastered them, yet hating them. Petitot's appeal to his +feelings—which had touched and moved Blondel even while he resented it +as something cruel and unfair—had lacked but a little of success. But +missing, failing by ever so little, it left the three ill-equipped to +continue the struggle on lower grounds. They sat silent, Fabri almost +convinced, the others dejected: and Blondel sat silent also, hardened by +his victory, and hating them for the manner of it. Was not his life as +dear to him as their wives and children were to them? And was it not at +stake? Yet he did not whine and pule to them. God! they whine, they +complain, who had long years to live and rose of mornings without +counting the days, and, at the worst and were Geneva taken, had but the +common risks to run and many a chance of escape! While he—yet he did +not pule to them! He did not stab them unfairly, cruelly, striving to +reach their tender spots, to take advantage of their kindness of heart. +He had no thought, no notion of betraying them; but, had he such, it +would serve them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> right! It would repay them selfishness for +selfishness, greed for greed! In his place they would not hesitate. He +could see at what a price they set their petty lives, and how little +they would scruple to buy them in the dearest market. Well was it for +Geneva that it was he and not they whom God saw fit to try. And he +glowered at them. Wives and daughters! What were wives and daughters +beside life, warm life, life stretching forward pleasantly, +indefinitely, morning after morning, day after day—life and a +continuance of good things?</p> + +<p>Immersed as he was in this train of thought, it was none the less he who +first caught the sound of a foot on the threshold, and a summons at the +door. He rose to his feet. Already in his mind's eye he saw Basterga +cast to the lions: and why not? The sooner the better if the <i>remedium</i> +were really at the door. "There may be news even now," he said, striving +to master his emotion, and to speak with the superiority of a few +minutes before. "One moment, by your leave! I will see and let you know +if it be so, Messer Fabri."</p> + +<p>"Do by all means," Fabri answered earnestly. "You will greatly relieve +me."</p> + +<p>"Ay, indeed, I hope it is so," Petitot murmured.</p> + +<p>"I will see, and—and return," Blondel repeated, beginning to stammer. +"I—I shall not be a minute." The struggle for composure was vain; his +head was on fire, his limbs twitched. Had it come?</p> + +<p>Yet when he reached the door he paused, afraid to open. What if it were +not the <i>remedium</i>, what if it were some trifle? What if—but as he +hesitated, his hand, half eager, half reluctant, rested on the latch, +the door slid ajar, and his eyes met the complacent smirking face of his +messenger. He fancied that he read success in Gentilis' looks, and his +heart leapt up. "I shall be back in a moment," he babbled, speaking over +his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> shoulder to those whom he left. "In a moment, gentlemen, one +moment!" And going out he closed the door behind him—closed it +jealously, that they might not hear.</p> + +<p>"I hope he has news will decide him," Petitot muttered lowering his +voice involuntarily. "Messer Blondel is over-courageous for me!" He +shook his head dismally.</p> + +<p>"He is very courageous," Fabri assented in the same undertone. "Perhaps +even—a little rash."</p> + +<p>Baudichon grunted. "Rash!" he repeated. "I would like to know what he +expects? I would like to know——"</p> + +<p>A cry as of a wild beast cut short the word: a blow, a shriek of pain +followed, the door flew open; as they rose to their feet in wonder, into +the room fell a lad—it was Louis—a red weal across his face, his arm +raised to protect his head. Close on him, his eyes flaming, his cane +quivering in the air, pressed Messer Blondel. In their presence he aimed +another blow at the lad: but the blow fell short, and before he could +raise his stick a third time the astonished looks of the three in the +room reminded him where he was, and in a measure sobered him. But he was +still unable to articulate: and the poor smarting wretch cowering behind +the magistrates was not more deeply or more visibly moved.</p> + +<p>"Steady, steady, Messer Blondel!" Fabri said. "I fear something untoward +has happened. What is it?" And he put himself more decidedly between +them.</p> + +<p>"He has ruined us!"</p> + +<p>"Not that, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"Ruined us! Ruined us!" Blondel panted, his rage almost choking him. "He +had it in his hands and let it go. He let it go!"</p> + +<p>"That which you——"</p> + +<p>"That which I"—a pause—"commissioned him to get."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But you did not! Oh, worshipful gentlemen," Gentilis wailed, turning to +them, "indeed, he did not tell me to bring aught but papers! I swear he +did not."</p> + +<p>"Whatever was there, I said! Whatever was there!" the Syndic screamed.</p> + +<p>"No, worshipful sir!" amid a storm of sobs. "No, no! Indeed no! And how +was I to know? There was naught but that in the box, and who would think +treason lay in a——"</p> + +<p>"Mischief lay in it!"</p> + +<p>"In a bottle!"</p> + +<p>"And treason," Blondel thundered, drowning his last word, "for aught you +knew! Who are you to judge where treason lies, or may lie? Oh, pig, dog, +fool," he continued, carried away by a fresh paroxysm of rage, at the +thought that he had had it in his grasp and let it go! "If I could score +your back!" And he brandished his cane.</p> + +<p>"You have scored his face pretty fairly," Baudichon muttered. "To score +his back too——"</p> + +<p>"Were nothing for the offence! Nothing! As you would say if you knew +it," Blondel panted.</p> + +<p>"Indeed?"</p> + +<p>"Ay."</p> + +<p>"Then I would like to know it. What is it he has done?"</p> + +<p>"He has left undone that which he was ordered to do," Blondel answered +more soberly than he had yet spoken. He had recovered something of his +power to reason. "That is what he has done. But for his default we +should at this moment be in a position to seize Basterga."</p> + +<p>"Ay?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, and to seize him with proof of his guilt! Proof and to spare."</p> + +<p>"But I could not know," Louis whimpered. "Worshipful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> gentlemen, I could +not know. I could not know what it was you wanted."</p> + +<p>"I told you to bring the contents of the box."</p> + +<p>"Letters, ay! Letters, worthy sir, but not——"</p> + +<p>"Silence, and go into that room!" Blondel pointed with a shaking finger +to a small inner serving-room at the end of the parlour. "Go!" he +repeated peremptorily, "and stay there until I come to you."</p> + +<p>Then, but not until the lad had taken his tear-bedabbled face into the +closet and had closed the door behind him, the Syndic turned to the +three. "I ask your pardon," he said, making no attempt to disguise the +agitation which still moved him. "But it was enough, it was more than +enough, to try me." He paused and wiped his brow, on which the sweat +stood in beads. "He had under his hand the papers," looking at them a +little askance as if he doubted whether the explanation would pass, +"that we need! The papers that would convict Basterga. And because they +did not wear the appearance he expected—because they were disguised, +you understand—they were in a bottle in fact—and were not precisely +what he expected——"</p> + +<p>"He left them?"</p> + +<p>"He left them." There was something like a tear, a leaden drop, in the +corner of the Fourth Syndic's eye.</p> + +<p>"Still if he had access to them once," Petitot suggested briskly, "what +has been done once may be done twice. He may gain access to them again. +Why not?"</p> + +<p>"He may, but he may not. Still, I should have thought of that and—and +made allowance," Blondel answered with a fair show of candour. "But too +often an occasion let slip does not return, as you well know. The least +disorder in the box he searched may put Basterga on the alert, and wreck +my plans."</p> + +<p>They did not answer. They felt one and all, Petitot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> and Baudichon no +less than Fabri, that they had done this man an injustice. His passion, +his chagrin, his singleness of aim, the depth of his disappointment, +disarmed even those who were in the daily habit of differing from him. +Was this—this the man whom they had secretly accused of lukewarmness? +And to whom they had hesitated to entrust the safety of the city? They +had done him wrong. They had not credited him with a tithe of the +feeling, the single-mindedness, the patriotism which it was plain he +possessed.</p> + +<p>They stood silent, while Blondel, aware of the precipice, to the verge +of which his improvident passion had drawn him, watched them out of the +corner of his eye, uncertain how far their comprehension of the scene +had gone. He trembled to think how nearly he had betrayed his secret; +and took the more shame to himself, inasmuch as in cooler blood he saw +the lad's error to be far from irremediable. As Petitot said, that which +could be done so easily and quickly could be done a second time. If only +he had not struck the lad! If only he had commanded himself, and spoken +him fairly and sent him back! Almost by this time the <i>remedium</i> might +be here. Ay, here, in the palm of his hand! The reflection stabbed +Blondel so poignantly, the sense of his folly went so deep, he groaned +aloud.</p> + +<p>That groan fairly won over Baudichon, who was by nature of a kind heart. +"Tut, tut," he said; "you must not take it to heart, Messer Blondel. Try +again."</p> + +<p>"Unless, indeed," Petitot murmured, but with respect, "Messer Blondel +knows the mistake to be fraught with consequences more grave than we +suppose."</p> + +<p>The Fourth Syndic smiled awry: that was precisely what he did know. But +"No," he said, "the thing can be cured. I am sorry I lost my temper. Not +a moment must be wasted, however. I will see this young man: if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> he +raises any difficulty, I have still another agent whom I can employ. And +by to-morrow at latest——"</p> + +<p>"You may still have the thing in your hands."</p> + +<p>"I think so. I certainly think so."</p> + +<p>"Good. Then till to-morrow," Fabri answered, as he took his cap from the +table and with the others turned towards the door. "Good luck, Messer +Blondel. We are reassured. We feel that our interests are in good +hands."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Petitot almost warmly. "Still, caution, caution! Messer +Blondel. One bad man within the gates——"</p> + +<p>"May be hung!" Blondel cried gaily.</p> + +<p>"Ay, may be! But unhung is a graver foe than five hundred men without! +It is that I would have you bear in mind."</p> + +<p>"I will bear it in mind," the Fourth Syndic answered. "And when I can +hang him," with a vindictive look, "be sure I will—and high as Haman!"</p> + +<p>He attended them with solicitude to the door, being set by what had +happened a little more upon his behaviour. That done and the outer door +closed upon them, he returned to the parlour, but did not at once seek +the young man, upon whom he had taken the precaution of turning the key.</p> + +<p>Instead he stood a while, pondering with a pale face; a haggard, paler +replica he seemed of the stiff, hard portrait on the panel over the +mantel. He was wondering why he had let himself go so foolishly; he was +recognising with a sinking heart that it was to his illness he owed it +that he had so frequently of late lost control of himself.</p> + +<p>For a man to discover that the power of self-mastery is passing from him +is only a degree less appalling than the consciousness of insanity +itself; and Blondel cowered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> trembling under the thought. If aught +could strengthen his purpose it was the suspicion that the insidious +disease from which he suffered was already sapping the outworks of that +mind on whose clever combinations he depended for his one chance of +cure.</p> + +<p>Yet while the thought strengthened, it terrified him. "I must make no +second mistake—no second mistake!" he muttered, his eyes on the door of +the serving-room. "No second mistake!" And he waited a while considering +the matter in all its aspects. Should he tell Louis more than he had +told him already? It seemed needless. To send the lad with curt, stern +words to fetch that which he had omitted to bring—this seemed the more +straight-forward way: and the more certain, too, since the lad had now +seen the other magistrates, and could have no doubt of their concurrence +or of the importance of the task entrusted to him. Blondel decided on +that course, and advancing to the door he opened it and called to his +prisoner to come out.</p> + +<p>To his credit be it said the sight of the lad's wealed face gave the +Syndic something of a shock. He was soon to be more gravely shaken. +Instigated partly by curiosity, partly by the desire to fix Louis' +scared faculties, he began by asking what was the aspect of the phial +which the lad had omitted to bring. "What was its colour and size, and +how full was it?" he proceeded, striving to speak gently and to make +allowance for the cowering weakness of the youth before him. "Do you +hear?" he urged. "Of what shape was it? You can tell that at least. You +handled it, I suppose? You took it out of the metal box?"</p> + +<p>Louis burst into tears.</p> + +<p>Blondel had much ado—for it was true, he had small command of +himself—not to strike the lad again. Instead, "Fool," he said, "what do +your tears help you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> or advance me? Speak, I tell you, and answer my +question! What was the appearance of this flask or bottle, or what it +was—that you left there?"</p> + +<p>The lad sank to his knees. Fear and pain had robbed him of the petty +cunning he possessed. He no longer knew what to tell nor what to +withhold. And in a breath the truth was out. "Don't strike me!" he +wailed, guarding his smarting face with his arm. "And I'll tell you all! +I will indeed!"</p> + +<p>The Syndic knew then that there was more to learn. "All?" he repeated, +aghast.</p> + +<p>"Ay, the truth. All the truth," Louis moaned. "I didn't see it. I did +not go to it! I dared not! I swear I dared not.'"</p> + +<p>"You did not see it?" the Syndic said slowly. "The phial? You did not +see the phial?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>This time Messer Blondel did not strike. He leant heavily upon the +table; his face, which a moment before had been swollen with impatience, +turned a sickly white. "You—you didn't see it?" he muttered—his tone +had sunk to a whisper. "You didn't see it? Then all you told me was a +lie? There was nothing—no bottle in the box? But how, then, did you +know anything of a bottle? Did he"—with a sharp spasm of pain—"send +you here to tell me this?"</p> + +<p>"No, no! She told me. She looked—for me in the box."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Anne. Anne Royaume! I was afraid," the lad continued, speaking with a +little more confidence, as he saw that the Syndic made no movement to +strike him, "and she said that she would look for me. She could go to +his room, and run little risk. But if he had caught me there he would +have killed me! Indeed he would!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> Louis repeated desperately, as he +read the storm-signs that began to darken the Syndic's face.</p> + +<p>"You told her then?"</p> + +<p>"I could not do it myself! I could not indeed."</p> + +<p>He cowered lower; but he fared better than he expected. The Syndic drew +a long fluttering breath, a breath of returning life, of returning hope. +The colour, too, began to come back to his cheeks. After all, it might +have been worse. He had thought it worse. He had thought himself +discovered, tricked, discomfited by the man against whom he had pitted +his wits, with his life for stake. Whereas—it seemed a small thing in +comparison—this meant only the inclusion of one more in the secret, the +running of one more risk, the hazarding another tongue. And the lad had +not been so unwise. She had easier access to the room than he, and ran +less risk of suspicion or detection. Why not employ her in place of the +lad?</p> + +<p>The youth grovelling before him wondered to see him calm, and plucking +up spirit stood upright. "You must go back to her, and ask her to get it +for you," Blondel said firmly. "You can be back within the half-hour, +bringing it."</p> + +<p>Louis began to shrink. His eyes sank. "She will not give it me," he +muttered.</p> + +<p>"No?" Blondel, as he repeated the word, wondered at his own moderation. +But the shock had been heavy; he felt the effect of it. He was languid, +almost half-hearted. Moreover, a new idea had taken root in his mind. +"You can try her," he said.</p> + +<p>"I can try her, but she will not give it me," Louis repeated with a new +obstinacy. As the Syndic grew mild he grew sullen. The change was in the +other, not in himself. Subtly he knew that the Syndic was no longer in +the mood to strike.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> + +<p>Blondel ruminated. It might be better, it might even be safer, if he saw +the girl himself. The story—of treason and a bottle—which had imposed +on his colleagues might not move her much. It might be wiser to attack +her on other grounds, grounds on which women lay more open. And +self-pity whispered with a tear that the truth, than which he could +conceive nothing more moving, nothing more sublimely sad, might go +farther with a woman than bribes or threats or the most skilful +inventions. He made up his mind. He would tell the truth, or something +like it, something as like it as he dared tell her.</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said, "you can go! But be silent! A word to him—I shall +learn it sooner or later—and you perish on the wheel! You can go now. I +shall put the matter in other hands."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3>A MYSTERY SOLVED.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Whether</span> Basterga, seeing that Claude was less pliant than he had looked +to find him, shunned occasion of collision with him, or the Paduan being +in better spirits was less prone to fall foul of his companions, certain +it is that life for a time after the outbreak at supper ran more quietly +in the house in the Corraterie. Claude's gloomy face—he had not +forgiven—bade beware of him; and little save on the subject of Louis' +disfigured cheek—of which the most pointed questions could extract no +explanation—passed among them at table. But outward peace was preserved +and a show of ease. Grio's brutal nature broke out once or twice when he +had had wine; but discouraged by Basterga, he subsided quickly. And +Louis, starting at a voice and trembling at a knock, with the fear of +the Syndic always upon him, showed a nervousness which more than once +drew the Italian's eye to him. But on the whole a calm prevailed; a +stranger entering at noon or during the evening meal might have deemed +the party ill-assorted and silent, but lacking neither in amity nor +ease.</p> + +<p>Meantime, under cover of this calm, destined to be short-lived and +holding in suspense the makings of a storm of no mean violence, two +persons were drawing nearer to one another. A confidence, even a +confidence not perfect, is a tie above most. Nor does love play at any +time a higher part than when it repeats "I do not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> understand—I trust". +By the common light of day, which showed Anne moving to and fro about +her household tasks, at once the minister and the providence of the +home, the dark suspicion that had for a moment—a moment only!—mastered +Claude's judgment, lost shape and reality. It was impossible to see her +bending over the hearth, or arranging her mother's simple meal, it was +impossible to witness her patience, her industry, her deftness, to +behold her, ever gentle yet supporting with a man's fortitude the trials +of her position, trials of the bitterness of which she had given him +proof—it was impossible, in a word, to watch her in her daily life, +without perceiving the wickedness as well as the folly of the thought +which had possessed him.</p> + +<p>True, the more he saw of her the graver seemed the mystery; and the more +deeply he wondered. But he no longer dreaded the answer to the riddle; +nor did he fear to meet at some turn or corner a Megæra head that should +freeze his soul. Wickedness there might be, cruelty there might be, and +shame; but the blood ran too briskly in his veins and he had looked too +often into the girl's candid eyes—reading something there which had not +been there formerly—to fear to find either at her door.</p> + +<p>He had taken to coming to the living-room a little before nightfall; +there he would seat himself beside the hearth while she prepared the +evening meal. The glow of the wood-fire, reflected in rows of burnished +pewters, or given back by the night-backed casements, the savour of the +coming meal, the bubbling of the black pot between which and the table +her nimble feet carried her a dozen times in as many minutes, the +pleasant, homely room with its touches of refinement and its winter +comfort, these were excuses enough had he not brought the book which lay +unheeded on his knee.</p> + +<p>But in truth he offered her no excuse. With scarce a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> word an +understanding had grown up between them that not a million words could +have made more clear. Each played the appropriated part. He looked and +she bore the look, and if she blushed the fire was warrant, and if he +stared it was the blind man's hour between day and night, and why should +he not sit idle as well as another? Soon there was not a turn of her +head or a line of her figure that he did not know; not a trick of her +walk, not a pose of her hand as she waited for a pot to boil that he +could not see in the dark; not a gleam from her hair as she stooped to +the blaze, nor a turn of her wrist as she shielded her face that was not +as familiar to him as if he had known her from childhood.</p> + +<p>In these hours she let the mask fall. The apathy, which had been the +least natural as it had been the most common garb of her young face, and +which had grown to be the cover and veil of her feelings, dropped from +her. Seated in the shadow, while she moved, now in the glow of the +burning embers, now obscured, he read her mind without disguise—save in +one dark nook—watched unrebuked the eye fall and the lip tremble, or in +rarer moments saw the shy smile dimple the corner of her cheek. Not +seldom she stood before him sad: sad without disguise, her bowed head +and drooping shoulders the proof of gloomy thoughts, that strayed, he +fancied, far from her work or her companion. And sometimes a tear fell +and she wiped it away, making no attempt to hide it; and sometimes she +would shiver and sigh as if in pain or fear.</p> + +<p>At these times he longed for Basterga's throat; and the blood of old +Enguerrande de Beauvais, his ancestor, dust these four hundred years at +"Damietta of the South," raced in him, and he choked with rage and +grief, and for the time could scarcely see. Yet with this pulse of wrath +were mingled delicious thrills. The tear which she did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> not hide from +him was his gage of love. The brooding eye, the infrequent smile, the +start, the reverie were for him only, and for no other. They were the +gift to him of her secret life, her inmost heart.</p> + +<p>It was an odd love-making, and bizarre. To Grio, even to men more +delicate and more finely wrought, it might have seemed no love-making at +all. But the wood-smoke that perfumed the air, sweetened it, the +firelight wrapped it about, the pots and pans and simple things of life, +amid which it passed, hallowed it. His eyes attending her hither and +thither without reserve, without concealment, unabashed, laid his heart +at her feet, not once, but a hundred times in the evening; and as often, +her endurance of the look, more rarely her sudden blush or smile, +accepted the offering.</p> + +<p>And scarce a word said: for though they had the room to themselves, they +knew that they were never alone or unheeded. Basterga, indeed, sat above +stairs and only descended to his meals; and Grio also was above when he +was not at the tavern. But Louis sulked in his closet beside them, +divided from them only by a door, whence he might emerge at any minute. +As a fact he would have emerged many times, but for two things. The +first was his marked face, which he was chary of showing; the second, +the notion which he had got that the balance of things in the house was +changing, and the reign of petty bullying, in which he had so much +delighted, approaching its end. With Basterga exposed to arrest, and the +girl's help become of value to the authorities, it needed little acumen +to discern this. He still feared Basterga; nay, he lived in such terror, +lest the part he had played should come to the scholar's ears, that he +prayed for his arrest night and morning, and whenever during the day an +especial fit of dread seized him. But he feared Anne also, for she might +betray him to Basterga; and of young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> Mercier's quality—that he was no +Tissot to be brow-beaten, or thrust aside—he had had proof on the night +of the fracas at supper. Essentially a coward, Louis' aim was to be on +the stronger side; and once persuaded that this was the side on which +they stood, he let them be.</p> + +<p>On several consecutive evenings the two passed an hour or more in this +silent communion. On the last the door of Louis' room stood open, the +young man had not come in, and for the first time they were really +alone. But the fact did not at once loosen Claude's tongue; and if the +girl noticed it, or expected aught to come of it, more than had come of +their companionship on other evenings, she hid her feelings with a +woman's ease. He remarked, however, that she was more thoughtful and +downcast than usual, and several times he saw her break off in the +middle of a task and listen nervously as for something she expected. +Presently:—</p> + +<p>"Are you listening for Louis?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She turned on him, her eyes less kind than usual. "No," she said, almost +defiantly. "Was I listening?"</p> + +<p>"I thought so," he said.</p> + +<p>She turned away again, and went on with her work. But by-and-by as she +stooped over the fire a tear fell and pattered audibly in the wood-ash +on the hearth; and another. With an impatient gesture she wiped away a +third. He saw all—she made no attempt to hide them—and he bit his lip +and drove his finger-ends into his palms in the effort to be silent. +Presently he had his reward.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry," she said in a low tone. "I was listening, and I knew I +was. I do not know why I deceived you."</p> + +<p>"Why will you not tell me all?" he cried.</p> + +<p>"I cannot!" she answered, her breast heaving passionately. "I cannot!" +For the first time in his knowledge of her, she broke down completely, +and sinking on a bench with her back to the table she sobbed bitterly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +her face in her hands. For some minutes she rocked herself to and fro in +a paroxysm of trouble.</p> + +<p>He had risen and stood watching her awkwardly, longing to comfort her, +but ignorant how to go about it, and feeling acutely his helplessness +and his <i>gaucherie</i>. Sad she had always been, and at her best +despondent, with gleams of cheerfulness as fitful as brief. But this +evening her abandonment to her grief convinced him that something more +than ordinary was amiss, that some danger more serious than ordinary +threatened. He felt no surprise therefore when, a little later, she +arrested her sobbing, raised her head, and with suspended breath and +tear-stained face listened with that scared intentness which had +impressed him before.</p> + +<p>She feared! He could not be mistaken. Fear looked out of her strained +eyes, fear hung breathless on her parted lips. He was sure of it. And +"Is it Basterga?" he cried. "Is it of him that you are afraid? If you +are——"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" she cried, raising her hand in warning. "Hush!" And then, "You +did not—hear anything?" she asked. For an instant her eyes met his.</p> + +<p>"No." He met her look, puzzled; and, obeying her gesture, he listened +afresh. "No, I heard nothing. But——"</p> + +<p>He heard nothing even now, nothing; but whatever it was sharpened her +hearing to an abnormal pitch, it was clear that she did. She was on her +feet; with a startled cry she was round the table and half-way across +the room, while he stared, the word suspended on his lips. A second, and +her hand was on the latch of the staircase door. Then as she opened it, +he sprang forward to accompany her, to help her, to protect her if +necessary. "Let me come!" he said. "Let me help you. Whatever it is, I +can do something."</p> + +<p>She turned on him fiercely. "Go back!" she said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> All the confidence, +the gentleness, the docility of the last three days were gone; and in +their place suspicion glared at him from eyes grown spiteful as a cat's. +"Go back!" she repeated. "I do not want you! I do not want any one, or +any help! Or any protection! Go, do you hear, and let me be!"</p> + +<p>As she ceased to speak, a sound from above stairs—a sound which this +time, the door being open, did reach his ears, froze the words on his +lips. It was the sound of a voice, yet no common voice, Heaven be +thanked! A moment she continued to confront him, her face one mute, +despairing denial! Then she slammed the door in his teeth, and he heard +her panting breath and fleeing footsteps speed up the stairs and along +the passage, and—more faintly now—he heard her ascend the upper +flight. Then—silence.</p> + +<p>Silence! But he had heard enough. He paused a moment irresolute, +uncertain, his hand raised to the latch. Then the hand fell to his side, +he turned, and went softly—very softly back to the hearth. The +firelight playing on his face showed it much moved; moved and softened +almost to the semblance of a woman's. For there were tears in his +eyes—eyes singularly bright; and his features worked, as if he had some +ado to repress a sob. In truth he had. In a breath, in the time it takes +to utter a single sound, he had hit on the secret, he had come to the +bottom of the mystery, he had learnt that which Basterga, favoured by +the position of his room on the upper floor, had learned two months +before, that which Grio might have learned, had he been anything but the +dull gross toper he was! He had learned, or in a moment of intuition +guessed—all. The power of Basterga, that power over the girl which had +so much puzzled and perplexed him, was his also now, to use or misuse, +hold or resign.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> + +<p>Yet his first feeling was not one of joy; nor for that matter his +second. The impression went deeper, went to the heart of the man. An +infinite tenderness, a tenderness which swelled his breast to bursting, +a yearning that, man as he was, stopped little short of tears, these +were his, these it was thrilled his soul to the point of pain. The room +in which he stood, homely as it showed, plain as it was, seemed +glorified, the hearth transfigured. He could have knelt and kissed the +floor which the girl had trodden, coming and going, serving and making +ready—under that burden; the burden that dignified and hallowed the +bearer. What had it not cost her—that burden? What had it not meant to +her, what suspense by day, what terror of nights, what haggard +awakenings—such as that of which he had been the ignorant witness—what +watches above, what slights and insults below! Was it a marvel that the +cheeks had lost their colour, the eyes their light, the whole face its +life and meaning? Nay, the wonder was that she had borne the weight so +long, always expecting, always dreading, stabbed in the tenderest +affection; with for confidant an enemy and for stay an ignorant! Viewed +through the medium of the man's love, which can so easily idealise where +it rests, the love of the daughter for the mother, that must have +touched and softened the hardest—or so, but for the case of Basterga, +one would have judged—seemed so holy, so beautiful, so pure a thing +that the young man felt that, having known it, he must be the better for +it all his life.</p> + +<p>And then his mind turned to another point in the story, and he recalled +what had passed above stairs on that day when he had entered a stranger, +and gone up. With what a smiling face of love had she leant over her +mother's bed. With what cheerfulness had she lied of that which passed +below, what a countenance had she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> put on all—no house more prosperous, +no life more gay—how bravely had she carried it! The peace and neatness +and comfort of the room with its windows looking over the Rhone valley, +and its spinning-wheel and linen chest and blooming bow-pot, all came +back to him; so that he understood many things which had passed before +him then, and then had roused but a passing and a trifling wonder.</p> + +<p>Her anxiety lest he should take lodging there and add one more to the +chances of espial, one more to the witnesses of her misery; her secret +nods and looks, and that gently checked outburst of excitement on Madame +Royaume's part, which even at the time had seemed odd—all were plain +now. Ay, plain; but suffused with a light so beautiful, set in an +atmosphere so pure and high, that no view of God's earth, even from the +eyrie of those lofty windows, and though dawn or sunset flung its +fairest glamour over the scene, could so fill the heart of man with +gratitude and admiration!</p> + +<p>Up and down in the days gone by, his thoughts followed her through the +house. Now he saw her ascend and enter, and finding all well, mask—but +at what a cost—her aching heart under smiles and cheerful looks and +soft laughter. He heard the voice that was so seldom heard downstairs +murmur loving words, and little jests, and dear foolish trifles; heard +it for the hundredth time reiterate the false assurances that affection +hallowed. He was witness to the patient tendance, the pious offices, the +tireless service of hand and eye, that went on in that room under the +tiles; witness to the long communion hand in hand, with the world shut +out; to the anxious scrutiny, to the daily departure. A sad departure, +though daily and more than daily taken; for she who descended carried a +weight of fear and anxiety. As she came down the weary stairs, stage by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> +stage, he saw the brightness die from eye and lip, and pale fear or dull +despair seize on its place. He saw—and his heart was full—the slender +figure, the pallid face enter the room in which he stood—it might be at +the dawning when the cold shadow of the night still lay on all, from the +dead ashes on the hearth to the fallen pot and displaced bench; or it +might be at mid-day, to meet sneers and taunts and ignoble looks; and +his heart was full. His face burned, his eyes filled, he could have +kissed the floor she had walked over, the wooden spoon her hand had +touched, the trencher-edge—done any foolish thing to prove his love.</p> + +<p>Love? It was a deeper thing than love, a holier, purer thing—that which +he felt. Such a feeling as the rough spearsmen of the Orléannais had for +Joan the maid; or the great Florentine for the girl whom he saw for the +first time at the banquet in the house of the Portinari; or as that man, +who carried to his grave the Queen's glove, yet had never touched it +with his bare hand.</p> + +<p>Alas, that such feelings cannot last, nor such moments endure; that in +the footsteps of the priest, be he never so holy, treads ever the +grinning acolyte with his mind on sweet things. They pass, these +feelings, and too quickly. But once to have had them, once to have lived +such moments, once to have known a woman and loved her in such wise +leaves no man as he was before; leaves him at the least with a memory of +a higher life.</p> + +<p>That the acolyte in Claude's case took the form of Louis Gentilis made +him no more welcome. Claude was still dreaming on his feet, still +viewing in a kind of happy amaze the simple things about him, things +that for him wore</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The light that never was on land or sea,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and that this world puts on but once for each of us, when Gentilis +opened the door and entered, bringing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> with him a rush of rain, and a +gust of night air. He breathed quickly as if he had been running, yet +having closed the door, he paused before he advanced into the room; and +he seemed surprised, and at a nonplus. After a moment, "Supper is not +ready?" he said.</p> + +<p>"It is not time," Claude answered curtly. The vision of an angel does +not necessarily purify at all points, and he had small stomach for +Master Louis at any time.</p> + +<p>The youth winced under the tone, but stood his ground.</p> + +<p>"Where is Anne?" he asked, something sullenly.</p> + +<p>"Upstairs. Why do you ask?"</p> + +<p>"Messer Basterga is not coming to supper. Nor Grio. They bade me tell +her. And that they would be late."</p> + +<p>"Very well, I will tell her."</p> + +<p>But it was evident that that was not all Louis had in his mind. He +remained fidgeting by the door, his cap in his hand; and his face, had +Claude marked it—but he had already turned a contemptuous shoulder on +him—was a picture of doubt and indecision. At length, "I've a message +for you," he muttered nervously. "From Messer Blondel the Syndic. He +wants to see you—now."</p> + +<p>Claude turned, and if he had not looked at the other before, he made up +for it now. "Oh!" he said at last, after a stare that bespoke both +surprise and suspicion. "He does, does he? And who made you his +messenger?"</p> + +<p>"He met me in the street—just now."</p> + +<p>"He knows you, then?"</p> + +<p>"He knows I live here," Louis muttered.</p> + +<p>"He pays us a vast amount of attention," Claude replied with polite +irony. "Nevertheless"—he turned again to the fire—"I cannot pleasure +him," he continued curtly, "this time."</p> + +<p>"But he wants to see you," Gentilis persisted desperately.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> It was plain +that he was on pins and needles. "At his house. Cannot you believe me?" +in a querulous tone. "It is all fair and above board. I swear it is."</p> + +<p>"Is it?"</p> + +<p>"It is—I swear it is. He sent me. Do you doubt me?" he added with +undisguised eagerness.</p> + +<p>Claude was about to say, with no politeness at all, that he did, and to +repeat his refusal in stronger terms, when his ear caught the same sound +which had revealed so much to him a few minutes earlier at the foot of +the stairs. It came more faintly this time, deadened by the closed door +of the staircase, but to his enlightened senses it proclaimed so clearly +what it was—the echo of a cracked, shrill voice, of a laugh insane, +uncanny, elfish—that he trembled lest Louis should hear it also and +gain the clue. That was a thing to be avoided at all costs; and even as +this occurred to him he saw the way to avoid it. Basterga and Grio were +absent: if this fool could be removed, even for an hour or two, Anne +would have the house to herself, and by midnight the crisis might be +overpast.</p> + +<p>"I will come with you," he said.</p> + +<p>Louis uttered a sigh of relief. He had expected—and he had very nearly +received—another answer. "Good," he said. "But he does not want me."</p> + +<p>"Both or neither," Claude replied coolly. "For all I know 'tis an +ambush."</p> + +<p>"No, no!"</p> + +<p>"In which event I shall see that you share it. Or it may be a scheme to +draw me from here, and then if harm be done while I am away——"</p> + +<p>"Harm? What harm?" Louis muttered.</p> + +<p>"Any harm! If harm be done, I say, I shall then have you at hand to pay +me for it. So—both or neither!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> + +<p>For a moment Louis' hang-dog face—none the handsomer for the mark of +the Syndic's cane—spelt refusal. Then he changed his mind. He nodded +sulkily. "Very well," he said. "But it is raining, and I have no great +wish to—Hush! What is that?" He raised his hand in the attitude of one +listening and his eyes sought his companion's. "What is that? Did you +not hear something—like a scream upstairs?"</p> + +<p>"I hear something like a fool downstairs!" Claude retorted gruffly.</p> + +<p>"But it was—I certainly heard something!" Louis persisted, raising his +hand again. "It sounded——"</p> + +<p>"If we are to go, let us go!" Claude cried with temper. "Come, if you +want me to go! It is not my expedition," he continued, moving noisily +hither and thither in search of his staff and cloak. "It is your affair, +and—where is my cap?"</p> + +<p>"I should think it is in your room," Louis answered meekly. "It was only +that I thought it might be Anne. That there might be——"</p> + +<p>"Two fools in the house instead of one!" Claude broke in, emerging +noisily, and slamming the door of his closet behind him. "There, come, +and we may hope to be back to supper some time to-night! Do you hear?" +And jealously shepherding the other out of the house, he withdrew the +key when both had passed the threshold. Locking the door on the outside, +he thrust the key under it. "There!" he said, smiling at his cleverness, +"now, who enters—knocks!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<h3>"AND ONLY ONE DOSE IN ALL THE WORLD!"</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> his picture of the life led by the two women on the upper floor of +the house in the Corraterie, that picture which by a singular intuition +he had conceived on the day of his arrival, Claude had not gone far +astray. In all respects but one the picture was truly drawn. Than the +love between mother and daughter, no tie could be imagined at once more +simple and more holy; no union more real and pure than that which bound +together these two women, left lonely in days of war and trouble in the +midst of a city permanently besieged and menaced by an enduring peril. +Almost forgotten by the world below, which had its own cares, its +alarums and excursions, its strivings and aims, they lived for one +another. The weak health of the one and the brave spirit of the other +had gradually inverted their positions; and the younger was mother, the +elder, daughter. Yet each retained, in addition, the pious instincts of +the original relation. To each the welfare of the other was the prime +thought. To give the other the better portion, be it of food or wine, of +freedom from care, or ease of mind, and to take the worse, was to each +the ground plan of life, as it was its chiefest joy.</p> + +<p>In their eyrie above the anxious city they led an existence all their +own. Between them were a hundred jests, Greek to others; and whimsical +ways, and fond sayings and old smiles a thousand times repeated. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +things that must be done after one fashion or the sky would fall; and +others that must be done after another fashion or the world would end. +When the house was empty of boarders, or nearly empty—though at such +times the cupboard also was apt to be bare—there were long hours spent +upstairs and surveys of household gear, carried up with difficulty, and +reviews of linen and much talk of it, and small meals, taken at the open +windows that looked over the Rhone valley and commanded the sunset view. +Such times were times of gaiety though not of prosperity, and far from +the worst hours of life—had they but persisted.</p> + +<p>But in the March of 1601 a great calamity fell on these two. A fire, +which consumed several houses near the Corraterie, and flung wide +through the streets the rumour that the enemy had entered, struck the +bedridden woman—aroused at midnight by shouts and the glare of +flames—with so dire a terror, not on her own account but on her +daughter's, that she was never the same again. For weeks at a time she +appeared to be as of old, save for some increase of weakness and +tremulousness. But below the surface the brain was out of poise, and +under the least pressure of excitement she betrayed the change in a +manner so appalling—by the loud negation of those beliefs which in +saner moments were most dear to her, and especially by a denial of the +Providence and goodness of God—that even her child, even the being who +knew her and loved her best, shuddered lest Satan, visible and +triumphant, should rise to confront her.</p> + +<p>Fortunately the fits of this mysterious malady were short as they were +appalling, and to the minds of that day, suspicious. And in the +beginning Anne had the support of an old physician, well-nigh their only +intimate. True, even he was scared by a form of disease, new and beyond +his science; but he prescribed a sedative and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> he kept counsel. He went +further: for sufficiently enlightened himself to believe in the +innocence of these attacks, he none the less explained to the daughter +the peril to which her mother's aberrations must expose her were they +known to the vulgar; and he bade her hide them with all the care +imaginable.</p> + +<p>Anne, on this would fain have adopted the safest course and kept the +house empty; to the end that to the horror of her mother's fits of +delirium might not be added the chance of eavesdropping. But to do this +was to starve, as well as to reveal to Madame Royaume the fact of those +seizures of which no one in the world was more ignorant than the good +woman who suffered under them. It followed that to Anne's burden of +dread by reason of the outer world, whom she must at all costs deceive, +was added the weight of concealment from the one from whom she had never +kept anything in her life. A thing which augmented immeasurably the +loneliness of her position and the weight of her load.</p> + +<p>Presently the drama, always pitiful, increased in intensity. The old +leech who had been her stay and helper died, and left her to face the +danger alone. A month later Basterga discovered the secret and +henceforth held it over her. From this time she led a life of which +Claude, in his dreams upon the hearth, exaggerated neither the tragedy +nor the beauty. The load had been heavy before. Now to fear was added +contumely, and to vague apprehensions the immediate prospect of +discovery and peril. The grip of the big scholar, subtle, cruel, +tightening day by day and hour by hour, was on her youth; slowly it +paralysed in her all joy, all spirit, all the impulses of life and hope, +that were natural to her age.</p> + +<p>That through all she showed an indomitable spirit, we know. We have seen +how she bore herself when threatened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> from an unexpected quarter on the +morning when Claude Mercier, after overhearing her mother's ravings, had +his doubts confirmed by the sight of her depression on the stairs. How +boldly she met his attack, unforeseen as it was, how bravely she +shielded her other and dearer self, how deftly she made use of the +chance which the young man's soberer sense afforded her, will be +remembered. But not even in that pinch, no, nor in that worse hour when +Basterga, having discovered his knowledge to her, gave her—as a cat +plays with a mouse which it is presently to tear to pieces—a little law +and a little space, did she come so near to despair as on this evening +when the echo of her mother's insane laughter drew her from the +living-room at an hour without precedent.</p> + +<p>For hitherto Madame Royaume's attacks had come on in the night only. +With a regularity not unknown in the morbid world they occurred about +midnight, an hour when her daughter could attend to her and when the +house below lay wrapped in sleep. A change in this respect doubled the +danger, therefore. It did more: the prospect of being summoned at any +hour shook, if it did not break, the last remains of Anne's strength. To +be liable at all times to such interruptions, to tremble while serving a +meal or making a bed lest the dreadful sound arise and reveal all, to +listen below and above and never to feel safe for a minute, never! +never!—who could face, who could endure, who could lie down and rise up +under this burden?</p> + +<p>It could not be. As Anne ascended the stairs she felt that the end was +coming, was come. Strive as she might, war as she might, with all the +instinct, all the ferocity, of a mother defending her young, the end was +come. The secret could not be kept long. Even while she administered the +medicine with shaking hands, while with tears<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> in her voice she strove +to still the patient and silence her wild words, even while she +restrained by force the feeble strength that would and could not, while +in a word she omitted no precaution, relaxed no effort, her heart told +her with every pulsation that the end was come.</p> + +<p>And presently, when Madame was quiet and slept, the girl bowed her head +over the unconscious object of her love and wept, bitterly, +passionately, wetting with her tears the long grey hair that strewed the +pillow, as she recalled with pitiful clearness all the stages of +concealment, all the things which she had done to avert this end. +Vainly, futilely, for it was come. The dark mornings of winter recurred +to her mind, those mornings when she had risen and dressed herself by +rushlight, with this fear redoubling the chill gloom of the cold house; +the nights, too, when all had been well, and in the last hour before +sleep, finding her mother sane and cheerful, she had nursed the hope +that the latest attack might be the last. The evenings brightened by +that hope, the mornings darkened by its extinction, the rare hours of +brooding, the days and weeks of brave struggle, of tendance never +failing, of smiles veiling a sick heart—she lived all these again, +looking pitifully back, straining tenderly in her arms the dear being +she loved.</p> + +<p>And then, stabbing her back to life in the midst of her exhaustion, the +thought pierced her that even now she was hastening the end by her +absence. They would be asking for her below; they must be asking for her +already. The supper-time was come, was past, perhaps; and she was not +there! She tried to picture what would happen, what already must be +happening; and rising and dashing the tears from her face she stood +listening. Perhaps Claude would make some excuse to the others; or, +perhaps—how much had he guessed?</p> + +<p>Her mother was passive now, sunk in the torpor which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> followed the +attack and from which the poor woman would awake in happy +unconsciousness of the whole. Anne saw that her charge might be left, +and hastily smoothing the tangle of luxuriant hair which had fallen +about her face, she opened the door. Another might have stayed to allay +the fever of her cheeks, to remove the traces of her tears, to stay the +quivering of her hands; but such small cares were not for her, nor for +the occasion. She could form no idea of the length of time she had spent +upstairs, a half-hour, or an hour and a half; and without more ado she +raised the latch, slipped out, and turning the key on her patient ran +down the upper flight of stairs.</p> + +<p>She anticipated many things, but not that which she encountered—silence +on the upper landing, and below when she had descended and opened the +staircase door—an empty room. The place was vacant; the tables were as +she had left them, half laid; the pot was gently simmering over the +fire.</p> + +<p>What had happened? The supper-hour was past, yet none of the four who +should have sat down to the meal were here. Had they overheard her +mother's terrible cry—those words which voiced the woman's despair on +finding, as she fancied, the city betrayed? And were they gone to +denounce her? The thought was discarded as soon as formed; and before +she could hit on a second explanation a hasty knocking on the door +turned her eyes that way.</p> + +<p>The four who lodged in the house were not in the habit of knocking, for +the door was only locked at night when the last retired. She approached +it then, wondering, hesitated an instant, and at last, collecting her +courage, raised the latch. The door resisted her impulse. It was locked.</p> + +<p>She tried it twice, and it was only as she drew back the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> second time +that she saw the key lying at the foot of the door. That deepened the +mystery. Why had they locked her in? Why, when they had done so, had +they thrust the key under the door and so placed it in her power? Had +Claude Mercier done it that the others might not enter to hear what he +had heard and discover what he had discovered? Possibly. In which case +the knocker—who at that instant made a second and more earnest attack +upon the door—must be one of the others, and the sooner she opened the +door the less would be the suspicion created.</p> + +<p>With an apology trembling on her lips she hastened to open. Then she +stood bewildered; she saw before her, not one of the lodgers, but Messer +Blondel. "I wish to speak to you," the magistrate said with firmness. +Before she knew what was happening he had motioned to her to go before +him into the house, and following had locked the door behind them.</p> + +<p>She knew him by sight, as did all Geneva; and the blood, which surprise +at the sight of a stranger had brought to her cheeks, fled as she +recognised the Syndic. Had they betrayed her, then, while she lingered +upstairs? Had they locked her in while they summoned the magistrate? And +was he here to make inquiries about—something he had heard?</p> + +<p>His voice cut short her thoughts without allaying her fears. "I wish to +speak to you alone," he said. "Are you alone, girl?" His manner was +quiet, but masked excitement. His eyes scrutinised her and searched the +room by turns.</p> + +<p>She nodded, unable to speak.</p> + +<p>"There is no one in the house with you?"</p> + +<p>"Only my mother," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"She is bedridden, is she not? She cannot hear us?" he added, frowning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, but I am expecting the others to return."</p> + +<p>"Messer Basterga?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"He will not return before morning," the Syndic replied with decision, +"nor his companion. The two young men are safe also. If you are alone, +therefore, I wish to speak to you."</p> + +<p>She bowed her head, trembling and wondering, fearing what the next +moment might disclose.</p> + +<p>"The young man who lodges here—of the name of Gentilis—he came to you +some time ago and told you that the State needed certain letters which +the man Basterga kept in a steel box upstairs? That is so, is it not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Messer Syndic."</p> + +<p>"And you looked for them?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I—I was told that you desired them."</p> + +<p>"You found a phial? You found a phial?" the Syndic repeated, passing his +tongue over his lips. His face was flushed; his eyes shone with a +peculiar brightness.</p> + +<p>"I found a small bottle," she answered slowly. "There was nothing else."</p> + +<p>He raised his hand. If she had known how the delay of a second tortured +him! "Describe it to me!" he said. "What was it like?"</p> + +<p>Wondering, the girl tried to describe it. "It was small and of a strange +shape, of thin glass, Messer Syndic," she said. "Shot with gold, or +there was gold afloat in the liquid inside. I do not know which."</p> + +<p>"It was not empty?"</p> + +<p>"No, it was three parts full."</p> + +<p>His hand went to his mouth, to hide the working of his lips. "And there +was with it—a paper, I think?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"A scrap of parchment then? Some words, some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> figures?" His voice rose +as he read a negative in her face. "There was something, surely?"</p> + +<p>"There was nothing," she said. "Had there been a scrap even of +writing——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes?" He could not control his impatience.</p> + +<p>"I should have sent it to you. I should have thought," she continued +earnestly, "that it was that you needed, Messer Syndic; that it was that +the State needed. But there was nothing."</p> + +<p>"Well, be there papers with it or be there not, I must have that phial!"</p> + +<p>Anne stared. "But I do not think"—she ventured with hesitation—and +then as she gained courage, she went on more firmly—"that I can take +it! I dare not, Messer Syndic."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Papers for the State—were one thing," she stammered in confusion; "but +to take this—a bottle—would be stealing!"</p> + +<p>The Syndic's eyes sparkled. His passion overcame him. "Girl, don't play +with me!" he cried. "Don't dare to play with me!" And then as she shrank +back alarmed by his tone, and shocked by this sudden peeping forth of +the tragic and the real, lo, in a twinkling he was another man, +trembling, and holding out shaking hands to her. "Get it for me!" he +said. "Get it for me, girl! I will tell you what it is! If I had told +you before, I had had it now, and I should be whole and well! whole and +well. You have a heart and can pity! Women can pity. Then pity me! I am +rich, but I am dying! I am a dying man, rising up and lying down, +counting the days as I walk the streets, and seeing the shroud rise +higher and higher upon my breast!"</p> + +<p>He paused for breath, endeavouring to gain some command of himself; +while she, carried off her feet by this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> rush of words, stared at him in +stupefaction. Before he came he had made up his mind to tell her the +truth—or something like the truth. But he had not intended to tell the +truth in this way until, face to face with her and met by her scruples, +he let the impulse to tell the whole carry him away.</p> + +<p>He steadied his lips with a shaking hand. "You know now why I want it," +he resumed, speaking huskily and with restrained emotion. "'Tis life! +Life, girl! In that"—he fought with himself before he could bring out +the word—"in that phial is my life! Is life for whoever takes it! It is +the <i>remedium</i>, it is strength, life, youth, and but one—but one dose +in all the world! Do you wonder—I am dying!—that I want it? Do you +wonder—I am dying!—that I will have it? But"—with a strange grimace +intended to reassure her—"I frighten you, I frighten you."</p> + +<p>"No!" she said, though in truth she had unconsciously retreated almost +to the door of the staircase before his extended hands. "But I—I +scarcely understand, Messer Blondel. If you will please to tell me——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes!"</p> + +<p>"What Messer Basterga—how he comes to have this?" She must parley with +him until she could collect her thoughts; until she could make up her +mind whether he was sane or mad and what it behoved her to do.</p> + +<p>"Comes to have it!" he cried vehemently. "God knows! And what matter? +'Tis the <i>remedium</i>, I tell you, whoever has it! It is life, strength, +youth!" he repeated, his eyes glittering, his face working, and the +impulse to tell her not the truth only, but more even than the truth, if +he might thereby dazzle her, carrying him away. "It is health of body, +though you be dying, as I am! And health of mind though you be +possessed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> of devils! It is a cure for all ills, for all weaknesses, all +diseases, even," with a queer grimace, "for the Scholar's evil! Think +you, if it were not rare, if it were not something above the common, if +it were not what leeches seek in vain, I should be here! I should have +more than enough to buy it, I, Messer Blondel of Geneva!" He ceased, +lacking breath.</p> + +<p>"But," she said timidly, "will not Messer Basterga give it to you? Or +sell it to you?"</p> + +<p>"Give it to me? Sell it to me? He?" Blondel's hands flew out and clawed +the air as if he had the Paduan before him, and would tear it from him. +"He give it me? No, he will not. Nor sell it! He is keeping it for the +Grand Duke! The Grand Duke? Curse him; why should he escape more than +another?"</p> + +<p>Anne stared. Was she dreaming or had her brain given way? Or was this +really Messer Blondel the austere Syndic, this man standing before her, +shaking in his limbs as he poured forth this strange farrago of +<i>remedia</i> and scholars and princes and the rest? Or if she were not mad +was he mad? Or could there be truth, any truth, any fact in the medley? +His clammy face, his trembling hands, answered for his belief in it. But +could there be such a thing in nature as this of which he spoke? She had +heard of panaceas, things which cured all ills alike; but hitherto they +had found no place in her simple creed. Yet that he believed she could +not doubt; and how much more he knew than she did! Such things might be; +in the cabinets of princes, perhaps, purchasable by a huge fortune and +by the labour, the engrossment, the devotion of a life. She did not +know; and for him his acts spoke.</p> + +<p>"It was this that Louis Gentilis was seeking?" she murmured.</p> + +<p>"What else?" he retorted, opening and shutting his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> hands. "Had I told +him the truth, as I have told you, the thing had been in my grasp now!"</p> + +<p>"But are you sure," she ventured to ask with respect, "that it will do +these things, Messer Blondel?"</p> + +<p>He flung up his hands in a gesture of impatience. "And more! And more!" +he cried. "It is life and strength, I tell you! Health and youth! For +body or mind, for the old or the young! But enough! Enough, girl!" he +resumed in an altered tone, a tone grown peremptory and urgent. "Get it +me! Do you hear? Stand no longer talking! At any moment they may return, +and—and it may be too late."</p> + +<p>Too late! It was too late already. The door shook even as he spoke under +an angry summons. As he stiffened where he stood, his eyes fixed upon +it, his hand still pointing her to his bidding, a face showed white at +the window and vanished again. An instant he imagined it Basterga's; and +hand, voice, eyes, all hung frozen. Then he saw his mistake—to +whomsoever the face belonged, it was not Basterga's; and finding voice +and breath again, "Quick!" he muttered fiercely, "do you hear, girl? Get +it! Get it before they enter!"</p> + +<p>Her hand was on the latch of the inner door. Another second and, swayed +by his will, she would have gone up and got the thing he needed, and the +stout door would have shielded them, and within the staircase he might +have taken it from her and no one been the wiser. But as she turned, +there came a second attack on the door, so loud, so persistent, so +furious, that she faltered, remembering that the duplicate key of +Basterga's chamber was in her mother's room, and that she must mount to +the top of the house for it.</p> + +<p>He saw her hesitation, and, shaken by the face which had looked in out +of the night, and which still might be watching his movements, his +resolution gave way. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> habit of a life of formalism prevailed. The +thing was as good as his, she would get it presently. Why, then, cause +talk and scandal by keeping these persons—whoever they were—outside, +when the thing might be had without talk?</p> + +<p>"To-night!" he cried rapidly. "Get it to-night, then! Do you hear, girl? +You will be sure to get it?" His eyes flitted from her to the door and +back again. "Basterga will not return until to-morrow. You will get it +to-night!"</p> + +<p>She murmured some form of assent.</p> + +<p>"Then open the door! open the door!" he urged impatiently. And with a +stifled oath, "A little more and they will rouse the town!"</p> + +<p>She ran to obey, the door flew open, and into the room bundled first +Louis without his cap; and then on his heels and gripping him by the +nape, Claude Mercier. Nor did the latter seem in the least degree +abashed by the presence in which he found himself. On the contrary, he +looked at the Syndic, his head high; as if he, and not the magistrate, +had the right to an explanation.</p> + +<p>But Blondel had recovered himself. "Come, come!" he said sternly. "What +is this, young man? Are you drunk?"</p> + +<p>"Why was the door locked?"</p> + +<p>"That you might not interrupt me," Blondel replied severely, "while I +asked some questions. I have it in my mind to ask you some also. You +took him to my house?" he continued, addressing Louis.</p> + +<p>Louis whined that he had.</p> + +<p>"You were late then?" His cold eye returned to Claude. "You were late, I +warrant. Attend me to-morrow at nine, young man. Do you hear? Do you +understand?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then have a care you are there, or the officers will fetch you. And +you," he continued, turning more graciously to Anne, "see, young woman, +you keep counsel. A still tongue buys friends, and is a service to the +State. With that—good-night."</p> + +<p>He looked from one to the other with a sour smile, nodded, and passed +out.</p> + +<p>He left Claude staring, and something bewildered in the middle of the +room. The love, the pity, the admiration of which the lad's heart had +been full an hour before, still hungered for expression; but it was not +easy to vent such feelings before Louis, nor at a moment when the +Syndic's cold eye and the puzzle of his presence there chilled for the +time the atmosphere of the room.</p> + +<p>Claude, indeed, was utterly perplexed by what he had seen; and before he +could decide what he would do, Anne, ignoring the need of explanation, +had taken the matter into her own hands. She had begun to set out the +meal; and Louis, smiling maliciously, had seated himself in his place. +To speak with any effect then, or to find words adequate to the feelings +that had moved him a while before, was impossible. A moment later, the +opportunity was gone.</p> + +<p>"You must please to wait on yourselves," the girl said wearily. "My +mother is not well, and I may not come down again this evening." As she +spoke, she lifted from the table the little tray which she had prepared.</p> + +<p>He was in time to open the door for her; and even then, had she glanced +at him, his eyes must have told her much, perhaps enough. But she did +not look at him. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts; pressing +thoughts they must have been. She passed him as if he had been a +stranger, her eyes on the tray. Worshipping, he stood, and saw her turn +the corner at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> the head of the flight; then with a full heart he went +back to his place. His time would come.</p> + +<p>And she? At the door of Basterga's room she paused and stood long in +thought, gazing at the rushlight she carried on the tray—yet seeing +nothing. A sentence, one sentence of all those which Blondel had poured +forth—not Blondel the austere Syndic, who had set the lads aside as if +they had been schoolboys, but Blondel the man, trembling, holding out +suppliant hands—rang again and again in her ears.</p> + +<p>"It is health of body, though you be dying as I am, and health of mind, +though you be possessed of devils!" Health of body! Health of mind! +Health of body! Health of mind! The words wrote themselves before her +eyes in letters of fire. Health of Body! Health of Mind!</p> + +<p>And only one dose in all the world. Only one dose in all the world! She +recalled that too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<h3>ON THE BRIDGE.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">To</span> say that the Syndic, as soon as he had withdrawn, repented of his +weakness and wished with all his heart that he had not opened until the +<i>remedium</i> was in his hand, is only to say that he was human. He did +more than this, indeed. When he had advanced some paces in the direction +of the Porte Tertasse he returned, and for a full minute he stood before +the Royaumes' door irresolute; half-minded to knock and, casting the +fear of publicity to the winds, to say that he must have at once that +for which he had come. He would get it, if he did, he was certain of +that. And for the rest, what the young men said or thought, or what +others who heard their story might say or think, mattered not a straw +now that he came to consider it; since he could have Basterga seized on +the morrow, and all would pass for a part of his affair.</p> + +<p>Yet he did not knock. A downward step on the slope of indecision is hard +to retrace. He reflected that he would get the <i>remedium</i> in the +morning. He would certainly get it. The girl was won over, Basterga was +away. Practically, he had no one to fear. And to make a stir when the +matter could be arranged without a stir was not the part of a wise man +in the position of a magistrate. Slowly he turned and walked away.</p> + +<p>But, as if his good angel touched him on the shoulder, under the Porte +Tertasse he had qualms; and again he stood. And when, after a shorter +interval and with less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> indecision, he resumed his course, it was by no +means with the air of a victor. He would receive what he needed in the +morning: he dared not admit a doubt of that. And yet—was it a vague +presentiment that weighed on him as he walked, or only the wintry night +wind that caused the blood to run more slowly and more tamely in his +veins? He had not fared ill in his venture, he had made success certain. +And yet he was unreasonably, he was unaccountably, he was undefinably +depressed.</p> + +<p>He grew more cheerful when he had had his supper and seated before a +half-flagon of wine gave the reins to his imagination. For the space of +a golden hour he held the <i>remedium</i> in his grasp, he felt its +life-giving influence course through his frame, he tasted again of +health and strength and manhood, he saw before him years of success and +power and triumph! In comparison to it the bath of Pelias, though +endowed with the virtues which lying Medea attributed to it, had not +seemed more desirable, nor the elixir of life, nor the herb of Anticyra. +Nor was it until he had taken the magic draught once and twice and +thrice in fancy, and as often hugged himself on health renewed and life +restored that a thought, which had visited him at an earlier period of +the evening, recurred and little by little sobered him.</p> + +<p>This was the reflection that he knew nothing of the quantity of the +potion which he must take, nothing of the time or of the manner of +taking it. Was it to be taken all at once, or in doses? Pure, or diluted +with wine, or with water, or with <i>aqua vitæ</i>? At any hour, or at +midnight, or at a particular epoch of the moon's age, or when this or +that star was in the ascendant?</p> + +<p>The question bulked larger as he considered it; for in life no trouble +is surmounted but another appears to confront us; nor is the most +perfect success of an imperfect world without its drawback. Now that he +held the elixir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> his, now that in fancy he had it in his grasp, the +problem of the mode and the quantity which had seemed trivial and +negligible a few days or hours before, grew to formidable dimensions; +nor could he of himself discover any solution of it. He had counted on +finding with the potion some scrap of writing, some memorandum, some +hieroglyphics at least, that, interpreted by such skill as he could +command, would give him the clue he sought. But if there was nothing, as +the girl asserted, not a line nor a sign, the matter could be resolved +in one way only. He must resort to pressure. With the potion and the man +in his possession, he must force the secret from Basterga; force it by +threats or promises or aught that would weigh with a man who lay +helpless and in a dungeon. It would not be difficult to get the truth in +that way: not at all difficult. It seemed, indeed, as if Providence—and +Fabri and Petitot and Baudichon—had arranged to put the man in his +power <i>ad hoc</i>.</p> + +<p>He hugged this thought to him, and grew so enamoured of it that he +wondered that he had not had the courage to seize Basterga in the +beginning. He had allowed himself to be disturbed by phantoms; there lay +the truth. He should have seen that the scholar dared not for his own +sake destroy a thing so precious, a thing by which he might, at the +worst, ransom his life. The Syndic wondered that he had not discerned +that point before: and still in sanguine humour he retired to bed, and +slept better than he had slept for weeks, ay, for months. The elixir was +his, as good as his; if he did not presently have Messer Basterga by the +nape he was much mistaken.</p> + +<p>He had had the scholar watched and knew whither he was gone and that he +would not return before noon. At nine o'clock, therefore, the hour at +which he had directed Claude to come to him at his house, he approached +the Royaumes' door. Pluming himself on the stratagem by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> which twice in +the twenty-four hours he had rid himself of an inconvenient witness, he +opened the door boldly and entered.</p> + +<p>On the hearth, cap in hand, stood not Claude, but Louis. The lad wore +the sneaking air as of one surprised in a shameful action, which such +characters wear even when innocently employed. But his actions proved +that he was not surprised. With finger on his lip, and eyes enjoining +caution, he signed to the Syndic to be silent, and with head aside set +the example of listening.</p> + +<p>The Syndic was not the man to suffer fools gladly, and he opened his +mouth. He closed it—all but too late. All but too late, if—the thought +sent cold shivers down his back—if Basterga had returned. With an air +almost as furtive as that of the lad before him, he signed to him to +approach.</p> + +<p>Louis crossed the room with a show of caution the more strange as the +early December sun was shining and all without was cheerful. "Has he +come back?" Blondel whispered.</p> + +<p>"Claude?"</p> + +<p>"Fool!" Low as the Syndic pitched his tone it expressed a world of +contempt. "No, Basterga?"</p> + +<p>The youth shook his head, and again laying his finger to his lips +listened.</p> + +<p>"What! He has not?" Blondel's colour returned, his eyes bulged out with +passion. What did the imbecile mean? Because he knew certain things did +he think himself privileged to play the fool? The Syndic's fingers +tingled. Another second and he had broken the silence with a vengeance, +when—</p> + +<p>"You are—too late!" Louis muttered. "Too late!" he repeated with +protruded lips.</p> + +<p>Blondel glared at him as if he would annihilate him. Too late? What did +this creature know? Or how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> could it be too late, if Basterga had not +returned? Yet the Syndic was shaken. His fingers no longer tingled for +the other's cheek; he no longer panted to break the silence in a way +that should startle him. On the contrary, he listened; while his eyes +passed swiftly round the room, to gather what was amiss. But all seemed +in order. The lads' bowls and spoons stood on the table, the great roll +of brown bread lay beside them, and a book, probably Claude's, lay face +downwards on the board. The door of one of the bedrooms stood open. The +Syndic's suspicious gaze halted at the closed door. He pointed to it.</p> + +<p>Louis shook his head; then, seeing that this was not enough, "There is +no one there," he whispered. "But I cannot tell you here. I will follow +you, honoured sir, to——"</p> + +<p>"The Porte Tertasse."</p> + +<p>"Mercier would meet us, by your leave," Louis rejoined with a faint +grin.</p> + +<p>The magistrate glared at the tool who on a sudden was turned adviser. +Still, for the time he must humour him. "The mills, then, on the +bridge," he muttered. And he opened the door with care and went out. +With a dreadful sense of coming evil he went along the Corraterie and +took his way down the steep to the bridge which, far below, curbed the +blue rushing waters of the Rhone. The roar of the icy torrent and of the +busy mills, stupendous as it was, was not loud enough to deaden the two +words that clung to his ears, "Too late! Too late!" Nor did the frosty +sunshine, gloriously reflected from the line of snowy peaks to eastward, +avail to pierce the gloom in which he walked. For Louis Gentilis, if it +should turn out that he had inflicted this penance for naught, there was +preparing an evil hour.</p> + +<p>The magistrate turned aside on a part of the bridge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> between two mills. +With his back to the wind-swept lake and its wide expanse of ruffled +waves, he stood a little apart from the current of crossers, on a space +kept clear of loiterers by the keen breeze. He seemed, if any curious +eye fell on him, to be engaged in watching the swirling torrent pour +from the narrow channel beneath him, as in warmer weather many a one +stood to watch it. Here two minutes later Louis found him; and if +Blondel still cherished hope, if he still fought against fear, or +maintained courage, the lad's smirking face was enough to end all.</p> + +<p>For a moment, such was the effect on him, Blondel could not speak. At +last, with an effort, "What is it?" he said. "What has happened?"</p> + +<p>"Much," Louis replied glibly. "Last night, after you had gone, honoured +sir, I judged by this and that, that there was something afoot. And +being devoted to your interests, and seeking only to serve you——"</p> + +<p>"The point! The point!" the Syndic ejaculated. "What has happened?"</p> + +<p>"Treachery," the young man answered, mouthing his words with enjoyment; +it was for him a happy moment. "Black, wicked treachery!" with a glance +behind him. "The worst, sir, the worst, if I rightly apprehend the +matter."</p> + +<p>"Curse you," Blondel cried, contrary to his custom, for he was no +swearer, "you will kill me, if you do not speak."</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>"What has happened. What has happened, man!"</p> + +<p>"I was going to tell you, honoured sir, that I watched her——"</p> + +<p>"Anne? The girl?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and an hour before midnight she took that which you wished me to +get—the bottle. She went to Basterga's room, and——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Took it! Well? Well?" The Syndic's face, grey a moment before, was +dangerously suffused with blood. The cane that had inflicted the bruise +Louis still wore across his visage, quivered ominously. Public as the +bridge was, open to obloquy and remark as an assault must lay him, +Blondel was within an inch of striking the lad again. "Well? Well?" he +repeated. "Is that all you have to tell me?"</p> + +<p>"Would it were!" Louis replied, raising his open hands with +sanctimonious fervour. "Alas, sir!"</p> + +<p>"You watched her?"</p> + +<p>"I watched her back to her room."</p> + +<p>"Upstairs?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the room which she occupies with her mother. And kneeling and +listening, and seeing what I could for your sake," the knave continued, +not a feature evincing the shame he should have felt, "I saw her handle +the phial at a little table opposite the door, but hidden by a curtain +from the bed."</p> + +<p>The Syndic's eyes conveyed the question his lips refused to frame. No +man, submitted to the torture, has ever suffered more than he was +suffering.</p> + +<p>But Louis had as much mind to avenge himself as the bravest, if he could +do so safely; and he would not be hurried. "She held it to the light," +he said, dwelling on every syllable, "and turned it this way and that, +and I could see bubbles as of gold——"</p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p> + +<p>"Whirling and leaping up and down in it as if they lived—God guard us +from the evil one! Then she knelt——"</p> + +<p>The Syndic uttered an involuntary cry.</p> + +<p>"And prayed," Louis continued, confirming his astonishing statement by a +nod. "But whether to it—'twas on the table before her—or to the devil, +or otherwise, I know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> not. Only"—with damnatory candour—"it had a +strange aspect. Certainly she knelt, and it was on the table in front of +her, and her forehead rested on her hands, and——"</p> + +<p>"What then? What then? By Heaven, the point!" gasped Blondel, writhing +in torture. "What then? blind worm that you are, can you not see that +you are killing me? What did she do with it? Tell me!"</p> + +<p>"She poured it into a glass, and——"</p> + +<p>"She drank it?"</p> + +<p>"No, she carried it to her mother," Louis replied as slowly as he dared. +Fawning on the hand that had struck him, he would fain bite it if he +could do so safely. "I did not see what followed," he went on, "they +were behind the screen. But I heard her say that it was Madame's +medicine. And I made out enough——"</p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p> + +<p>"To be sure that her mother drank it."</p> + +<p>Blondel stared at him a moment, wide-eyed; then, with a cry of despair, +bitter, final, indescribable, the Syndic turned and hurried away. He did +not hear the timid remonstrances which Louis, who followed a few paces +behind, ventured to utter. He did not heed the wondering looks of those +whom he jostled as he plunged into the current of passers and thrust his +way across the bridge in the direction whence he had come. The one +impulse in his blind brain was to get home, that he might be alone, to +think and moan and bewail himself unwatched; even as the first instinct +of the wounded beast is to seek its lair and lie hidden, there to await +with piteous eyes and the divine patience of animals the coming of +death.</p> + +<p>But this man had the instinct only, not the patience. In his case would +come with thought wild rages, gnawings of regret, tears of blood. That +he might have, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> had not, that he had failed by so little, that he +had been worsted by his own tools—these things and the bitter irony of +life's chances would madden and torment him. In an hour he would live a +lifetime of remorse; yet find in his worst moments no thought more +poignant than the reflection that had he played the game with courage, +had he grasped the nettle boldly, had he seized Basterga while it was +yet time, he might have lived! He might have lived! Ah, God!</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Louis, though consumed with desire to see what would happen, +remained on the bridge. He had tasted a fearful joy and would fain +savour more of it if he could do so with a whole skin. But to follow +seemed perilous; he held the Syndic's mood in too great awe for that. He +did the next best thing. He hastened to a projecting part of the bridge +a few paces from the spot where they had conferred; there he raised +himself on the parapet that he might see which way Blondel turned at the +end of the bridge. If he entered the town no more could be made of it: +but if he turned right-handed and by the rampart to the Corraterie, +Louis' mind was made up to risk something. He would follow to the +Royaumes' house. The magistrate could hardly blame him for going to his +own lodging!</p> + +<p>It was a busy hour, and, cold as it was, a fair number of people were +passing between the island and the upper town. For a moment, look as he +might, he could not discern the Syndic's spare figure; and he was +beginning to think that he had missed him when he saw something that in +a twinkling turned his thoughts. On the bank a little beside the end of +the bridge stood Claude Mercier. He carried a heavy stick in his hand, +and he was waiting: waiting, with his eyes fixed on our friend, and a +look in those eyes that even at that distance raised a gentle sweat on +Louis' brow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> + +<p>It required little imagination to follow Claude's past movements. He had +gone to the Syndic's house at nine, and finding himself tricked a second +time had returned hot-foot to the Corraterie. Thence he had tracked the +two to this place. But how long had he been waiting, Louis wondered; and +how much had he seen? Something for certain. His face announced that; +and Louis, hot all over, despite the keen wind and frosty air, augured +the worst. Cowards however have always one course open. The way was +clear behind him. He could cross the island to the St. Gervais bank, and +if he were nimble he might give his pursuer the slip in the maze of +small streets beside the water. It was odd if the lapse of a few hours +did not cool young Mercier's wrath, and restore him to a frame of mind +in which he might be brought to hear reason.</p> + +<p>No sooner planned than done. Or rather it would have been done if +turning to see that the way was clear behind him, Louis had not +discovered a second watcher, who from a spot on the edge of the island +was marking his movements with grim attention. This watcher was +Basterga. Moreover the glance which apprised Louis of this showed him +that the scholar's face was as black as thunder.</p> + +<p>Then, if the gods looked down that day upon any mortal with pity, they +must have looked down on this young man; who was a coward. At the one +end of the bridge, Claude, with an ugly weapon and a face to match! At +the other, Basterga, with a black brow and Heaven alone could say how +much knowledge of his treachery! The scholar could not know of the loss +of the phial, indeed, for it was clear that he had just returned to the +city by the St. Gervais gate. But that he soon would know of it, that he +knew something already, that he had been a witness to the colloquy with +the Syndic—this was certain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<p>At any rate Louis thought so, and his knees trembled under him. He had +no longer a way of retreat, and out of the corner of his eye he saw +Claude beginning to advance. What was he to do? The perspiration burst +out on him. He turned this way and that, now casting wild eyes at the +whirling current below, now piteous eyes—the eyes of a calf on its way +to the shambles, and as little regarded—on the thin stream of passers. +How could they go on their way and leave him to the mercies of this +madman?</p> + +<p>He smothered a shriek as Claude, now less than twenty paces away, sped a +look at him. Claude, indeed, was thinking of Anne and her wrongs; and of +a certain kiss. His face told this so plainly, and that passion was his +master, that Louis' cheek grew white. What if the ruffian threw him into +the river? What if—and then like every coward, he chose the remoter +danger. With Claude at hand, he turned and fled, dashed blindly through +the passers on the bridge, flung himself on Basterga, and, seizing the +big scholar by the arm, strove to shelter himself behind him.</p> + +<p>"He is mad!" he gasped. "Mad! Save me! He is going to throw me over!"</p> + +<p>"Steady!" Basterga answered; and he opposed his huge form to Claude's +rush. "What is this, young man? Coming to blows in the street? For +shame! For shame!" He moved again so as still to confront him.</p> + +<p>"Give him up!" Claude panted, scarcely preventing himself from attacking +both. "Give him up, I say, and——"</p> + +<p>"Not till I have heard what he has done! Steady, young man, keep your +distance!"</p> + +<p>"I will tell you everything! Everything!" Louis whined, clinging to his +arm.</p> + +<p>"Do you hear what he says?" Basterga replied. "In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> the meantime, I tell +you to keep your distance, young man. I am not used to be jostled!"</p> + +<p>Claude hesitated a moment, scowling. Then, "Very well!" he said, drawing +off with a gesture of menace. "It is only put off: I shall pay him +another time. It is waiting for you, sneak, bear that in mind!" And +shrugging his shoulders he turned with as much dignity as he could and +moved off.</p> + +<p>Basterga wheeled from him to the other. "So!" he said. "You have +something to tell me, it seems?" And taking the trembling Louis by the +arm, he drew him aside, a few paces from the approach of the bridge. In +doing this he hung a moment searching the bridge and the farther bank +with a keen gaze. He knew, and for some hours had known, on what a +narrow edge of peril he stood, and that only Blondel's influence +protected him from arrest. Yet he had returned: he had not hesitated to +put his head again into the lion's mouth. Still if Louis' words meant +that certain arrest awaited him, he was not too proud to save himself.</p> + +<p>He could discern no officers on the bridge, and satisfied on the point +of immediate danger, he turned to his shivering ally. "Well, what is +it?" he said. "Speak!"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you the truth," Louis gabbled.</p> + +<p>"You had better!" Basterga replied, in a tone that meant much more than +he said. "Or you will find me worse to deal with than yonder hot-head! I +will answer for that."</p> + +<p>"Messer Blondel has been at the house," Louis murmured glibly, his mind +centred on the question how much he should tell. "Last night and again +this morning. He has been closeted with Anne and Mercier. And there has +been some talk—of a box or a bottle."</p> + +<p>"Were they in my room?" Basterga asked, his brow contracting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, downstairs."</p> + +<p>"Did they get—the box or the bottle?" There was a dangerous note in +Basterga's voice; and a look in his eyes that scared the lad.</p> + +<p>Louis, as his instinct was, lied again, fleeing the more pressing peril. +"Not to my knowledge," he said.</p> + +<p>"And you?" The scholar eyed him with bland suavity. "You had nothing to +do—with all this, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"I listened. I was in my room, but they thought I was out. When I went," +the liar continued, "they discovered me; and Messer Blondel followed me +and overtook me on the bridge and threatened—that he would have me +arrested if I were not silent."</p> + +<p>"You refused to be silent, of course?"</p> + +<p>But Louis was too acute to be caught in a trap so patent. He knew that +Basterga would not believe in his courage, if he swore to it. "No, I +said I would be silent," he answered. "And I should have been," he +continued with candour, "if I had not run into your arms."</p> + +<p>"But if you assented to his wish," Basterga retorted, eyeing him keenly, +"why did he depart after that fashion?"</p> + +<p>"Something happened to him," Louis said. "I do not know what. He seemed +to be in distress, or to be ill."</p> + +<p>"I could see that," the scholar answered dryly. "But Master Claude? What +of him? And why was he so enamoured of you that he could not be parted +from you?"</p> + +<p>"It was to punish me for listening. They followed me different ways."</p> + +<p>"I see. And that is the truth, is it?"</p> + +<p>"I swear it is!"</p> + +<p>The scholar saw no reason why it should not be the truth. Louis, a +facile tool, had always been of his, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> stronger, party. If Blondel +tampered with any one, he would naturally, if he knew aught of the +house, suborn Claude or Anne. And Louis, spying and fleeing, and when +overtaken, promising silence, was quite in the picture. The only thing, +indeed, which stood out awkwardly, and refused to fall into place, was +the fashion in which the Syndic had turned and gone off the bridge. And +for that there might be reasons. He might have been seized with a sudden +attack of his illness, or he might have perceived Basterga watching him +from the farther bank.</p> + +<p>On the whole, the scholar, forgetting that cowards are ever liars, saw +no reason to doubt Louis' story. It did but add one more to the motives +he had for action: immediate, decisive, striking action, if he would +save his neck, if he would succeed in his plans. That the Syndic alone +stood between him and arrest, that by the Syndic alone he lived, he had +learned at a meeting at which he had been present the previous night at +the Grand Duke's country house four leagues distant. D'Albigny had been +there, and Brunaulieu, Captain of the Grand Duke's Guards, and Father +Alexander, who dreamed of the Episcopate of Geneva, and others—the +chiefs of the plot, his patrons. To his mortification they had been able +to tell him things he had not learned, though he was within the city, +and they without. Among others, that the Council had certain knowledge +of him and his plans, and but for the urgency of Blondel would have +arrested him a fortnight before.</p> + +<p>His companions at the midnight supper had detected his dismay, and had +derided him, thinking that with that there was an end of the mysterious +scheme which he had refused to impart. They fancied that he would not +return to the city, or venture his head a second time within the lion's +jaws. But they reckoned without their man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> Basterga with all his faults +was brave; and he had failed in too many schemes to resign this one +lightly.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Si fractus illabatur orbis<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Impavidum ferient ruinæ,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he murmured; and he had ventured, he had passed the gates, he was here. +Here, with his eyes open to the peril, and open to the necessity of +immediate action if the slender thread by which all hung were not to +snap untimely.</p> + +<p>Blondel! He lived by Blondel. And Blondel—why had he left the bridge in +that strange fashion? Abruptly, desperately, as if something had +befallen him. Why? He must learn, and that quickly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<h3>A GLOVE AND WHAT CAME OF IT.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Meanwhile</span>, Claude, robbed of his prey, had gone into the town in great +disgust. As he passed from the bridge, and paused before he entered the +huddle of narrow streets that climbed the hill, he had on his left the +glittering heights of snow, rising ridge above ridge to the blue; and +most distant among them Mont Blanc itself, etherealised by the frosty +sunshine and clear air of a December morning. But Mont Blanc might have +been a marsh, the Rhone, pouring its icy volume from the lake, might +have been a brook, for him. Aware, at length, of the peril in which Anne +stood, and not doubting that these colloquies of Messers Blondel and +Louis, these manœuvrings to be rid of his presence, were part of a +conspiracy against her, he burned with the desire to thwart it. They had +made a puppet of him; they had sent him to and fro at their will and +pleasure; and they had done this, no doubt, in order that in his absence +they might work—Heaven knew what vile and miserable work! But he would +know, too! He was going to know! He would not be so tricked thrice.</p> + +<p>His indignation went beyond the Syndic. The smug-faced towns-folk whom +he met and jostled in the narrow ways, and whose grave starched looks he +countered with hot defiant glances—he included them in his anathema. He +extended to them the contempt in which he held Blondel and Louis and the +rest. They were all of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> breed, a bigoted breed; all dull, blind worms, +insensible to the beauty of self-sacrifice, or the purity of affection. +All, self-sufficient dolts, as far removed, as immeasurably divided from +her whom he loved, as the gloomy lanes of this close city lay below the +clear loveliness of the snow-peaks! For, after all, he had lifted his +eyes to the mountains.</p> + +<p>One thing only perplexed him. He understood the attitude of Basterga and +Grio and Louis towards the girl. He discerned the sword of Damocles that +they held over her, the fear of a charge of witchcraft, or of some vile +heresy, in which they kept her. But how came Blondel in the plot? What +was his part, what his object? If he had been sincere in that attempt on +Basterga's secrets, which Madame's delirious words had frustrated, was +he sincere now? Was his object now as then—the suppression of the +devilish practices of which he had warned Claude, and in the punishment +of which he had threatened to include the girl with her tempter? +Presumably it was, and he was still trying to reach the goal by other +ways, using Louis as he had used Claude, or tried to use him.</p> + +<p>And yet Claude doubted. He began to suspect—for love is jealous—that +Blondel had behind this a more secret, a more personal, a more selfish +aim. Had the young girl, still in her teens, caught the fancy of the man +of sixty? There was nothing unnatural in the idea; such things were, +even in Geneva; and Louis was a go-between, not above the task. In that +case she who had showed a brave front to Basterga all these months, who +had not blenched before the daily and hourly persecution to which she +had been exposed in her home, was not likely to succumb to the senile +advances of a man who might be her grandfather!</p> + +<p>If he did not hold her secret. But if he did hold it?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> If he did hold +it, and the cruel power it gave? If he held it, he who had only to lift +his hand to consign her to duress on a charge so dark and dangerous that +innocence itself was no protection against it? So plausible that even +her lover had for a short time held it true? What then?</p> + +<p>Claude, who had by this time reached the Tertasse gate and passed +through it from the town side, paused on the ramparts and bared his +head. What then?</p> + +<p>He had his answer. Framed in the immensity of sky and earth that lay +before him, he saw his loneliness and hers, his insignificance and hers, +his helplessness and hers; he, a foreigner, young, without name or +reputation, or aught but a strong right hand; she, almost a child, alone +or worse than alone, in this great city—one of the weak things which +the world's car daily and hourly crushes into the mud, their very cries +unheard and unheeded. Of no more account than the straw which the turbid +Rhone, bore one moment on its swirling tide, and the next swallowed from +sight beneath its current!</p> + +<p>They were two—and a mad woman! And against them were Blondel and +Basterga and Grio and Louis, and presently all the town of Geneva! All +these gloomy, narrow, righteous men, and shrieking, frightened +women—frightened lest any drop of the pitch fall on them and destroy +them! Love is a marvellous educator. Almost as clearly as we of a later +day, he saw how outbreaks of superstition, such as that which he +dreaded, began, and came to a head, and ended. A chance word at a door, +a spiteful rumour or a sick child, the charge, the torture, the widening +net of accusation, the fire in the market-place. So it had been in +Bamberg and Wurzburg, in Geneva two generations back, in Alsace scarce +as many years back: at Edinburgh in Scotland where thirty persons had +suffered in one day—ten years ago that;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> in the district of Como, where +a round thousand had suffered!</p> + +<p>Nobility had not availed to save some, nor court-favour others; nor +wealth, nor youth, nor beauty. And what had he or she to urge, what had +they to put forward that would in the smallest degree avail them? That +could even for a moment stem or avert the current of popular madness +which power itself had striven in vain to dam. Nothing!</p> + +<p>And yet he did not blench, nor would he; being half French and of good +blood, at a time when good French blood ran the more generously for a +half century of war. He would not have blenched, even if he had not, +from the sunlit view of God's earth and heaven which lay before his +eyes, drawn other thoughts than that one of his own littleness and +insignificance. As this view of vale and mountain had once before lifted +his judgment above the miasma of a cruel superstition, so it raised him +now above creeping fears and filled him with confidence in something +more stable than magistrates or mobs. Love, like the sunlight, shone +aslant the dark places of the prospect and filled them with warmth. +Sacrifice for her he loved took on the beauty of the peaks, cold but +lovely; and hope and courage, like the clear blue of the vault above, +looked smiling down on the brief dangers and the brief troubles of man's +making.</p> + +<p>The clock of St. Gervais was striking eleven as, still in exalted mood, +he turned his back on the view and entered the house in the Corraterie. +He had entered on his return from his fruitless visit to Blondel, and +had satisfied himself that Anne was safe. Doubtless she was still safe, +for the house was quiet.</p> + +<p>In his new mood he was almost inclined to quarrel with this. In the +ardour of his passion he would gladly have seen the danger immediate, +the peril present, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> he might prove to her how much he loved her, +how deeply he felt for her, what he would dare for her. To die on the +hearth of the living-room, at her feet and saving her, seemed for a +moment the thing most desirable—the purest happiness!</p> + +<p>That was denied him. The house was quiet, as in a morning it commonly +was. So quiet that he recalled without effort the dreams which he had +dreamed on that spot, and the thoughts which had filled his heart to +bursting a few hours before. The great pot was there, simmering on its +hook; and on the small table beside it, the table that Basterga and Grio +occupied, stood a platter with a few dried herbs and a knife fresh from +her hand. Claude made sure that he was unobserved, and raising the knife +to his lips, kissed the haft gently and reverently, thinking what she +had suffered many a day while using it! What fear, and grief and +humiliation, and——</p> + +<p>He stood erect, his face red: he listened intently. Upstairs, breaking +the long silence of the house, opening as it were a window to admit the +sun, a voice had uplifted itself in song. The voice had some of the +tones of Anne's voice, and something that reminded him of her voice. But +when had he heard her sing? When had aught so clear, so mirthful, or so +young fallen from her as this; this melody, laden with life and youth +and abundance, that rose and fell and floated to his ears through the +half-open door of the staircase?</p> + +<p>He crept to the staircase door and listened; yes, it was her voice, but +not such as he had ever heard it. It was her voice as he could fancy it +in another life, a life in which she was as other girls, darkened by no +fear, pinched by no anxiety, crushed by no contumely; such as her voice +might have been, uplifted in the garden of his old home on the French +border, amid bees and flowers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> and fresh-scented herbs. Her voice, +doubtless, it was; but it sorted so ill with the thoughts he had been +thinking, that with his astonishment was mingled something of shock and +of loss. He had dreamed of dying for her or with her, and she sang! He +was prepared for peril, and her voice vied with the lark's in joyous +trills.</p> + +<p>Leaning forward to hear more clearly, he touched the door. It was ajar, +and before he could hinder it, it closed with a sharp sound. The singing +ceased with an abruptness that told, or he was much mistaken, of +self-remembrance. And presently, after an interval of no more than a few +seconds, during which he pictured the singer listening, he heard her +begin to descend.</p> + +<p>Two men may do the same thing from motives as far apart as the poles. +Claude did what Louis would have done. As the foot drew near the +staircase door, treading, less willingly, less lightly, more like that +of Anne with every step, he slid into his closet, and stood. Through the +crack between the hinges of the open door, he would be able to view her +face when she appeared.</p> + +<p>A second later she came, and he saw. The light of the song was still in +her eyes, but mingled, as she looked round the room to learn who was +there, with something of exaltation and defiance. Christian maidens +might have worn some such aspect, he thought—but he was in love—as +they passed to the lions. Or Esther, when she went unbidden into the +inner court of the King's House, and before the golden sceptre moved. +Something had happened to her. But what?</p> + +<p>She did not see him, and after standing a moment to assure herself that +she was alone, she passed to the hearth. She lifted the lid of the pot, +bent over it, and slowly stirred the broth; then, having covered it +again, she began to chop the dried herbs on the platter. Even in her +manner of doing this, he fancied a change;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> a something unlike the Anne +he had known, the Anne he had come to love. The face was more animated, +the action quicker, the step lighter, the carriage more free. She began +to sing, and stopped; fell into a reverie, with the knife in her hand, +and the herb half cut; again roused herself to finish her task; finally +having slid the herbs from the platter to the pot, she stood in a second +reverie, with her eyes fixed on the window.</p> + +<p>He began to feel the falseness of his position. It was too late to show +himself, and if she discovered him what would she think of him? Would +she believe that in spying upon her he had some evil purpose, some low +motive, such as Louis might have had? His cheek grew hot. And then—he +forgot himself.</p> + +<p>Her eyes had left the window and fallen to the window-seat. It was the +thing she did then which drew him out of himself. Moving to the +window—he had to stoop forward to keep her within the range of his +sight—she took from it a glove, held it a moment, regarding it; then +with a tender, yet whimsical laugh, a laugh half happiness, half +ridicule of herself, she kissed it.</p> + +<p>It was Claude's glove. And if, with that before his eyes he could have +restrained himself, the option was not his. She turned in the act, and +saw him; with a startled cry she put—none too soon—the table between +them.</p> + +<p>They faced one another across it, he flushed, eager, with love in his +eyes, and on his lips; she blushing but not ashamed, her new-found joy +in her eyes, and in the pose of her head.</p> + +<p>"Anne!" he cried. "I know now! I know! I have seen and you cannot +deceive me!"</p> + +<p>"In what?" she said, a smile trembling on her lips. "And of what, Messer +Claude, are you so certain, if you please?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That you love me!" he replied. "But not a hundredth part"—he stretched +his arms across the table towards her "as much as I love you and have +loved you for weeks! As I loved you even before I learned last +night——"</p> + +<p>"What?" Into her face—that had not found one hard look to rebuke his +boldness—came something of her old silent, watchful self. "What did you +learn last night?"</p> + +<p>"Your secret!"</p> + +<p>"I have none!" Quick as thought the words came from her lips. "I have +none! God is merciful," with a gesture of her open arms, as if she put +something from her, "and it is gone! If you know, if you guess aught of +what it was"—her eyes questioned his and read in them if not that which +he knew, that which he thought of her.</p> + +<p>"I ask you to be silent."</p> + +<p>"I will, after I have——"</p> + +<p>"Now! Always!"</p> + +<p>"Not till I have spoken once!" he cried. "Not till I have told you once +what I think of you! Last night I heard. And I understood. I saw what +you had gone through, what you had feared, what had been your life all +these weeks, rising and lying down! I saw what you meant when you bade +me go anywhere but here, and why you suffered what you did at their +hands, and why they dared to treat you—so! And had they been here I +would have killed them!" he added, his eyes sparkling. "And had you been +here——"</p> + +<p>"Yes?" she did not seek to check him now. Her bearing was changed, her +eyes, soft and tender, met his as no eyes had ever met his.</p> + +<p>"I should have worshipped you! I should have knelt as I kneel now!" he +cried. And sinking on his knees he extended his arms across the table +and took her unresisting hands. "If you no longer have a secret, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +had one, and I bless God for it! For without it I might not have known +you, Anne! I might not have——"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you do not know me now," she said; but she did not withdraw her +hands or her eyes. Only into the latter grew a shade of trouble. "I have +done—you do not know what I have done. I am a thief."</p> + +<p>"Pah!"</p> + +<p>"It is true. I am a thief."</p> + +<p>"What is it to me?" He laughed a laugh as tender as her eyes. "You are a +thief, for you have stolen my heart. For the rest, do you think that I +do not know you now? That I can be twice deceived? Twice take gold for +dross, and my own for another thing? I know you!"</p> + +<p>"But you do not know," she said tremulously, "what I have done—what I +did last night—or what may come of it."</p> + +<p>"I know that what comes of it will happen, not to one but to two," he +replied bravely. "And that is all I ask to know. That, and that you are +content it shall be so?"</p> + +<p>"Content?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Content!"</p> + +<p>There are things, other than wine, that bring truth to the surface. That +which had happened to the girl in the last few hours, that which had +melted her into unwonted song, was of these things; and the tone of her +voice as she repeated the word "Content!" the surrender of her eyes that +placed her heart in his keeping, as frankly as she left her hands in +his, proclaimed it. The reserves of her sex, the tricks of coyness and +reticence men look for in maids, were shaken from her; and as man to man +her eyes told him the truth, told him that if she had ever doubted she +no longer doubted that she loved him. In the heart which a single +passion, the purest of which men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> and women are capable, had engrossed +so long, Nature, who, expel her as you will, will still return, had won +her right and carved her kingdom.</p> + +<p>And she knew that it was well with her—whatever the upshot of last +night. To be lonely no more; to be no longer the protector, but the +protected; to know the comfort of the strong arm as well as of the +following eye, the joy of receiving as well as of giving; to know that, +however dark the future might lower, she had no longer to face it alone, +no longer to plan and hope and fear and suffer alone, but with +<i>him</i>—the sense of these things so mingled with her gratitude on her +mother's account that the new affection, instead of weakening the old +became as it were part of it; while the old stretched onwards its pious +hand to bless the new.</p> + +<p>If Claude did not read all this in her eyes, and in that one word +"Content?" he read so much that never devotee before relic rose more +gently or more reverently to his feet. Because all was his he would take +nothing. "As I stand by you, may God stand by me," he said, still +holding her hands in his, and with the table between them.</p> + +<p>"I have no fear," she replied in a low voice. "Yet—if you fail, may He +forgive you as fully as I must forgive you. What shall I say to you on +my part, Messer Claude?"</p> + +<p>"That you love me."</p> + +<p>"I love you," she murmured with an intonation which ravished the young +man's heart and brought the blood to his cheeks. "I love you. What +more?"</p> + +<p>"There is no more," he cried. "There can be no more. If that be true, +nothing matters."</p> + +<p>"No!" she said, beginning to tremble under a weight of emotion too heavy +for her, following as it did the excitement of the night. "No!" she +continued, raising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> her eyes which had fallen before the ardour of his +gaze. "But there must be something you wish to ask me. You must wish to +know——"</p> + +<p>"I have heard what I wished to know."</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>"Tell me what you please."</p> + +<p>She stood in thought an instant: then, with a sigh, "He came to me last +evening," she said, "when you were at his house."</p> + +<p>"Messer Blondel?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He wished me to procure for him a certain drug that Messer +Basterga kept in his room."</p> + +<p>Claude stared. "In a steel casket chained to the wall?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she whispered with some surprise. "You knew of it, then? He had +tried to procure it through Louis, and on the pretence that the box +contained papers needed by the State. Failing in that he came last +evening to me, and told me the truth."</p> + +<p>"The truth?" Claude asked, wondering. "But was it the truth?"</p> + +<p>"It was." Her eyes, like stars on a rainy night, shone softly. "I have +proved it." Again, with a ring of exultation in her voice, "I have +proved it!" she cried.</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"There was in the box a drug, he told me, possessed of an almost +miraculous power over disease of body and mind; so rare and so wonderful +that none could buy it, and he knew of but this one dose, of which +Messer Basterga had possessed himself. He begged me to take it and to +give it to him. He had on him, he said, a fatal illness, and if he did +not get this—he must die." Her voice shook. "He must die! Now God help +him!"</p> + +<p>"You took it."</p> + +<p>"I took it." Her face, as her eyes dropped before his,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> betrayed trouble +and doubt. "I took it," she continued, trembling. "If I have done wrong, +God forgive me. For I stole it."</p> + +<p>His face betrayed his amazement, but he did not release her hands. +"Why?" he said.</p> + +<p>"To give it to her," she answered. "To my mother. I thought then that it +was right—it was a chance. I thought—now I don't know, I don't know!" +she repeated. The shade on her face grew deeper. "I thought I was right +then. Now—I—I am frightened." She looked at him with eyes in which her +doubts were mirrored. She shivered, she who had been so joyous a moment +before, and her hands, which hitherto had lain passive in his, returned +his pressure feverishly. "I fear now!" she exclaimed. "I fear! What is +it? What has happened—in the last minute?"</p> + +<p>He would have drawn her to him, seeing that her nerves were shaken; but +the table was between them, and before he could pass round it, a sound +caught his ear, a shadow fell between them, and looking up he discovered +Basterga's face peering through the nearer casement. It was pressed +against the small leaded panes, and possibly it was this which by +flattening the huge features imparted to them a look of malignity. Or +the look—which startled Claude, albeit he was no coward—might have +been only the natural expression of one, who suspected what was afoot +between them and came to mar it. Whatever it meant, the girl's cry of +dismay found an echo on Claude's lips. Involuntarily he dropped her +hands; but—and the action was symbolical of the change in her life—he +stepped at the same moment between her and the door. Whatever she had +done, right or wrong, was his concern now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<h3>THE <i>REMEDIUM</i>.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have seen that for Claude, as he hurried from the bridge, the faces +he met in the narrow streets of the old town were altered by the medium +through which he viewed them; and appeared gloomy, sordid and fanatical. +In the eyes of Blondel, who had passed that way before him, the same +faces wore a look of selfishness, stupendously and heartlessly cruel. +And not the faces only; the very houses and ways, the blue sky overhead, +and the snow-peaks—when for an instant he caught sight of them—bore +the same aspect. All wore their every-day air, and mocked the despair in +his heart. All flung in his teeth the fact, the incredible fact, that +whether he died or lived, stayed or went, the world would proceed; that +the eternal hills, ay, and the insensate bricks and mortar, that had +seen his father pass, would see him pass, and would be standing when he +was gone into the darkness.</p> + +<p>There are few things that to the mind of man in his despondent moods are +more strange, or more shocking, than the permanence of trifles. The +small things to which his brain and his hand have given shape, which he +can, if he will, crush out of form, and resolve into their primitive +atoms, outlive him! They lie on the table when he is gone, are unchanged +by his removal, serve another master as they have served him, preach to +another generation the same lesson. The face is dust, but the canvas +smiles from the wall. The hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> is withered, but the pencil is still in +the tray and is used by another. There are times when the irony of this +thought bites deep into the mind, and goads the mortal to revolt. Had +Blondel, as he climbed the hill, possessed the power of Orimanes to +blast at will, few of those whom he met, few on whom he turned the +gloomy fire of his eyes, would have reached their houses that day or +seen another sun.</p> + +<p>He was within a hundred paces of his home, when a big man, passing along +the Bourg du Four, but on the other side of the way, saw him and came +across the road to intercept him. It was Baudichon, his double chin more +pendulent, his massive face more dully wistful than ordinary; for the +times had got upon the Councillor's nerves, and day by day he grew more +anxious, slept worse of nights, and listened much before he went to bed.</p> + +<p>"Messer Blondel," he called out, in a voice more peremptory than was +often addressed to the Fourth Syndic's ear. "Messer Syndic! One moment, +if you please!"</p> + +<p>Blondel stopped and turned to him. Outwardly the Syndic was cool, +inwardly he was at a white heat that at any moment might impel him to +the wildest action. "Well?" he said. "What is it, M. Baudichon?"</p> + +<p>"I want to know——"</p> + +<p>"Of course!" The sneer was savage and undisguised. "What, this time, if +I may be so bold?"</p> + +<p>Baudichon breathed quickly, partly with the haste he had made across the +road, partly in irritation at the gibe. "This only," he said. "How far +you purpose to try our patience? A week ago you were for delaying the +arrest you know of—for a day. It was a matter of hours then."</p> + +<p>"It was."</p> + +<p>"But days have passed, and are passing! and we have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> no explanation; +nothing is done. And every night we run a fresh risk, and every +morning—so far—we thank God that our throats are still whole; and +every day we strive to see you, and you are out, or engaged, or about to +do it, or awaiting news! But this cannot go on for ever! Nor," puffing +out his cheeks, "shall we always bear it!"</p> + +<p>"Messer Baudichon!" Blondel retorted, the passion he had so far +restrained gleaming in his eyes, and imparting a tremor to his voice, +"are you Fourth Syndic or am I?"</p> + +<p>"You! You, certainly. Who denies it?" the stout man said. "But——"</p> + +<p>"But what? But what?"</p> + +<p>"We would know what you think we are, that we can bear this suspense."</p> + +<p>"I will tell you what I think you are!"</p> + +<p>"By your leave?"</p> + +<p>"<i>A fat hog!</i>" the Syndic shrieked. "And as brainless as a hog fit for +the butcher! That for you! and your like!"</p> + +<p>And before the astounded Baudichon, whose brain was slow to take in new +facts, had grasped the full enormity of the insult flung at him, the +Syndic was a dozen paces distant. He had eased his mind, and that for +the moment was much; though he still ground his teeth, and, had +Baudichon followed him, would have struck the Councillor without thought +or hesitation. The pigs! The hogs! To press him with their wretched +affairs: to press him at this moment when the grave yawned at his feet, +and the coffin opened for him!</p> + +<p>To be sure he might now do with Basterga as he pleased without thought +or drawback; but for their benefit—never! He paused at his door, and +cast a haggard glance up and down; at the irregular line of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> gables +which he had known from childhood, the steep, red roofs, the cobble +pavement, the bakers' signs that hung here and there and with the wide +eaves darkened the way; and he cursed all he saw in the frenzy of his +rage. Let Basterga, Savoy, d'Albigny do their worst! What was it to him? +Why should he move? He went into his house despairing.</p> + +<p>Unto this last hour a little hope had shone through the darkness. At +times the odds had seemed to be against him, at one time Heaven itself +had seemed to declare itself his foe. But the <i>remedium</i> had existed, +the thing was still possible, the light burned, though distant, feeble, +flickering. He had told himself that he despaired; but he had not known +what real despair was until this moment, until he sat, as he saw now, +among the Dead Sea splendours of his parlour, the fingers of his right +hand drumming on the arm of the abbot's chair, his shaggy eyelids +drooping over his brooding eyes.</p> + +<p>Ah, God! If he had stayed to take the stuff when it lay in his power! If +he had refused to open until he held it in his hand! If, even after that +act of folly, he had refused to go until she gave it him! How +inconceivable his madness seemed now, his fear of scandal, his thought +of others! Others? There was one of whom he dared not think; for when he +did his head began to tremble on his shoulders; and he had to clutch the +arms of the chair to stay the palsy that shook him. If <i>she</i>, the girl +who had destroyed him, thought it was all one to him whom the drug +advantaged, or who lived or who died, he would teach her—before he +died! He would teach her! There was no extremity of pain or shame she +should not taste, accursed witch, accursed thief, as she was! But he +must not think of that, or of her, now; or he would die before his time. +He had a little time yet, if he were careful, if he were cool, if he +were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> left a brief space to recover himself. A little, a very little +time!</p> + +<p>Whose were that foot and that voice? Basterga's? The Syndic's eyes +gleamed, he raised his head. There was another score he had to pay! His +own score, not Baudichon's. Fool, to have left his treasure unguarded +for every thieving wench to take! Fool, thrice and again, for putting +his neck back into the lion's mouth. Stealthily Blondel pulled the +handbell nearer to him and covered it with his cloak. He would have +added a weapon, but there was no arm within reach, and while he +hesitated between his chair and the door of the small inner room, the +outer door opened, and Basterga appeared and advanced, smiling, towards +him.</p> + +<p>"Your servant, Messer Syndic," he said. "I heard that you had been +inquiring for me in my absence, and I am here to place myself at your +disposition. You are not looking——" he stopped short, in feigned +surprise. "There is nothing wrong, I hope?"</p> + +<p>Had the scholar been such a man as Baudichon, Blondel's answer would +have been one frenzied shriek of insults and reproaches. But face to +face with Basterga's massive quietude, with his giant bulk, with that +air, at once masterful and cynical, which proclaimed to those with whom +he talked that he gave them but half his mind while reading theirs, the +wrath of the smaller man cooled. A moment his lips writhed, without +sound; then, "Wrong?" he cried, his voice harsh and broken. "Wrong? All +is wrong!"</p> + +<p>"You are not well?" Basterga said, eyeing him with concern.</p> + +<p>"Well? I shall never be better! Never!" Blondel shrieked. And after a +pause, "Curse you!" he added. "It is your doing!"</p> + +<p>Basterga stared. He was in the dark as to what had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> happened, though the +Syndic's manner on leaving the bridge had prepared him for something. +"My doing, Messer Blondel?" he said. "Why? What have I done?"</p> + +<p>"Done?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, done! It was not my fault," the scholar continued, with a touch of +sternness, "that I could not offer you the <i>remedium</i> on easy terms. Nor +mine, that hard as the terms were, you did not accept them. Besides," he +continued, slowly and with meaning,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Terque quaterque redit!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>You remember the Sibylline books? How often they were offered, and the +terms? It is not too late, Messer Blondel—even now. While there is life +there is hope, there is more than hope. There is certainty."</p> + +<p>"Is there?" Blondel cried; he extended a lean hand, shaking with +vindictive passion. "Is there? Go and look in your casket, fool! Go and +look in your steel box!" he hissed. "Go! And see if it be not too late!"</p> + +<p>For a moment Basterga peered at him, his brow contracted, his eyes +screwed up. The blow was unexpected. Then, "Have you taken the stuff?" +he muttered.</p> + +<p>"I? No! But she has!" And on that, seeing the change in the other's +face—for, for once, the scholar's mask slipped and suffered his +consternation to appear—Blondel laughed triumphantly: in torture +himself, he revelled in a disaster that touched another. "She has! She +has!"</p> + +<p>"She? Who?"</p> + +<p>"The girl of the house! Anne you call her! Curse her! child of +perdition, as she is! She!" And he clawed the air.</p> + +<p>"She has taken it?" Basterga spoke incredulously, but his brow was damp, +his cheeks were a shade more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> sallow than usual; he did not deceive the +other's penetration. "Impossible!" he continued, striving to rally his +forces. "Why should she take it? She has no illness, no disease! +Try"—he swallowed something—"to be clear, man. Try to be clear. Who +has told you this cock-and-bull story?"</p> + +<p>"It is the truth."</p> + +<p>"She has taken it?"</p> + +<p>"To give to her mother—yes."</p> + +<p>"And she?"</p> + +<p>"Has taken it? Yes."</p> + +<p>The scholar, ordinarily so cool and self-contained, could not withhold +an execration. His small eyes glittered, his face swelled with rage; for +a moment he was within a little of an explosion. Of what mad, what +insensate folly, unworthy of a schoolboy, worthy only of a sot, an +imbecile, a Grio, had he been guilty! To leave the potion, that if it +had not the virtues which he ascribed to it, had virtue—or it had not +served his purpose of deceiving the Syndic during some days or hours—to +leave the potion unprotected, at the mercy of a chance hand, of a +treacherous girl! Safeguarded, in appearance only, and to blind his +dupe! It seemed incredible that he could have been so careless!</p> + +<p>True, he might replace the stuff at some expense; but not in a day or an +hour. And how—with one dose in all the world!—keep up the farce? The +dose consumed, the play was at an end. An end—or, no, was he losing his +wits, his courage? On the instant, in the twinkling of an eye, he shaped +a fresh course.</p> + +<p>He cursed the girl anew, and apparently with the same fervour. "A +month's work it cost me!" he cried. "A month's work! and ten gold +pieces!"</p> + +<p>The Syndic, pale, and almost in a state of collapse—for the bitter +satisfaction of imparting the news no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> longer supported him—stared. "A +month's work?" he muttered. "A month? Years you told me! And a fortune!"</p> + +<p>"I told you? Never!" Basterga opened his eyes in seeming amazement. +"Never, good sir, in all my life!" he repeated emphatically. +"But"—returning grimly to his former point—"ten gold pieces, or a +fortune—no matter which, she shall pay dearly for it, the thieving +jade!"</p> + +<p>The Syndic sat heavily in his seat, and, with a hand on either arm of +the abbot's chair, stared dully at the other. "A fortune, you told me," +he said, in a voice little above a whisper. "And years. Was it a +fiction, all a fiction? About Ibn Jasher, and the Physician of Aleppo, +and M. Laurens of Paris, and—and the rest?"</p> + +<p>Basterga deliberately took a turn to the window, came back, and stood +looking down at him. "Mon Dieu!" he muttered. "Is it possible?"</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"I can scarcely believe it!" The scholar spoke with a calmness half +cynical, half compassionate. "But I suppose you really think that of me, +though it seems incredible! You are under the impression that the drug +this jade stole was the <i>remedium</i> of Ibn Jasher, the one incomparable +and sovereign result of long years of study and research? You believe +that I kept this in a mere locked box, the key accessible by all who +knew my habits, and the treasure at the mercy of the first thief! Mon +Dieu! Mon Dieu! If I said it a thousand times I could not express my +astonishment. I might be the vine grower of the proverb,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Cui saepe viator<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cessisset magna compellans voce cucullum!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The Syndic heard him without changing the attitude of weakness and +exhaustion into which he had fallen on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> sitting down. But midway in the +other's harangue, his lips parted, he held his breath, and in his eyes +grew a faint light of dawning hope. "But if it be not so?" he muttered +feebly. "If this be not so, why——"</p> + +<p>"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!"</p> + +<p>"Why did you look so startled a moment ago?"</p> + +<p>"Why, man? Because ten pieces of gold are ten pieces! To me at least! +And the potion, which was made after a recipe of that same Messer +Laurens of Paris, cost no less. It is a love-philtre, beneficent to the +young, but if taken by the old so noxious, that had you swallowed it," +with a grin, "you had not been long Syndic, Messer Blondel!"</p> + +<p>Blondel shook his head. "You do not deceive me," he muttered. For though +he was anxious to believe, as yet he could not. He could not; he had +seen the other's face. "It is the <i>remedium</i> she has taken! I feel it."</p> + +<p>"And given to her mother?"</p> + +<p>Blondel inclined his head.</p> + +<p>The scholar laughed contemptuously. "Then is the test easy," he said. +"If it be the <i>remedium</i> you will find her mother, who has not left her +bed for three years, grown strong and well and vigorous, and like to him +who lifted up his bed and walked. But if it be the love-philtre, you +have but to come with me, and you will find her——" He did not finish +the sentence, but a shrug of his shoulders and a mysterious smile filled +the gap.</p> + +<p>Imperceptibly Blondel had raised himself in his chair. The gleam of +hope, once lighted in his eyes, was growing bright. "How?" he asked. +"How shall we find her? If it be the philtre only that she has taken—as +you say?"</p> + +<p>"If it be the philtre? The mother, you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mad! Mad!" Basterga repeated with decision, "and beside herself. As you +had been," he continued grimly, "had you by any chance taken the <i>aqua +Medeæ</i>."</p> + +<p>"That you kept in the steel box?"</p> + +<p>"Ay."</p> + +<p>"You are sure it was not the <i>remedium</i>?" Blondel leaned forward. If +only he could believe it, if only it were the truth, how great the +difference! No wonder that the muscles of his lean throat swelled, and +his hands closed convulsively on the arms of his great chair, as he +strove to read the other's mind.</p> + +<p>He had as soon read a printed page without light. The scholar saw that +it needed but a little to convince him, and took his line with +confidence; nor without some pride in the wits that had saved him. "The +<i>remedium</i>?" he repeated with impatient wonder. "Do you know that the +<i>remedium</i> is unique? That it is a man's life? That in the world's +history it scarce appears once in five hundred years? That all the +wealth of kings cannot produce it, nor the Spanish Indies furnish it? Do +you remember these things, Messer Blondel, and do you ask if I keep it +like a common philtre in a box in my lodgings?" He snorted in contempt, +and going disdainfully to the hearth spat in the fire as if he could not +brook the idea. Then returning to the Syndic's side, he took up his +story in a different tone. "The <i>remedium</i>," he said, "my good friend, +is in the Grand Duke's Treasury at Turin. It is in a steel box, it is +true, but in one with three locks and three keys, sealed with the Grand +Duke's private signet and with mine; and laid where the Treasurer +himself cannot meddle with it."</p> + +<p>The Syndic sat up straight, and with his eyes fixed sullenly on the +floor fingered his beard. He was almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> persuaded, but not quite. Could +it be, could it really be that the thing still existed? That it was +still to be obtained, that life by its means was still possible?</p> + +<p>"Well?" Basterga said, when the silence had lasted some time.</p> + +<p>"The proof!" Blondel retorted, excitement once more over-mastering him. +"Let me have the proof! Let me see, man, if the woman be mad."</p> + +<p>But the scholar, leaning Atlas-like, against the wall beside the long +low window, with his arms crossed, and his great head sunk on his +breast, did not move. He saw that this was his hour and he must use it. +"To what purpose?" he answered slowly: and he shrugged his shoulders. +"Why go to the trouble? The <i>remedium</i> is in Turin. And if it be not, it +is the Grand Duke's affair only, and mine, since you will not come to +his terms. I would, I confess," he continued, in a more kindly tone, +"that it were your affair also, Messer Blondel. I would I could have +made you see things as they are and as I see them. As, believe me, +Messer Petitot would see them were he in your place; as Messer Fabri and +Messer Baudichon—I warrant it—do see them; as—pardon me—all who rank +themselves among the wise and the illuminate, see them. For all such, +believe me, these are times of enlightening, when the words which past +generations have woven into shackles for men's minds fall from them, and +are seen to be but the straw they are; when men move, like children +awaking from foolish dreams, and life——"</p> + +<p>The Syndic's eyes glowed dully.</p> + +<p>"Life," Basterga continued sonorously, "is seen to be that which it is, +the one thing needful which makes all other things of use, and without +which all other things are superfluities! Bethink you a minute, Messer +Blondel! Would Petitot give his life to save yours?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Syndic smiled after a sickly fashion. Petitot? The stickling pedant! +The thin, niggling whipster!</p> + +<p>"Or Messer Fabri?"</p> + +<p>Blondel shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Or Messer Baudichon?"</p> + +<p>"I called him but now—a fat hog!"</p> + +<p>It was Basterga's turn to shake his head. "He is not one to forget," he +said gravely. "I fear you will hear of that again, Messer Blondel. I +fear it will make trouble for you. But if these will not, is there any +man in Geneva, any man you can name, who would give his life for you?"</p> + +<p>"Do men give life so easily?" Blondel answered, moving painfully in his +chair.</p> + +<p>"Yet you will give yours for them! You will give yours! And who will be +a ducat the better?"</p> + +<p>"I shall at least die for freedom," the Syndic muttered, gnawing his +moustache.</p> + +<p>"A word!"</p> + +<p>"For the religion, then."</p> + +<p>"It is that which men make it!" the scholar retorted. "There have been +good men of all religions, though we dare not say as much in public, or +in Geneva. 'Tis not the religion. 'Tis the way men live it! Was John +Bernardino of Assisi, whom some call St. Francis, a worse man than +Arnold of Brescia, the Reformer? Or is your Beza a better man than +Messer Francis of Sales? Or would the heavens fall if Geneva embraced +the faith of the good Archbishop of Milan? Words, Messer Blondel, +believe me, words!"</p> + +<p>"Yet men die for them!"</p> + +<p>"Not wise men. And when you have died for them, who will thank you?" The +Syndic groaned. "Who will know, or style you martyr?" Basterga continued +forcibly. "Baudichon, whom you have called a fat hog?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> He will sit in +your seat. Petitot—he said but a little while ago that he would buy +this house if he lived long enough."</p> + +<p>"He did?" The Syndic came to his feet as if a spring had raised him.</p> + +<p>"Certainly. And he is a rich man, you know."</p> + +<p>"May the Bise search his bones!" Blondel cried, trembling with fury. For +this was the realisation of his worst fears. Petitot to live in his +house, lie warm in his bed, sneer at his memory across the table that +had been his, rule in the Council where he had been first! Petitot, that +miserable crawler who had clogged his efforts for years, who had shared, +without deserving, his honours, who had spied on him and carped at him +day by day and hour by hour! Petitot to succeed him! To be all and own +all, and sun himself in the popular eye, and say "Geneva, it is I!" +While he, Blondel, lay rotting and forgotten, stark, beneath snow and +rain, winter wind and summer drought!</p> + +<p>Perish Geneva first! Perish friend and foe alike!</p> + +<p>The Syndic wavered. His hand shook, his thin dry cheek burned with +fever, his lips moved unceasingly. Why should he die? They would not die +for him. Nay, they would not thank him, they would not praise him. A +traitor? To live he must turn traitor? Ay, but try Petitot, and see if +he would not do the same! Or Baudichon, who could not sleep of nights +for fear—how would he act with death staring him in the face? The +bravest soldiers when disarmed, or called upon to surrender or die, +capitulate without blame. And that was his position.</p> + +<p>Life, too; dear, warm life! Life that might hold much for him still. +Hitherto these men and their fellows had hampered and thwarted him, +marred his plans and balked his efforts. Freed from them and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> supported +by an enlightened and ambitious prince, he might rise to heights +hitherto invisible. He might lift up and cast down at will, might rule +the Council as his creatures, might live to see Berne and the Cantons at +his feet, might leave Geneva the capital of a great and wealthy country.</p> + +<p>All this, at his will; or he might die! Die and rot and be forgotten +like a dog that is cast out.</p> + +<p>He did not believe in his heart that faith and honour were words; +fetters woven by wise men to hamper fools. He did not believe that all +religions were alike, and good or bad as men made them. But on the one +side was life, and on the other death. And he longed to live.</p> + +<p>"I would that I could make you see things as I see them," Basterga +resumed, in a gentle tone. Patiently waiting the other's pleasure he had +not missed an expression of his countenance, and, thinking the moment +ripe, he used his last argument. "Believe me, I have the will, all the +will, to help you. And the terms are not mine. Only I would have you +remember this, Messer Blondel: that others may do what you will not, so +that after all you may find that you have cast life away, and no one the +better. Baudichon, for instance, plays the Brutus in public. But he is a +fearful man, and a timid; and to save himself and his family—he thinks +much of his family—he would do what you will not."</p> + +<p>"He would do it!" the Syndic cried passionately. And he struck the +table. "He would, curse him!"</p> + +<p>"And he would not forget," Basterga continued, with a meaning nod, "that +you had miscalled him!"</p> + +<p>"No! But I will be before him!" The Syndic was on his feet again, +shaking like a leaf.</p> + +<p>"Ay?" Basterga blew his nose to hide the flash of triumph that shone in +his eyes. "You will be wise in time? Well, I am not surprised. I thought +that you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> would not be so mad—that no man could be so mad as to throw +away life for a shadow!"</p> + +<p>"But mind you," Blondel snarled, "the proof. I must have the proof," he +repeated. He was anxious to persuade himself that his surrender depended +on a condition; he would fain hide his shame under a show of bargaining. +"The proof, man, or I will not take a step."</p> + +<p>"You shall have it."</p> + +<p>"To-day?"</p> + +<p>"Within the hour."</p> + +<p>"And if she be not mad—I believe you are deceiving me, and it was the +<i>remedium</i> the girl took—if she be not mad——" The Syndic, stammering +and repeating himself, broke off there. He could not meet the other's +eyes; between a shame new to him and the overpowering sense of what he +had done, he was in a pitiable state. "Curse you," with violence, "I +believe you have laid a trap for me!" he cried. "I say if she be not +mad, I have done."</p> + +<p>"Let it stand so," Basterga answered placidly. "Trust me, if she has +taken the philtre she will be mad enough. Which reminds me that I also +have a crow to pick with Mistress Anne."</p> + +<p>"Curse her!"</p> + +<p>"We will do more than that," Basterga murmured. "If she be not very good +we will burn her, my friend.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Uritur infelix Dido, totaque videtur<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Urbe furens!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>His eyes were cruel, and he licked his lips as he applied the +quotation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<h3>THE BARGAIN STRUCK.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Claude</span>, at the first sign of peril, had put himself between Anne and the +door; and, had not the fear which seized the girl at the sight of +Basterga robbed her of the power to think, she must have thrilled with a +new and delicious sensation. She, who had not for years known what it +was to be sheltered behind another, was now to know the bliss of being +protected. Nor did her lover remain on the defensive. It was he who +challenged the intruders.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked, as the Syndic crossed the threshold; which was +darkened a moment later by the scholar's huge form. "What is your +business here, Messer Syndic, if it please you?"</p> + +<p>"With you, none!" Blondel answered; and pausing a little within the +door, he cast a look, cold and searching, round the apartment. His +outward composure hid a tumult of warring passions; shame and rage were +at odds within him, and rising above both was a venomous desire to exact +retribution from some one. "Nothing with you!" he repeated. "You may +stand aside, young man, or, better, go to your classes. What do you here +at this hour, and idle, were the fitting question; and not, what is my +business! Do you hear, sirrah?" with a rap of his staff of office on the +floor. "Begone to your work!"</p> + +<p>But Claude, who had been thirsting this hour past for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> realms to conquer +and dragons to subdue, and who, with his mistress beside him, felt +himself a match for any ten, was not to be put aside. His manhood +rebelled against the notion of leaving Anne with men whose looks boded +the worst. "I am at home," he replied, breathing a little more quickly, +and aware that in defying the Syndic he was casting away the scabbard. +"I am at home in this house. I have done no wrong. I am in no inn now, +and I know of no right which you have to expel me without cause from my +own lodging."</p> + +<p>Blondel's lean face grew darker. "You beard me?" he cried.</p> + +<p>"I beard no one," Claude answered hardily. "I am at home here, that is +all. If you have lawful business here, do it. I am no hindrance to you. +If you have no lawful business—and as to that," he continued, recalling +with indignation the tricks which had been employed to remove him, "I +have my opinion—I have as much right to be here as you! The more, as it +is not very long," he went on, with a glance of defiance, directed at +Basterga, "since you gave the man who now accompanies you the foulest of +characters! Since you would have me rob him! Since you called him +reprobate of the reprobate! Is he reprobate now?"</p> + +<p>"Silence!"</p> + +<p>"A corrupter of women, as you called him?"</p> + +<p>"Liar!" the Syndic cried, trembling with passion. "Be silent!" The blow +found him unprepared. "He lies!" he stammered, turning to his ally.</p> + +<p>Basterga laughed softly. He had guessed as much: none the less he +thought it time to interfere, lest his tool be put too much out of +countenance. "Gently, young man," he said, "or perhaps you may go too +far. I know you."</p> + +<p>"He is a liar!" Blondel repeated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Probably," Basterga said, "but it matters not. It is enough that our +business here lies not with him, but with this young woman. You seem to +have taken her under your protection," he continued, addressing Claude, +"and may choose, if you please, whether you will see her haled through +the streets, or will suffer her to answer our questions here. As you +please."</p> + +<p>"Your questions?" Claude cried, recalling with rage the occasions on +which he had heard this man insult her. "Hear me one moment, and I will +very quickly prove——"</p> + +<p>He was silent with the word on his lips. Her hand on his sleeve recalled +the necessity of prudence. He bit his lip and stood glowering at them. +It was she who spoke.</p> + +<p>"What do you wish?" she asked in a low voice.</p> + +<p>Naturally courageous as she was, she could not have spoken but for the +support of her lover. For the unexpected conjunction of these two, and +their entrance together, smote her with fear. "What is your desire?" she +repeated.</p> + +<p>"To see your mother," Basterga answered. "We have no business with +you—at present," he added, after a perceptible pause, and with a slight +emphasis.</p> + +<p>She caught her breath. "You want to see my mother?" she faltered.</p> + +<p>"I spoke plainly," Basterga replied with sternness. "That was what I +said."</p> + +<p>"What do you want with her?"</p> + +<p>"That is our affair."</p> + +<p>Pale to the lips, she hesitated. Yet, after all, why should they not go +up and see her mother? Things were not to-day as they had been +yesterday: or she had done in vain that which she had done, had sinned +in vain if she had sinned. And that was a thing not to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> be considered. +If they found her mother as she had left her, if they found the promise +of the morning fulfilled, even their unexpected entrance would do no +harm. Her mother was sane to-day: sane and well as other people, thank +God! It was on that account she had let her heart rise like a bird's to +her lips.</p> + +<p>Yet, when she opened her mouth to assent, she found the words with +difficulty. "I do not know what you want," she said faintly. "Still if +you wish to see her you can go up."</p> + +<p>"Good!" Basterga replied, and advancing, he opened the staircase door, +then stood aside for the Syndic to ascend first. "Good! The uppermost +floor, Messer Blondel," he continued, holding the door wide. "The stairs +are narrow, but I think I can promise you that at the top you will find +what you want."</p> + +<p>He could not divest his tone of the triumph he felt. Slight as the +warning was, it sufficed; while the last word was still on his lips, she +snatched the door from his grasp, closed it and stood panting before it. +What inward monition had spoken to her, what she had seen, what she had +heard, besides that note of triumph in Basterga's voice, matters not. +Her mind was changed.</p> + +<p>"No!" she cried. "You do not go up! No!"</p> + +<p>"You will not let us see her?" Basterga exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"No!" Her breast heaving, she confronted them without fear.</p> + +<p>In his surprise at her action the scholar had recoiled a step: he was +fiercely angry. "Come, girl, no nonsense," he said roughly and brutally. +"Make way! Or we shall have a little to say to you of what you did in my +room last night! Do you mark me?" he continued. "I might have you +punished for it, wench! I might have you whipped and branded for it! Do +you mind me? You robbed me, and that which you took——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I took at his instigation!" she retorted, pointing an accusing finger +at Blondel, who stood gnawing his beard, hating the part he was playing, +and hating still more this white-faced girl who had come so near to +ruining, if she had not ruined, his last chance of life. Hate her? The +Syndic hated her for the hour of anguish through which he had just +passed, hated her for the price—he shuddered to think of it—which he +must now pay for his life. He hated her for his present humiliation, he +hated her for his future shame. She seemed to blame for all.</p> + +<p>"You took it," Basterga answered, acknowledging her words only by a +disdainful shrug, "and gave it to your mother. Why, I care not. Now that +you see we know so much, will you let us go up!"</p> + +<p>"No!" She faced him bravely and steadfastly. "No. If you know so much, +you know also why I took it, and why I gave it to her." And then, the +radiance of unselfish love illuminating her pallid face, "I would do it +again were it to do," she said. "And again, and yet again! For you, I +have done you wrong; I have robbed you, and you may punish me. I must +bear it. But as to him," pointing to Messer Blondel, "I am innocent! +Innocent," she repeated firmly. "For he would have done it himself and +for himself; it was he who would have me do it. And if I have done it, I +have done it for another. I have robbed you, if need be I must pay the +price; but that man has naught against me in this! And for the rest, my +mother is well."</p> + +<p>"Ah?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, well! well!" she repeated, the light of joy softening her eyes as +she repeated the word. "Well! and I fear nothing."</p> + +<p>Basterga laughed cruelly. "Well?" he said. "Well, is she? Then let us go +up and see her. If she be well, why not?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No!"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer, but she did not make way.</p> + +<p>"Why not? I will tell you, if you please," he said. "And it will make +you pipe to another tune. You have given her, young woman, that which +will make her worse, and not better!"</p> + +<p>"She is better!"</p> + +<p>"For an hour, or for twelve hours!" he retorted. "That certainly. Then +worse."</p> + +<p>"No!"</p> + +<p>"No? But I see what it is," he continued—and, alas, his voice +strengthened the fear that like a dead hand was closing on her heart and +staying it; deepened the terror that like a veil was falling before her +eyes and darkening the room; so that she had much ado, gripping +finger-nails into palms, to keep her feet and let herself from fainting. +"I see what it is. You would fain play Providence," he continued—"that +is it, is it? You would play Providence? Then come! Come then, and see +what kind of Providence it is you have played. We will see if you are +right or I am right! And if she be well, or if she be ill!" And again he +moved towards the staircase.</p> + +<p>But she stood obstinately between him and the door. "No," she said. "You +do not go up!" She was resolute. The fear that as she listened to his +gibing tones had driven the colour from her face, had hardened it too. +For, if he were right? If for that fear there were foundation? If that +which the Syndic had led her to give and that which she had given, +proved—though for a few hours it had seemed to impart marvellous +vigour—useless or worse than useless? Then the need to keep these men +from her mother was the greater, the more desperate. How they could be +kept, for how long it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> was possible to keep them, she did not pause to +consider, any more than the she-wolf that crouches, snarling, between +her whelps and the hunt, counts odds. It was enough for her that if they +were right the worst had come, and naught lay between her mother's +weakness and their cruel eyes and judgments but her own feeble strength.</p> + +<p>Or no! she was wrong in that; she had forgotten! As she spoke, and as +Basterga with a scowl repeated the order to stand aside, Claude put her +gently but irresistibly by, and took her place. The young man's eyes +were bright, his colour high. "You will not go up!" he said, a mocking +note of challenge, replying to Basterga's tone, in his voice. "You will +not go up."</p> + +<p>"Fool! Will you prevent us?"</p> + +<p>"You will not go up! No!"</p> + +<p>In the very act of falling on the lad, Basterga recoiled. Claude had not +been idle while the others disputed. He had gone to the corner for his +sword, and it was the glittering point, suddenly whipped out and +flickered before his eyes that gave the scholar pause, and made him leap +back. "Pollux!" he cried, "are you mad? Put down! Put down! Do you see +the Syndic? Do you know," he continued, stamping his foot, "that it is +penal to draw in Geneva?"</p> + +<p>"I know that you are not going upstairs!" Claude answered gently. He was +radiant. He would not have exchanged his position for a crown. She was +looking, and he was going to fight.</p> + +<p>"You fool," Basterga returned, "we have but to call the watch from the +Tertasse and you will be haled to the lock-up, and jailed and whipped, +if not worse! And that jade with you! <i>Stultus es?</i> Do you hear? Messer +Syndic, will you be thwarted in this fashion? Call these lawbreakers to +order and bid them have done!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Put up!" the Syndic cried, hoarse with rage. He was beside himself, +when he thought of the position in which he had placed himself. He +looked at the two as if he would fain have slain them where they stood. +"Or I call the watch, and it will be the worse for you," he continued. +"Do you hear me? Put up?"</p> + +<p>"He shall not go upstairs!" Claude answered, breathing quickly. He was +pale, but utterly and fixedly resolved. If Basterga made a movement to +attack him, he would run him through whatever the consequences.</p> + +<p>"Then, fool, I will call the watch!" Blondel babbled, fairly beside +himself.</p> + +<p>Claude had no answer to that; only they should not go up. It was the +girl's readier wit furnished the answer.</p> + +<p>"Call them!" she cried, in a clear voice. "Call the watch, Messer +Syndic, and I will tell them the whole story. What Messer Blondel would +have had me do, and get, and give."</p> + +<p>"It was for the State!" the Syndic hissed.</p> + +<p>"And is it for the State that you come to-day with that man?" she +retorted, and with her outstretched finger she accused Basterga of +unspoken things. "That man! Last night you would have had me rob him. +The day before he was a traitor. To-day he and you are one. Are one! +What are you plotting together?"</p> + +<p>The Syndic shrank from the other's side under the stab of her +words—words that, uttered at random, flew, straight as the arrow that +slew Ahab, to the joint of his armour. "To-day you and that man are +one," she repeated. "One! What are you plotting together?"</p> + +<p>She knew as much as that, did she? She knew that they were one, and that +they were plotting together; while in the Council men were clamouring +for the Paduan's arrest, and were growing suspicious because he was not +arrested—Baudichon, whom he had called<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> a fat hog, and Petitot, that +slow, plodding sleuth-hound of a patriot. What if light fell on the true +state of things—and less than the girl had said might cast that light? +Then the warrant might go, not for the Paduan only, but for himself. Ay, +for him! For with an enemy ever lying within a league of the gates +warrants flew quickly in Geneva. Men who sleep ill of nights, and take +the cock-crow for war's alarum, are suspicious, and, once roused, +without ruth or mercy.</p> + +<p>There was the joint in his harness. Once let his name be published with +Basterga's,—as must happen if the watch were summoned and the girl +spoke out—and no one could say where the matter might end, or what +suspicions might not be awakened. Nay, the matter was worse, more +perilous and more lightly balanced; for, setting himself aside, none the +less was a brawl that brought up Basterga's name, a thing to be shunned. +The least thing might precipitate the scholar's arrest; his arrest must +lead to the loss of the <i>remedium</i>, if it existed; and the loss of the +<i>remedium</i> to the loss of that which Messer Blondel had come to value +the more dearly the more he sacrificed to keep it—the Syndic's life.</p> + +<p>He dared not call the watch, and he dared not use violence. As he awoke +to those two facts, he stood blinking in dismayed silence, swallowing +his rage, and hating the girl and hating the man with a dumb hatred. +Though the reasons which weighed with him were unknown to the two, they +could not be blind to his fear and his baffled mien; and had he been +alone they might have taken victory for certain. But Basterga was not +one to be so lightly thwarted. His intellect, his wit, his very mass +intimidated. Therefore it was with as much relief as surprise that Anne +read in his face the reflection of the other's doubts, and saw that he, +too, gave back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are two fools!" he said. "Two great, big fools!" There was +resignation, there was something that was almost approval in his tones. +"You do not know what you are doing! Is there no way of making you hear +reason?"</p> + +<p>"You cannot go up," Anne said. She had won, it seemed, without knowing +how she had won.</p> + +<p>Basterga grunted; and then, "Ah, well," he said, addressing Claude, "if +I had you in the fields, my lad, it would not be that bit of metal would +save you!" And he spouted with appropriate gesture—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"—Illum fidi aequales, genua aegra trahentem<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jactantemque utroque caput, crassumque cruorem<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ore ejectantem mixtosque in sanguine dentes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ducunt ad navis!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Half an hour in my company, and you would not be so bold."</p> + +<p>Claude smiled with pardonable contempt, but made no reply, nor did he +change his attitude.</p> + +<p>"Come!" Blondel muttered, addressing his ally with his eyes averted. "I +have reasons at present for letting them be!" They were strange reasons, +to judge by the hang-dog look of the proud magistrate. "But I shall know +how to deal with them by-and-by. Come, man, come!" he repeated +impatiently. And he turned towards the door and unlocked it.</p> + +<p>Basterga moved reluctantly after him. "Ay, we go now," he said, with a +look full of menace. "But wait a while! Cæsar Basterga does not forget, +and his turn will come! Where is my cap?"</p> + +<p>He had let it fall on the floor, and he turned to pick it up, stooping +slowly and with difficulty as stout men do. As he raised himself, his +head still low, he butted it suddenly and with an activity for which no +one would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> have given him credit full into Claude's chest. The unlucky +young man, who had lowered his weapon the instant before, fell back with +a "sough" against the wall, and leant there, pale and breathless. Anne +uttered one scream, then the scholar's huge arm enfolded her neck and +drew her backwards against his breast.</p> + +<p>"Up! up! Messer Blondel!" he cried. "Now is your chance! Up and surprise +her!" And with his disengaged hand he gripped Claude, for further +safety, by the collar. "Up; I will keep them quiet!"</p> + +<p>The Syndic wasted a moment in astonishment, then he took in the +situation and the other's cleverness. Before Basterga had ceased to +speak, he was at the door of the staircase, and had dragged it open. But +as he set his foot on the lowest stair, Anne, held as she was against +Basterga's breast, and almost stifled by the arm which covered her +mouth, managed to clutch the Syndic by his skirts, and, once having +taken hold, held him with the strength of despair. In vain he struggled +and strove and wrestled to jerk himself free; in vain Basterga, hampered +by Claude, tried to drag the girl away—Blondel came away with her! She +clung to him, and even, freeing her mouth for a moment, succeeded in +uttering a scream.</p> + +<p>"Curse her!" Basterga foamed: and had he had a hand to spare, he would +have struck her down. "Pull, man, have you no strength! Let go, you +vixen! Let go, or——"</p> + +<p>He tried to press her throat, but in changing his hold allowed her to +utter a second scream, louder, more shrill, more full of passion than +the other. At the same instant a chair, knocked down by Blondel in his +efforts, fell with a crash, throwing down a pewter platter; and Claude, +white and breathless as he was, began to struggle, seeing his mistress +so handled. The four swayed to and fro.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> Another moment, and either the +Syndic must have jerked himself free, or the contest must have attained +to dimensions that could not escape the notice of the neighbours, when a +sound—a sound from within, from upstairs—stayed the tumult as by +magic.</p> + +<p>Blondel ceased to struggle, and stood aghast. Basterga relaxed his hold +upon his prisoners and listened. Claude leant back against the wall. The +girl alone—she alone moved. Without speaking, without looking, as a +bird flies to its young, she sprang to the stairs and fled up them.</p> + +<p>The maniacal laugh, the crazy words—a moment only, they heard them: and +then the door above, which the poor woman, so long bedridden, had +contrived in her frenzy of fear to open, closed on the sounds and +stifled them. But enough had been heard: enough to convince Blondel, +enough to justify Basterga, enough to change the fortunes of more than +one in the room. The scholar's eyes met the Syndic's.</p> + +<p>"Are you satisfied?" he asked, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>Blondel, breathing hard, nodded.</p> + +<p>"You heard?"</p> + +<p>He nodded a second time. He looked scared.</p> + +<p>"Then you have enough to burn the old witch and the young one with her!" +Basterga replied. He turned his small eyes, sparkling with malignity, on +the young man, who stood against the wall, pale, and but half recovered +from the blow he had sustained. "You thought to thwart me, did you, +Messer Claude? You thought yourself clever enough to play with Cæsar +Basterga, did you? To hold at bay—oh, clever fellow—a magistrate and a +scholar! And defy us both! Now I will tell you what will come of it!" He +shook his great finger in front of the young man. "Your pretty bit of +pink and white will burn! Burn, see you!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> A show for the little boys, a +holiday for the young men and the young women, a treat for the old men, +who will see her white limbs writhe in the smoke! Ha!" as Claude, with a +face of horror, would have waved him away, "that touches you, does it? +You had not thought of that? Nay, you had not thought of other things. I +tell you, before the sun sets this evening, this house shall be +anathema! Before night what we have heard will be known abroad, and +there will be much added to it. There was a child died in the fourth +house from this on Sunday! It will be odd if she did not overlook it. +And the young wife of the Lieutenant at the Porte Tertasse, who has +ailed since her marriage—a pale thing; who knows but he looked this way +once and Mistress Anne thought ill of his defection? Ha! Ha! You would +cross Cæsar Basterga, would you? No, Messer Claude," he set his huge +foot on the fallen sword which Claude had made a movement to recover. "I +fight with other weapons than that! And if you lay a finger on me"—he +extended his arms to their widest extent—"I will crush the life out of +you. That is better," as Claude stood glaring helplessly at him—"I +teach you prudence, at any rate. And as," with a sneer, "you are so apt +at learning, I will do you, if you choose, a greater kindness that man +ever did you, or woman either!"</p> + +<p>The young man, breathing quickly, did not speak. Perhaps his eyes were +watching for an opening; at the least appearance of one he would have +flung himself upon his enemy.</p> + +<p>"You do not choose. And yet, I will do it. In one word—Go!</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Teque his, puer, eripe flammis!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He pointed to the door with a gesture tragic enough. "Go and live, for +if you stay you die! Wait not until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> the chain is drawn before the door, +until boards darken the windows, and men cross the street when they +would pass! Until women hide their heads as they go by, and the market +will not sell, nor the water run for you! For then, as surely as she +will perish, you will perish with her!"</p> + +<p>"So be it!" Claude cried. And in his turn he pointed, not without +dignity, to the door. "Go you, and our blood be upon your head!"</p> + +<p>Basterga shrugged his shoulders, and in one moment put the thing and his +grand manner away from him. "Enough! we will go," he said. "You are +satisfied, Messer Syndic? Yes. Farewell, young sir, you have my last +word." And while the young man stood glowering at him, he opened the +street door, and the two passed out.</p> + +<p>"You will not go on with this?" Blondel muttered with a backward +gesture, as the two paused.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," Basterga answered in a low voice, "will suit our purpose +better. It will amuse Geneva and fill men's mouths till the time come. +For you too, Messer Blondel," he continued, with a piercing look, "will +live and not die, I take it?"</p> + +<p>The other knew then that the hour had come to set his seal to the +bargain: and equally, that if at this eleventh hour he would return, the +path was open. But <i>facilis</i>—known is the rest, and the grip which a +strong nature gains on a weaker, and how hardly fear, once admitted, is +cast out. Within the Syndic's sight rose one of the gates, almost within +touch rose the rampart of the city, long his own, which he was asked to +betray. The mountains of his native land, pure, cold and sunlit, stood +up against the blue depth of winter sky, eloquent of the permanence of +things, and the insignificance of men. The contemplation of them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> turned +his cheek a shade paler and struck terror to his heart; but did not stay +him. His eyes avoiding the other's gaze, his face shrinking and +pitiable, shame already his portion, he nodded.</p> + +<p>"Precisely," Basterga said. "Then nothing can better serve our purpose +than this. Let your officers know what you have heard, and know that you +would hear more—of this house. That, and a hint of evil practices and +witch's spells dropped here and there, will give your townsfolk +something to talk of and stare at and swallow—till our time come."</p> + +<p>"But if I bid them watch this house," Blondel muttered weakly—how fast, +how fast the thing was passing out of his hands!—"attention will be +called to you, and then, Messer Basterga——"</p> + +<p>"My work is done here," Basterga replied calmly. "I have crossed that +threshold for the last time. When I leave you—and it is time we +parted—I go out of the gates, not again to return until—until things +have been brought to the point at which we would have them, Messer +Blondel."</p> + +<p>"And that," the Syndic said with a shudder, "will be?"</p> + +<p>"Towards the longest night. Say, in a week or so from now. The precise +moment—that and other things, I will let you know by a safe mouth."</p> + +<p>"But the <i>remedium</i>? That first!" the Syndic muttered, a scowl, for a +second, darkening his face.</p> + +<p>Basterga smiled. "Have no fear," he replied. "That first, by all means. +And afterwards—Geneva."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<h3>THE DEPARTURE OF THE RATS.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> wood-ash on the hearth had sunk lower and grown whiter. The last +flame that had licked the black sides of the great pot had died down +among the expiring embers. Only under the largest log glowed a tiny +cavern, carbuncle-hued; and still Claude walked restlessly from the +window to the door, or listened with a frowning face at the foot of the +stairs. One hour, two hours had passed since the Syndic's departure with +Basterga; and still Anne remained with her mother and made no sign. +Once, spurred by anxiety and the thought that he might be of use, Claude +had determined to mount and seek her; but half-way up the stairs his +courage had failed he had recoiled from a scene so tender, and so +sacred. He had descended and fallen again to moving to and fro, and +listening, and staring remorsefully at the weapon—it lay where he had +dropped it on the floor—that had failed him in his need.</p> + +<p>He had their threats in his ears, and by-and-by the horror of inaction, +the horror of sitting still and awaiting the worst with folded hands, +overcame him; and in a panic planning flight for them all, flight, +however hopeless, however desperate, he hurried into his bed-closet, and +began to pack his possessions. He packed impulsively until even the fat +text-books bulked in his bundle, and the folly of flying for life with a +Cæsar and Melancthon on his back struck him. Then he turned all out on +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> floor in a fury of haste lest she should surprise him, and think +that he had had it in his mind to desert her.</p> + +<p>Back he went on that to the living-room with its dying fire and +lengthening shadows; and there he resumed his solitary pacing. The room +lay silent, the house lay silent; even the rampart without, which the +biting wind kept clear of passers. He tried to reason on the position, +to settle what would happen, what steps Basterga and Blondel would take, +how the blow they threatened would fall. Would the officers of the +Syndic enter and seize the two helpless women and drag them to the +guard-house? In that case, what should he do, what could he do, since it +was most unlikely that he would be allowed to go with them or see them? +For a time the desperate notion of bolting and barring the house and +holding it against the law possessed his mind; but only to be quickly +dismissed. He was not yet mad enough for that. In the meantime was there +any one to whom he could appeal? Any course he could adopt?</p> + +<p>The sound of the latch rising in its socket drew his eyes to the outer +door. It opened, and he saw Louis Gentilis on the threshold. Holding the +door ajar, the young man peered in. Meeting Claude's eyes, he looked to +the stairs, as if to seek the protection of Anne's presence; failing to +find her, he made for an instant as if he would shut the door again, and +go. But apparently he saw that Claude, thoroughly dispirited, was making +no motion to carry out his threats of vengeance; and he thought better +of it. He came in slowly, and closed the door after him. Turning his cap +in his hand, and with his eyes slyly fixed on Claude, he made without a +word for his bed-closet, entered it, and closed the door behind him.</p> + +<p>His silence was strange, and his furtive manner impressed Claude +unpleasantly. They seemed to imply a knowledge that boded ill; nor was +the impression they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> made weakened when, two minutes later, the closet +door opened again, and he came out.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" Claude asked, speaking sharply. He was not going to put up +with mystery of this sort.</p> + +<p>For answer Louis' eyes met his a moment; then the young man, without +speaking, slid across the room to a chair on which lay a book. He took +up the volume; it was his. Next he discovered another possession—or so +it seemed—approached it and took seisin of it in the same dumb way; and +so with another and another. Finally, blinking and looking askance, he +passed his eyes from side to side to learn if he had overlooked +anything.</p> + +<p>But Claude's patience, though prolonged by curiosity, was at an end. He +took a step forward, and had the satisfaction of seeing Louis drop his +air of mystery, and recoil two paces. "If you don't speak," Claude +cried, "I will break every bone in your body! Do you hear, you sneaking +rogue? Do you forget that you are in my debt already? Tell me in two +words what this dumb show means, or I will have payment for all!"</p> + +<p>Master Louis cringed, divided between the desire to flee and the fear of +losing his property. "You will be foolish if you make any fuss here," he +muttered, his arm raised to ward off a blow. "Besides, I'm going," he +continued, swallowing nervously as he spoke. "Let me go."</p> + +<p>"Going?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean," Claude exclaimed in astonishment, "that you are going for +good?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and if you will take my advice"—with a look of sinister +meaning—"you will go too. That is all."</p> + +<p>"Why? Why?" Claude repeated.</p> + +<p>Louis' only answer was a shudder, which told Claude that if the other +did not know all, he knew much. Dismayed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> and confounded, Mercier +stepped back, and, with a secret grin of satisfaction, Louis turned +again to his task of searching the room. He found presently that for +which he had been looking—his cloak. He disentangled it, with a +peculiar look, from a woman's hood, contact with which he avoided with +care. That done, he cast it over his arm, and got back into his closet. +Claude heard him moving there, and presently he emerged a second time.</p> + +<p>Precisely as he did so Claude caught the sound of a light footstep on +the stairs, the stair door opened, and Anne, her face weary, but +composed, came in. Her first glance fell on Louis, who, with his sack +and cloak on his arm, was in the act of closing the closet door. Habit +carried her second look to the hearth.</p> + +<p>"You have let the fire go out," she said. Then, turning to Louis, in a +voice cold and free from emotion, "Are you going?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He muttered that he was, his face a medley of fear and spite and shame.</p> + +<p>She nodded, but to Claude's astonishment expressed no surprise. +Meanwhile Louis, after dropping first his cloak and then his sack, in +his haste to be gone, shuffled his way to the door. The two looked on, +without moving or speaking, while he opened it, carried out his bag, +and, turning about, closed the door upon himself. They heard his +footsteps move away.</p> + +<p>At length Claude spoke. "The rats, I see, are leaving," he muttered.</p> + +<p>"Yes, the rats!" she echoed, and carried for a moment her eyes to his. +Then she knelt on the hearth, and uncovering the under side of the log, +where a little fire still smouldered, she fed it with two or three +fir-cones, and, stooping low, blew steadily on them until they caught +fire and blazed. He stood looking down at her, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> marvelled at the +strength of mind that allowed her to stoop to trifles, or to think of +fires at such a time as this. He forgot that habit is of all stays the +strongest, and that to women a thousand trifles make up—God reward them +for it—the work of life: a work which instinct moves them to pursue, +though the heavens fall.</p> + +<p>Several hours had elapsed since he had entered hotfoot to see her; and +the day was beginning to wane. The flame of the blazing fir-cones, a +hundred times reflected in the rows of pewter plates and the surface of +the old oaken dressers, left the corners of the room in shadow. +Immediately within the windows, indeed, the daylight held its own; but +when she rose and turned to him her back was towards the casement, and +the firelight which lit up her face flickered uncertainly, and left him +in doubt whether she were moved or not.</p> + +<p>"You have eaten nothing!" she said, while he stood pondering what she +would say. "And it is four o'clock! I am sorry!" Her tone, which took +shame to herself, gave him a new surprise.</p> + +<p>He stopped her as she turned to the dresser. "Your mother is better?" he +said gently.</p> + +<p>"She is herself now," she replied, with a slight quaver, and without +looking at him. And she went about her work.</p> + +<p>Did she know? Did she understand? In his world was only one fact, in his +mind only one tremendous thought: the fact of their position, the +thought of their isolation and peril. In her treatment of Louis she had +seemed to show knowledge and a comprehension as wide as his own. But if +she knew all, could she be as calm as she was? Could she go about her +daily tasks? Could she cut and lay and fetch with busy fingers, and all +in silence?</p> + +<p>He thought not; and though he longed to consult her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> to assure her and +comfort her, to tell her that the very isolation, the very peril in +which they stood were a happiness and a joy to him, whatever the issue, +because he shared them with her, he would not, by reason of that doubt. +He did not yet know the courage which underlies the gentlest natures: +nor did he guess that even as it was a joy to him to stand beside her in +peril, so it was a joy to her, even in that hour, to come and go for +him, to cut his bread and lay for him, to draw his wine from the great +cask under the stairs, and pour for him in the tall horn mug.</p> + +<p>And little said. By him, because he shrank from opening her eyes to the +danger of their position; by her, because her mind was full and she +could not trust herself to speak calmly. But he knew that she, too, had +fasted since morning, and he made her eat with him: and it was in the +thoughts of each that they had never eaten together before. For commonly +Anne took her meal with her mother, or ate as the women of her time +often ate, standing, alone, when others had finished. There are moments +when the simplest things put on the beauty and significance of rites, +and this first eating together at the small table on the fire-lit hearth +was one of such moments. He saw that she did eat; and this care for her, +and the reverence of his manner, so moved her, that at last tears rose +and choked her, and to give her time and to hide his own feelings, he +stood up and affected to get something from the fireside.</p> + +<p>Before he turned again, the latch rattled and the door flew open. The +freezing draught that entered, arrested him between the table and the +fire. The intruder was Grio. He stood an instant scowling on them, then +he entered and closed the door. He eyed the two with a sneering laugh, +and, turning, flung his cloak on a chair. It was ill-aimed and fell to +the ground.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why the devil don't you light?" he cried violently. "Eh?" He added +something in which the words "Old hag's devilry!" were alone audible. +"Do you hear?" he continued, more coherently. "Why don't you light? What +black games are you playing, I'd like to know? I want my things!"</p> + +<p>Claude's fingers tingled, but danger and responsibility are sure +teachers, and he restrained himself. Neither of them answered, but Anne +fetched the lamp, and kindling a splinter of wood lighted it, and placed +it on the table. Then bringing the Spaniard's rushlight from the three +or four that stood on the dresser, she lighted it and held it out to +him.</p> + +<p>"Set it down!" he said, with tipsy insolence. He was not quite sober. +"Set it down! I am not going to—hic!—risk my salvation! Avaunt, Satan! +It is possible to palm the evil one, like a card I am told, +and—hic!—soul out, devil in, all lost as easy as candle goes out!"</p> + +<p>He had taken his candle with an unsteady hand, and unconsciously had +blown it out himself. She restrained Claude by a look, and patiently +taking the rushlight from Grio, she re-lit it and set it on the table +for him to take.</p> + +<p>"As a candle goes out!" he repeated, eyeing it with drunken wisdom. +"Candle out, devil in, soul lost, there you have it in three +words—clever as any of your long-winded preachers! But I want my +things. I am going before it is too late. Advise you to go too, young +man," he hiccoughed, "before you are overlooked. She is a witch! She's +the devil's mark on her, I tell you! I'd like to have the finding it!" +And with an ugly leer he advanced a step as if he would lay hands on +her.</p> + +<p>She shrank back, and Claude's eyes blazed. Fortunately, the bully's mind +passed to the first object of his coming; or it may be that he was sober +enough to read a warning in the younger man's face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh! time enough," he said. "You are not so nice always, I'll be bound. +And things come—hic!—to those who wait! I don't belong to your +Sabbaths, I suppose, or you'd be freer! But I want my things, and I am +going to have them! I defy thee, Satan! And all thy works!"</p> + +<p>Still growling under his breath he burst open the staircase door, and +stumbled noisily upwards, the light wavering in his hand. Anne's eyes +followed him; she had advanced to the foot of the stairs, and Claude +understood the apprehension that held her. But the sounds did not +penetrate to the room on the upper floor, or Madame Royaume did not take +the alarm; perhaps she slept. And after assuring herself that Grio had +entered his room the girl returned to the table.</p> + +<p>The Spaniard had spoken with brutal plainness; it was no longer possible +to ignore what he had said, or to lie under any illusion as to the +girl's knowledge of her peril. Claude's eyes met hers: and for a moment +the anguished human soul peered through the mask of constancy, for a +moment the woman in her, shrinking from the ordeal and the fire, from +shame and death, thrust aside the veil, and held out quivering, piteous +hands to him. But it was for a moment only. Before he could speak she +was brave as before, quiet as he had ever seen her, patient, mistress of +herself. "It is as you said," she muttered, smiling wanly, "the rats are +leaving us."</p> + +<p>"Vermin!" he whispered. He could not trust himself to say more. His +voice shook, his eyes were full.</p> + +<p>"They have not lost time," she continued in a low tone. She did not +cease to listen, nor did her eyes leave the staircase door. "Louis +first, and now Grio. How has it reached them so quickly, do you think?"</p> + +<p>"Louis is hand in glove with the Syndic," he murmured.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And Grio?"</p> + +<p>"With Basterga."</p> + +<p>She nodded. "What do you think they will do—first?" she whispered. And +again—it went to his heart—the woman's face, fear-drawn, showed as it +were beneath the mask with which love and faith and a noble resignation +had armed her. "Do you think they will denounce us at once?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head in sheer inability to foresee; and then, seeing that +she continued to look anxiously for his answer, that answer which he +knew to be of no value, for minute by minute the sense of his +helplessness was weighing upon him, "It may be," he muttered. "God +knows. When Grio is gone we will talk about it."</p> + +<p>She began, but always with a listening ear and an eye to the open door, +to remove from the table the remains of their meal. Midway in her task, +she glanced askance at the window, under the impression that some one +was looking through it; and in any case now the lamp was lit it exposed +them to the curiosity of the rampart. She was going to close the +shutters when Claude interposed, raised the heavy shutters and bolted +and barred them. He was turning from them when Grio's step was heard +descending.</p> + +<p>Strange to say the Spaniard's first glance was at the windows, and he +looked genuinely taken aback when he saw that they were closed. "Why the +devil did you shut?" he exclaimed, in a rage; and passing Anne with a +sidelong movement, he flung a heavy bundle on the floor by the door. As +he turned to ascend again he met her eyes, and backing from her he made +with two of his fingers the ancient sign which southern people still use +to ward off the evil eye. Then, half shamefacedly, half recklessly, he +blundered upstairs again. A moment, and he came stumbling down; but this +time he was careful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> to keep the great bundle he bore between himself +and her eyes, until he had got the door open.</p> + +<p>That precaution taken, as if he thought the free cold air which entered +would protect him from spells, he showed himself at his ease, threw down +his bundle and faced her with an air of bravado.</p> + +<p>"I need not have feared," he said with a tipsy grin, "but I had +forgotten what I carry. I have a hocus-pocus here "—he touched his +breast—"written by a wise man in Ravenna, and sealed with a dead Goth's +hand, that is proof against devil or dam! And I defy thee, mistress."</p> + +<p>"Why?" she cried. "Why?" And the note of indignation in her voice, the +passionate challenge of her eyes, enforced the question. In the human +mind is a desire for justice that will not be denied; and even from this +drunken ruffian a sudden impulse bade her demand it. "Why should you +defy me or fear me? What have I done to you, what have I done to any +one," she continued, with noble resentment, "that you should spread this +of me? You have eaten and drunk at my hand a hundred times; have I +poisoned or injured you? I have looked at you a hundred times; have I +overlooked you? You have lain down under this roof by night a hundred +times; have I harmed you sleeping or waking, full moon or no moon?"</p> + +<p>For answer he leered at her slyly. "Not a whit," he said. "No."</p> + +<p>"No?" Her colour rose.</p> + +<p>"No; but you see"—with a grin—"it never leaves me, my girl." He +touched his breast. "While I wear that I am safe."</p> + +<p>She gasped. "Do you mean that I——"</p> + +<p>"I do not know what you would have done—but for that!" he retorted. +"Maimed me or wizened me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> perhaps! Or, may be, made me waste away as +you did the child that died three doors away last Sunday!"</p> + +<p>Her face changed slowly. Prepared as she had been for the worst by many +an hour of vigil beside her mother's bed, the horror of this precise +accusation—and such an accusation—overcame her. "What?" she cried. +"You dare to say that I—that I——" She could not finish.</p> + +<p>But her eyes lightened, her form dilated with passion; and tipsy, +ignorant, brutish as he was, the Spaniard could not be blind to the +indignation, the resentment, the very wonder which stopped her breath +and choked her utterance. At the sight some touch of shame, some touch +of pity, made itself felt in the dull recesses even of that brain. "I +don't say it," he muttered awkwardly. "It is what they are saying in the +street."</p> + +<p>"In the street?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, where else?" He knew who said it, for he knew whence his orders +came: but he was not going to tell her. Yet the spark of kindliness +which she had kindled still lived—how could it be otherwise in presence +of her youth and gentleness? "If you'll take my advice," he continued +roughly, "you'll not show yourself in the streets unless you wish to be +mishandled, my girl. It will be time enough when the time comes. Even +now, if you were to leave your old witch of a mother and get good +protection, there is no knowing but you might be got clear! You are a +fair bit of red and white," with a grin. "And it is not far to Savoy! +Will you come if I risk it?"</p> + +<p>A gesture, half refusal, half loathing, answered him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, very well!" he said. The short-lived fit of pity passed from him; +he scowled. "You'll think differently when they have the handling of +you. I'm glad to be going, for where there's one fire there are apt to +be more; and I am a Christian, no matter who's not! Let who will burn, +I'll not!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> + +<p>He picked up one bundle and, carrying it out, raised his voice. A man, +who had shrunk, it seemed, from entering the house, showed his face in +the light which streamed from the door. To this fellow he gave the +bundle, and shouldering the other, he went heavily out, leaving the door +wide open behind him.</p> + +<p>Claude strode to it and closed it; but not so quickly that he had not a +glimpse of three or four pairs of eyes staring in out of the darkness; +eyes so curious, so fearful, so quickly and noiselessly withdrawn—for +even while he looked, they were gone—that he went back to the hearth +with a shiver of apprehension.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, she had not seen them. She stood where he had left her, in +the same attitude of amazement into which Grio's accusation had cast +her. As she met his gaze—then, at last, she melted. The lamplight +showed her eyes brimming over with tears; her lips quivered, her breast +heaved under the storm of resentment.</p> + +<p>"How dare they say it?" she cried. "How dare they? That I would harm a +child? A child?" And, unable to go on, she held out protesting hands to +him. "And my mother? My mother, who never injured any one or harmed a +hair of any one's head! That she—that they should say that of her! That +they should set that to her! But I will go this instant," impetuously, +"to the child's mother. She will hear me. She will know and believe me. +A mother? Yes, I will go to her!"</p> + +<p>"Not now," he said. "Not now, Anne!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, now," she persisted, deaf to his voice. She snatched up her hood +from the ground on which it had fallen, and began to put it on.</p> + +<p>He seized her arm. "No, not now," he said firmly. "You shall not go now. +Wait until daylight. She will listen to you more coolly then."</p> + +<p>She resisted him. "Why?" she said. "Why?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> + +<p>"People fancy things at night," he urged. "I know it is so. If she saw +you enter out of the darkness"—the girl with her burning eyes, her wet +cheeks, her disordered hair looked wild enough—"she might refuse to +believe you. Besides——"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"I will not have you go now," he said firmly. That instant it had +flashed upon him that one of the faces he had seen outside was the face +of the dead child's mother. "I will not let you go," he repeated. "Go in +the daylight. Go to-morrow morning. Go then, if you will!" He did not +choose to tell her that he feared for her instant safety if she went +now; that, if he had his will, the streets would see her no more for +many a day.</p> + +<p>She gave way. She took off her hood, and laid it on the table. But for +several minutes she stood, brooding darkly and stormily, her hands +fingering the strings. To foresee is not always to be forearmed. She had +lived for months in daily and hourly expectation of the blow which had +fallen; but not the more easily for that could she brook the concrete +charge. Her heart burned, her soul was on fire. Justice, give us justice +though the heavens fall, is an instinct planted deep in man's nature! Of +the Mysterious Passion of our Lord our finite minds find no part worse +than the anguish of innocence condemned. A child? She to hurt a child? +And her mother? Her mother, so harmless, so ignorant, so tormented! She +to hurt a child?</p> + +<p>After a time, nevertheless, the storm began to subside. But with it died +the hope which is inherent in revolt; in proportion as she grew more +calm the forlornness of her situation rose more clearly before her. At +last that had happened which she had so long expected to happen. The +thing was known. Soon the full consequences would be upon her, the +consequences on which she dared not dwell.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> Shudderingly she tried to +close her eyes to the things that might lie before her, to the things at +which Grio had hinted, the things of which she had lain thinking—even +while they were distant and uncertain—through many a night of bitter +fear and fevered anticipation.</p> + +<p>They were at hand now, and though she averted her thoughts, she knew it. +But the wind is tempered to the shorn. Even as the prospect of future +ill can dominate the present, embitter the sweetest cup, and render +thorny the softest bed, so, sometimes, present good has the power to +obscure the future evil. As Anne sank back on the settle, her trembling +limbs almost declining to bear her, her eyes fell on her companion. +Failing to rouse her, he had seated himself on the other side of the +hearth, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his hands, in an attitude +of deep thought. And little by little, as she looked at him, her cheeks +grew, if not red, less pale, her eyes lost their tense and hopeless +gaze. She heaved a quivering sigh, and slowly carried her look round the +room.</p> + +<p>Its homely comfort, augmented by the hour and the firelight, seemed to +lap them round. The door was locked, the shutters were closed, the lamp +burned cheerfully. And he sat opposite—sat as if they had been long +married. The colour grew deeper in her face as she gazed; she breathed +more quickly; her eyes shone. What evil cannot be softened, what +misfortune cannot be lightened to a woman by the knowledge that she is +loved by the man she loves? That where all have fled, he remains, and +that neither fear of death nor word of man can keep him from her side?</p> + +<p>He looked up in the end, and caught the look on her face, the look that +a woman bestows on one man only in her life. In a moment he was on his +knees beside her, holding her hands, covering them with kisses, vowing +to save her, to save her—or to die with her!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<h3>IN THE DARKENED ROOM.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Claude</span> flung the cloak from his head and shoulders, and sat up. It was +morning—morning, after that long, dear sitting together—and he stared +confusedly about him. He had been dreaming; all night he had slept +uneasily. But the cry that had roused him, the cry that had started that +quick beating of the heart, the cry that still rang in his waking ears +and frightened him, was no dream.</p> + +<p>As he rose to his feet, his senses began to take in the scene; he +remembered what had happened and where he was. The shutters were lowered +and open. The cold grey light of the early morning at this deadest +season of the year fell cheerlessly on the living-room; in which for the +greater safety of the house he had insisted on passing the night. Anne, +whose daily task it was to open the shutters, had been down then: she +must have been down, or whence the pile of fresh cones and splinters +that crackled, and spirted flame about the turned log. Perhaps it was +her mother's cry that had roused him; and she had re-ascended to her +room.</p> + +<p>He strode to the staircase door, opened it softly and listened. No, all +was silent above; and then a new notion struck him, and he glanced +round. Her hood was gone. It was not on the table on which he had seen +it last night.</p> + +<p>It was so unlikely, however, that she had gone out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> without telling him, +that he dismissed the notion; and, something recovered from the strange +agitation into which the cry had cast him, he yawned. He returned to the +hearth and knelt and re-arranged the sticks so that the air might have +freer access to the fire. Presently he would draw the water for her, and +fill the great kettle, and sweep the floor. The future might be gloomy, +the prospect might lower, but the present was not without its pleasures.</p> + +<p>All his life his slowness to guess the truth on this occasion was a +puzzle to him. For the materials were his. Slowly, gradually, as he +crouched sleepily before the fire, it grew upon him that there was a +noise in the air; a confused sound, not of one cry, but of many, that +came from the street, from the rampart. A noise, now swelling a little, +now sinking a little, that seemed as he listened not so distant as it +had sounded a while ago. Not distant at all, indeed; quite close—now! A +sound of rushing water, rather soothing; or, as it swelled, a sound of a +crowd, a gibing, mocking crowd. Yes, a crowd. And then in one instant +the change was wrought.</p> + +<p>He was on his feet; he was at the door. He, who a moment before had +nodded over the fire, watching the flames grow, was transformed in five +seconds into a furious man, tugging at the door, wrestling madly with +the unyielding oak. Wrestling, and still the noise rose! And still he +strained in vain, back and sinew, strained until with a cry of despair +he found that he could not win. The door was locked, the key was gone! +He was a prisoner!</p> + +<p>And still the noise that maddened him, rose. He sprang to the right-hand +window, the window nearest the commotion. He tore open a panel of the +small leaded panes, and thrust his head between the bars. He saw a +crowd; for an instant, in the heart of the crowd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> and raised above it, +he saw an uplifted arm and a white woman's face from which blood was +flowing. He drew in his head, and laid his hands to one of the bars and +flung his weight this way and that, flung it desperately, heedless of +injury. But in vain. The lead that soldered the bar into the strong +stone mullion held, and would have held against the strength of four. +With heaving breast, and hands from which the blood was starting, he +stood back, glared round him, then with a cry flung himself upon the +other window, tore it open and seized a bar—the middle one of the +three. It was loose he remembered. God! why had he not thought of it +before? Why had he wasted time?</p> + +<p>He wasted no more, with those shouts of cruel glee in his ears. The bar +came out in his hands. He thrust himself feet first through the +aperture. Slight as he was, it was small for him, and he stuck fast at +the hips, and had to turn on his side. The rough edges of the bars +scraped the skin, but he was through, and had dropped to his feet, the +bar which he had plucked out still in his hands. For a fraction of a +second, as he alighted, his eyes took in the crowd, and the girl at bay +against the wall. She was raised a little above her tormentors by the +steps on which she had taken refuge.</p> + +<p>On one side her hair hung loose, and the cheek beneath it was cut and +bleeding, giving her a piteous and tragic aspect. Four out of five of +her assailants were women; one of these had torn her face with her +nails. Streaks of mud were mingled with the blood which ran down her +neck; and even as Claude recovered himself after the drop from the +window, a missile, eluding the bent arm with which she strove to shield +her face, struck and bespattered her throat where the collar of her +frock had been torn open—perhaps by the same rough clutch which had +dragged down her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> hair. The ring about her—like all crowds in the +beginning—were strangely silent; but a yell of derision greeted this +success, and a stone flew, narrowly missing her, and another, and +another. A woman, holding a heavy Bible after the fashion of a shield, +was stooping and striking at her knees with a stick, striving to bring +her to the ground; and with the cruel laughter that hailed the hag's +ungainly efforts were mingled other and more ugly sounds, low curses, +execrations, and always one fatal word, "Witch! Witch!"—fatal word spat +at her by writhing mouths, hissed at her by pale lips, tossed broadcast +on the cold morning wind, to breed wherever it flew fear and hate and +suspicion. For, even while they mocked her they feared her, and shielded +themselves against her power with signs and crossings and the Holy Book.</p> + +<p>To all, curse and blow and threat, she had only one word. Striving +patiently to shield her face, "Let me go!" she wailed pitifully. "Let me +go! Let me go!" Strange to say, she cried even that but softly; as who +should say, "If you will not, kill me quietly, kill me without noise!" +Ay, even then, with the blood running down her face, and with those eyes +more cruel than men's eyes hemming her in, she was thinking of the +mother whom she had sheltered so long.</p> + +<p>"Let me go! Let me go!" she repeated.</p> + +<p>"Witch, you shall go!" they answered ruthlessly. "To hell!"</p> + +<p>"Ay, with her dam! To the water with her! To the water!"</p> + +<p>"Look for the devil's mark! Search her! Again, Martha! Bring her down! +Bring her down, and we'll soon see whether——"</p> + +<p>Then he reached them. The man, one of the few present, who had bidden +them search her fell headlong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> on his face in the gutter, struck behind +as by a thunder-bolt. The great Bible flew one way, the hag's stick flew +another—and in its flight felled a second woman. In a twinkling Claude +was on the steps, and in the heart of the crowd stood two people, not +one; in a twinkling his arm was round the girl, his pale, furious face +confronted her tormentors, his blazing eyes beat down theirs! More than +all, his iron bar, brandished recklessly this way and that, threatened +the brains of the man or the woman who was bold enough to withstand him.</p> + +<p>For he was beside himself with rage. He learned in that moment that he +was of those who fight with joy and rejoicing, and laugh where others +shake. The sight of that white, bleeding face, of that hanging hair, of +that suppliant arm, above all, the sound of that patient "Let me go! Let +me go!" that expected nothing and hoped nothing, had turned his blood to +fire. The more numerous his opponents—if they were men—the better he +would be pleased; and if they were women, such women, unsexed by hate +and superstition, as he saw before him, women looking a millionfold more +like witches than the girl they accused, the worse for them! His arm +would not falter!</p> + +<p>It seemed of steel indeed. The bar quivered like a reed in his grasp, +his eyes darted hither and thither, he stood an inch taller than at +other times. He was like the war-horse that sniffs the battle.</p> + +<p>And yet he was cool after a fashion. He must get her home, and to do so +he must not lose a moment. The vantage of the steps on which they stood, +raised a hand's breath above their assailants, was a thing to be +weighed; but it would not serve them if these cursed women mustered, and +the cowardly crew before him throve to a mob. He must home with her. But +the door was locked, and she could only go in as he had come out. Still, +she must go.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p> + +<p>He thought all this between one stride and another—and other thoughts +thick as leaves falling in a wind. Then, "Fools!" he thundered, and had +her down the steps, and was dragging her towards her door before they +awoke from their surprise, or thought of attacking him. The woman with +the big Bible had had her fill—though he had not struck her but her +stick—and sat where she had fallen in the mud. The other woman hugged +herself in pain. The man was in no hurry to be up, having once felt +Claude's knee in the small of his back. For a few seconds no one moved; +and when they recovered themselves he was half-way to the Royaumes' +door.</p> + +<p>They snatched up mud, then, and flung it after the pair with shrill +execrations. And the woman who had picked up the stick hurled it in a +frenzy after them, but wide of the mark. A dozen stones fell round them, +and the cry of "The Witch! The Witch!"—cry so ominous, so cruel, cry +fraught with death for so many poor creatures—followed hard on them. +But they were within five paces of the door now, and if he could lift +her to the window——</p> + +<p>"The key," she murmured in his ear. "The key is in the lock!"</p> + +<p>She had her wits, too, then, and her courage! He felt a glow of pride, +his arm pressed her more closely to him. "Unlock it!" he answered, and +leaving her to it, having now no fear that she would faint or fall, he +turned on the rabble with his bar.</p> + +<p>But they were for words, not blows, a rabble of cowards and women. They +turned tail with screams and fled to a distance, more than one falling +in the sudden <i>volte-face</i>. He made no attempt to pursue them along the +rampart, but looked behind him, and found that she had opened the door. +She had taken out the key, and was waiting for him to enter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>He went up the steps, entered, and she closed the door quickly. It shut +out in a moment the hootings of the returning women. While she locked it +on the inside, he raised the bars and slid them into their places. Then, +not till then, he turned to her.</p> + +<p>Her face averted, she was staunching the blood which trickled from her +cheek. "It was the child's mother!" she faltered, a sob in her voice. "I +went to her. I thought—that she would believe. Get me some water, +please! I must go upstairs. My mother will be frightened."</p> + +<p>He was astonished: on fire himself, with every pulse beating madly, he +was prepared for her to faint, to fall, to fling herself into his arms +in gratitude; prepared for everything but this self-forgetfulness. +"Water?" he said doubtfully, "but had you not better—take some wine, +Anne?"</p> + +<p>"To wash! To wash!" she replied sharply, almost angrily. "How can I go +to her in this state? And do you shut the shutters."</p> + +<p>A stone had that moment passed through a pane of one of the windows. The +rout of women were gathering before the house; the step she advised was +plainly necessary. Fortunately the Royaumes' house, like all in the +Corraterie—which formed an inner line of defence pierced by the +Tertasse gate—had outside shutters of massive thickness, capable of +being lowered from within. He closed these in haste and found, when he +turned from the task and looked for her—a small round hole in each +shutter made things dimly visible—that she was gone to soothe her +mother.</p> + +<p>He could not but love her the more for it. He could not but respect her +the more for her courage, for her thoughtfulness, her self-denial. But +when the heart is full and would unburden itself, when the brain teems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> +with pent-up thoughts, when the excitement of action and of peril wanes +and the mind would fain tell and hear and compare and remember—then to +be alone, to be solitary, is to sink below one's self.</p> + +<p>For a time, while his pulses still beat high, while the heat of battle +still wrought in him, and the noise without continued, and there seemed +a prospect of things to be done, he stood up against this. Thump! Thump! +They were stoning the shutters. Let them! He placed the settle across +the hearth, and in this way cut off the firelight that might have +betrayed those in the room to eyes peeping through the holes. By-and-by +the shrill vixenish cries rose louder, he caught the sound of voices in +altercation, and of hoarse orders: and slowly and reluctantly the babel +seemed to pass away. An anxious moment followed: fearfully he listened +for the knock of the law, the official summons which must make all his +efforts useless. But it did not come.</p> + +<p>It was when the silence which ensued had lasted some minutes that the +strangeness and aloofness of his position in this darkened room began to +weigh on his spirits. His eyes had adapted themselves to the gloom, and +he could make out the shapes of the furniture. But it was morning! It +was day! Outside, the city was beginning to go about its ordinary work, +its ordinary life. The streets were filling, the classes were mustering. +And he sat here in the dark! The longer he stared into the strange, +depressing gloom, the farther he seemed from life; the more solitary, +the more hopeless, the more ominous seemed the position.</p> + +<p>Alone with two women whom the worst of fates threatened! Whose pains and +ultimate lot the brawl in which he had taken part foreshadowed too +clearly. For thus and with as little cause perished in those days +thousands of the helpless and the friendless. Alone with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> these two, +under the roof from which all others had fled, barred with them behind +the gloomy shutters until the hour came, and their fellows, shuddering, +cast them out—what chance had he of escaping their lot?</p> + +<p>Or what desire to escape it? None, he told himself. None! But he who +fights best when blows are to be struck and things can be done finds it +hard to sit still where it is the inevitable that must be faced. And +while Claude told himself that he had no desire to escape, since escape +for her was impossible, his mind sought desperately the means of saving +all. The frontier lay but a league away. Conceivably they might lower +themselves from the wall by night; conceivably his strength might avail +to carry her mother to the frontier. But, alas! the crime of witchcraft +knew no frontier; the reputation of a witch once thrown abroad, flew +fast as the swiftest horse. Before they had been three days in Savoy, +the women would be reported, seized and examined; and their fate at +Faucigny or Bonneville would be no less tragic than in the Bourg du Four +of Geneva.</p> + +<p>Yet, something must be done, something could surely be done. But what? +The bravest caught in a net struggles the most desperately, and involves +himself the most hopelessly. And Claude felt himself caught in a net. He +felt the deadly meshes cling about his limbs, the ropes fetter and +benumb him. From the sunshine of youth, from freedom, from a life +without care, he had passed in a few days into the grip of this <span title="anagkê">αναγκη</span>, +this dire necessity, this dark ante-chamber of death. Was it +wonderful that for a moment, recognising the sacrifice he was called +upon to make and its inefficacy to save, he rebelled against the love +that had drawn him to this fate, that had led him to this, that in +others' eyes had ruined him? Ay, but for a moment only. Then with a +heart bursting with pity for her, with love for her, he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> himself. If +it must be, it must be. The prospect was dark as the room in which he +stood, confined and stifling, sordid and shameful; the end one which +would make his name a marvel and an astonishment. But the prospect and +the end were hers too; they would face them together. Haply he might +spare her some one pang, haply he might give her some one moment of +happiness, the support of one at least who knew her pure and spotless. +And while he thought of it—surprise of surprises—he bowed his head on +his folded arms and wept.</p> + +<p>Not in pity for himself, but for her. It was the thought of her +gentleness, her loving nature, her harmlessness—and the end this, the +reward this—which overcame him; which swelled his breast until only +tears could relieve it. He saw her as a dove struggling in cruel hands; +and the pity which, had there been chance or hope, or any to smite, +would have been rage, could find no other outlet. He wept like a woman; +but it was for her.</p> + +<p>And she, who had descended unheard, and stood even now at the door, with +a something almost divine in her face—a something that was neither love +nor compassion, maid's fancy nor mother's care, but a mingling of all +these, saw. And her heart bled for him; her arms in fancy went round +him, in fancy his head was on her breast, she comforted him. She, who a +moment before had almost sunk down on the stairs, worn out by her +sufferings and the strain of hiding them from her mother's eyes, forgot +her weakness in thought for him.</p> + +<p>She had no contempt for his tears. She had seen him stand between +herself and her tormentors, she had seen the flash of his eye, heard his +voice, knew him brave. But the fate, for which long thought and hours on +her knees had prepared her—so that it seemed but a black and bitter +passage with peace beyond—appalled her for him; and might well appal +him. The courage of men is active, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> women passive; with a woman's +instinct she knew this, allowed for it, and allowed, too, for another +thing—that he was fasting.</p> + +<p>When he looked up, startled by the tinkle of pewter and the rustle of +her skirt, she was kneeling between the settle and the fire, preparing +food. He flattered himself that in the dark she had not seen him, and +when he had regained his self-control he stepped to the settle-back and +looked over it.</p> + +<p>"You did not see me?" he said.</p> + +<p>She did not answer at once, but finished what she was doing. Then she +stood up and handed him a bowl. "The bread is on the table," she said, +indicating it. She was a woman, and, dark as it was, she kept the +disfigured cheek turned from him.</p> + +<p>He would have replied, but she made a sign to him to eat, and, seating +herself on a stool in the corner with her plate on her lap, she set him +an example. Apart from her weary attitude, and the droop of her head, he +might have deemed the scene in which they had taken part a figment of +his brain. But round them was the gloom of the closed room!</p> + +<p>"You did not see me?" he repeated presently.</p> + +<p>She stood up. "I would I had never seen you!" she cried; and her +anguished tone bore witness to the truth of her words. "It is the worst, +it is the bitterest thing of all! of all!" she repeated. The settle was +between them, and she rested her hands on the back of it. He stooped, +and, in the darkness, covered them with kisses, while his breast heaved +with the swell of the storm which her entrance had cut short. "For all +but that I was prepared," she continued; "I was ready. I have seen for +weeks the hopelessness of it, the certain end, the fate before us. I +have counted the cost, and I have learned to look beyond for—for all we +desire. It is a sharp<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> passage, and peace. But you"—her voice rested on +the same tragic note of monotony—"are outside the sum, and spoil all. A +little suffering will kill my mother, a little, a very little fear. I +doubt if she will live to be taken hence. And I—I can suffer. I have +known all, I have foreseen all—long! I have learned to think of it, and +I can learn by God's help to bear it! And in a little while, a very +little while, it will be over, and I shall be at rest. But you—you, my +love——"</p> + +<p>Her voice broke, her head sunk forward. His lips met hers in a first +kiss; a kiss, salted by the tears that ran unchecked down his face. For +a long minute there was silence in the room, a silence broken only by +the low, inarticulate murmur of his love—love whispered brokenly on her +tear-wet lips, on her cold, closed eyelids. She made no attempt to +withdraw her face, and presently the murmur grew to words of defiance, +of love that mocked at peril, mocked at shame, mocked at death, having +assurance of its own, having assurance of her.</p> + +<p>They fell on her ears as warm thaw-rain on frozen sward; and slowly into +the pallor of her face, the whiteness of her closed eyelids, crept a +tender blush. Strange that for a few brief moments they were happy; +strange, proof marvellous of the dominance of the inner life over the +outer, of love over death.</p> + +<p>"My love, my love!"</p> + +<p>"Again!"—he murmured.</p> + +<p>"My love, my love!"</p> + +<p>But at length she came to herself, she remembered. "You will go?" she +said. She put him from her and held him fondly at arm's length, her +hands on his shoulders. "You will go? It is all you can do for me. You +will go and live?"</p> + +<p>"Without you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Better, a hundred times better so—for me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And for me? Why may I not save you and her?"</p> + +<p>"It is impossible!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing is impossible to love," he answered. "The nights are long, the +wall is not too high! No wall is too high for love! It is but a league +to the frontier, and I am strong."</p> + +<p>"Who would receive us?" she asked sadly. "Who would shelter us? In +Savoy, if we were not held for sorcery, we should be delivered to the +Inquisition."</p> + +<p>"We might gain friends?"</p> + +<p>"With what? No," she continued, her hands cleaving more tightly to him; +"you must go, dear love! Dear love! You must go! It is all you can do +for me, and it is much! Oh, indeed, it is much! It is very much!"</p> + +<p>He drew her to him as near as the settle would permit, until she was +kneeling on it, and in spite of her faint resistance he could look into +her eyes. "Were you in my place, would you leave me?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she lied bravely, "I would."</p> + +<p>But the flash of resentment in her eyes gave her voice the lie, and he +laughed joyfully. "You would not!" he said. "You would not leave me on +this side of death!"</p> + +<p>She tried to protest.</p> + +<p>"Nor will I you," he continued, stopping her mouth with fresh kisses. +"Nor will I you till death! Did you think me a coward?" He held her from +him and looked into her reproachful eyes. "Or a Tissot? Tissot left you. +Or Louis Gentilis?"</p> + +<p>But she made him know that he was none of these in a way that satisfied +him; and a moment later her mother's voice called her from the room. He +thought, having no experience of a woman's will, that he had done with +that; and in her absence he betook himself to examining the defences of +the house. He replaced the bar which he had wrested from the window; +wedging it into its socket<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> with a morsel or two of molten lead. The +windows of the bedrooms, his own and Louis', looked into a narrow lane, +the Rue de la Cité, that ran at the back of the Corraterie in a line +with the ramparts; but not only were they almost too small to permit the +passage of a full-grown man, they were strongly barred. Against such a +rabble, as had assaulted Anne, or even a more formidable mob, the house +was secure. But if the law intervened neither bar nor bolt could save +them.</p> + +<p>He fell to thinking of this, and stood, arrested in the middle of the +darkened room that, as the hours went by, was beginning to take on a +familiar look. The day was passing, all without remained quiet, nothing +had happened. Was it possible that nothing would happen? Was it possible +that the girl through long brooding exaggerated the peril? And that the +worst to be feared was such an outbreak as had occurred that morning? +Such an outbreak as might not take place again, since mobs were fickle +things.</p> + +<p>He dwelt a while on this more hopeful view of things. Then he recalled +Basterga's threats, the Syndic's face, the departure of Louis and Grio; +and his heart sank as lead sinks. The rumour so quickly spread—by what +hints, what innuendoes, what cunning inquiries, what references to the +old, invisible, bedridden woman, he could but guess—that rumour bore +witness to a malice and a thirst for revenge which were not likely to +stop at words. And Louis' flight? And Grio's? And Basterga's?—for he +did not return. To believe that all these, taken together, these and the +outrage of the morning, portended anything but danger, anything but the +worst, demanded a hopefulness that even his youth and his love could not +compass.</p> + +<p>Yet when she descended he met her with brave looks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<h3>THE <i>REMEDIUM</i>.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Blondel's</span> thin lips were warrant—to such of the world as had eyes to +see—that in the ordinary things of life he would have been one of the +last to put faith in a man of Basterga's stamp: and one of the first, +had the case been other than his own, to laugh at the credulity he was +displaying. He would have seen—no one more clearly—that, in making the +bargain he had made, he was in the position of a drowning man who +clutches at a straw; not because he believes that the straw will support +him, but because he has no other hope, and is loth to sink.</p> + +<p>He would have seen, too, another thing, which indeed he did see dimly. +This was that, talk as he might, make terms as he might, repeat as +firmly as he pleased, "The <i>remedium</i> first and then Geneva," he would +be forced when the time came to take the word for the deed. If he dared +not trust Basterga, neither dared the scholar trust him. Once safe, once +snatched from the dark fate that scared him, he would laugh at the +notion of betraying the city. He would snap his fingers in the Paduan's +face; and Basterga knew it. The scholar, therefore, dared not trust him; +and either there was an end of the matter or he must trust Basterga, +must eat his own words, and, content with the possession of something, +must wait for proof of its efficacy until the die was cast!</p> + +<p>In his heart he knew this. He knew that on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> brink of the extremity +to which circumstances and Basterga were slowly pushing him it might not +be in his power to check himself: that he must trust, whether he would +or no, and where instinct bade him place no trust. And this doubt, this +suspicion that when all was done he might find himself tricked, and +learn that for nothing he had given all, added immeasurably to the +torment of his mind; to the misery of his reflections when he awoke in +the small hours and saw things coldly and clearly, and to the fever and +suspense in which he passed his days.</p> + +<p>He clung to one thought and got what consolation he could from it; a +bitter and saturnine comfort it was. The thought was this: if it turned +out that, after all, he had been tricked, he could but die; and die he +must if he made no bargain. And to a dead man what matter was it what +price he had paid that he might live! What matter who won or who lost +Geneva, who lived, who died, who were slaves, who free!</p> + +<p>And again, the very easiness of the thing he was asked to do tempted +him. It was a thing that to one in his position presented no difficulty +and scarcely any danger. He had but to withdraw the guards, or the +greater part of them, from a portion of the wall, and to stop on one +pretext or another—the bitter cold of the wintry weather would +avail—the rounds that at stated intervals visited the various posts. +That was all; as a man of tried loyalty, intrusted with the safeguarding +of the city, and to whom the officer of the watch was answerable, he +might make the necessary arrangements without incurring, even after the +catastrophe, more than a passing odium, a breath of suspicion.</p> + +<p>And Baudichon and Petitot? He tasted, when he thought of them, the only +moments of comfort, of pleasure, of ease, that fell to his lot +throughout these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> days. They would thwart him no more. Petty worms, +whose vision went no farther than the walls of the city, he would have +done with them when the flag of Savoy fluttered above St. Pierre; and +when for the confines of a petty canton was substituted, for those who +had eyes to see and courage to adapt themselves, the wide horizon of the +Italian Kingdom. When he thought of them—and then only—he warmed to +the task before him; then only he could think of it without a shiver and +without distaste. And not the less because on that side, in their +suspicion, in their grudging jealousy, in their unwinking integrity, lay +the one difficulty.</p> + +<p>A difficulty exasperated by the insult that, in a moment of bitter +disappointment, he had flung in Baudichon's face. That hasty word had +revealed to the speaker a lack of self-control that terrified him, even +as it had revealed to Baudichon a glimpse of something underneath the +Fourth Syndic's dry exterior that might well set a man thinking as well +as talking. This matter Blondel saw plainly he must deal with at once, +or it might do harm. To absent himself from the next day's council might +rouse a storm beyond his power to weather, or short of that might give +rise at a later period to a dangerous amount of gossip and conjecture.</p> + +<p>He was early at the meeting, therefore, but to his surprise found it in +session before the hour. This, and the fact that the hubbub of voices +and discussion died down at his entrance—died down and was succeeded by +a chilling silence—put him on his guard. He had not come unprepared for +opposition; to meet it he had wound himself to a pitch, telling himself +that after this all would be easy; that he had this one peril to face, +this one obstacle to surmount, and having succeeded might rest. +Nevertheless, as he passed up the Great Council Chamber amid that +silence, and met strange<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> looks on faces which were wont to smile, his +courage for one moment, even in that familiar scene—conscience makes +cowards of all—wavered. His smile grew sickly, his nerves seemed +suddenly unstrung, his knees shook under him. It was a dreadful instant +of physical weakness, of mental terror, under the eyes of all. To +himself, he seemed to stand still; to be self-betrayed, self-convicted!</p> + +<p>Then—and so brief was the moment of weakness no eye detected it—he +moved on to his place, and with his usual coolness took his seat. He +looked round.</p> + +<p>"You are early," he said, ignoring the glances, hostile or doubtful, +that met his gaze. "The hour has barely struck, I believe?"</p> + +<p>"We were of opinion," Fabri answered, with a dry cough, "that minutes +were of value."</p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p> + +<p>"That not even one must be lost, Messer Blondel!"</p> + +<p>"In doing?" Blondel asked in a negligent tone, well calculated to annoy +those who were eager in the matter. "In doing what, if I may ask?"</p> + +<p>"In doing, Messer Syndic," Petitot answered sharply, "that which should +have been done a week ago; and better still a fortnight ago. In issuing +a warrant for the arrest of the person whose name has been several times +in question here."</p> + +<p>"Messer Basterga?"</p> + +<p>"The same."</p> + +<p>"You may save yourselves the trouble," the Syndic replied, with a little +contempt. "The warrant has been issued. It was issued yesterday, and +would have been executed in the afternoon, if he had not got wind of it, +and left the town. And on this let me say one more word," Blondel +continued, leaning forward and speaking in sudden heat, before any one +could take up the question.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> "That word is this. If it had not been for +the importunity of some who are here, the warrant had <i>not</i> been issued, +the man had still been within the walls, and we had been able still to +trace his plans! We had not been as we now are, and as I foretold we +should be, in the dark, ignorant from which quarter the blow may fall, +and not a whit the wiser for the hint given us."</p> + +<p>"You have let him escape!" The words were Petitot's.</p> + +<p>"I? No! I have not let him escape, but those who forced my hand!" +Blondel retorted in passion, so real, or so well simulated, that it +swept away the majority of his listeners. "They have let him escape! +Those who had no patience or craft! Those whose only notion of +statesmanship, whose only method of making use of the document we had +under our hand was to tear it up. Only yesterday morning I was with +him——"</p> + +<p>"Ay?" Baudichon cried, his eyes glowing with dull passion. "You were +with him! And he went in the afternoon! Mark that!" He turned quickly to +his fellows. "He went in the afternoon! Now, I would like to know——"</p> + +<p>Blondel stood up. "Whether I am a traitor?" he said, in a tone of fury; +and he extended his arms in protest. "Whether I am in league with this +Italian, I, Philibert Blondel of Geneva? That is what you ask, what you +wish to know! Whether I sought him yesterday in the hope of worming his +secrets from him, and doing what I could for the benefit of the State in +a matter too delicate to be left to underlings? Or went there, one with +him, to betray my country? To sell the Free City? That—that is what you +ask?"</p> + +<p>His passion was full, overpowering, convincing; so convincing—it almost +stopped his speech—that he believed in it himself, so convincing that +it swept away all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> but his steady and professed opponents. "No, no!" +cried a dozen voices, in tones that reflected his indignation. "No, no! +Shame!"</p> + +<p>"No?" Blondel took up the word, his eyes sparkling, his adust complexion +heated and full of fire. "But it is—yes, they say! Yes, they say whom +you have to thank if we have lost our clue, they who met me going to him +but yesterday and threatened me! Threatened me!" he repeated, in a voice +of astonishment. "Me, who desired only, sought only, was going only to +do my duty! I used, I admit the fault," he allowed his voice to drop to +a tone more like his own, "words on that occasion that I now regret. But +is blood water? Does no man besides Councillor Baudichon love his +country? Is the suspicion, the open suspicion of such an one, no insult, +that he must cavil if he be repaid in insult? I have given my proofs. If +any man can be trusted to sound the enemy, it is I! But I have done! Had +Messer Baudichon not pressed me to issue the warrant, not driven me +beyond my patience, it had not been issued yesterday. It had been in the +office, and the man within the walls! Ay, and not only within the walls, +but fresh from a conference with the Sieur d'Albigny, primed with all we +need to know, and in doubt by which side he could most profit!"</p> + +<p>"It was about that you saw him?" Petitot said slowly, his eyes fixed +like gimlets to the other's face.</p> + +<p>"It was about that I saw him," Blondel answered. "And I think in a few +hours more I had won him. But in the street he had some secret word or +warning; for when I handed the warrant—against my better sense—to the +officers, they, who had never lost sight of him between gate and gate, +answered that he had crossed the bridge and left the town an hour +before. Mon Dieu!"—he struck his two hands together and snapped his +teeth—"when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> I think how foolish I was to be over-ridden, I could—I +could say more, Messer Baudichon"—with a saturnine look—"than I said +yesterday!"</p> + +<p>"At any rate the bird is flown!" Baudichon replied, with sullen temper. +"That is certain! And it was you who were set to catch him!"</p> + +<p>"But it was not I who scared him," Blondel rejoined.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you would have had of him!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see that plainly enough," said Fabri. He was an honest man, +without prejudice, and long the peace-maker between the two parties.</p> + +<p>"I thank you," Blondel replied dryly. "But, by your leave, I will make +it clear to Messer Baudichon also, who will doubtless like to know. I +would have had of him the time and place and circumstance of the attack, +if such be in preparation. And then, when I knew all, I would have made +dispositions, not only to safeguard the city, but to give the enemy such +a reception that Italy should ring with it! Ay, and such as should put +an end for the rest of our lives to these treacherous attacks!"</p> + +<p>The picture which he drew thus briefly of a millennium of safety, +charmed not only his own adherents, but all who were neutral, all who +wavered. They saw how easily the thing might have been done, how +completely the treacherous blow might have been parried and returned. +Veering about they eyed Baudichon, on whom the odium of the lost +opportunity seemed to rest, with resentment—as an honest man, but a +simpleton, a dullard, a block! And when Blondel added, after a pause, +"But there, I have done! The office of Fourth Syndic I leave to you to +fill," they barely allowed him to finish.</p> + +<p>"No! No!" came from almost all mouths, and from every part of the +council table.</p> + +<p>"No," Fabri said, when silence was made. "There is no provision for a +change, unless a definite accusation be laid."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But Messer Baudichon may have one to make," Blondel said proudly. "In +that case, let him speak."</p> + +<p>Baudichon breathed hard, and seemed to be on the point of pouring forth +a torrent of words. But he said nothing. Instinct told him that his +enemy was not to be trusted, but he had the wit to discern that Blondel +had forestalled him, and had drawn the sting from his charges. He could +have wept in dull, honest indignation; but for accusations, he saw that +the other held the game, and he was silent. "Fat hog!" the man had +called him. "Fat hog!" A tear gathered slowly in his eye as he recalled +it.</p> + +<p>Fabri gave him time to speak; and then with evident relief, "He has none +to make, I am sure," he said.</p> + +<p>"Let him understand, then," Blondel replied firmly, "let all understand, +that while I will do my duty I am no longer in the position to guard +against sudden strokes, in which I should have been, had I been allowed +to go my own way. If a misfortune happen, it is not on me the blame must +rest." He spoke solemnly, laughing in his sleeve at the cleverness with +which he was turning his enemy's petard against him. "All that man can +do in the dark shall be done," he continued. "And I do not—I am free to +confess that—anticipate anything while the negotiations with the +President Rochette are in progress."</p> + +<p>"No, it is when they are broken off, they will fall back on the other +plan," one of the councillors said with an air of much wisdom.</p> + +<p>"I think that is so. Nor do I think that anything will be done during +the present severe weather."</p> + +<p>"They like it no better than we do!"</p> + +<p>"But the roads are good in this frost," Fabri said. "If it be a question +of moving guns or wagons——"</p> + +<p>"But it is not, by your leave, Messer Fabri, as I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> informed," the man +who had spoken before objected; supporting his opinion simply because he +had voiced it, a thing seen every day in such assemblies. Fabri replied +on him in the other sense: and presently Blondel had the satisfaction of +listening to a discussion in which the one party said a dozen things +that he saw would be of use to him—some day.</p> + +<p>One only said not a word, and that was Petitot. He listened to all with +a puzzled look. He resented the insult which Blondel had flung at his +friend Baudichon, but he saw all going against them, and no chance of +redress; nay, capital was being made out of that which should have been +a disadvantage. Worst of all, he was uneasy, fancying—he was very +shrewd—that he caught a glimpse, under the Fourth Syndic's manner, of +another man: that he detected signs of emotion, a feverishness and +imperiousness not quite explained by the circumstances.</p> + +<p>He got the notion from this that the Fourth Syndic had learned more from +Basterga than he had disclosed. His notion, even so, went no further +than the suspicion that Blondel was hiding knowledge out of a desire to +reap all the glory. But he did not like it. "He was always for risking, +for risking!" he thought. "This is another case of it. God grant it go +well!" His wife, his children, his daughters, rose in a picture before +him, and he hated Blondel, who had none of these. He would have put him +to death for running the tithe of a risk.</p> + +<p>When the council broke up, Fabri drew Blondel aside. "The bird is flown, +but what of the nest?" he asked. "Has he left nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Between you and me," Blondel replied under his breath, as his eyes +sought the other's, "I hope to make him speak yet. But not a word!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p> + +<p>"Not a word! But there is just a chance. And it will be everything to us +if I can induce him to speak."</p> + +<p>"I see that. But the house? Could you not search it?"</p> + +<p>"That would be to scare him finally."</p> + +<p>"You have made no perquisition there?"</p> + +<p>"None. I have heard," Blondel continued, hesitating as if he had not +quite made up his mind to speak, "some things—strange things in respect +to the house. But I will tell you more of that when I know more."</p> + +<p>He was too clever to state that he held the house in suspicion for +sorcery and kindred things. Charges such as that spread, he knew, +upwards from the lower classes, not downwards to them. The poison, +disseminated as he had known how to disseminate it, by hints and +innuendoes dropped among his officers and ushers, was already in the +air, and would do its work. Fabri, a man of sense, might laugh to-day, +and to-morrow; but the third day, when the report came to him from a +dozen quarters, mainly by women's mouths, he would not laugh. And +presently he would shrug his shoulders and stand aside, and leave the +matter in more earnest hands.</p> + +<p>Blondel dropped no more than that hint, therefore, and as he passed +homeward applauded his discretion. He was proud of the turn things had +taken at the Council; elated by the part he had played, and the proof he +had given of his mastery, he felt able to carry anything through. His +mind, leaping over the immediate future, pictured a wider theatre, in +which his powers would have full scope, and a larger stage on which he +might aspire to play the first part. He saw himself not only wealthy, +but ennobled, the fount of honour, the favourite, and, in time, the +master of princes. Such as he was to-day the Medicis had been, and many +another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> whom the world held noble. He had but to live and to dare; only +to live and to dare! Only in order to do the one he must—it was no +choice of his—do the other!</p> + +<p>Before he was five minutes older he was reminded of the necessity. At +the door of his house the pains of the disease from which he +suffered—aggravated, perhaps, by the excitement through which he had +just passed, or by the cold of the weather—seized him with unusual +violence. He leant, pale and almost fainting, against the door-jamb, +unable at the moment to do so much as raise the latch. The golden dreams +in which he had lost himself by the way, the visions of power and fame, +vanished as he had so many times seen the after-glow vanish from the +snow-peaks; leaving only cold images of death and desolation. Presently, +with an effort, he staggered within doors, poured out such medicine as +he had, and, bent double and almost without breath, swallowed it; and +so, by-and-by, a wan and wild-eyed image of himself came out of the fit.</p> + +<p>He told himself in after days that it was that decided him; that but for +that sharp fit of pain and the prospect of others like it, he would not +have yielded to the temptation, no, not to be the Grand Duke's +favourite, not to be Minister of Savoy! He ignored, in his looking +backward, the visions of glory and ambition in which he had revelled. He +saw himself on the rack, with life and immunity from pain drawing him +one way, the prospect of a miserable death the other; and he pleaded +that no man would have decided otherwise. After that experience the +straw did not float, so thin that he was not ready to grasp it rather +than die, rather than suffer again. Nor did the fact that the straw at +that moment lay on the table beside him go for much.</p> + +<p>It did lie there. When he felt a little stronger and began to look about +him, he found a note at his elbow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> It was a small, common-looking +letter, sealed with a B, that might signify Blondel or Basterga, or, for +the matter of that, Baudichon. He did not know the handwriting, and he +opened it idly, in the scorn of small things that pain induced.</p> + +<p>He had not read a line of the contents, before his countenance changed. +The letter was from Basterga, and cunningly contrived. It gave him the +directions he needed, yet it was so worded that even after the event it +might pass for a trifling communication from a physician. The place and +the hour were specified—the latter so near that for a moment his cheek +grew pale. On that ensued the part which interested him most; but as the +whole was brief, the whole may be given.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>" (here followed a cabalistic sign such as physicians were in the +habit of using to impose on the vulgar). "After paying a visit in the +Corraterie, where I have an appointment on Saturday evening next +between late and early, I will be with you. But the mixture with the +necessary directions shall be sent to you twelve hours in advance, so +that before my visit you may experience its good effects. As surely as +the wrong potion in the case you wot of deprived of reason, so surely +(as I hope for salvation) will this potion have the desired effect.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">The Physician of Aleppo.</span>"</p></div> + +<p>"Saturday next, between late and early!" Blondel muttered, gazing at the +words with fascinated eyes. "It is for the day after to-morrow! The day +after to-morrow!" And in his thoughts he passed again over the road he +had travelled since his first visit to Basterga's room, since the hour +when the scholar had unrolled before him the map of the town he called +"Aurelia," and had told him the story of Ibn Jasher and the Physician of +Aleppo.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"No, I am not well," he answered. He sat, warmly wrapped up, in the high +chair in his parlour, his face so drawn with want of sleep that Captain +Blandano of the city guard, who had come to take his orders, had no +difficulty in believing him. "I am not well," he repeated peevishly. "It +is the weather." He had some soup before him. Beside it stood a tiny +phial of medicine; a phial strangely shaped and strange looking, +containing something not unlike the green cordial of the Carthusians.</p> + +<p>"It troubles me a good deal, too," Blandano said. "There are seven men +absent in the fourth ward. And two men, whose wives are urgent with me +that they should have leave."</p> + +<p>"Leave?" the Syndic cried. "Do they think naught"—leaning forward in a +passion—"of the safety of the city? If I were not ill, I would take +service on the wall myself to set an example!"</p> + +<p>"There is no need of that," the Captain answered respectfully, "if I +might have permission to withdraw a few men from the west side so as to +fill the places on the east——"</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay!"</p> + +<p>"From the Rhone side of the town——"</p> + +<p>"From the Corraterie? That is least open to assault."</p> + +<p>"Yes, from that part perhaps would be best," Blandano assented, nodding. +"Yes, I think so. If I might do that, I think I could manage."</p> + +<p>"Well, then do it," Blondel answered. "And make a note that I assented +to your suggestion to take them from the Corraterie and put them on the +lower part of the wall. After all, the nights are very bitter now, and +there are limits. Do the men grumble much?"</p> + +<p>"It is as much as I can do to make them go the rounds," Blandano +answered. "Some plead the weather; and some argue that, with President +Rochette, whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> word is as good as his bond, on the point of coming to +an agreement with us, the rounds are a farce!"</p> + +<p>The Syndic shrugged his shoulders. "Well!" he muttered, rubbing his chin +and looking thoughtfully before him, "we must not wear the men out. +There is no moon now, is there?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"And the enemy can attempt nothing without light," Blondel continued, +thinking aloud. "See here, Blandano, we must not put too heavy a burden +on our people. I see that. As it is so cold, I think you may pass the +word to pretermit the rounds to-night—save two. At what hours would you +suggest?"</p> + +<p>Blandano considered his own comfort—as the other expected he would—and +answered, "Early and late, say an hour before midnight and an hour +before dawn".</p> + +<p>"Then let be it as you suggest. But see"—with returning asperity—"that +those rounds go, and at their hours. Let there be no remissness. I will +make a note," he continued, "of the hours fixed. An hour before midnight +and an hour before dawn".</p> + +<p>He extended his arm and drew the ink-horn towards him. Midway in the +act, whether it was that his hand shook by reason of his illness, or +that he was in a hurry to close an interview which tried him more +severely than appeared, his sleeve caught the little phial of green +water that stood beside the soup on the table. It reeled an instant on +its edge, toppled on its side, and rolling, in one-tenth of the time it +takes to tell the tale, to the verge of the table—fell over.</p> + +<p>Messer Blondel made a strange noise in his throat.</p> + +<p>But the Captain had seen what was happening. Dexterously he caught the +bottle in his huge palm, and with an air of modest achievement was going +to set it on the table, when he saw that the Syndic had fallen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> back in +his chair, his face ghastly. Blandano was more used to death in the +field than in the house; and in a panic he took two steps towards the +door to call for help. Before he could take a third, Blondel gasped, and +made an uncertain movement with his hand, as if he would reassure him.</p> + +<p>Blandano returned and leant over him. "You are ill, Messer Syndic," he +said anxiously. "Let me call some one."</p> + +<p>The Syndic could not speak, but he pointed to the table. And when +Blandano, unable to make out what he wanted, and suspecting a stroke of +a mortal disease, turned again to the door, persisting in his intention +of getting aid, the Syndic found strength to seize his sleeve, and +almost instantly regained his speech. "There!" he gasped, "there! The +phial! Put it down!"</p> + +<p>Captain Blandano placed it on the table, wondering much. "I was afraid +you were ill, Messer Blondel," he said.</p> + +<p>"I was ill," the Syndic answered; and he pushed his chair back so that +no part of him was in contact with the table. He looked at the little +bottle with fascinated eyes, and slowly, as he looked, the colour +returned to his face. "I—was ill," he repeated, with a sigh that seemed +to relieve his breast. "I had a fright!"</p> + +<p>"You thought it was broken?" Blandano said, wondering much, and looking +in his turn at the phial.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I thought that it was broken. I am much obliged to you. Much, very +much obliged to you," the Syndic repeated, with a deep sigh, his hands +still moving nervously about his dress. Then, after a moment's pause, +"Will you ring the bell?" he said.</p> + +<p>The Captain, marvelling much, rang the hand-bell which lay on a +neighbouring table. He marvelled still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> more when he heard Messer +Blondel order the servant to place six bottles of his best wine in a +basket and take them to the Captain's lodging.</p> + +<p>Blandano stared. He knew the wine to be choice and valuable; and he eyed +the tiny phial respectfully. "It is something rare, I expect?" he said.</p> + +<p>The Syndic nodded.</p> + +<p>"And costly too, I doubt not?" with an admiring glance.</p> + +<p>"Costly?" Messer Blondel repeated the word, and when he had done so +turned on the other a look that led the Captain to think that he was +going to be ill again. Then, "It cost me—it will cost me"—again a +spasm contorted the Syndic's face—"I don't know what it will not have +cost me before it is paid for, Messer Blandano!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<h3>TWO NAILS IN THE WALL.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> long day during which the lovers had drained a cup at once so sweet +and so bitter, and one of the two had felt alike the throb of pain and +the thrill of kisses, came to an end at last; and without further +incident. Encouraged by the respite—for who that is mortal does not +hope against hope—they ventured on the following morning to lower the +shutters, and this to a great extent restored the house to its normal +aspect. Anne would have gone so far as to attend the morning preaching +at St. Pierre, for it was Friday; but her mother awoke low and nervous, +the girl dared not quit her side, and Claude had no field for the urgent +dissuasions which he had prepared himself to use.</p> + +<p>The greater part of the day she remained above stairs, busied in the +petty offices, and moving to and fro—he could hear her tread—upon the +errands of love, to see her in the midst of which might well have +confuted the slanders that crept abroad. But there were times in the day +when Madame Royaume slept; and then, who can blame Anne, if she stole +down and sat hand in hand with Claude on the settle, whispering +sometimes of those things of which lovers whisper, and will whisper to +the world's end; but more often of the direr things before these two +lovers, and so of faith and hope and the love that does not die. For the +most part it was she who talked. She had so much to tell him of the long +nightmare,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> the nightmare of months, that had oppressed her; of her +prayers, and fears and fits of terror; of Basterga's discovery of the +secret and the cruel use he had made of it; of the slow-growing +resignation, the steadfast resolve, the onward look to something, beyond +that which the world could do to her, that had come to be hers. With her +face hidden on his breast she told him of her thoughts upon her knees, +of the pain and obloquy through which, if the worst came, she knew she +must pass, and of her trust that she would be able to bear them; +speaking in such terms, so simply, so bravely, and with so lofty a +contemplation, that he who listened, and had been but a week before a +young man as other young men, grew as he listened to another stature, +and thought for himself thoughts that no man can have and remain as he +was, before the tongues of fire touched his heart.</p> + +<p>And then again, once—but that was in the darkening of the Friday +evening when the wound in her cheek burned and smarted and recalled the +wretched moment of infliction—she showed him another side; as if she +would have him know that she was not all heroic. Without warning, she +broke down; overcome by the prospect of death, she clung to him, weeping +and shuddering, and begging him and imploring him to save her. To save +her! Only to save her! At that sight and at those sounds, under the +despairing grasp of her arms about his neck, the young man's heart was +red-hot; his eyes burned. Vainly he held her closer and closer to him; +vainly he tried to comfort her. Vainly he shed tears of blood. He felt +her writhe and shudder in his arms.</p> + +<p>And what could he do? He strove to argue with her. He strove to show her +that accusation of her mother, condemnation of her mother, dreadful as +they must be to her, so dreadful that he scarcely dared speak of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> them, +need not involve her own condemnation. She was young, of blameless life, +and without enemies. What could any cast up against her, what adduce in +proof of a charge so dark, so improbable, so abnormal?</p> + +<p>For answer she touched the pulsing wound in her cheek.</p> + +<p>"And this?" she said. "And the child that I killed?"—with a bitter +laugh unlike her own. "If they say so much already, if they say that +to-day, what will they say to-morrow? What will they say when they have +heard her ravings? Will it not be, the old and the young, the witch and +her brood—to the fire? To the fire?"</p> + +<p>The spasm that shook her as she spoke defied his efforts to soothe her. +And how could he comfort her? He knew the thing to be too likely, the +argument too reasonable, as men reasoned then; strange and foolish as +their reasoning seems to us now. But what could he do. What? He who sat +there alone with her, a prisoner with her, witness to her agony, scalded +by her tears, tortured by her anguish, burning with pity, sorrow, +indignation—what could he do to help her or save her?</p> + +<p>He had wild thoughts, but none of them effectual; the old thoughts of +defending the house, or of escaping by night over the town wall; and +some new ones. He weighed the possibility of Madame Royaume's death +before the arrest; surely, then, he could save the girl, and they two, +young, active and of ordinary aspect, might escape some whither? Again, +he thought of appealing to Beza, the aged divine, whom Geneva revered +and Calvinism placed second only to Calvin. He was a Frenchman, a man of +culture and of noble birth; he might stand above the common +superstition, he might listen, discern, defend. But, alas, he was so old +as to be bed-ridden and almost childish. It was improbable, nay, it was +most unlikely, that he could be induced to interfere.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p> + +<p>All these thoughts Anne drove out of his head by begging him, in moving +terms of self-reproach, to forgive her her weakness. She had regained +her composure as abruptly, if not as completely, as she had lost it; and +would have had him believe that the passion he had witnessed was less +deep than it seemed, and rather a womanish need of tears than a proof of +suffering. A minute later she was quietly preparing the evening meal, +while he, with a sick heart, raised the shutters and lighted the lamp. +As he looked up from the latter task, he found her eyes fixed upon him, +with a peculiar intentness: and for a while afterwards he remarked that +she wore an absent air. But she said nothing, and by-and-by, promising +to return before bed-time, she went upstairs to her mother.</p> + +<p>The nights were at their longest, and the two had closed and lighted +before five. Outside the cold stillness of a winter night and a freezing +sky settled down on Geneva; within, Claude sat with sad eyes fixed on +the smouldering fire. What could he do? What could he do? Wait and see +her innocence outraged, her tenderness racked, her gentle body given up +to unspeakable torments? The collapse which he had witnessed gave him as +it were a foretaste, a bitter savour of the trials to come. It did not +seem to him that he could bear even the anticipation of them. He rose, +he sat down, he rose again, unable to endure the intolerable thought. He +flung out his arms; his eyes, cast upwards, called God to witness that +it was too much! It was too much!</p> + +<p>Some way of escape there must be. Heaven could not look down on, could +not suffer such deeds in a Christian land. But men and women, girls and +young children had suffered these things; had appealed and called Heaven +to witness, and gone to death, and Heaven had not moved, nor the angels +descended! But it could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> not be in her case. Some way of escape there +must be. There must be.</p> + +<p>Why should she not leave her mother to her fate? A fate that could not +be evaded? Why need she, whose capacity for suffering was so great, who +had so much of life and love and all good things before her, remain to +share the pains of one whose span in any case was nearing its end? Of +one who had no longer power—or so it seemed—to meet the smallest +shock, and must succumb before she knew more of suffering than the name. +One whom a rude word might almost extinguish, and a rough push thrust +out of life? Why remain, when to remain was to sacrifice two lives in +lieu of one, to give and get nothing, to die for a prejudice? Why +remain, when by remaining she could not save her mother, but, on the +contrary, must inflict the sharpest pang of all, since she destroyed the +being who was dearest to her mother, the being whom her mother would die +to save?</p> + +<p>He grew heated as he dwelt on it. Of what use to any, the feeble +flickering light upstairs, that must go out were it left for a moment +untended? The light that would have gone out this long time back had she +not fostered it and cherished it and sheltered it in her bosom? Of what +avail that weak existence? Or, if it were of avail, why, for its sake, +waste this other and more precious life that still could not redeem it?</p> + +<p>Why?</p> + +<p>He must speak to her. He must persuade her, press her, convince her; +carry her off by force were it necessary. It was his duty, his clear +call. He rose and walked the room in excitement, as he thought of it. He +had pity for the old, abandoned and left to suffer alone; and an +enlightening glimpse of the weight that the girl must carry through life +by reason of this desertion. But no doubt, no hesitation—he told +himself—no scruple.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> To die that her mother might live was one thing. +To die—and so to die—merely that her mother's last hours might be +sheltered and comforted, was another, and a thing unreasonable.</p> + +<p>He must speak to her. He would not hesitate to tell her what he thought.</p> + +<p>But he did hesitate. When she descended half an hour later, and paused +at the foot of the stairs to assure herself that her passage downstairs +had not roused her mother from sleep, the light fell on her listening +face and tender eyes; and he read that in them which checked the words +on his lips; that which, whether it were folly or wisdom—a wisdom +higher than the serpent's, more perfect than the most accurate +calculation of values and chances—drove for ever from his mind the +thought that she would desert her charge. He said not a word of what he +had thought; the indignant reasoning, the hot, conclusive arguments fell +from him and left him bare. With her hands in his, seeking no more to +move her or convince her, he sat silent; and by mute looks and dumb +love—more potent than eloquence or oratory—strove to support and +console her.</p> + +<p>She, too, was silent. Stillness had fallen on both of them. But her +hands clung to his, and now and again pressed them convulsively; and now +and again, too, she would lift her eyes to his, and gaze at him with a +pathetic intentness, as if she would stamp his likeness on her brain. +But when he returned the look, and tried to read her meaning in her +eyes, she smiled. "You are afraid of me?" she whispered. "No, I shall +not be weak again."</p> + +<p>But even as she reassured him he detected a flicker of pain in her eyes, +he felt that her hands were cold; and but that he feared to shake her +composure he would not have rested content with her answer.</p> + +<p>This sudden silence, this new way of looking at him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> were the only +things that perplexed him. In all else, silent as they sat, their +communion was perfect. It was in the mind of each that the women might +be arrested on the morrow; in the mind of each that this was their last +evening together, the last of few, yet not so few that they did not seem +to the man and the girl to bulk large in their lives. On that hearth +they had met, there she had proved to him what she was, there he had +spoken, there spent the clouded never-to-be-forgotten days of their +troubled courtship. No wonder that as they sat hand in hand, their hair +almost mingling, their eyes on the red glow of the smouldering log, and, +not daring to look forward, looked back—no wonder that their love grew +to be something other than the common love of man and maid, something +higher and more beautiful, touched—as the hills are touched at +sunset—by the evening glow of parting and self-sacrifice.</p> + +<p>Silent amid the silence of the house; living moments never to be +forgotten; welcoming together the twin companions, love and death.</p> + +<p>But from the darkest outlook of the mind, as of the eye, morning dispels +some shadows; into the most depressing atmosphere daylight brings hope, +brings actuality, brings at least the need to be doing. Claude's heart, +as he slipped from his couch on the settle next morning, and admitted +the light and turned the log and stirred the embers, was sad and full of +foreboding. But as the room, its disorder abated, took on a more +pleasant aspect, as the fire crackled and blazed on the hearth, and the +flush of sunrise spread over the east, he grew—he could not but grow, +for he was young—more cheerful also. He swept the floor and filled the +kettle and let in the air; and had done almost all he knew how to do, +before he heard Anne's foot upon the stairs.</p> + +<p>She had slept little and looked pale and haggard;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> almost more pale and +wan than he had ever seen her look. And this must have sunk his heart to +zero, if a certain item in her aspect had not at the same time diverted +his attention. "You are not going out?" he cried in astonishment. She +wore her hood.</p> + +<p>"I am not going to defend myself again," she answered, smiling sadly. +"Have no fear. I shall not repeat that mistake. I am only going——"</p> + +<p>"You are not going anywhere!" he answered firmly.</p> + +<p>She shook her head with the same wan smile. "We must live," she said.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"And to live must have water."</p> + +<p>"I have filled the kettle."</p> + +<p>"And emptied the water-pot," she retorted.</p> + +<p>"True," he said. "But surely it will be time to refill it when we want +it."</p> + +<p>"I shall attract less attention now," she answered quietly, "than later +in the day. There are few abroad. I will draw my hood about my face, and +no one will heed me."</p> + +<p>He laughed in tender derision. "You will not go!" he said. "Did you +think that I would let you run a risk rather than fetch the water from +the conduit."</p> + +<p>"You will go?"</p> + +<p>"Where is the pot?"</p> + +<p>He fetched the jar from its place under the stairs, snatched up his cap, +and turning the key in the lock was in the act of passing out when she +seized his arm. "Kiss me," she murmured. She lifted her face to his, her +eyes half closed.</p> + +<p>He drew her to him, but her lips were cold; and as he released her she +sank passively from his embrace, and was near falling. He hesitated. +"You are not afraid to be left?" he said. "You are sure?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I am afraid of nothing if I know you safe," she answered faintly. "Go! +go quickly, and God be with you!"</p> + +<p>"Tut! I run no danger," he rejoined. "I have a strong arm and they will +leave me alone." He thought that she was overwrought, that the strain +was telling on her; his thoughts did not go beyond that. "I shall be +back in five minutes," he continued cheerfully. And he went, bidding her +lock the door behind him and open only at his knock.</p> + +<p>He made the more haste for her fears, passed into the town through the +Porte Tertasse, and hastened to the conduit. The open space in front of +the fountain, which a little later in the day would be the favourite +resort of gossips and idlers, was a desert; the bitter morning wind saw +to that. But about the fountain itself three or four women closely +muffled were waiting their turns to draw. One looked up, and, as he +fancied, recognised him, for she nudged her neighbour. And then first +the one woman and then the other, looking askance, muttered something; +it might have been a prayer, or a charm, or a mere word of gossip. But +he liked neither the glance nor the action, nor the furtive, curious +looks of the women; and as quickly as he could he filled his pot and +carried it away.</p> + +<p>He had splashed his fingers, and the cold wind quickly numbed them. At +the Tertasse Gate, where the view commanding the river valley opened +before him, he was glad to set down the vessel and change hands. On his +left, the watch at the Porte Neuve, the gate in the ramparts which +admitted from the country to the Corraterie—as the Tertasse admitted +from the Corraterie to the town proper—was being changed, and he paused +an instant, gazing on the scene. Then remembering himself, and the need +of haste, he snatched up his jar and, turning to the right, hurried to +the steps before the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> Royaumes' door, swung up them and, with his eyes +on the windows, set down his burden.</p> + +<p>He knocked gently, sure that she would not keep him waiting. But she did +not come at once; and by-and-by, seeing that a woman at an open door a +little farther down the Corraterie was watching him with scowling +eyes—and that strange look, half fear, half loathing, which he was +growing to know—he knocked more loudly, and stamped to warm his feet.</p> + +<p>Still, to his astonishment, she did not come; he waited, and waited, and +she did not come. He would have begun to feel alarmed for her, but, what +with the cold and the early hour, the place was deserted; no idle gazers +such as a commotion leaves behind it were to be seen. The wind, however, +began to pierce his clothes; he had not brought his cloak, and he +shivered. He knocked more loudly.</p> + +<p>Perhaps she had been called to her mother? That must be it. She had gone +upstairs and could not on the instant leave her charge. He clothed +himself in reproaches; but they did not warm him, and he was beginning +to stamp his feet again when, happening to look down, he saw beside the +water-can and partly hidden by its bulge, a packet about the size of a +letter, but a little thicker. If he had not mounted the steps with his +eyes on the windows, searching for her face, he would have seen it at +once, and spared himself these minutes of waiting. He took it up in +bewilderment, and turned it in his numbed hands; it was heavy, and from +it, leaving only a piece of paper in his grasp, his purse fell to the +ground. More and more astonished, he picked up the purse, and put it in +his pocket. He looked at the window, but no one showed; then at the +paper in his hand. Inside the letter were three lines of writing.</p> + +<p>His face fell as he read them. "<i>I shall not admit you</i>,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> they ran. +"<i>If you try to enter, you will attract notice and destroy me. Go, and +God bless and reward you. You cannot save me, and to see you perish were +a worse pang than the worst.</i>"</p> + +<p>The words swam before his eyes. "I will beat down the door," he +muttered, tears in his voice, tears welling up in his heart and choking +him. And he raised his hand. "I will——"</p> + +<p>But he did nothing. "<i>You will attract notice and destroy me.</i>" Ah, she +had thought it out too well. Too well, out of the wisdom of great love, +she had known how to bridle him. He dared not do anything that would +direct notice to the house.</p> + +<p>But desert her? Never; and after a moment's thought he drew off, his +plans formed. As he retired, when he had gone some yards from the door, +he heard the window closed sharply behind him. He looked back and saw +his cloak lying on the ground. Tears rose again to his eyes, as he +returned, took it up, donned it, and with a last lingering look at the +window, turned away. She would think that he had taken her at her word; +but no matter!</p> + +<p>He walked along the Corraterie, and passing the four square watch-towers +with pointed roofs that stood at intervals along the wall, he came to +the two projecting demilunes, or bastions, that marked the angle where +the ramparts met the Rhone; a point from which the wall descended to the +bridge. In one of these bastions he ensconced himself; and selecting a +place whence he could, without being seen, command the length of the +Corraterie, he set himself to watch the Royaumes' house. By-and-by he +would go into the town and procure food, and, returning, keep guard +until nightfall. After dark, if the day passed without event, he would +find his way into the house by force or fraud. In a rapture of +anticipation he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> pictured his entrance, her reluctant joy, her tears and +smiles, and fond reproaches. As he loved her, as he must love her the +more for the trick she had played him, she must love him the more for +his return in her teeth. And the next day was Sunday, when it was +unlikely that any steps would be taken. That whole day he would have +with her, through it he would sit with her! A whole day without fear? It +seemed an age. He did not, he would not look beyond it!</p> + +<p>He had not broken his fast, and hunger presently drove him into the +town. But within half an hour he was at his post again. A glance at the +Royaumes' house showed him that nothing had happened, and, resuming his +seat in the deserted bastion, he began a watch that as long as he lived +stood clear in his memory of the past. The day was cold and bright, and +frosty with a nipping wind. Mont Blanc and the long range of snow-clad +summits that flanked it rose dazzlingly bright against the blue sky. The +most distant object seemed near; the wavelets on the unfrozen water of +the lake gave to the surface, usually so blue, a rough, grey aspect. The +breeze which produced this appearance kept the ramparts clear of +loiterers; and even those who were abroad preferred the more sheltered +streets, or went hurriedly about their business. The guards were content +to shiver in the guardrooms of the gate-towers, and if Claude blessed +once the kind afterthought which had dropped his cloak from the window, +he blessed it a dozen times. Wrapt in its thick folds, it was all he +could do to hold his ground against the cold. Without it he must have +withdrawn or succumbed.</p> + +<p>Through the morning he watched the house jealously, trembling at every +movement which took place at the Tertasse Gate; lest it herald the +approach of the officers to arrest the women. But nothing happened, and +as the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> day wore on he grew more hopeful. He might, indeed, have begun +to think Anne over-timid and his fears unwarranted, if he had not seen, +a little before sunset, a thing which opened his eyes.</p> + +<p>Two women and some children came out of a house not far from the +bastion. They passed towards the Tertasse Gate, and he watched them. +Before they came to the Royaumes' house, the children paused, flung +their cloaks over their heads, and, thus protected, ran past the house. +The women followed, more slowly, but gave the house a wide berth, and +each passed with a flap of her hood held between her face and the +windows; when they had gone by they exchanged signals of abhorrence. The +sight was no more than of a piece with the outrage on Anne; but, coming +when it did, coming when he was beginning to think that he had been +mistaken, when he was beginning to hope, it depressed Claude dismally.</p> + +<p>For comfort he looked forward to the hour when it would be dark. "By +hook or by crook," he muttered, "I shall enter then."</p> + +<p>He had barely finished the sentence, when he observed moving along the +ramparts towards him a figure he knew. It was Grio. There was nothing +strange in the man's presence in that place, for he was an idler and a +sot; but Claude did not wish to meet him, and debated in his mind +whether he should retreat before the other came up. Pride said one +thing, discretion another. He wanted no fracas, and he was still hanging +doubtful, measuring the distance between them, when—away went his +thoughts. What was Grio doing?</p> + +<p>The Spaniard had come to a stand, and was leaning on the wall, looking +idly into the fosse. The posture would have been the most natural in the +world on a warm day. On that day it caught Claude's attention; and—was +he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> mistaken, or were the hands that, under cover of Grio's cloak, +rested on the wall busy about something?</p> + +<p>In any case he must make up his mind whether he moved or stayed. For +Grio was coming on again. Claude hesitated a moment. Then he determined +to stay. The next he was glad he had so determined, for Grio after +strolling on in seeming carelessness to a point not twenty yards from +him, and well commanded from his seat, leant again on the wall, and +seemed to be enjoying the view. This time Claude was sure, from the +movement of his shoulders, that his hands were employed.</p> + +<p>"In what?" The young man asked himself the question; and noted that +beside Grio's left heel lay a piece of broken tile of a peculiar colour. +The next moment he had an inspiration. He drew up his feet on the seat, +drew his cloak over his head and affected to be asleep. What Grio, when +he came upon him, thought of a man who chose to sleep in the open in +such weather he did not learn, for after standing a while—as Claude's +ears told him—opposite the sleeper, the Spaniard turned and walked back +the way he had come. This time, and though he now had the wind at his +back, he walked briskly; as a man would walk in such weather, or as a +man might walk who had done his business.</p> + +<p>Claude waited until his coarse, heavy figure had disappeared through the +Porte Tertasse; nay, he waited until the light began to fail. Then, +while he could still pick out the red potsherd, he approached the wall, +leant over it, and, failing to detect anything with his eyes, passed his +fingers down the stones.</p> + +<p>They alighted on a nail; a nail thrust lightly into the mortar below the +coping stone. For what purpose? His blood beginning to move more quickly +Claude asked himself the question. To support a rope? And so to enable +some one to leave the town? The nail, barely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> pushed into the mortar, +would hardly support the weight of a dozen yards of twine.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the nail was there by chance, and Grio had naught to do with it. +He could settle that doubt. In a few moments he had settled it. Under +cover of the growing darkness, he walked to the place at which he had +seen Grio pause for the first time. A short search discovered a second +nail as lightly secured as the other. Had he not been careful it would +have fallen beneath his touch.</p> + +<p>What did the nails there? Claude was not stupid, yet he was long in +hitting on an explanation. It was a fanciful, extravagant notion when he +got it, but one that set his chilled blood running, and his hands +tingling, one that might mean much to himself and to others. It was +unlikely, it was improbable, it was out of the common; but it was an +explanation. It was a mighty thing to hang upon two weak nails; but such +as it was—and he turned it over and over in his mind before he dared +entertain it—he could find no other. And presently, his eyes alight, +his pulses riotous, his foot dancing, he walked down the +Corraterie—with scarce a look at the house which had held his thoughts +all day—and passed into the town. As he passed through the gateway he +hung an instant and cast an inquisitive eye into the guard-room of the +Tertasse. It was nearly empty. Two men sat drowsing before the fire, +their boot-heels among the embers, a black jack between them.</p> + +<p>The fact weighed something in the balance of probabilities: and in +growing excitement, Claude hurried on, sought the cookshop at which he +had broken his fast—a humble place, licensed for the scholars—and ate +his supper, not knowing what he ate, nor with whom he ate it. It was +only by chance that his ear caught, at a certain moment, a new tone in +the goodwife's voice; and that he looked up, and saw her greet her +husband.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ay!" the man said, putting off his bandoleer, and answering the +exclamation of surprise which his entrance had evoked. "It's bed for me +to-night. It's so cold they will send but half the rounds."</p> + +<p>"Whose order is that?" asked a scholar at Claude's table.</p> + +<p>"Messer Blondel's."</p> + +<p>"Shows his sense!" the goodwife cried roundly. "A good man, and knows +when to watch and when to ha' done!"</p> + +<p>Claude said nothing, but he rose with burning cheeks, paid his share—it +was seven o'clock—and, passing out, made his way back. It should be +said that in addition to the Tertasse Gate, two lesser gates, the +Treille on the one hand and the Monnaye on the other, led from the town +proper to the Corraterie; and this time he chose to go out by the +Treille. Having ascertained that the guard-room there also was almost +denuded of men, he passed along the Corraterie to his bastion, hugging +the houses on his right, and giving the wall a wide berth. Although the +cold wind blew in his face he paused several times to listen, nor did he +enter his bastion until he had patiently made certain that it was +untenanted.</p> + +<p>The night was very dark: it was the night of December the 12th, old +style, the longest and deadest of the year. Far below him in the black +abyss on which the wall looked down, a few oil lamps marked the island +and the town beyond the Rhone. Behind him, on his left, a glimmer +escaping here and there from the upper windows marked the line of the +Corraterie, of which the width is greatest at the end farthest from the +river. Near the far extremity of the rampart a bright light marked the +Porte Neuve, distant about two hundred yards from his post, and about +seventy or eighty from the Porte Tertasse, the inner gate which +corresponded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> with it. Straight from him to the Porte Neuve ran the +rampart a few feet high on the inner side, some thirty feet high on the +outer, but shrouded for the present in a black gloom that defied his +keenest vision.</p> + +<p>He waited more than an hour, his ears on the alert. At the end of that +time, he drew a deep breath of relief. A step that might have been the +step of a sentry pacing the rampart, and now pausing, now moving on, +began to approach him. It came on, paused, came on, paused—this time +close at hand. Two or three dull sounds followed, then the sharper noise +of a falling stone. Immediately the foot of the sentry, if sentry it +was, began to retreat.</p> + +<p>Claude drove his nails into the palms of his hands and waited, waited +through an eternity, waited until the retreating foot had almost +reached, as he judged, the Porte Tertasse. Then he stole out, groped his +way to the wall, and passed his hand along the outer side until he came +to the nail. He found it. It had been made secure, and from it depended +a thin string.</p> + +<p>He set to work at once to draw up the string. There was a small weight +attached to it, which rose slowly until it reached his hand. It was a +stone about as large as the fist, and of a whitish colour.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<h3>IN TWO CHARACTERS.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">After</span> the wave, the trough of the wave; after action, passion. Not to +sink a little after rising to the pitch of self-sacrifice, not to shed, +when the deed is done, some bitter tears of regret and self-pity, were +to be cast in a mould above the human.</p> + +<p>When the cloak—dear garment!—had slipped from her hands and the head +bent that its owner might raise the cloak had passed from sight—when +Anne had fled to the farther side of the room, to the farther side of +the settle, and had heard his step die away, she would have given the +world to see him again, to feel his arm about her, to hear the sound of +his voice. The tears streamed down her face; in vain she tried to stay +them with her hands, in vain she chid herself for her weakness. "It is +for him! for him!" she moaned, and hid her face in her hands. But words +stay no tears; and on the hearth which his coming had changed for her, +standing where she had first seen him, where she had heard his first +words of love, where she had tried him, she wept bitter tears for him.</p> + +<p>The storm died away at last—for after every storm falls a calm—but it +left the empty house, the empty heart, silence. Her mother? She had +still her mother, and with lagging footsteps she went upstairs to her. +But she found her in a deep sleep, and she descended again, and going to +his room began to put together his few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> belongings, the clothes he had +worn, the books he had read; that if the house were entered they might +not be lost to him. She buried her face in his garments and kissed them, +fondly, tenderly, passionately, lingering over the task, and at last +putting the things from her with reluctance. A knot of ribbon which she +had seen him wear in the neck of his shirt on holidays she took and hid +in her bosom, and fetching a length of her own ribbon she put it in +place of the other. This she thought she could do without fear of +bringing suspicion on him, for he alone would discern the exchange. +Would he notice it? Would he weep when he found the ribbon as she wept +now? And fondle it tenderly? At the thought her tears gushed forth.</p> + +<p>The day wore on. Supported by the knowledge that even a slight shock +might cast her mother into one of her fits, Anne hid her fears from her, +though the effort was as the lifting of a great weight. On the pretext +that the light hurt the invalid's sight, she shaded the window, and so +hid the hollows under her eyes and the wan looks that must have betrayed +the forced nature of her cheerfulness. As a rule Madame Royaume's eyes, +quickened by love, were keen; but this day she slept much, and the night +was fairly advanced when Anne, in the act of preparing to lie down, +turned and saw her mother sitting erect in the bed.</p> + +<p>The old woman's eyes were strangely bright. Her face wore an intent +expression which arrested her daughter where she stood.</p> + +<p>"Mother, what is it?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"Listen!" Madame Royaume answered. "What is that?"</p> + +<p>"I hear nothing," Anne said, hoping to soothe her. And she approached +the bed.</p> + +<p>"I hear much," her mother retorted. "Go! Go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> and see, child, what it +is!" She pointed to the door, but, before Anne could reach it, she +raised her hand for silence. "They are crossing the ditch," she +muttered, her eyes dilated. "One, two, many, many of them! Many of them! +They are throwing down hurdles, and wattles, and crossing on them! And +there is a priest with them——"</p> + +<p>"Mother!"</p> + +<p>"A priest!" Her voice dropped a little. "The ladders are black," she +whispered. "Black ladders! Ay, swathed in black cloth; and now they set +them against the wall. The priest absolves them, and they begin to +mount. They are mounting! They are mounting now."</p> + +<p>"Mother!" There was sharp pain in Anne's voice. Who does not know the +heartache with which it is seen that the mind of a loved one is +wandering from us? And yet she was puzzled. She dreaded one of those +scenes in which her young strength was barely sufficient to control and +soothe the frail form before her. But they did not begin as a rule in +this fashion; here, though the mind wandered, was an absence of the +wildness to which she had become inured. Here—and yet as she listened, +as she looked, now at her mother, now into the dimly lighted corners of +the room, where those dilated eyes seemed to see things unseen by her, +black things, she found this phase no less disquieting than the other.</p> + +<p>"Hush!" Madame Royaume continued, heeding her daughter's interruption no +farther than by that word and an impatient movement of the hand. "A +stone has fallen and struck one down. They raise him, he is lifeless! +No, he moves, he rises. They set other ladders against the wall. They +mount now by tens and twenties—and—it is growing dark—dark, child. +Dark!" She seemed to try to put away a curtain with her hands.</p> + +<p>"Mother!" Anne cried, bending over the bed and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> taking her mother's +hand. "Don't, dear! Don't! You frighten me."</p> + +<p>The old woman raised her hand for silence, and continued to gaze before +her. Anne's arm was round her; the girl marked with astonishment, almost +with awe, how strongly and stiffly she sat up. She marvelled still more +when her mother murmured in the same tone, "I can see no more," sighed, +and sank gently back. Anne bent over her. "I can—see no more," Madame +Royaume repeated; "I can——" She was asleep!</p> + +<p>Anne bent over her, and after listening a while to her easy breathing, +heaved a deep sigh of relief. Her mother had been talking in her sleep; +and she, Anne had alarmed herself for nothing. Nevertheless, as she +turned from the bed she looked nervously over her shoulder. The other's +wandering or dream, or what it was, had left a vague disquiet in her +mind, and presently she took the lamp and, opening the door, passed out, +and, with her hands still on the latch, listened.</p> + +<p>Suddenly her heart bounded, her startled eyes leapt upward to the +ceiling. Close to her, above her, she heard a sound.</p> + +<p>It came from a trap-door that led to the tiles; a trap that even as her +eyes reached it, lifted itself with a rending sound. Save for the +bedridden woman, Anne was alone in the house; and for one instant it was +a question whether she held her ground or fled shrieking into the room +she had left. For an instant; then the instinct to shield her mother won +the day, and with fascinated eyes she watched the legs of a man drop +through the aperture, watched a body follow, and—and at last a face!</p> + +<p>Claude's face! But changed. Even while she sank gasping against the +wall—for the surprise was too much for her—even while he took the lamp +from her shaking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> hand and supported her, and relief and joy began to +run like wine through her veins, she knew it. The forceful look, the +tightened lips, the eyes gleaming with determination—all were new to +her. They gave him an aspect so old, so strange, that when he had kissed +her once she put him from her.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she said. "Oh, Claude! What is it? What has happened?"</p> + +<p>Letting a smile appear—but such a smile as did not reassure her—he +signed to her to go before him downstairs. She complied; but at the foot +of the first flight she stopped, unable to bear the suspense longer. She +turned to him again. "What is it?" she cried. "Something has happened?"</p> + +<p>"Something is happening," he answered. His eyes shone, exultant. "But it +is a matter for others! We may be easy!"</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"The Savoyards are in Geneva."</p> + +<p>She started incredulously. "In Geneva? Here?" she exclaimed. "The +enemy?"</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>"Here? In Geneva?" she repeated. She could not have heard aright.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>But she still looked at him; she could not reconcile his words with his +manner. This, the greatest calamity that could happen, this which she +had been brought up to fear as the worst and most awful of +catastrophes—could he talk of it, could he announce it after this +fashion? With a smile, in a tone of pleasantry? He must be playing with +her. She passed her hand over her eyes, and tried to be calm. "But all +is quiet?" she said.</p> + +<p>"All is quiet now," he answered. "After midnight the trouble will +begin."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> + +<p>Still she could not understand him. His face said one thing, his voice +another. Besides, the town was quiet: no sound of riot or disturbance, +no clash of steel, no tramp of feet penetrated the walls. And the house +stood on the ramparts where the first alarm must be given. "Do you +mean," she asked at last, her eyes fixed steadfastly on him, "that they +are going to attack the town after midnight?"</p> + +<p>"They are here now," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "They scaled +the wall after the guard had gone round at eleven, and they are lying by +tens and twenties along the outer side of the Corraterie, waiting for +the hour and the signal."</p> + +<p>She passed her hand across her closed eyes, and looked again, +perplexedly. "And you," she said, "you? I do not understand. If this be +so, what are you doing here?"</p> + +<p>"Here?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, here! Why have you not given the alarm in the town?"</p> + +<p>"Why should I give the alarm?" he retorted coolly. "To save those who +hounded you through the streets two days ago? To save those who +to-morrow may put you to the torture and burn you like the vilest of +creatures? Save them?" with a grim smile. "No, let them save +themselves!"</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>"I would save you! not them! I would save your mother! not them! And it +is done. Let the Grand Duke triumph to-night, let Savoy take Geneva, and +our good townsfolk will have other matters to occupy their thoughts +to-morrow! Ay, and through many and many a morrow to come! Save them?" +with a grim note in his voice; "no, I save you. Let them save +themselves! It is God's mercy on us, and His judgment on them!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> Or why +happens it to-night? To-night of all nights in the year?"</p> + +<p>She was very pale, and for a moment remained silent: whether she felt +the temptation to which he had succumbed, or was seeking what she should +say to move him, is uncertain. At last, "It is impossible," she +murmured, in a low voice. "You have not thought of the women and +children, of the fathers and mothers who will suffer."</p> + +<p>"And your mother!"</p> + +<p>"Is one. God forbid that I should save her at the expense of all! God +forbid!" she wailed, as if she feared her own strength, as if the +temptation almost overcame her. And then laying her hand on his arm and +looking up to him—his face was set so hard—"You will not do this!" she +said. "You will not do this! Could we be happy after? Could we be happy +with blood on our heads, and on our hands, and on our hearts! Happy, oh +no! Claude, dear heart, dear husband, we cannot buy happiness so, or +life so, or love so! We cannot save ourselves—so! We cannot play God's +part—so!"</p> + +<p>"It is not we who do it," he answered stubbornly.</p> + +<p>"It is we who may prevent it!" she answered, leaning more heavily on his +arm, looking up to him more earnestly; with pleading eyes which it was +hard to refuse. "Would you, to save us, have betrayed Geneva?"</p> + +<p>He groaned—she had moved him. "God knows!" he answered. "To save you—I +think I would!"</p> + +<p>"You would not! You would not!" she repeated. "Neither must you do this! +Honour, faith, duty, all forbid it!"</p> + +<p>"And love?" he cried.</p> + +<p>"And love!" she answered. "For who would love dishonoured? Who would +love in shame? No; go as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> you have come, and give the alarm! And do, and +help! Go, as you have come! But how"—with a startled look as she +thought of the trap-door—"did you come?"</p> + +<p>"By the Tertasse Gate," he explained. "There were but two men on guard, +and they were asleep. I passed them unseen, climbed the stairs to the +leads—I have been up twice before—and crossed the roofs. I knew I +could come this way unseen, and if I had come by the door——"</p> + +<p>She understood and cut him short. "Then go as you came and rouse the +watch in the gate!" she cried feverishly. "Rouse them and all, and +Heaven grant you be not too late! Go, Claude, for the love of me, for +the love of God, go quickly!" Her hands on his arm shook with eagerness. +"So that, if there be treachery here——"</p> + +<p>"There is treachery!" he said darkly. "Grio——"</p> + +<p>"We at least shall have no part in it! You will go? You will go?" she +repeated, clinging to his arm, trembling against him, looking up to him +with eyes which he could not resist. Love wrestled here, on the higher, +the nobler, the unselfish side, and came the stronger out of the +contest. There were tears in his eyes as he answered.</p> + +<p>"I will go. You are right, Anne. But you will be alone."</p> + +<p>"I run no greater risk than others," she answered. He held her to him, +and their lips met once. And in that instant, her heart beating against +his, she comprehended to what she was sending him, into what peril of +life, into what a dark hell of force and fire and blood; and her arms +clung to him as if she could not let him go. Then, "Go, and God keep +you!" she murmured in a choked voice. And she thrust him from her.</p> + +<p>A moment later he was on the roof, and she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> kneeling where he had +left her, bowed down, with her face on the bare stairs in an agony of +prayer for him. But not for long; she had her part to do. She hurried +down to the living-room and made sure that the strong shutters were +secured; then up to Basterga's room and to Grio's, and as far as her +strength went she piled the furniture against the iron-barred casements +that looked on to the ramparts. While she worked her ears listened for +the alarm, but, until she had finished and was ascending with the light +to her mother's room she heard nothing. Then a distant cry, a faint +challenge, the drum-drum of running feet, a second cry—and silence. It +might be his death-cry she had heard; and she stood with a white face, +shivering, waiting, bearing the woman's burden of suspense. To lie down +by her mother was impossible; rapine, murder, fire, all the horrors, all +the perils of a city taken by surprise, crowded into her mind. Yet they +moved her not so much as the dangers he ran, whom she had sent forth to +confront them, whom she had plucked from her own breast that he might +face them!</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Claude, after gaining the tiles, paused a moment to consider +his next step. Far below him, on the narrow, black triangle of the +Corraterie, lay the Savoyards, some three hundred in number, who had +scaled the wall. Out of the darkness of the plain, beyond and below +them, rose the faint, distant quacking of alarmed ducks, proving that +others of the enemy moved there. Even as he listened, the whirr of a +wild goose winging its flight over the city came to his ear. On his +left, with a dim oil lamp marking, here or there, the meeting of four +ways, the town slept unsuspicious, recking nothing of the fate prepared +for it.</p> + +<p>It was a solemn moment, and Claude on the roof under the night sky, felt +it to be so. Restored to his higher self, he breathed a prayer for +guidance and for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> her, and was as eager now as he had before been cold. +But not the less for that did he ply the wits that, working freely in +this hour of peril, proved him one of those whom battle owns for master. +He had gathered enough, lying on his face in the bastion, to feel sure +that the forlorn hope which had gained a footing on the wall would not +move until the arrival of the main body whom it was its plan to admit by +the Porte Neuve. To carry the alarm to the Porte Neuve, therefore, and +secure that gate, seemed to be the first and most urgent step; since to +secure the Tertasse and the other inner gates would be of little avail, +if the main body of the enemy were once in possession of the ramparts. +The course that at first sight seemed the most obvious—to enter the +town, give the alarm at the town hall, and set the tocsin ringing—he +rejected; for while the town was arming, the three hundred who had +entered might seize the Porte Neuve, and so secure the entrance of the +main body.</p> + +<p>These calculations occupied no more than a few seconds: then, his mind +made up to the course he must pursue, he crawled as quickly, but also as +quietly, as he could along the dark parapets until he gained the leads +of the Tertasse. Safe so far, he proceeded, with equal or greater +caution, to descend the narrow cork-screw staircase, that led to the +guard-room on the ground floor.</p> + +<p>He forgot that it is more easy to ascend without noise than to descend. +With all his care he stumbled when he was within three steps of the +bottom. He tried to save himself, but fell against the half-open door, +flung it wide, and, barely keeping his feet, found himself face to face +with the two watchmen, who, startled by the noise, had sprung to their +feet, thinking the devil was upon them. One, with an oath upon his lips, +reached for his half-pike; his fellow, less sober, steadied himself by +resting a hand on the table.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p> + +<p>If they gave the alarm, his plan was gone. The enemy, finding themselves +discovered, would seize the Porte Neuve. "One minute!" he cried +breathlessly. "Let me explain!"</p> + +<p>"You!" the more sober retorted, glaring fiercely at him. "Who the devil +are you? And where have you been?"</p> + +<p>"Quiet, man, quiet!"</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Treason!" Claude answered, imploring silence by a gesture. "Treason! +That is what it is! But for God's sake, no noise! No noise, man, or our +throats are as good as cut! Savoy has the wall!"</p> + +<p>The man stared, and no wonder. "You are mad," he said, "or drunk! +Savoy——"</p> + +<p>"Fool, it is so!" Claude cried, beside himself with impatience.</p> + +<p>"Savoy?"</p> + +<p>"They are under the trees on the ramparts within a few yards of us now! +Three hundred of them! A word and you will feel their pikes in your +breast! Listen to me!"</p> + +<p>But with a laugh of derision the drunken man cut him short. "Savoy +here—on the wall!" he hiccoughed. "And we on guard!"</p> + +<p>"It is so!" Claude urged. "Believe me, it is so! And we must be wary."</p> + +<p>"You lie, young man! And I'll—hic—I'll prove it! See here! Savoy on +the wall, indeed! Savoy? And we on guard?"</p> + +<p>He lurched in two strides to the outer door, seized it, and supported +himself by it. Claude leant forward to stop him, but could not reach, +being on the other side of the table. He called to the other to do so. +"Stop him!" he said. "Stop him!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p> + +<p>The man might have done so, but he did not stir; and "Stop him?" the sot +answered, his hand on the door. "Not—two of you—will stop him! Now, +then! Savoy, indeed! On the wall? I'll show you!"</p> + +<p>He let the door go, and reeled three paces into the darkness outside, +waving his hands as if he drove chickens. "Savoy! Savoy!" he cried; but +whether in drunken bravado, in derision, or in pure disbelief, God only +knows! For the word had barely passed his lips the second time before a +gurgling scream followed, freezing the hearts of the two listeners; and, +before the second guard could close the door or move from his place on +the hearth, four men sprang in out of the darkness, and bore him back. +Before he had struck a blow they had pinned him against the wall.</p> + +<p>Claude owed his escape to his position behind the door. They did not see +him as they sprang in, intent on the one they did see. He knew +resistance to be futile, and a bound carried him into the darkness of +the cork-screw staircase. Once there, he dared not move. Thence he saw +and heard what followed.</p> + +<p>The man pinned against the wall, with the point of a knife flickering +before his eyes, begged piteously for his life.</p> + +<p>"Then silence!" Basterga answered—for the foremost who had entered was +he. "A word and you die!"</p> + +<p>"Better let me finish him at once!" Grio growled. The prisoner's face +was ashen, his eyes were starting from his head. "Dead men give no +alarms."</p> + +<p>"Mercy! Mercy!" the man gasped.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay, let him live," Basterga said good-naturedly. "But he must be +gagged. Turn your face to the wall, my man!"</p> + +<p>The poor wretch complied with gratitude. In a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> twinkling the Paduan's +huge fingers closed round his neck, and over his wind-pipe. "Now +strike," the big man hissed. "He will make no noise!"</p> + +<p>With a sickening thud Grio's knife sank between the shoulders, a moment +the body writhed in Basterga's herculean grip, then it sank lifeless to +the floor. "Had you struck him, fool," Basterga muttered wrathfully, +wiping a little blood from his sleeve, "as you wanted to strike him, he +had squealed like a pig! Now 'tis the same, and no noise. Ha! Seize +him!"</p> + +<p>He spoke too late. Claude had seen his opportunity, and as the +treacherous blow was struck had crept forth. At the moment the other saw +him he bounded over the threshold. Even as his feet touched the ground a +man who stood outside lunged at him with a pike but missed him—a +chance, for Claude had not seen the striker. The next moment the young +man had launched himself into the darkness and was running for his life +across the Corraterie in the direction of the Porte Neuve.</p> + +<p>He knew that his foes were lying on every side of him, and the cry of +"Seize him! Seize him!" went with him, making every step a separate +peril. He could not see a yard, but he was young and fleet and active; +and the darkness covering him, the men were confused. Over more than one +black object he bounded like a deer. Once a man rising in front of him +brought him heavily to the ground, but by good fortune it was his foot +struck the man, and on the head, and the fellow lay still and let him +rise. A moment later another gripped him, but Claude and he fell +together, and the younger man, rolling nimbly sideways, got clear and to +his feet again, made for the wall on his right, turned left again, and +already thought himself over the threshold of the Porte Neuve. The cry +"Aux Armes! Aux Armes!" was already on his lips, he thought he had +succeeded, when between his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> eyes and the faintly lighted gateway a +dozen forms rose as by magic and poured in before him—so near to him +that, unable to check himself, he jostled the hindmost.</p> + +<p>He might have entered with them, so near was he. But he saw that he was +too late; he guessed that the outcry behind him had precipitated the +attack, and, arresting himself outside the ring of light, but within a +few paces of the gateway, he threw himself on the ground and awaited the +event. It was not long in declaring itself. For a few seconds a dull +roar of shots and shouts and curses filled the gate. Then out again, +helter-skelter, with a flash of exploding powder and a whirl of steel +and blows, came defenders and assailants in a crowd, the former bent on +escaping, the latter on cutting them off from the Porte Tertasse and the +town. For an instant after they had poured out the gate seemed quiet, +and with his eyes upon it, Claude rose, first to his knees and then to +his feet, paused a moment in doubt, then darted in and entered the +guard-room.</p> + +<p>The firelight—the other lights in the small, dingy chamber had been +trampled under foot—showed him two wounded men groaning on the floor, +and the body of a third who lay apparently dead. Claude bent over one, +found what he wanted—a half-pike—and glided to the door of the stairs +that led to the roof. It was in the same position as in the Tertasse. He +opened it, passed through it, mounted two steps, and in the darkness +came plump against some one who seized him by the throat.</p> + +<p>The man had no weapon—at any rate he did not strike; and Claude, taken +by surprise, could not level his pike in the narrow stairway. For a +moment they wrestled, Claude striving to bring his weapon to bear on his +foe, the latter trying to strangle him. But the advantage of the stairs +lay with the first comer, who was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> the uppermost, and gradually he bore +Claude back and back. The young man, however, would not let go such hold +as he had, and both were on the point of falling out on the floor of the +guard-room when the light disclosed Claude's face.</p> + +<p>"You are of us!" his opponent panted. And abruptly he released his grip.</p> + +<p>"Geneva!"</p> + +<p>"I know you!" The man was one of the guard who, in the alarm, had +escaped into the stairway. "I know you! You live in the Corraterie!"</p> + +<p>Claude wasted not a second. "Up!" he cried. "We can hold the roof! Up, +man, for your life! For your life! It is our only chance!"</p> + +<p>With the fear of death upon him, the other needed no second telling. He +turned, and groped upwards in haste; and Claude followed, treading on +his heels; nor a moment too soon. While they were still within the +staircase, which their elbows rubbed on either side, they heard the +enemy swarm into the room below. Cries of triumph, of "Savoy! Savoy!" of +"Ville gagnée! gagnée!" hummed dully up to them, and proclaimed the +narrowness of their escape. Then the night air met their faces, they +bent their heads and passed out upon the leads; they had above them the +stars, and below them all the world of night, with its tramp of hidden +feet, its swaying lights so tiny and distant, and here and there its cry +of "Savoy! Savoy!" that showed that the enemy, relying on their capture +of the Porte Neuve, were casting off disguise.</p> + +<p>Claude heard and saw all, but lost not a moment. He had not made this +haste for his life only: before he had risen to his knees or set foot in +the gate, he had formed his plan. "The Portcullis!" he cried. "The +Portcullis! Where are the chains? On this side?" Less than a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> week +before he had stood and watched the guard as they released it and raised +it again for practice.</p> + +<p>The soldier, familiar with the tower, should have been able to go to the +chains at once. But though he had struggled for his life and was ready +to struggle for it again, he had not recovered his nerve, and he shrank +from leaving the stairs, in holding which their one chance consisted. He +muttered, however, that the winch was on such and such a side, and, with +his head in the stairway, indicated the direction with his hand. Claude +groped his way to the spot, his breath coming fast; fortunately he laid +his hand almost at once on the chains and felt for the spike, which he +knew he must draw or knock out. That done, the winch would fly round, +and the huge machine fall by its own weight.</p> + +<p>On a sudden, "They are coming!" the soldier cried in a terrified +whisper. "My God, they are coming! Come back! Come back!" For Claude had +their only weapon, and the guard was defenceless. Defenceless by the +side of the stairs up which the foe was climbing!</p> + +<p>The hair rose on Claude's head, but he set his teeth; though the man +died, though he died, the portcullis must fall! More than his own life, +more than the lives of both of them, more than lives a hundred or a +thousand hung on that bolt; the fate of millions yet unborn, the freedom +and the future of a country hung on that bolt which would not give +way—though now he had found it and was hammering it. Grinding his +teeth, the sweat on his brow, he beat on it with the pike, struck the +iron with the strength of despair, stooped to see what was amiss—still +with the frenzied prayers of the other in his ears—saw it, and struck +again and again—and again!</p> + +<p>Whirr! The winch flew round, barely missing his head. With a harsh, +grinding sound that rose with incredible swiftness to a scream, piercing +the night, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> ponderous grating slid down, crashed home and barred all +entrance—closed the Porte Neuve. It did more, though Claude did not +know it. It cut off the engineer from the outer gate, of which the keys +were at the Town Hall, and against which in another minute, another +sixty seconds, he had set his petard. That set and exploded, Geneva had +lain open to its enemies. As it was, so small was the margin, so fatally +accurate the closing, that when the day rose, it disclosed a portent. +When the victors came to examine the spot they found beneath the +portcullis the mangled form of one of the engineers, and beside him lay +his petard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<h3>ARMES! ARMES!</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Claude</span> did not know all that he had done, or the narrow margin of time +by which he had succeeded. But he did know that he had saved the gate; +that gate on the outer side of which four thousand of the picked troops +of Savoy were waiting the word to enter. He knew that he had done it +with death at his elbow and with the cries of his panic-stricken comrade +in his ears. And in the moment of success he rose above the common +level. He felt himself master of fear, lord of death; in the exultation +of his triumph he thought nothing too hard or too dangerous for him.</p> + +<p>It was well perhaps that he had this feeling, for he had not a moment to +waste if he would save himself. As the portcullis struck the ground with +a thunderous crash and rebounded, and he turned from the winch to the +stairhead, a last warning, cut short in the utterance, reached him, and +he saw through the gloom that his companion was already in the grip of a +figure which had succeeded in passing out of the staircase. Claude did +not hesitate. With a roar of rage he ran like a bull at the enemy, +struck him full under the arm with his pike, and drove him doubled up +into the stairhead, with such force that the Genevese had much ado to +free himself.</p> + +<p>The man was struck helpless—dead for aught that appeared at the moment. +But the pike coming in contact<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> with the edge of his corselet had not +penetrated, and Claude recovered it quickly, and levelled it in waiting +for the next comer. At the same time he adjured his comrade to secure +the fallen man's weapon. The guard seized it, and the two waited, with +suspended breath, for the sally which they were sure must come.</p> + +<p>But the stairs were narrow, the fallen body blocked the outlet, and +possibly the assailants had expected no resistance. Finding it, they +thought better of it. A moment and they could be heard beating a +retreat.</p> + +<p>"Pardieu! they are going!" the guard exclaimed; and he began to shake.</p> + +<p>"Ay, but they will return!" Claude answered grimly. "Have no fear of +that! The portcullis is down, and the only way to raise it, is up these +stairs. But it will be hard if, armed as we are now, we cannot baffle +them! Has he no pistol?"</p> + +<p>Marcadel—that was the soldier's name—felt about the prostrate man, but +found none; and bidding him listen and not move for his life—but there +was little need of the injunction—Claude passed over to the inner edge +of the roof, facing the Corraterie. Here he raised his voice and shouted +the alarm with all the force of his lungs, hoping thus to supplement the +cries which here and there had been raised by the Savoyards.</p> + +<p>"Aux Armes! Armes!" he cried. "The enemy is at the gate! To arms! To +arms!"</p> + +<p>A man ran out of the gateway at the sound of his shouting, levelled a +musket and fired at him. The slugs flew wide, and Claude, lifted above +himself, yelled defiance, knowing that the more shots were fired the +more quickly and widely would the alarm be spread.</p> + +<p>That it was spreading, that it was being taken up, his position on the +gateway enabled him to discern, distant as the Porte Neuve lay from the +heart of the town. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> flare of light at the rear of the Tertasse, and a +confused hub-bub in that quarter, seemed to show that, though the +Savoyards had seized the gate, they had not penetrated beyond it. Away +on his extreme left, where the Porte de la Monnaye, hard by his old +bastion, overlooked the Rhone and the island, were lights again, and a +sound of a commotion as though there too the enemy held the gate, but +found farther progress closed against them. On the Treille to his right, +the most westerly of the three inner gates, and the nearest to the Town +Hall, the enemy seemed to be preparing an attack, for as he ceased to +shout, muskets exploded in that direction; and as far as he could judge +the shots were aimed outwards.</p> + +<p>With such alarms at three inner points—to say nothing of the noise at +the more distant Porte Neuve—it seemed impossible that any part of the +city could remain in ignorance of the attack. In truth, as he stood +peering down into the dark Corraterie, and listening to the heavy tramp +of unseen feet, now here, now there, and the orders that rose from +unseen throats—even as he prepared to turn, summoned by a warning cry +from Marcadel, the first note of the alarm-bell smote his ear.</p> + +<p>One moment and the air hummed with its heavy challenge, and all of +Geneva that still slept awoke and stood upright. Men ran half naked from +their houses. Boys in their teens snatched arms and sallied forth. White +faces looked into the night from barred windows or lofty dormers; and +across narrow wynds and under dark Gothic entries men dragged huge +chains and hooked them, and hurried on to where the alarm seemed loudest +and the risk most pressing. In an instant in pitch-dark alleys lights +gleamed and steel jarred on stone; out of the darkness deep voices +shouted questions, or answered or gave orders, and from a thousand +houses, alike in the wealthy Bourg du Four with its three-storied piles +and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> the sordid lanes about the water and the bridges, went up one +wail of horror and despair. Men who had dreamed of this night for years, +and feared it as they feared God's day, awoke to find their dream a +fact, and never while they lived forgot that awakening. While women left +alone in their homes bolted and barred and fell to prayers; or clasped +to their breasts babes who prattled, not understanding the turmoil, or +why their mothers looked strangely on them.</p> + +<p>Something of this, something of the horror of that sudden awakening, and +of the confusion in the narrow streets, where voices cried that the +enemy were here or there or in a third place, and the bravest knew not +which way to turn, penetrated to Claude on the roof of the tower; and at +the thought of Anne and the perils that encircled her—for about the +house in the Corraterie the uproar rose loudest—his heart melted. But +he had not long to dwell on her peril; not long to dwell on anything. +Before the great bell had hurled its warning abroad three times he had +to go. Marcadel's voice, urgent, insistent, summoned him to the +stairhead.</p> + +<p>"They are mustering at the bottom!" the man whispered over his shoulder. +He was on his knees, his head in the hood of the staircase. The wounded +man, breathing stertorously, still cumbered the upper steps. Marcadel +rested one hand on him.</p> + +<p>Claude thrust in his head and listened. He could hear, above the thick +breathing of the Savoyard, the stir of men muttering and moving in the +darkness below; and now the stealthy shuffle of feet, and again the +faint clang of a weapon against the wall. Doubtless it had dawned on +some one in command below, that here on this tower lay the keys of +Geneva: that by themselves three hundred men could not take, nor hold if +they took, a town manned by five or six thousand; consequently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> that if +Savoy would succeed in the enterprise so boldly begun, she must by hook +or crook raise this portcullis and open this gate. As a fact, +Brunaulieu, the captain of the forlorn hope, had passed the word that +the tower must be taken at any cost; and had come himself from the Porte +Tertasse, where a brisk conflict was beginning, to see the thing done.</p> + +<p>Claude did not know this, but had he known it, it would not have reduced +his courage.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I hear them," he whispered in answer to the soldier's words. "But +they have not mounted far yet. And when they come, if two pikes cannot +hold this doorway which they can pass but one at a time, there is no +truth in Thermopylæ!"</p> + +<p>"I know naught of that," the other answered, rising nervously to his +feet. "I don't favour heights. Give me the lee of a wall and fair +odds——"</p> + +<p>"Odds?" Claude echoed vain-gloriously—but only the stars attended to +him—"I would not have another man!"</p> + +<p>Marcadel seized him by the sleeve. His voice rose almost to a scream. +"But, by Heaven, there is another man!" he cried. "There!" He pointed +with a shaking hand to the outer corner of the leads, in the +neighbourhood of the place where the winch of the portcullis stood. "We +are betrayed! We are dead men!" he babbled.</p> + +<p>Claude made out a dim figure, crouching against the battlement; and the +thought, which was also in Marcadel's mind, that the enemy had set a +ladder against the wall and outflanked them, rendered him desperate. At +any rate there was but one on the roof as yet: and quick as thought the +young man lowered his pike and charged the figure.</p> + +<p>With a shrill scream the man fell on his knees before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> him. "Mercy!" +cried a voice he knew. "Mercy! Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"</p> + +<p>It was Louis Gentilis. Claude halted, looked at him in amazement, +spurned him with his foot. "Up, coward, and fight for your life then!" +he said. "Or others will kill you. How come you here?"</p> + +<p>The lad still grovelled. "I was in the guard-room," he whimpered. "I had +come with a message—from the Syndic."</p> + +<p>"The Syndic Blondel?"</p> + +<p>"Yes! To remind the Captain that he was to go the rounds at eleven +exactly. It was late when I got there and they—oh, this dreadful +night—they broke in, and I, hid on the stairs."</p> + +<p>"Well, you can hide no longer. You have got to fight now!" Claude +answered grimly, "There are no more stairs for any of us except to +heaven! I advise you to find something, and do your worst. Take the +winch-bar if you can find nothing else! And——"</p> + +<p>He broke off. Marcadel, who had remained at the stairhead, was calling +to him in a voice that could no longer be resisted—a voice of despair. +Claude ran to him. He found him with his head in the stairway, but with +his pike shortened to strike. "They are coming!" he muttered over his +shoulder. "They are more than half-way up now. Be ready and keep your +eyes open. Be ready!" he continued after a pause. "They are nearly—here +now!" His breath began to come quickly; at last stepping back a pace and +bringing his point to the charge. "They are here!" he shouted. "On +guard!"</p> + +<p>Claude stooped an inch lower, and with gleaming eyes, and feet set +warily apart, waited the onset; waited with suspended breath for the +charge that must come. He could hear the gasps of the wounded man who +lay on the uppermost step; and once close to him he caught<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> a sound of +shuffling, moving feet, that sent his heart into his mouth. But seconds +passed, and more seconds, and glare as he might into the black mouth of +the staircase, from which the hood averted even the light of the stars, +he could make out nothing, no movement, no sign of life!</p> + +<p>The suspense was growing intolerable. And all the time behind him the +alarm-bell was flinging "Doom! Doom!" down on the city, and a thousand +sounds of fear and strife clutched at his mind and strove to draw it +from the dark gap at which he waited, as a dog waits for a rat at the +mouth of its hole. His breath began to come quickly, his knees shook. He +heard his companion gasp—human nerves could stand it no longer. And +then, just as he felt that, come what might, he must plunge his pike +into the darkness, and settle the question, the shuffling sound came +anew and steadied him, and he set his teeth and waited—waited still.</p> + +<p>But nothing happened, nothing moved. Again the seconds, almost the +minutes passed, and the deep note of the alarm-bell swelled louder and +heavier, filling all the air, all the night, all the world, with its +iron tongue—setting the tower reeling, the head swimming. In spite of +himself, in spite of the fact that he knew his life hung on his +vigilance, his thoughts wandered; wandered to Anne, alone and +defenceless in that hell below him, from which such wild sounds were +beginning to rise; to his own fate if he and Marcadel got the worst; to +the advantage a light properly shaded would have given them, had they +had it. But, alas, they had no light.</p> + +<p>And then, while he thought of that, the world was all light. A sheet of +flame burst from the hood, dazzled, blinded, scorched him; a crashing +report filled his ears; he recoiled. The ball had missed him, had gone +between him and Marcadel and struck neither. But for a moment in pure +amazement, he stood gaping.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p> + +<p>That moment had been his last had the defence lain with him only, or +even with him and Marcadel. It was the senseless form that cumbered the +uppermost step which saved them. The man who had fired tripped over it +as he sprang out. He fell his length on the roof. The next man, less +hasty or less brave, sank down on the obstacle, and blocked the way for +others.</p> + +<p>Before either could rise all was over. Claude brought down his pike on +the head of the first to issue, and laid him lifeless on the leads. The +guard, who was a better man at a pinch than in the anticipation of it, +drove the other back—as he tried to rise—with a wound in the face. +Then with a yell, assured that in the narrow stairhead the enemy could +not use their weapons, the two charged their pikes into the obscurity, +and thrust and thrust, and thrust again, in the cruelty of rage and +fear.</p> + +<p>What they struck, or where they struck, they could not see; but their +ears told them that they did not strike in vain. A shrill scream and the +gurgling cry of a dying man proved it, and the wild struggle that ensued +on the stairs; where the uppermost, weighed down by the fallen men, +turned in a panic on those below and fought with them to force them to +descend.</p> + +<p>Claude shuddered as he listened, as he waited, his pike still levelled; +shuddered at the pitiful groaning that issued from the blackness, +shuddered at the blows he had struck, and the scream that still echoed +in his ears. He had not trembled when he fought, but he trembled at the +thought of it.</p> + +<p>"They are beaten," he muttered huskily.</p> + +<p>"Ay, they are beaten!" Marcadel—he who had trembled before the +fight—answered with exultation. "You were right. We wanted no more men! +But it was near. If this rogue had not tripped our throats would have +suffered."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He was a brave man," Claude answered, leaning heavily on his pike. He +needed its support.</p> + +<p>Marcadel knelt down and felt the man over. "Ay," he said, "he was, to +give the devil his due! And that reminds me. We've a skulker here who +has escaped so far. He shall play his part now. We must have their arms, +but it is dirty work groping in the dark for them; and maybe life enough +in one of them to drive a dagger between one's ribs. He shall do it. +Where is he?"</p> + +<p>Claude was feeling the reaction which ensues upon intense excitement. He +did not answer. Nor did he interfere when Marcadel, pouncing on Louis, +where he crouched in the darkest corner, forced him forward to the head +of the staircase. There the lad fell on his knees weeping futilely, +wailing prayers. But the guard kicked him forward.</p> + +<p>"In!" he said. "You know what you have to do! In, and strip them! Do you +hear? And if you leave as much as a knife——"</p> + +<p>"I won't! I daren't!" Louis screamed. And grovelling on his face on the +leads he clung to whatever offered itself.</p> + +<p>But men who have just passed through a life and death struggle, are +hard. "You won't?" Marcadel answered, applying his boot brutally, but +without effect. "You will! Or you will feel my pike between your ribs! +In! In, my lad!"</p> + +<p>A scream answered each repetition of the word, and proved that the +threat was no empty one. Claude might have intervened, but he remembered +Anne and the humiliations she had suffered in this craven's presence.</p> + +<p>"In!" Marcadel repeated a third time. "And if you leave so much as a +knife upon them I will throw you off the tower. You understand, do you? +Then in, and strip them!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p> + +<p>And driven by sheer torture—for the pike had thrice drawn blood from +his writhing body—Louis crept, weeping and quaking, into the staircase; +and on one of her tormentors Anne was avenged. But Claude was thinking +more of her present peril than of this; he had moved from the stairhead. +A swell in the volume of sound which rose from the Corraterie had drawn +him to that side of the tower, where shaking off the exhaustion which +for a time had overcome him, he was straining his eyes to learn what was +passing in the babel below.</p> + +<p>The sight was a singular one. The Monnaye Gate far to the left, the +Tertasse immediately before him, and the Treille on his right, were the +centres of separate conflagrations. In one place a house, fired by the +petard employed to force the door, was actually alight. In other places +so great was the conflux of torches, the flash and gleam of weapons, and +the babel of sounds that it wrought on the mind the impression of a fire +blazing up in the night. Behind the Porte Tertasse, in the narrow +streets of the Tertasse and the Cité—immediately, therefore, behind the +Royaumes' house—the conflict seemed to rage most hotly, the shots to be +most frequent, the uproar greatest, even the light strongest; for the +reflection of the combat below bathed the Tertasse tower in a lurid +glow. Claude could distinguish the roof of the Royaumes' house; and to +see so much yet to be cut off as completely as if he stood a hundred +miles away, to be so near yet so hopelessly divided, stung him to a new +impatience and a greater daring.</p> + +<p>He returned to Marcadel. "Are we going to stay on this tower?" he cried. +"Shut up here, while this goes forward and we may be of use?"</p> + +<p>"I think we have done our part," the other answered soberly. "If any man +has saved Geneva, it is you! There, man, I give you the credit," he +continued, in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> burst of generosity, "and it is no small thing! For it +might make my fortune. But I have done some little too!"</p> + +<p>"Ay! But cannot we——"</p> + +<p>"What would you have us do more?" the man continued, and with reason. +"Leave the roof to them? 'Tis all they want! Leave them to raise the old +iron grate, and let in—what I hear yonder?" He indicated the darker +outer plain below the wall, whence rose the murmur of halted battalions, +waiting baffled, and uncertain, the opening of the gate.</p> + +<p>"Ay, but if we descend?"</p> + +<p>"May we not win the gate from a score?" Marcadel answered, between +contempt and admiration. "Is that what you mean? And when we have won +it, hold it? No, not if each of us were Gaston of Foix, Bayard, and M. +de Crillon rolled into one! But what is this? We are winning or we are +losing! Which is it?"</p> + +<p>From the Treille Gate had burst a rabble of men; a struggling crowd +illumined by the glare of three or four lights. Pikes and halberds +flashed in the heart of the mob as it swirled and struggled down the +Corraterie in the direction of the gate from which the two men viewed +it. Half-way thither, in the open, its progress seemed to be checked; it +hung and paused, swaying this way and that; it recoiled. But at length, +with a roar of triumph, it rolled on anew over half a dozen prostrate +forms, and in a trice burst about the base of the Porte Neuve, swept, as +it seemed to those above, into the gateway, and—in a twinkling broke +back, repelled by a crashing volley that shook the tower.</p> + +<p>"They are our people!" cried Claude.</p> + +<p>"Ay!"</p> + +<p>"And now is our time!" The lad waved his weapon. "A diversion in the +rear—and 'tis done!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> + +<p>"In Heaven's name stop!" cried Marcadel, and he gripped Claude's sleeve. +"A diversion, ay!" he continued. "But a moment too soon or a moment too +late—and where will we be?"</p> + +<p>He spoke in vain. His words were wasted on the air. Claude, not to be +restrained, had entered the staircase. Pike in hand he felt his way over +the bodies that choked it; by this time he was half-way down the stairs. +Marcadel hesitated, waited a moment, listened; then, partly because +success begets success, and courage courage, partly because he would not +have the triumph taken from him, he too risked all. He snatched from +Gentilis' feeble hands a long pistol, part of the spoils of the +staircase; and, staying only to assure himself that a portion of the +priming still lay in the pan, he hurried after his leader.</p> + +<p>By this time Claude was within four stairs of the guard-room. The low +door that admitted to it stood open; and towards it a man, hearing the +hasty tread of feet, had that moment turned a startled face. There was +no room for anything but audacity, and Claude did not flinch. In two +bounds, he hurled himself through the door on to the man, missed him +with his pike—but was himself missed. In a flash the two were rolling +together on the floor.</p> + +<p>In their fall they brought down a third man, who, swearing horribly, +made repeated stabs at Claude with a dagger. But the only light in the +room came from the fire, the three were interlaced, and Claude was young +and agile as an eel: he evaded the first thrust, and the second. The +third went home in his shoulder, but desperate with pain he seized the +hand that held the poniard, and clung to it; and before the man who had +been the first to fall could regain his pike, or a third man who was +present, but who was wounded, could drag<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> himself, swearing horribly, to +the spot, Marcadel fired from the stairs, and killed the wounded man. +The next instant with a yell of "Geneva!" he sprang on the others under +cover of the smoke that filled the room.</p> + +<p>The combat was still but of two to two; and without the guard-room but +almost within arm's length, were a dozen Savoyards, headed by Picot the +engineer; any one of whom might, by entering, turn the scale. But the +pistol-shot had come to the ears of the attacking party: that instant, +guessing that they had allies within, they rallied and with loud cries +returned to the attack. Even while Marcadel having disposed of one more, +stood over the struggling pair on the floor, doubting where to strike, +the burghers burst a second time into the gateway—on which the +guard-room opened—struck down Picot, and, hacking and hewing, with +cries of "Porte Gagnée! Porte Gagnée!" bore the Savoyards back.</p> + +<p>For the half of a minute the low-groined archway was a whirl of arms and +steel and flame. Half a dozen single combats were in progress at once; +amid yells and groans, and the jar and clash of a score of weapons. But +the burghers, fighting bareheaded for their wives and hearths, were not +to be denied; by-and-by the Savoyards gave back, broke, and saved +themselves. One fierce group cut its way out and fled into the darkness +of the Corraterie. Of the others four men remained on the ground, while +two turned and tried to retreat into the guard-room.</p> + +<p>But on the threshold they met Claude, vicious and wounded, his eyes in a +flame; and he struck and killed the foremost. The other fell under the +blows of the pursuing burghers, and across the two bodies Claude and +Marcadel met their allies, the leaders of the assault. Strange to say, +the foremost and the midmost of these was a bandy-legged tailor, with a +great two-handed sword, red to the hilt; to such a place can valour on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> +such a night raise a man. On his right stood Blandano, Captain of the +Guard, bareheaded and black with powder; on his left Baudichon the +councillor, panting, breathless, his fat face running with sweat and +blood—for he bore an ugly wound—but with unquenchable courage in his +eyes. A man may be fat and yet a lion.</p> + +<p>It was a moment in the lives of the five men who thus met which none of +them ever forgot. "Was it one of you two who lowered the portcullis?" +Blandano gasped, as he leaned an instant on his sword.</p> + +<p>"He did," Marcadel answered, laying his hand on Claude's shoulder. "And +I helped him."</p> + +<p>"Then he has saved Geneva, and you have helped him!" Blandano rejoined +bluntly. "Your name, young man."</p> + +<p>Claude told him.</p> + +<p>"Good!" Blandano answered. "If I live to see the morning light, it shall +not be forgotten!"</p> + +<p>Baudichon leant across the dead, and shook Claude's hand. "For the women +and children!" he said, his fat face shaking like a jelly; though no man +had fought that night with a more desperate valour. "If I live to see +the morning inquire for Baudichon of the council."</p> + +<p>Jehan Brosse, the bandy-legged tailor with the huge sword—he was but +five feet high and no one up to that night had known him for a +hero—squared his shoulders and looked at Claude, as one who takes +another under his protection. "Baudichon the councillor, whom all men +know in Geneva," he said with an affectionate look at the great man—he +was proud of the company to which his prowess had raised him. "You will +not forget the name! no fear of that! And now on!"</p> + +<p>"Ay, on!" Blandano answered, looking round on his panting followers, of +whom some were staunching their wounds and some, with dark faces and +gleaming eyeballs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> were loading and priming their arms. "But I think +the worst is over and we shall win through now. We have this gate safe, +and it is the key, as I told you. If all be well elsewhere, and the main +guards be held——"</p> + +<p>"Ay, but are they?" Baudichon muttered nervously: he reeled a little, +for the loss of blood was beginning to tell upon him. "That is the +question!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + +<h3>BASTERGA AT ARGOS.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> fear that Blandano might postpone the night-round, to a time which +would involve discovery, haunted Blondel; and late on this eventful +evening he despatched Louis, as we have seen, to the Porte Neuve to +remind the Captain of his orders. That done—it was all he could do—the +Syndic sat down in his great chair, and prepared himself to wait. He +knew that he had before him some hours of uncertainty almost +intolerable; and a peril, a hundred times more hard to face, because in +the pinch of it he must play two parts; he must run with the hare and +hunt with the hounds, and, a traitor standing forward for the city he +had betrayed, he must have an eye to his reputation as well as his life.</p> + +<p>He had no doubt of the success of Savoy, the walls once passed. +Moreover, the genius of Basterga had imposed itself upon him as that of +a man unlikely to fail. But some resistance there must be, some +bloodshed—for the town held many devoted men; one hour at least of +butchery, and that followed, he shuddered to think it, by more than one +hour of excess, of cruelty, of rapine. From such things the captured +cities of that day rarely escaped. In all that happened, the resistance +and the peril, he must, he knew, show himself; he must take his part and +run his risk if he would not be known for what he was, if he would not +leave a name that men would spit on!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p> + +<p>Strangely enough it was the moment of discovery and his conduct in that +moment—it was the anticipation of this, that weighed most heavily on +his guilty mind as he sat in his parlour, his hour of retiring long +past, his household in bed. The city slept round him; how long would it +sleep? And when it awoke, how long dared he, how long would it be +natural for him to ignore the first murmur, the succeeding outcry, the +rising alarm? It was not his cue to do overmuch, to precipitate +discovery, or to assume at once the truth to be the truth. But on the +other hand he must not be too backward.</p> + +<p>Try as he would he could not divert his thoughts from this. He saw +himself skulking in his house, listening with a white face to the rush +of armed men along the street. He heard the tumult rising on all sides, +and saw himself stand, guilty and irresolute, between hearth and door, +uncertain if the time had come to go forth. Finally, and before he had +made up his mind to go out, he fancied himself confronted by an entering +face, and in an instant detected. And this it was, this initial +difficulty, oddly enough—and not the subsequent hours of horror, +confusion and danger, of dying men and wailing women—that rode his +mind, dwelt on him and shook his nerves as the crisis approached.</p> + +<p>One consolation he had, and one only; but a measureless one. Basterga +had kept his word. He was cured. Six hours earlier he had taken the +<i>remedium</i> according to the directions, and with every hour that had +elapsed since he had felt new life course through his veins. He had had +no return of pain, no paroxysm; but a singular lightness of body, +eloquent of the change wrought in him and the youth and strength that +were to come, had done what could be done to combat the terrors of the +soul, natural in his situation. Pale he was, despite the potion; in +spite of it he trembled and sweated. But he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> knew himself changed, and +sick at heart as he was, he could only guess at the depths of nervous +despair to which he must have fallen had he not taken the wondrous +draught.</p> + +<p>There was that to the good. That to the good. He would live. And life +was the great thing after all; life and health, and strength. If he had +sold his soul, his country, his friends, at least he would live—if +naught happened to him to-night. If naught—but ah, the thought pierced +him to the heart. He who had proved himself in old days no mean soldier +in the field, who had won honour in more than one fight, felt his brow +grow damp, his knees grow flaccid, knew himself a coward. For the life +which he must risk was not the old life, but the new one which he had +bought so dearly; the new one for which he had given his soul, his +country, and his friends. And he dared not risk that! He dared not let +the winds of heaven blow too roughly on that! If aught befel him this +night, the irony of it! The mockery of it! The deadly, deadly folly of +it!</p> + +<p>He sweated at the thought. He cursed, cursed frantically his folly in +omitting to give himself out for worse than he was; in omitting to take +to his bed early in the day! Then he might have kept it through the +night, through the fight; then he might have avoided risks. Now he felt +that every ball discharged at a venture must strike him; that if he +showed so much as his face at a window death must find its opportunity. +He would not have dared to pass through a street on a windy day now—for +if a tile fell it must fall on him. And he must fight! He must fight!</p> + +<p>His manhood shrivelled within him at the thought. He shuddered. He was +still shuddering, when on the shutter which masked the casement came a +knock, thrice repeated. A cautious knock of which the mere sound implied +an understanding.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Syndic remained motionless, glaring at the window. Everything on a +night like this, and to an uneasy conscience, menaced danger. At length +it occurred to him that the applicant might be Louis, whom he had sent +with the message to the Porte Neuve: and he took the lamp and went to +admit him, albeit reluctantly, for what did the booby mean by returning? +It was late, and only to open at this hour might, in the light cast by +after events, raise suspicions.</p> + +<p>But it was not Louis. The lamp flickering in the draught of the doorway +disclosed a huge dusky form, glimmering metallic here and there, that in +a trice pushed him back, passed by him, entered. It was Basterga. The +Syndic shut the door, and staggered rather than walked after him to the +parlour. There the Syndic set down the lamp, and turned to the scholar, +his face a picture of guilty terror. "What is it?" he muttered. "What +has happened? Is—the thing put off?"</p> + +<p>The other's aspect answered his question. A black corselet with shoulder +pieces, and a feathered steel cap raised Basterga's huge stature almost +to the gigantic. Nor did it need this to render him singular; to draw +the eye to him a second time and a third. The man himself in this hour +of his success, this moment of conscious daring, of reliance on his star +and his strength, towered in the room like a demi-god. "No," he +answered, with a ponderous, exultant smile, slow to come, slow to go. +"No, Messer Blondel. Far from it. It has not been put off."</p> + +<p>"Something has been discovered?"</p> + +<p>"No. We are here. That is all."</p> + +<p>The Syndic supported himself by a hand pressed hard against the table +behind him. "Here?" he gasped. "You are here? You have the town already? +It is impossible."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We have three hundred men in the Corraterie," Basterga answered. "We +hold the Tertasse Gate, and the Monnaye. The Porte Neuve is cut off, and +at our mercy; it will be taken when we give the signal. Beyond it four +thousand men are waiting to enter. We hold Geneva in our grip at +last—at last!" And in an accent half tragic, half ironic, he +declaimed:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dardaniae! Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium et ingens<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gloria Teucrorum! Ferus omnia Jupiter Argos<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Transtulit!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And then more lightly, "If you doubt me, how am I here?" he asked. And +he extended his huge arms in the pride of his strength. "Exercise your +warrant now—if you can, Messer Syndic. Syndic," he continued in a tone +of mockery, "where is your warrant now? I have but this moment," he +pointed to wet stains on his corselet, "slain one of your guards. Do +justice, Syndic! I have seized one of your gates by force. Avenge it, +Syndic! Syndic? ha! ha! Here is an end of Syndics."</p> + +<p>The Syndic gasped. He was a hard man, not to say an arrogant one, little +used to opposition; one who, times and again, had ridden rough-shod over +the views of his fellows. To be jeered at, after this fashion, to be +scorned and mocked by this man who in the beginning had talked so +silkily, moved so humbly, evinced so much respect, played the poor +scholar so well, was a bitter pill. He asked himself if it was for this +he had betrayed his city; if it was for this he had sold his friends. +And then—then he remembered that it was not for this—not for this, but +for life, dear life, warm life, that he had done this thing. And, +swallowing the rage that was rising within him, he calmed himself.</p> + +<p>"It is better to cease to be Syndic than cease to live," he said +coldly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the other had no mind to return to their former relations. "True, O +sage!" he answered contemptuously. "But why not both? Because—shall I +tell you?"</p> + +<p>"I hear——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I hear too! The city is rising!" Basterga listened a moment. +"Presently they will ring the alarm-bell, and——"</p> + +<p>"If you stay here some one may find you!"</p> + +<p>"And find me with you?" Basterga rejoined. He knew that he ought to go, +for his own sake as well as the Syndic's. He knew that nothing was to be +made and much might be lost by the disclosure that was on his tongue. +But he was intoxicated with the success which he had gained; with the +clang of arms, and the glitter of his armed presence. The true spirit of +the man, as happens in intoxication of another kind, rose to the +surface, cruel, waggish, insolent—of an insolence long restrained, the +insolence of the scholar, who always in secret, now in the light, panted +to repay the slights he had suffered, the patronage of leaders, the +scoffs of power. "Ay," he continued, "they may find me with you! But if +you do not mind, I need not. And I was just asking you—why not both? +Life and power, my friend?"</p> + +<p>"You know," Blondel answered, breathing quickly. How he hated the man! +How gladly would he have laid him dead at his feet! For if the fool +stayed here prating, if he were found here by those who within a few +moments would come with the alarm, he was himself a lost man. All would +be known.</p> + +<p>That was the fear in Blondel's mind; the alarm was growing louder each +moment, and drawing nearer. And then in a twinkling, in two or three +sentences, Basterga put that fear into the second place, and set in its +seat emotions that brooked no rival.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why not both?" he said, jeering. "Live and be Syndic, both? Because you +had the scholar's ill, eh, Messer Blondel? Or because your physician +<i>said</i> you had it—to whom I paid a good price—for the advice?" The +devil seemed to look out of the man's eyes, as he spoke in short +sentences, each pointed, each conveying a heart-stab to its hearer.</p> + +<p>"To whom—you gave?" Blondel muttered, his eyes dilated.</p> + +<p>"A good price—for the advice! A good price to tell you, you had it."</p> + +<p>The magistrate's face swelled till it was almost purple, his hands +gripped the front of his coat, and pressed hard against his breast. +"But—the pains?" he muttered. "Did you—but no," with a frightful +grimace, "you lie! you lie!"</p> + +<p>"Did I bribe him—to give you those too?" the other answered, with a +ruthless laugh. "You have alighted on it, most grave and reverend sage. +You have alighted on the exact fact, so clever are you! That was +precisely what I did some months back, after I heard that you, being +fearful as rich men are, had been to him for some fancied ill. You had +two medicines? You remember? The one gave, the other soothed your +trouble. And now that you understand, now that your mind is free from +care, and you can sleep without fear of the scholar's ill—will you not +thank me for your cure, Messer Blondel?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you?" the magistrate panted. "Thank you?" He stepped back two +paces, groping with his hands, as if he sought to support himself by the +table from which he had advanced.</p> + +<p>"Ay, thank me!"</p> + +<p>"No, but I will pay you!" and with the word Blondel snatched from the +table a pistol which he had laid within his reach an hour earlier. +Before the giant, confident in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> his size, discovered his danger, the +muzzle was at his breast. It was too late to move then—three paces +divided the men; but, in his haste to raise the pistol, Blondel had not +shaken from it the handkerchief under which he had hidden it, and the +lock fell on a morsel of the stuff. The next moment Basterga's huge hand +struck aside the useless weapon, and flung Blondel gasping against the +wall.</p> + +<p>"Fool!" the scholar cried, towering above the baffled, shrinking man +whose attempt had placed him at his mercy. "Think you that Cæsar +Basterga was born to perish by your hand? That the gods made me what I +am, I who carry to-night the fortunes of a nation and the fate of a +king, that I might fall by so pitiful a creature as you! Ay, 'tis the +alarm-bell, you are right. And by-and-by your friends will be here. It +is a wonder," he continued, with a cruel look, "that they are not here +already; but perhaps they have enough to fill their hands! And come or +stay—if they be like you, poor fool, weak in body as in wit—I care +not! I, Cæsar Basterga, this night lord of Geneva, and in the time to +come, and thanks to you——"</p> + +<p>"Curse you!" Blondel gasped.</p> + +<p>"That which I dare be sworn you have dreamt of being!"—the scholar +continued with a subtle smile. "The Grand Duke's <i>alter ego</i>, Mayor of +the Palace, Adviser to his Highness! Yes, I hit you there? I touch you +there! Oh, vanity of little men, I thought so! "He broke off and +listened, as sharp on one another two gun-shots rang out at no great +distance from the house. A third followed as he hearkened: and on it a +swelling wave of sound that rose with each second louder and nearer. +"Ay, 'tis known now!" Basterga resumed, in a tone more quiet, but not +less confident. "And I must go, my dear friend—who thought a minute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> +ago to speed me for ever. Know that it lies not in hands mean as yours +to harm Cæsar Basterga of Padua! And that to-night, of all nights, I +bear a charmed life! I carry, Syndic, a kingdom and its fortunes!"</p> + +<p>He seemed to swell with the thought, and in comparison of the sickly man +scowling darkly on him from the wall, he did indeed look a king, as he +turned to the door, flung it wide and passed into the passage. With only +the street door between him and the hub-bub that was beginning to fill +the night, he could measure the situation. He had stayed late. The beat +of many feet hastening one way—towards the Porte Tertasse—the clatter +of weapons as here and there a man trailed his pike on the stones, the +roar of rising voices, the rattle of metal as some one hauled a chain +across the end of the Bourg du Four and hooked it—sounds such as these +might have alarmed an ordinary man who knew himself cut off from his +party, and isolated among foes.</p> + +<p>But Basterga did not quail. His belief in his star was genuine; he was +intoxicated with the success which he fancied lay within his grasp. He +carried Cæsar and his fortunes! was it in mean men to harm him? Nay, so +confident was he, that when he had opened the door he stood an instant +on the threshold viewing the strange scene, and quoted with an +appreciation as strange—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Miscetur, penitusque cavae plangoribus aedes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Femineis ululant; ferit aurea sidera clamor"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>from his favourite poet. After which without hesitation but also without +hurry he turned and plunged into the stream of passers that was hurrying +towards the Porte Tertasse.</p> + +<p>He had been right not to quail. In the medley of light and shadow which +filled the Bourg du Four and the streets<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> about the Town Hall, in the +confusion, in the rush of all in one direction and with one intent, no +one paid heed to him, or supposed him to belong to the enemy. Some cried +"To the Treille! They are there! To the Treille!" And these wheeled that +way. But more, guided by the sounds of conflict, held on to the point +where the short, narrow street of the Tertasse turned left-handed out of +the equally narrow Rue de la Cité—the latter leading onwards to the +Porte de la Monnaye, and the bridges. Here, at the meeting of the two +confined lanes, overhung by timbered houses, and old gables of strange +shapes, a desperate conflict was being fought. The Savoyards, masters of +the gate, had undertaken to push their way into the town by the Rue +Tertasse; not doubting that they would be supported by-and-by, upon the +entrance of their main body through the Porte Neuve. They had proceeded +no farther, however, than the junction with the Rue de la Cité—a point +where darkness was made visible by two dim oil lamps—before, the alarm +being given, they found themselves confronted by a dozen half-clad +townsfolk, fresh from their beds; of whom five or six were at once laid +low. The survivors, however, fought with desperation, giving back, foot +by foot; and as the alarm flew abroad and the city rose, every moment +brought the defenders a reinforcement—some father just roused from +sleep, armed with the chance weapon that came to hand, or some youth +panting for his first fight. The assailants, therefore, found themselves +stayed; slowly they were driven back into the narrow gullet of the +Tertasse. Even there they were put to it to hold their ground against an +ever-increasing swarm of citizens, whom despair and the knowledge that +they were fighting on their hearths, for their wives, and for their +children, brought up in renewed strength.</p> + +<p>In the Tertasse, however, where it was not possible to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> outflank them, +and no dark side-alley, vomiting now and again a desperate man, gave one +to death, a score could hold out against a hundred. Here then, with the +gateway at their backs—whence three or four could fire over their +heads—the Savoyards stood stubbornly at bay, awaiting the +reinforcements which they were sure would come from the Porte Neuve. +They were picked troops not easily discouraged; and they had no fear +that aught serious had happened. But they asked impatiently why +D'Albigny with the main body did not come; why Brunaulieu with the +Monnaye in his hands did not see that the time was opportune. They +chafed at the delay. Give the city time to array itself, let it recover +from its first surprise, and all their forces might scarcely avail to +crush opposition.</p> + +<p>It was at this moment, when the burghers had drawn back a little that +they might deliver a decisive attack, that Basterga came up. Fabri the +Syndic had taken the command, and had shouted to all who had windows +looking on the lane to light them. He had arrayed his men in some sort +of order and was on the point of giving the word to charge, when he +heard the steps of Basterga and some others coming up; he waited to +allow them to join him. The instant they arrived he gave the word, and +followed by some thirty burghers armed with half-pikes, halberds, +anything the men had been able to snatch up, he charged the Savoyards +bravely.</p> + +<p>In the narrow lane but four or five could fight abreast, and the Grand +Duke's men were clad in steel and well armed. Nevertheless Fabri bore +back the first line, pressed on them stoutly, and amid a wild <i>mêlée</i> of +struggling men and waving weapons, began to drive the troop, in spite of +a fierce resistance, into the gate. If he could do this and enter with +them, even though he lost half his men, he might save the city.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the Savoyards, though they gave back, gave back slowly. Within +twenty paces of the gate the advance wavered, stopped, hung an instant. +Of that instant Basterga took advantage. He had moved on undetected, +with the rearmost burghers: now he saw his opportunity and seized it. He +flung to either side the man to right and left of him. He struck down, +almost with the same movement, the man in front. He rushed on Fabri, who +in the middle of the first line was supporting, though far from young, a +single combat with one of the Savoyard leaders. On him Basterga's coward +weapon alighted without warning, and laid him low. To strike down +another, and turning, range himself in the van of the foreigners with a +mighty "Savoy! Savoy!" was Basterga's next action; and it sufficed. The +panic-stricken burghers, apprised of treason in their ranks, gave back +every way. The Savoyards saw their advantage, rallied, and pressed them. +Speedily the Italians regained the ground they had lost, and with the +tall form of their champion fighting in the van, began to sweep the +towns-folk back into the Rue de la Cité.</p> + +<p>But arrived at the meeting of the ways, Basterga's followers paused, +hesitating to expose their flank by entering this second street. The +Genevese saw this, rallied in their turn, and for a moment seemed to be +holding their own. But three or four of their doughtiest fighters lay +stark in the kennel, they had no longer a leader, they were poorly armed +and hastily collected; and devoted as they were, it needed little to +renew the panic and start them in utter rout. Basterga saw this, and +when his men still hung back, neglecting the golden opportunity, he +rushed forward, almost alone, until he stood conspicuous between the two +bands—the one hesitating to come on, the other hesitating to fly.</p> + +<p>"Savoy!" he thundered, "Ville gagnée! The city<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> is ours! Cowards, come +on!" And waving his halberd above his head, he beckoned to his followers +to advance.</p> + +<p>Had they done so, had they charged on the instant, they had changed all +for him, and perhaps all for Geneva. But they hung a moment, and the +next, as in shame they drew themselves together for the charge, their +champion stooped forward with a shrill scream. The next instant he +received full on his nape a heavy iron pot, that descending with +tremendous force from a window above him, rolled from him broken into +three pieces.</p> + +<p>He went down under the blow as if a sledge-hammer had struck him; and so +sudden, so dramatic was the fall—his armour clanging about him—that +for an instant the two bands held their hands and stood staring, as +indifferent crowds stand and gaze in the street. A dozen on the +patriots' side knew the house from which the <i>marmite</i> fell, and marked +it; and half as many saw at the small window whence it came the grey +locks and stern wrinkled face of an aged woman. The effect on the +burghers was magical. As if the act symbolised not only the loved ones +for whom they fought, but the dire distress to which they were come, +they rushed on the foreign men-at-arms with a spirit and a fury hitherto +unknown. With a ringing shout of "Mère Royaume! Mère Royaume!"—raised +by those who knew the old woman, and taken up by many who did not—they +swept the foe, shaken by the fall of their leader, along the narrow +Tertasse, pressed on them, and, still shouting the new war-cry, entered +the gateway along with them.</p> + +<p>"Mère Royaume! Mère Royaume!" The name rang savagely in the groining of +the arch, echoed dully in the obscurity in which the fierce struggle +went on. And men struck to its rhythm, and men died to it. And men who +heard it thus and lived never forgot it, nor ever went back in their +minds to that night without recalling it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p> + +<p>To one man, flurried already, and a coward at heart, the name carried a +paralysing assurance of doom. He had seen Basterga fall—by this woman's +hand of all hands in the world—and he had been the first to flee. But +in the lane he tripped over Fabri, he fell headlong, and only raised +himself in time to gain the gateway a few feet in front of the avenging +pikes. Still, he might escape, he hoped to escape, through the gate and +into the open Corraterie. But the first to reach the gates had taken in +hand to shut them, and so to prevent the townsfolk reaching the +Corraterie. One of the great doors, half-closed, blocked his way, and +instinctively—ignorant how far behind him the pike-points were—he +sprang aside into the guard-room.</p> + +<p>His one chance now—for he was cut off, and knew it—lay in reaching the +staircase and mounting to the roof. A bound carried him to the door, he +grasped the handle. But a fugitive who had only a second before saved +himself that way, took him for a pursuer, dragged the door close and +held it—held it in spite of his efforts and his imprecations.</p> + +<p>Five seconds, ten, perhaps, Grio—for he it was—wasted in struggling +vainly with the door. The man on the other side clung to it with a +despair equal to his own. Five seconds, ten, perhaps; but in that space +of time, short as it was, the man paid smartly for the sins of his life. +When the time of grace had elapsed, with a pike-point a few inches from +his back and the gleaming eyes of an avenging burgher behind it, he fled +shrieking round the table. He might even yet have escaped by a chance; +for all was confusion, and though there was a glare there was no light. +But he stumbled over the body of the man whom he had slain without pity +a few hours before. He fell writhing, and died on the floor, under a +dozen blows, as beasts die in the shambles.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mère Royaume! Mère Royaume!" The cry—the last cry he heard—swelled +louder and louder. It swept through the gate, it passed through to the +open, and bore far along the Corraterie, far along the ramparts, ay, to +the open country, the earnest of victory, the earnest of vengeance.</p> + +<p>Geneva was saved. He who would have betrayed it, slain like Pyrrhus the +Epirote by a woman's hand, lay dead in the dark lane behind the house in +which he had lived.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + +<h3>THE DAWN.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Anne</span> was but one of some thousands of women who passed through the trial +of that night; who heard the vague sounds of disquiet that roused them +at midnight grow to sharp alarms, and these again—to the dull, pulsing +music of the tocsin—swell to the uproar of a deadly conflict waged by +desperate men in narrow streets. She was but one of thousands who that +night heard fate knocking at their hearts; who praying, sick with fear, +for the return of their men, showed white faces at barred windows, and +by every tossing light that passed along the lane viewed long years of +loneliness or widowhood.</p> + +<p>But Anne had this burden also; that she had of herself sent her man into +danger; her man, who, but for her pleading, but for her bidding, might +not have gone. And that thought, though she had done her duty, laid a +cold grip upon her heart. Her work it was if he lay at this moment stark +in some dark alley, the first victim of the assault; or, sorely wounded, +cried for water; or waited in pain where none but the stricken heard +him. The thought bowed her to the ground, sent her to her prayers, took +from her alike all memory of the danger that had menaced her this +morning, and all consciousness of that which now threatened her, a +helpless woman, if the town were taken.</p> + +<p>The house, having its back on the Rue de la Cité, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> the point where +that street joined the Tertasse, stood in the heart of the conflict; and +almost from the moment of the first attack on the Porte Neuve, which +Claude was in time to witness, was a centre of fierce and deadly +fighting. Anne dared not leave her mother, who, strange to say, slept +through the early alarms; and it was bowed on the edge of her mother's +bed—that bed beside which she had tasted so much of happiness and so +much of grief—that she passed, not knowing what the turning page might +show, the first hour of anxiety and suspense.</p> + +<p>The report of a shot shook her frame. A scream stabbed her like a knife. +Lower and lower she thrust her face amid the bed-clothes, striving to +shut out sound and knowledge; or, woman-like, she raised her pale, +beseeching face that she might listen, that she might hope. If he fell +would they tell her? And how he fell, and where? Or would they hold her +strange to him? Would she never hear?</p> + +<p>Suddenly her mother opened her eyes, lay a while listening, then slowly +sat up and looked at her. Anne saw the awakening alarm in the dear face, +that in some mysterious way recalled its youth; and she fancied that to +her other troubles, the misery of one of the old paroxysms was going to +be added. At such an hour, with such sounds of terror filling the night, +with such a glare dancing on the ceiling the first attack had come on, +years before. Then the alarm had been fictitious; to-night the calamity +which the poor woman had imagined, was happening with every circumstance +of peril and alarm.</p> + +<p>But Madame Royaume's face, though anxious and serious, retained to an +astonishing extent its sanity. Whether the strange dream which she had +had earlier in the night had prepared her for the state of things to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> +which she awoke, or the weeks and months which had elapsed since that +old alarm of fire dropped in some inexplicable way from her—and as one +shock had upset, another restored the balance of her mind—certain it is +that Anne, watching her with a painful interest, found her sane. Nor did +Madame Royaume's first words dispel the impression.</p> + +<p>"They hold out?" she asked, grasping her daughter's hand and pressing +it. "They hold out?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, they hold out," Anne answered, hoping to soothe her. And she +patted the hand that clasped hers. "Have no fear, dear, all will go +well."</p> + +<p>"If they have faith and hold out," the aged woman replied, listening to +the strange medley of sounds that rose to them.</p> + +<p>"They will, they will," Anne faltered.</p> + +<p>"But there is need of every one!"</p> + +<p>"They are gone, dear," the girl answered, repressing a sob with +difficulty. "We are alone in the house."</p> + +<p>"So it should be," Madame Royaume replied, with sternness. "The man to +the wall, the maid to the pall! It was ever so!"</p> + +<p>A low cry burst from Anne's lips. "God forbid!" she wailed. "God forbid! +God have mercy!"</p> + +<p>The next moment she could have bitten out her tongue; she knew that such +words and such a cry were of all others the most likely to excite her +patient. But after some obscure fashion their positions seemed this +night to be reversed. It was the mother who in her turn patted her +daughter's hand and sought to soothe her.</p> + +<p>"Ay, God forbid," she said softly. "But man must do his part. I mind +when——" She paused. Her eyes travelling round the room, fixed their +gaze on the fireplace. She seemed to be perplexed by something she saw +there, and Anne, still fearing a recurrence of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> her illness, asked her +hurriedly what it was. "What is it; mother?" she said, leaning over her, +and following the direction of her eyes. "Is it the great pot you are +looking at?"</p> + +<p>"Ay," Madame Royaume answered slowly. "How comes it here?"</p> + +<p>"There was no one below," Anne explained. "I brought it up this morning. +Don't you remember? There is no fire below."</p> + +<p>"No?"</p> + +<p>"That is all, mother. You saw me bring it up."</p> + +<p>"Ay?" And then after a pause: "Let it down a hook."</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>"Let it down, child!" And when Anne, to soothe her, had obeyed and let +the great pot down until the fire licked its sides, "Is it full?" Madame +asked.</p> + +<p>"Half-full, mother."</p> + +<p>"It will do." And for a time the woman in the bed was silent.</p> + +<p>Outside there was noise enough. The windows in the room looked into the +Corraterie, from which side no more than passing sounds of conflict rose +to them; the pounding of running feet, sharp orders, a shot, and then +another. But the landing without the bedroom door looked down by a +high-set window into the narrow Tertasse; and from this, though the door +was shut, rose an inferno of noise, the clash of steel, the cries of the +wounded, the shouts of the fighters. The townsfolk, rallying from their +first alarm, were driving the enemy out of the Rue de la Cité, penning +him into the Tertasse, and preparing to carry that street.</p> + +<p>On a sudden there came, not a cessation of the uproar, but a change in +its character. It was as if the current of a river were momentarily +stayed and pent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> up; and then with a mighty crashing of timbers and +shifting of pebbles, and a din as of the world's end, began to run the +other way. Anne's face turned a shade paler; so appalling was the noise, +she would fain have stopped her ears. But her mother sat up.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she asked eagerly. "What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Dear mother, do not fret! It must be——"</p> + +<p>"Go and see, child! Go to the window in the passage, and see!" Madame +Royaume persisted.</p> + +<p>Anne had no wish to go, no wish to see. She pictured her lover in the +<i>mêlée</i> whence rose those appalling cries; and gladly would she have +hidden her head in the bedclothes and poured out her heart in prayer for +him. But Madame persisted, and she yielded, went into the passage and +opened the small window. With the cold air entered a fresh volume of +sound. On the walls and timbered gables opposite her—and so near that +she could well-nigh touch them with her extended arm—strange lights +played luridly; and here and there, at dormers on a level with her, pale +faces showed and vanished by turns.</p> + +<p>She looked down. For a moment, in the confusion, in the medley of moving +forms, she could discern little or nothing. Then, as her eyes became +more accustomed to the sight, she made out that the tide of conflict was +running inward into the town, a sign that the invaders were gaining the +mastery.</p> + +<p>"Well?" Madame Royaume asked, her voice querulous.</p> + +<p>Anne strove to say something that would soothe her mother. But a sob +choked her, and when she regained her speech she felt herself impelled, +she knew not why, to tell the truth. "I fear our people are falling +back," she murmured, trembling so violently that she could barely stand.</p> + +<p>"How far? Where are they, child?" Her mother's voice was eager. "Where +are they?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They are almost under the window!" And then withdrawing her head with a +shudder, while she clung for support to the frame of the window: "They +are fighting underneath me now," she said. "God pity them!"</p> + +<p>"And who is—are we still getting the worst of it?"</p> + +<p>Forced by a kind of fascination, Anne looked out again. "Yes, there is +one man, a big man, leads them on," she said, in the voice of one who, +painfully absorbed in a sight, reports it involuntarily. "He is driving +our people before him. Ah! he has struck one down this moment. He is +almost underneath us now. But his people will not follow him! They are +standing. He—he waves them on!"</p> + +<p>"He is beneath us?" Madame's voice sounded strangely near, strangely +insistent. But Anne, wrapt in what she saw, did not heed it.</p> + +<p>"Yes! He is a dozen paces in front of his men. He is underneath us now. +He urges them to follow him! He towers above them! He is——"</p> + +<p>She broke off; close to her sounded a heavy breathing, that even above +the babel of the street caught her ear. She drew in her head, looked, +and, overwrought by that which she had been witnessing, she shrieked +aloud.</p> + +<p>Beside her, bending under the weight of the great steaming pot, stood +her mother! Her mother, who had scarcely left her bedroom twice in a +twelvemonth, nor crossed it as many times in a week. But it was her +mother; endowed at this pass, and for the instant, with supernatural +strength. For even as Anne recoiled thunderstruck, the old woman lifted +the huge <i>marmite</i>, half-full and steaming as it was, to the ledge of +the window, steadied it there an instant, and then, with the gleaming +eyes and set pale face of an avenging prophetess, thrust it forth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p> + +<p>A second they gazed at one another with suspended breath. Then from the +street below rose a wild shriek, a crash, and lo, the huge pot lay +shattered in the kennel beside the man whom, Heaven directed, it had +slain. As if the shock of its fall stayed for an instant even the +movement of the world, a silence fell on all: then, as the roar of +conflict rose again, louder, more vengeful, with a new note in it, she +caught her mother in her arms.</p> + +<p>"Mother! Mother!" she cried. "Mother!"</p> + +<p>The elder woman was white to the lips. "Get me to bed!" she muttered. +"Get me to bed!" She had lost the power even to stand. That she had ever +borne, even for a yard, the great pot which it taxed Anne's utmost +strength to carry upstairs was a miracle. But a miracle were all the +circumstances connected with the act.</p> + +<p>Anne carried her back and laid her on the bed, greatly fearing for her. +And thenceforth for a while the girl's horizon, so wide and stormy an +instant before, was narrowed to the bed beside which she stood, narrowed +to the dear face on which the lamplight fell, disclosing its death-like +pallor. For the time Anne forgot even her lover, was deaf to the +struggle outside, was unmindful of the flight of the hours. For her, +Geneva might have lain at peace, the night been as other nights, the +house below been heavy with the breathing of tired sleepers. She looked +neither to the right nor the left, until under her loving hands Madame +Royaume revived, opened her eyes and smiled—the smile she had for one +face only in the world.</p> + +<p>By that time Anne had lost count of the time. It might be hard on +morning, it might be a little after midnight. One thing only was clear, +the lamp required oil, and to get it she must descend to the ground +floor. She opened the door and listened, wondering dully how the +conflict had gone. She had lost count of that also.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span></p> + +<p>The small window at the head of the stairs remained open as they had +left it; and through it a ceaseless hum, as of a hive of bees swarming, +poured in from the night, and told of multitudes astir. The alarm-bell +had ceased to ring, the wilder sounds of conflict had died down; in the +parts about the Tertasse the combat appeared to be at an end. But this +might be either because resistance had ceased, or because the battle had +rolled away to other quarters, or—which she scarcely dared to +hope—because the foe had been driven out.</p> + +<p>As she stood listening, she shivered in the cold air that came from the +window. She felt as if she had been beaten, and knew that this came of +the shocks she had suffered and the long strain. She feared for her +nerves, and hated to go down into the dark parts of the house as if some +danger lurked there. She longed for morning, for the light; and thought +of Claude and his fate, and wondered why the thought of his danger did +not move her to weeping, as it had moved her a few hours earlier.</p> + +<p>In truth she was worn out. The effort to revive her mother had cost her +the last remains of strength. Her feet as she descended the stairs were +of lead, the brazen notes of the alarm-bell hummed in her ears. When she +reached the living-room she set the lamp on one of the tables and sat +down wearily, with her eyes on the cold, empty hearth and on the settle +where she had sat with his arms about her. And now, if ever, she must +weep; but she could not.</p> + +<p>The lamp burned low, and cast smoky shadows on the ceiling and the +walls. The shuttered windows showed their dead faces. The cheerful soul +of the room had passed from it with the fire, leaving the shell gloomy, +lifeless, repellent. Anne drowsed a moment in sheer exhaustion, and +would have slept, if the lamp on the point of expiring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> had not emitted +a sound and roused her. She rose reluctantly, dragged herself to the +great cupboard under the stairs, and, having lighted a rushlight at the +dying flame, put out the lamp and refilled it.</p> + +<p>She was about to re-light it, and had taken the rushlight in her hand +for the purpose, when she heard through the shuttered windows and the +barred door a growing clamour; the tramp of heavy feet, the hum of many +voices, the buzz of a crowd that, almost as soon as she awoke to its +near presence, came to a stand before the house. The tumult of voices +raised all at once in different keys did not entirely drown the clash of +arms; and while she stood, sullenly regarding the door, and resigned to +the inevitable, whatever it might be, thin shafts of light pierced the +shutters and stabbed the gloom about her.</p> + +<p>With that a hail-storm of knocks fell on the door and on the shutters. A +dozen voices cried, "Open! Open!" The jangle of a halberd as its bearer +let the butt drop heavily on the stone steps added force to the summons.</p> + +<p>Anne's first impulse was to retreat upstairs, and leave them to do their +worst. Her next—she was in a state of collapse in which resistance +seemed useless—was to open. She moved to the door, and with cold hands +removed the huge bars and let down the chain. It was only when she had +done so much, when it remained only to unlock, that she wavered; that +she trembled to think on what the crowd might be bent, and what might be +her fate at their hands. She paused then, with her fingers on the key; +but not for long. She remembered that, before she descended, she had +heard neither shot nor cry. Resistance therefore had ceased, and that of +a single house, held by two helpless women, could avail nothing, could +but excite to fury and reprisals.</p> + +<p>She turned the key and opened. The lights dazzled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> her. The doorway, as +she stood faltering, almost fainting, before it, seemed to be full of +grotesque dancing faces, some swathed in bandages, others +powder-blackened, some hot with excitement, others pallid with fatigue. +They were such faces, piled one above the other, as are seen in bad +dreams.</p> + +<p>On the intruders' side, those who pressed in first saw a girl strangely +quiet, who held the door wide for them. "My mother is ill," she said in +a voice that strove for composure; if they were the enemy, her only +hope, her only safety, lay in courage. "And she is old," she continued. +"Do not harm her."</p> + +<p>"We come to do harm neither to you nor to her," a voice replied. And the +foremost of the troop, a thick dwarfish man with a huge two-handed +sword, stood aside. "Messer Baudichon," he said to one behind him, "this +is the daughter."</p> + +<p>She knew the fat, sturdy councillor—who in Geneva did not?—and through +her stupor she recognised him, although a great bandage swathed half his +head, and he was pale. And, beginning to have an inkling that things +were well, she began also to tremble. By his side stood Messer +Petitot—she knew him, too, he had been Syndic the year before—and a +man in hacked and blood-stained armour with his arm in a sling and his +face black with powder. These three, and behind them a dozen others—men +whom she had seen on high days robed in velvet, but who now wore, one +and all, the ugly marks of that night's work—looked on her with a +strange benevolence. And Baudichon took her hand.</p> + +<p>"We do not come to harm you," he said. "On the contrary we come to thank +you and yours. In the name of the city of Geneva, and of all those here +with me——"</p> + +<p>"Ay! Ay!" shouted Jehan Brosse, the tailor. And he rang his sword on the +doorstep. "Ay! Ay!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We come to thank you for the blow struck this night from this house! +That it rid us of one of our worst foes was a small thing, girl. But +that it put heart into our burghers and strength into their arms at a +critical moment was another and a greater thing. Which shall not, if +Geneva stand—as stand by God's pleasure she shall, the stronger for +this night's work—be forgotten! The name of Mère Royaume will at the +next meeting of the Greater Council be inscribed among the names of +those whom the Free City thanks for their services this night!"</p> + +<p>A murmur of stern approval that began with those in the house rolled +through the doorway and was echoed by the waiting throng that filled the +street.</p> + +<p>She was weeping. All it meant, all it might mean, what warranty of +powerful friends, what fame beyond the reach of dark stories, or a +woman's spite, she could not yet understand, she could not yet +appreciate. But something, the city's safety, the city's gratitude, the +countenance of these men who came to her door blood-stained, dark with +smoke, reeling with fatigue—came that they might thank her mother and +do her honour—something of this she did grasp as she wept before them.</p> + +<p>She had but one thing to ask, to desire; and in a moment it was given +her.</p> + +<p>"Nor is that all!" The voice that broke in was harsher and blunter than +Baudichon's. "If it be true, as I am told, that a young man of the name +of Mercier lives here? He does, does he? Ay, he lives, my girl. He is +safe, have no fear. For the matter of that he has nine lives, +and"—Captain Blandano continued with an oath—"he has had need of all +this night, God forgive me for the word! But, as I said, that is not +all. For if there is any one man who has saved Geneva, it is he, the man +who let down the portcullis. And if the city does not dower you, my +girl——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The city shall dower her!" The speaker's voice came from somewhere in +the neighbourhood of the doorway, and was something tremulous and +uncertain. But what it lacked in strength it made up in haste and +eagerness. "The city shall dower her! If not, I will!"</p> + +<p>"Good, Messer Blondel, and spoken like you!" Blandano answered heartily. +And though one or two of the foremost, on hearing Blondel's voice, +looked askance at one another, and here and there a whisper passed of +"The Syndic of the guard? How came——" the majority drowned such +murmurings under a chorus of applause.</p> + +<p>"We are of one mind, I think!" Baudichon said. And with that he turned +to the door. "Now, good friends," he continued, "it wants but little of +daylight, and some of us were best in our beds. Let us go. That we lie +down in peace and honour"—he went on, solemnly raising his hand over +the happy weeping girl beside him, as if he blessed her—"that our wives +and children lie safe within our walls is due, under God, to this roof. +And I call all here to witness that while I live the city of Geneva +shall never forget the debt that is due to this house and to the name of +Royaume!"</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay!" cried the bandy-legged tailor. "I too! The small with the +great, the rich with the poor, as we have fought this night!"</p> + +<p>"Ay! Ay!"</p> + +<p>Some shook her by the hand, and some called Heaven to bless her, and +some with tears running down their faces—for no man there was his +common everyday self—did naught but look on her with kindness. And so, +each having done after his fashion, they trooped out again into the +street. A moment later, as the winter sun began to colour the distant +snows, and the second Sunday in December of the year 1602 broke on +Geneva, the voices<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> of the multitude rose in the one hundred and +twenty-fourth psalm; to the solemn thunder of which, poured from +thankful hearts, the assembly accompanied Baudichon to his home a little +farther down the Corraterie.</p> + +<p>Anne was about to close the door and secure it after them—with feelings +how different from those with which she had opened that door!—when it +resisted her shaking hands. She did not on the instant understand the +reason or what was the matter. She pushed more strongly, still it came +back on her, it opened widely and more widely. And then one who had +heard all, yet had not shown himself, one who had entered with +Baudichon's company, but had held himself hidden in the background, +pushed in, uninvited.</p> + +<p>Uninvited? The rushlight still burned low and smokily, and she had not +relighted the lamp. The corners were dark with shadows, the hearth was +cold and empty and ugly, the shutters still blinded the windows. But the +coming of this uninvited one—love comes ever unexpected and +uninvited—how strangely, how marvellously, how beautifully did it +change all for her, light all, fill all.</p> + +<p>As she felt his arms about her, as she clung to him, and sobbed on his +shoulder, as she strove for words and could not utter them for the +happiness of her heart, as she felt his kisses rain on her face in joy +and safety, who had not left her in sorrow, no, nor in the shadow of +death, nor for any fears of what man could do to him—let it be said +that her reward was as her trial.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Madame Royaume lived four years after that famous attack on the Free +City of Geneva which is called the Escalade; and during that time she +experienced no return of the mysterious malady that came with one shock, +and passed from her with another. Nor, so far as can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> be ascertained at +the distant time at which I write, did the suspicions which the night of +the Escalade found in the bud survive it. Probably the Corraterie and +the neighbouring quarter, ay, and the whole city of Geneva, had for many +a week to come matter for gossip and to spare. It is certain, at any +rate, that whatever whispers were current in this house or that, no +tongue wagged openly against the favourites of the council, who were +also the favourites of the crowd. For Mère Royaume's act hit +marvellously the public fancy, and, passing from mouth to mouth, and +from generation to generation, is still the first, the best loved, and +the most picturesque of the legends of Geneva.</p> + +<p>And Messer Blondel? Did he evade the penalty of his act? Ask any man in +the streets of Geneva, even to-day, and he will tell you the fate of +Philibert Blondel, Fourth Syndic. He will tell you how the magistrate +triumphed for a time, as he had triumphed in the council before, how he +closed the mouths of his accusers, how not once, but twice and thrice, +by the sheer force and skill of a man working in a medium which he +understood, he won his acquittal from his compeers. But though +punishment be slow to overtake, it does overtake at last; nor has the +world witnessed many instances more pertinent or more famous than that +of Messer Blondel. Strive as he might, tongues would wag within the +council, and without. Silence as he might Baudichon and Petitot, smaller +men would talk; and their talk persisted and grew, and was vigorous when +months and even years had passed. What the great did not know the small +knew or guessed, and fixed greedy eyes on the head of the man who had +dared to sell Geneva. The end came four years after the Escalade. To +conceal the old negotiation he committed a further crime, and being +betrayed by the tool he employed was seized and convicted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> On the 1st +September, 1606, he lost his head on a scaffold erected before his own +house in the Bourg du Four.</p> + +<p>The Merciers had at least one son—probably he was the eldest, for he +bore his father's name—who lived into middle life, and proved himself +their worthy descendant. For precisely fifty years after the date of +these events a poor woman of the name of Michée Chauderon was put to +death in Geneva, on a charge of sorcery; and among those—and they were +not few—who strove most manfully and most obstinately to save her, we +find the name of a physician of great note in the Canton at that +time—one Claude Mercier. He did not prevail, though he struggled +bravely; the long night of superstition, though nearing its close, still +reigned; that woman suffered. But he carried it so far and so boldly +that from that day to this—and the city may be proud of the fact—no +person has suffered death in Geneva on that dreadful charge.</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The End.</span></h3> + + +<h4 style="margin-top: 2em;">THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED</h4> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Long Night, by Stanley Weyman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONG NIGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 19485-h.htm or 19485-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/4/8/19485/ + +Produced by Stacy Brown, Dave Morgan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Long Night + +Author: Stanley Weyman + +Release Date: October 7, 2006 [EBook #19485] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONG NIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Stacy Brown, Dave Morgan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +THE LONG NIGHT + +BY +STANLEY WEYMAN + + AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," ETC. + + _SECOND IMPRESSION_ + + LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. + 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON + AND BOMBAY + 1903 + + + + + WORKS BY STANLEY WEYMAN. + + + The House of the Wolf. + The New Rector. + The Story of Francis Cludde. + A Gentleman of France. + The Man in Black. + Under the Red Robe. + My Lady Rotha. + The Red Cockade. + Shrewsbury. + Sophia. + The Castle Inn. + From the Memoirs of a Minister of France. + Count Hannibal. + In Kings' Byways. + The Long Night. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. A Student of Theology 1 + II. The House on the Ramparts 16 + III. The Quintessential Stone 31 + IV. Caesar Basterga 45 + V. The Elixir Vitae 59 + VI. To Take or Leave 74 + VII. A Second Tissot 88 + VIII. On the Threshold 102 + IX. Melusina 116 + X. Auctio Fit: Venit Vita 129 + XI. By This or That 143 + XII. The Cup and the Lip 157 + XIII. A Mystery Solved 172 + XIV. "And Only One Dose in all the World!" 185 + XV. On the Bridge 200 + XVI. A Glove and What Came of It 215 + XVII. The _Remedium_ 227 + XVIII. The Bargain Struck 242 + XIX. The Departure of the Rats 257 + XX. In the Darkened Room 271 + XXI. The _Remedium_ 285 + XXII. Two Nails in the Wall 301 + XXIII. In Two Characters 318 + XXIV. Armes! Armes! 335 + XXV. Basterga at Argos 350 + XXVI. The Dawn 365 + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A STUDENT OF THEOLOGY. + + +They were about to shut the Porte St. Gervais, the north gate of Geneva. +The sergeant of the gate had given his men the word to close; but at the +last moment, shading his eyes from the low light of the sun, he happened +to look along the dusty road which led to the Pays de Gex, and he bade +the men wait. Afar off a traveller could be seen hurrying two donkeys +towards the gate, with now a blow on this side, and now on that, and now +a shrill cry. The sergeant knew him for Jehan Brosse, the bandy-legged +tailor of the passage off the Corraterie, a sound burgher and a good man +whom it were a shame to exclude. Jehan had gone out that morning to +fetch his grapes from Moeens; and the sergeant had pity on him. + +He waited, therefore; and presently he was sorry that he had waited. +Behind Jehan, a long way behind him, appeared a second wayfarer; a young +man covered with dust who approached rapidly on long legs, a bundle +jumping and bumping at his shoulders as he ran. The favour of the gate +was not for such as he--a stranger; and the sergeant anxious to bar, yet +unwilling to shut out Jehan, watched his progress with disgust. As he +feared, too, it turned out. Young legs caught up old ones: the stranger +overtook Jehan, overtook the donkeys. A moment, and he passed under the +arch abreast of them, a broad smile of acknowledgment on his heated +face. He appeared to think that the gate had been kept open out of +kindness to him. + +And to be grateful. The war with Savoy--Italian Savoy which, like an +octopus, wreathed clutching arms about the free city of Geneva--had come +to an end some months before. But a State so small that the frontier of +its inveterate enemy lies but two short leagues from its gates, has need +of watch and ward, and curfews and the like, so that he was fortunate +who found the gates of Geneva open after sunset in that year, 1602; and +the stranger seemed to know this. + +As the great doors clanged together and two of the watch wound up the +creaking drawbridge, he turned to the sergeant, the smile still on his +face. "I feared that you would shut me out!" he panted, still holding +his sides. "I would not have given much for my chance of a bed a minute +ago." + +The sergeant answered only by a grunt. + +"If this good fellow had not been in front----" + +This time the sergeant cut him short with an imperious gesture, and the +young man seeing that the guard also had fallen stiffly into rank, +turned to the tailor. He was overflowing with good nature: he must speak +to some one. "If you had not been in front," he began, "I----" + +But the tailor also cut him short--frowning and laying his finger to his +lip and pointing mysteriously to the ground. The stranger stooped to +look more closely, but saw nothing: and it was only when the others +dropped on their knees that he understood the hint and hastened to +follow the example. The soldiers bent their heads while the sergeant +recited a prayer for the safety of the city. He did this reverently, +while the evening light--which fell grey between walls and sobered those +who had that moment left the open sky and the open country--cast its +solemn mantle about the party. + +Such was the pious usage observed in that age at the opening and the +closing of the gates of Geneva: nor had it yet sunk to a form. The +nearness of the frontier and the shadow of those clutching arms, ever +extended to smother the free State, gave a reality to the faith of those +who opened and shut, and with arms in their hands looked back on ten +years of constant warfare. Many a night during those ten years had +Geneva gazed from her watch-towers on burning farms and smouldering +homesteads; many a day seen the smoke of Chablais hamlets float a dark +trail across her lake. What wonder if, when none knew what a night might +bring forth, and the fury of Antwerp was still a new tale in men's ears, +the Genevese held Providence higher and His workings more near than men +are prone to hold them in happier times? + +Whether the stranger's reverent bearing during the prayer gained the +sergeant's favour, or the sword tied to his bundle and the bulging +corners of squat books which stuffed out the cloak gave a new notion of +his condition, it is certain that the officer eyed him more kindly when +all rose from their knees. "You can pass in now, young sir," he said +nodding. "But another time remember, if you please, the earlier here the +warmer welcome!" + +"I will bear it in mind," the young traveller answered, smiling. +"Perhaps you can tell me where I can get a night's lodging?" + +"You come to study, perhaps?" The sergeant puffed himself out as he +spoke, for the fame of Geneva's college and its great professor, +Theodore Beza, was a source of glory to all within the city walls. +Learning, too, was a thing in high repute in that day. The learned +tongues still lived and were passports opening all countries to +scholars. The names of Erasmus and Scaliger were still in the mouths of +men. + +"Yes," the youth answered, "and I have the name of a lodging in which I +hope to place myself. But for to-night it is late, and an inn were more +convenient." + +"Go then to the 'Bible and Hand,'" the sergeant answered. "It is a +decent house, as are all in Geneva. If you think to find here a +roistering, drinking, swearing tavern, such as you'd find in Dijon----" + +"I come to study, not to drink," the young man answered eagerly. + +"Well, the 'Bible and Hand,' then! It will answer your purpose well. +Cross the bridge and go straight on. It is in the Bourg du Four." + +The youth thanked him with a pleased air, and turning his back on the +gate proceeded briskly towards the heart of the city. Though it was not +Sunday the inhabitants were pouring out from the evening preaching as +plentifully as if it had been the first day of the week; and as he +scanned their grave and thoughtful faces--faces not seldom touched with +sternness or the scars of war--as he passed between the gabled +steep-roofed houses and marked their order and cleanliness, as he saw +above him and above them the two great towers of the cathedral, he felt +a youthful fervour and an enthusiasm not to be comprehended in our age. + +To many of us the name and memory of Geneva stand for anything but +freedom. But to the Huguenot of that generation and day, the name of +Geneva stood for freedom; for a fighting aggressive freedom, a full +freedom in the State, a sober measured freedom in the Church. The city +was the outpost, southwards, of the Reformed religion and the Reformed +learning; it sowed its ministers over half Europe, and where they went, +they spread abroad not only its doctrines but its praise and its honour. +If, even to the men of that day there appeared at times a something too +stiff in its attitude, a something too near the Papal in its decrees, +they knew with what foes and against what odds it fought, and how little +consistent with the ferocity of that struggle were the compromises of +life or the courtesies of the lists. + +At any rate, in some such colours as these, framed in such a halo, +Claude Mercier saw the Free City as he walked its narrow streets that +evening, seeking the "Bible and Hand". In some such colours had his +father, bred under Calvin to the ministry, depicted it: and the young +man, half French, half Vaudois, sought nothing better, set nothing +higher, than to form a part of its life, and eventually to contribute to +its fame. Good intentions and honest hopes tumbled over one another in +his brain as he walked. The ardour of a new life, to be begun this day, +possessed him. He saw all things through the pure atmosphere of his own +happy nature: and if it remained to him to discover how Geneva would +stand the test of a closer intimacy, at this moment, the youth took the +city to his heart with no jot of misgiving. To follow in the steps of +Theodore Beza, a Frenchman like himself and gently bred, to devote +himself, in these surroundings to the Bible and the Sword, and find in +them salvation for himself and help for others--this seemed an end +simple and sufficing: the end too, which all men in Geneva appeared to +him to be pursuing that summer evening. + +By-and-by a grave citizen, a psalm-book in his hand, directed him to the +inn in the Bourg du Four; a tall house turning the carved ends of two +steep gables to the street. On either side of the porch a long low +casement suggested the comfort that was to be found within; nor was the +pledge unfulfilled. In a trice the student found himself seated at a +shining table before a simple meal and a flagon of cool white wine with +a sprig of green floating on the surface. His companions were two +merchants of Lyons, a vintner of Dijon, and a taciturn, soberly clad +professor. The four elders talked gravely of the late war, of the +prevalence of drunkenness in Zurich, of a sad case of witchcraft at +Basle, and of the state of trade in Lausanne and the Pays de Vaud; while +the student, listening with respect, contrasted the quietude of this +house, looking on the grey evening street, with the bustle and chatter +and buffoonery of the inns at which he had lain on his way from +Chatillon. He was in a mood to appraise at the highest all about him, +from the demure maid who served them to the cloaked burghers who from +time to time passed the window wrapped in meditation. From a house hard +by the sound of the evening psalms came to his ears. There are moods and +places in which to be good seems of the easiest; to err, a thing +well-nigh impossible. + +The professor was the first to rise and retire; on which the two +merchants drew up their seats to the table with an air of relief. The +vintner looked after the retreating figure. "Of Lausanne, I should +judge?" he said, with a jerk of the elbow. + +"Probably," one of the others answered. + +"Is he not of Geneva, then?" our student asked. He had listened with +interest to the professor's talk and between whiles had wondered if it +would be his lot to sit under him. + +"No, or he would not be here!" one of the merchants replied, shrugging +his shoulders. + +"Why not, sir?" + +"Why not?" The merchant fixed the questioner with eyes of surprise. +"Don't you know, young man, that those who live in Geneva may not +frequent Geneva taverns?" + +"Indeed?" Mercier answered, somewhat startled. "Is that so?" + +"It is very much so," the other returned with something of a sneer. + +"And they do not!" quoth the vintner with a faint smile. + +"Well, professors do not!" the merchant answered with a grimace. "I say +nothing of others. Let the Venerable Company of Pastors see to it. It is +their business." + +At this point the host brought in lights. After closing the shutters he +was in the act of retiring when a door near at hand--on the farther side +of the passage if the sound could be trusted--flew open with a clatter. +Its opening let out a burst of laughter, nor was that the worst: alas, +above the laughter rang an oath--the ribald word of some one who had +caught his foot in the step. + +The landlord uttered an exclamation and went out hurriedly, closing the +door behind him. A moment and his voice could be heard, scolding and +persuading in the passage. + +"Umph!" the vintner muttered, looking from one to the other with a +humorous eye. "It seems to me that the Venerable Company of Pastors have +not yet expelled the old Adam." + +Open flew the door and cut short the word. But it had been heard, +"Pastors?" a raucous voice cried. "Passers and Flinchers is what I call +them!" And a stout heavy man, whose small pointed grey beard did but +emphasise the coarse virility of the face above it, appeared on the +threshold, glaring at the four. "Pastors?" he repeated defiantly. +"Passers and Flinchers, I say!" + +"In Heaven's name, Messer Grio!" the landlord protested, hovering at his +shoulder, "these are strangers----" + +"Strangers? Ay, and flinchers, they too!" the intruder retorted, +heedless of the remonstrance. And he lurched into the room, a bulky, +reeling figure in stained green and tarnished lace. "Four flinchers! But +I'll make them drink a cup with me or I'll prick their hides! Do you +think we shed blood for you and are to be stinted of our liquor!" + +"Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" the landlord cried, wringing his hands. "You +will be my ruin!" + +"No fear!" + +"But I do fear!" the host retorted sharply, going so far as to lay a +hand on his shoulder. "I do fear." Behind the man in green his +boon-fellows, flushed with drink, had gathered, and were staring half +curious, half in alarm into the room. The landlord turned and appealed +to them. "For Heaven's sake get him away quietly!" he muttered. "I shall +lose my living if this be known. And you will suffer too! Gentlemen," he +turned to the party at the table, "this is a quiet house, a quiet house +in general, but----" + +"Tut-tut!" said the vintner good-naturedly. "We'll drink a cup with the +gentleman if he wishes it!" + +"You'll drink or be pricked!" quoth Messer Grio; he was one of those who +grow offensive in their cups. And while his friends laughed, he swished +out a sword of huge length, and flourished it. "Ca! Ca! Now let me see +any man refuse his liquor!" + +The landlord groaned, but thinking apparently that soonest broken was +soonest mended, he vanished, to return in a marvellously short space of +time with four tall glasses and a flask of Neuchatel. "'Tis good wine," +he muttered anxiously. "Good wine, gentlemen, I warrant you. And Messer +Grio here has served the State, so that some little indulgence----" + +"What art muttering?" cried the bully, who spoke French with an accent +new and strange in the student's ears. "Let be! Let be, I say! Let them +drink, or be pricked!" + +The merchants and the vintner took their glasses without demur: and, +perhaps, though they shrugged their shoulders, were as willing as they +looked. The young man hesitated, took with a curling lip the glass which +was presented to him, and then, a blush rising to his eyes, pushed it +from him. + +"'Tis good wine," the landlord repeated. "And no charge. Drink, young +sir, and----" + +"I drink not on compulsion!" the student answered. + +Messer Grio stared. "What?" he roared. "You----" + +"I drink not on compulsion," the young man repeated, and this time he +spoke clearly and firmly. "Had the gentleman asked me courteously to +drink with him, that were another matter. But----" + +"Sho!" the vintner muttered, nudging him in pure kindness. "Drink, man, +and a fico for his courtesy so the wine be old! When the drink is in, +the sense is out, and," lowering his voice, "he'll let you blood to a +certainty, if you will not humour him." + +But the grinning faces in the doorway hardened the student in his +resolution. "I drink not on compulsion," he repeated stubbornly. And he +rose from his seat. + +"You drink not?" Grio exclaimed. "You drink not? Then by the living----" + +"For Heaven's sake!" the landlord cried, and threw himself between them. +"Messer Grio! Gentlemen!" + +But the bully, drunk and wilful, twitched him aside. "Under compulsion, +eh!" he sneered. "You drink not under compulsion, don't you, my lad? Let +me tell you," he continued with ferocity, "you will drink when I please, +and where I please, and as often as I please, and as much as I please, +you meal-worm! You half-weaned puppy! Take that glass, d'you hear, and +say after me, Devil take----" + +"Messer Grio!" cried the horrified landlord. + +"Devil take"--for a moment a hiccough gave him pause--"all flinchers! +Take the glass, young man. That is well! I see you will come to it! Now +say after me, Devil take----" + +"That!" the student retorted, and flung the wine in the bully's face. + +The landlord shrieked; the other guests rose hurriedly from their seats, +and got aside. Fortunately the wine blinded the man for a moment, and he +recoiled, spitting curses and darting his sword hither and thither in +impotent rage. By the time he had cleared his eyes the youth had got to +his bundle, and, freeing his blade, placed himself in a posture of +defence. His face was pale, but with the pallor of excitement rather +than of fear; and the firm set of his mouth and the smouldering fire in +his eyes as he confronted the drunken bravo, no less than the manner in +which he handled his weapon, showed him as ready to pursue as he had +been hardy to undertake the quarrel. + +He gave proof of forethought, too. "Witness all, he drew first!" he +cried; and his glance quitting Grio for the briefest instant sought to +meet the merchants' eyes. "I am on my defence. I call all here to +witness that he has thrust this quarrel upon me!" + +The landlord wrung his hands. "Oh dear! oh dear!" he cried. "In Heaven's +name, gentlemen, put up! put up! Stop them! Will no one stop them!" And +in despair, seeing no one move to arrest them, he made as if he would +stand between them. + +But the bully flourished his blade about his ears, and with a cry the +goodman saved himself "Out, skinker!" Grio cried grimly. "And you, say +your prayers, puppy. Before you are five minutes older I will spit you +like a partridge though I cross the frontier for it. You have basted me +with wine! I will baste you after another fashion! On guard! On guard, +and----" + +"_What is this?_" + +The voice stayed Grio's tongue and checked his foot in the very instant +of assault. The student, watching his blade and awaiting the attack, was +surprised to see his point waver and drop. Was it a trick, he wondered? +A stratagem? No, for a silence fell on the room, while those who held +the floor hastened to efface themselves against the wall, as if they at +any rate had nothing to do with the fracas. And next moment Grio +shrugged his shoulders, and with a half-stifled curse stood back. + +"What is this?" + +The same question in the same tone. This time the student saw whose +voice it was had stayed Grio's arm. Within the door a pace in front of +two or three attendants, who had displaced the roisterers on the +threshold, appeared a spare dry-looking man of middle height, wearing +his hat, and displaying a gold chain of office across the breast of his +black velvet cloak. In age about sixty, he had nothing that at a first +glance seemed to call for a second: his small pinched features, and the +downward curl of the lip, which his moustache and clipped beard failed +to hide, indicated a nature peevish and severe rather than powerful. On +nearer observation the restless eyes, keen and piercing, asserted +themselves and redeemed the face from insignificance. When, as on this +occasion, their glances were supported by the terrors of the State, it +was not difficult to understand why Messer Blondel, the Syndic, though +no great man to look upon, had both weight with the masses, and a hold +not to be denied over his colleagues in the Council. + +No one took on himself to answer the question he had put, and in a voice +thin and querulous, but with a lurking venom in its tone, "What is +this?" the great man repeated, looking from one to another. "Are we in +Geneva, or in Venice? Under the skirts of the scarlet woman, or where +the magistrates bear not the sword in vain? Good Mr. Landlord, are +these your professions? Your bailmen should sleep ill to-night, for they +are likely to answer roundly for this! And whom have we sparking it +here? Brawling and swearing and turning into a profligate's tavern a +place that should be for the sober entertainment of travellers? Whom +have we here--eh! Let me see them! Ah!" + +He paused rather suddenly, as his eyes met Grio's: and a little of his +dignity fell from him with the pause. His manner underwent a subtle +change from the judicial to the paternal. When he resumed, he wagged his +head tolerantly, and a modicum of sorrow mingled with his anger. "Ah, +Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" he said, "it is you, is it? For shame! For +shame! This is sad, this is lamentable! Some indulgence, it is true"--he +coughed--"may be due after late events, and to certain who have borne +part in them. But this goes too far! Too far by a long way!" + +"It was not I began it!" the bully muttered sullenly, a mixture of +bravado and apology in his bearing. He sheathed his blade, and thrust +the long scabbard behind him. "He threw a glass of wine in my face, +Syndic--that is the truth. Is an old soldier who has shed blood for +Geneva to swallow that, and give God thanks?" + +The Syndic turned to the student, and licked his lips, his features more +pinched than usual. "Are these your manners?" he said. "If so, they are +not the manners of Geneva! Your name, young man, and your dwelling +place?" + +"My name is Claude Mercier, last from Chatillon in Burgundy," the young +man answered firmly. "For the rest, I did no otherwise than you, sir, +must have done in my case!" + +The magistrate snorted. "I!" + +"Being treated as I was!" the young man protested. "He would have me +drink whether I would or no! And in terms no man of honour could bear." + +"Honour?" the Syndic retorted, and on the word exploded in great wrath. +"Honour, say you? Then I know who is in fault. When men of your race +talk of honour 'tis easy to saddle the horse. I will teach you that we +know naught of honour in Geneva, but only of service! And naught of +punctilios but much of modest behaviour! It is such hot blood as yours +that is at the root of brawlings and disorders and such-like, to the +scandal of the community: and to cool it I will commit you to the town +jail until to-morrow! Convey him thither," he continued, turning sharply +to his followers, "and see him safely bestowed in the stocks. To-morrow +I will hear if he be penitent, and perhaps, if he be in a cooler +temper----" + +But the young man, aghast at this sudden disgrace, could be silent no +longer. "But, sir," he broke in passionately, "I had no choice. It was +no quarrel of my beginning. I did but refuse to drink, and when he----" + +"Silence, sirrah!" the Syndic cried, and cut him short. "You will do +well to be quiet!" And he was turning to bid his people bear their +prisoner out without more ado when one of the merchants ventured to put +in a word. + +"May I say," he interposed timidly, "that until this happened, Messer +Blondel, the young man's conduct was all that could be desired?" + +"Are you of his company?" + +"No, sir." + +"Then best keep out of it!" the magistrate retorted sharply. + +"And you," to his followers, "did you hear me? Away with him!" + +But as the men advanced to execute the order, the young man stepped +forward. "One moment!" he said. "A moment only, sir. I caught the name +of Blondel. Am I speaking to Messer Philibert Blondel?" + +The Syndic nodded ungraciously. "Yes," he said, "I am he. What of it?" + +"Only this, that I have a letter for him," the student answered, groping +with trembling fingers in his pouch. "From my uncle, the Sieur de +Beauvais of Nocle, by Dijon." + +"The Sieur de Beauvais?" + +"Yes." + +"He is your uncle?" + +"Yes." + +"So! Well, I remember now," Blondel continued, nodding. "His name was +Mercier. Certainly, it was. Well, give me the letter." His tone was +still harsh, but it was not the same; and when he had broken the seal +and read the letter--with a look half contemptuous, half uneasy--his +brow cleared a little. "It were well young people knew better what +became them," he cried, peevishly shrugging his shoulders. "It would +save us all a great deal. However, for this time as you are a stranger +and well credited, I find, you may go. But let it be a lesson to you, do +you hear? Let it be a lesson to you, young man. Geneva," pompously, "is +no place for brawling, and if you come hither for that, you will quickly +find yourself behind bars. See that you go to a fit lodging to-morrow, +and do you, Mr. Landlord, have a care that he leaves you." + +The young man's heart was full, but he had the wisdom to keep his temper +and to say no more. The Syndic on his part was glad, on second thoughts, +to be free of the matter. He was turning to go when it seemed to strike +him that he owed something more to the bearer of the letter. He turned +back. "Yes," he said, "I had forgotten. This week I am busy. But next +week, on some convenient day, come to me, young sir, and I may be able +to give you a word of advice. In the forenoon will be best. Until +then--see to your behaviour!" + +The young man bowed and waited, standing where he was, until the bustle +attending the Syndic's departure had quite died away. Then he turned. +"Now, Messer Grio," he said briskly, "for my part I am ready." + +But Messer Grio had slipped away some minutes before. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE HOUSE ON THE RAMPARTS. + + +The affair at the inn which had threatened to turn out so unpleasantly +for our hero, should have gone some way towards destroying the illusions +with which he had entered Geneva. But faith is strong in the young, and +hope stronger. The traditions of his boyhood and his fireside, and the +stories, animate with affection for the cradle of the faith, to which he +had listened at his father's knee, were not to be over-ridden by the +shadow of an injustice, which in the end had not fallen. When the young +man went abroad next morning and viewed the tall towers of St. Peter, of +which his father had spoken--when, from those walls which had defied +through so many months the daily and nightly threats of an ever-present +enemy, he looked on the sites of conflicts still famous and on +farmsteads but half risen from their ruins--when, above all, he +remembered for what those walls stood, and that here, on the borders of +the blue lake, and within sight of the glittering peaks which charmed +his eyes--if in any one place in Europe--the battle of knowledge and +freedom had been fought, and the rule of the monk and the Inquisitor +cast down, his old enthusiasm revived. He thirsted for fresh conflicts, +for new occasions: and it is to be feared dreamt more of the Sword than +of the sacred Book, which he had come to study, and which, in Geneva, +went hand in hand with it. + +In the fervour of such thoughts and in the multitude of new interests +which opened before him, he had well-nigh forgotten the Syndic's tyranny +before he had walked a mile: nor might he have given a second thought to +it but for the need which lay upon him of finding a new lodging before +night. In pursuit of this he presently took his way to the Corraterie, a +row of gabled houses, at the western end of the High Town, built within +the ramparts, and enjoying over them a view of the open country, and the +Jura. The houses ran for some distance parallel with the rampart, then +retired inwards, and again came down to it; in this way enclosing a +triangular open space or terrace. They formed of themselves an inner +line of defence, pierced at the point farthest from the rampart by the +Porte Tertasse: a gate it is true, which was often open even at night, +for the wall in front of the Corraterie, though low on the town side, +looked down from a great height on the ditch and the low meadows that +fringed the Rhone. Trees planted along the rampart shaded the triangular +space, and made it a favourite lounge from which the inhabitants of that +quarter of the town could view the mountains and the sunset while +tasting the freshness of the evening air. + +A score of times had Claude Mercier listened to a description of this +row of lofty houses dominating the ramparts. Now he saw it, and, charmed +by the position and the aspect, he trembled lest he should fail to +secure a lodging in the house which had sheltered his father's youth. +Heedless of the suspicious glances shot at him by the watch at the Porte +Tertasse, he consulted the rough plan which his father had made for +him--consulted it rather to assure himself against error than because he +felt doubt. The precaution taken, he made for a house a little to the +right of the Tertasse gate as one looks to the country. He mounted by +four steep steps to the door and knocked on it. + +It was opened so quickly as to disconcert him. A lanky youth about his +own age bounced out and confronted him. The lad wore a cap and carried +two or three books under his arm as if he had been starting forth when +the summons came. The two gazed at one another a moment: then, "Does +Madame Royaume live here?" Claude asked. + +The other, who had light hair and light eyes, said curtly that she did. + +"Do you know if she has a vacant room?" Mercier asked timidly. + +"She will have one to-night!" the youth answered with temper in his +tone: and he dashed down the steps and went off along the street without +ceremony or explanation. Viewed from behind he had a thin neck which +agreed well with a small retreating chin. + +The door remained open, and after hesitating a moment Claude tapped once +and again with his foot. Receiving no answer he ventured over the +threshold, and found himself in the living-room of the house. It was +cool, spacious and well-ordered. On the left of the entrance a wooden +settle flanked a wide fireplace, in front of which stood a small heavy +table. Another table a little bigger occupied the middle of the room; in +one corner the boarded-up stairs leading to the higher floors bulked +largely. Two or three dark prints--one a portrait of Calvin--with a +framed copy of the Geneva catechism, and a small shelf of books, took +something from the plainness and added something to the comfort of the +apartment, which boasted besides a couple of old oaken dressers, highly +polished and gleaming, with long rows of pewter ware. Two doors stood +opposite the entrance and appeared to lead--for one of them stood +open--to a couple of closets: bedrooms they could hardly be called, yet +in one of them Claude knew that his father had slept. And his heart +warmed to it. + +The house was still; the room was somewhat dark, for the windows were +low and long, strongly barred, and shaded by the trees, through the cool +greenery of which the light filtered in. The young man stood a moment, +and hearing no footstep or movement wondered what he should do. At +length he ventured to the door of the staircase and, opening it, +coughed. Still no one answered or came, and unwilling to intrude farther +he turned about and waited on the hearth. In a corner behind the settle +he noticed two half pikes and a long-handled sword; on the seat of the +settle itself lay a thin folio bound in stained sheepskin. A log +smouldered on the hearth, and below the great black pot which hung over +it two or three pans and pipkins sat deep among the white ashes. Save +for these there was no sign in the room of a woman's hand or use. And he +wondered. Certainly the young man who had departed so hurriedly had said +it was Madame Royaume's. There could be no mistake. + +Well, he would go and come again. But even as he formed the resolution, +and turned towards the outer door--which he had left open--he heard a +faint sound above, a step light but slow. It seemed to start from the +uppermost floor of all, so long was it in descending; so long was it +before, waiting on the hearth cap in hand, he saw a shadow darken the +line below the staircase door. A second later the door opened and a +young girl entered and closed it behind her. She did not see him; +unconscious of his presence she crossed the floor and shut the outer +door. + +There was a something in her bearing which went to the heart of the +young man who stood and saw her for the first time; a depression, a +dejection, an I know not what, so much at odds with her youth and her +slender grace, that it scarcely needed the sigh with which she turned +to draw him a pace nearer. As he moved their eyes met. She, who had not +known of his presence, recoiled with a low cry and stared wide-eyed: he +began hurriedly to speak. + +"I am the son of M. Gaston Mercier, of Chatillon," he said, "who lodged +here formerly. At least," he stammered, beginning to doubt, "if this be +the house of Madame Royaume, he lodged here. A young man who met me at +the door said that Madame lived here, and had a room." + +"He admitted you? The young man who went out?" + +"Yes." + +She gazed hard at him a moment, as if she doubted or suspected him. +Then, "We have no room," she said. + +"But you will have one to-night," he answered + +"I do not know." + +"But--but from what he said," Claude persisted doggedly, "he meant that +his own room would be vacant, I think." + +"It may be," she answered dully, the heaviness which surprise had lifted +for a moment settling on her afresh. "But we shall take no new lodgers. +Presently you would go," with a cold smile, "as he goes to-day." + +"My father lodged here three years," Claude answered, raising his head +with pride. "He did not go until he returned to France. I ask nothing +better than to lodge where my father lodged. Madame Royaume will know my +name. When she hears that I am the son of M. Gaston Mercier, who often +speaks of her----" + +"He fell sick here, I think?" the girl said. She scanned him anew with +the first show of interest that had escaped her. Yet reluctantly, it +seemed; with a kind of ungraciousness hard to explain. + +"He had the plague in the year M. Chausse, the pastor of St. Gervais, +died of it," Claude answered eagerly. "When it was so bad. And Madame +nursed him and saved his life. He often speaks of it and of Madame with +gratitude. If Madame Royaume would see me?" + +"It is useless," she answered with an impatient shrug. "Quite useless, +sir. I tell you we have no room. And--I wish you good-morning." On the +word she turned from him with a curt gesture of dismissal, and kneeling +beside the embers began to occupy herself with the cooking pots; +stirring one and tasting another, and raising a third a little aslant at +the level of her eyes that she might peer into it the better. He +lingered, watching her, expecting her to turn. But when she had skimmed +the last jar and set it back, and screwed it down among the embers, she +remained on her knees, staring absently at a thin flame which had sprung +up under the black pot. She had forgotten his presence, forgotten him +utterly; forgotten him, he judged, in thoughts as deep and gloomy as the +wide dark cavern of chimney which yawned above her head and dwarfed the +slight figure kneeling Cinderella-like among the ashes. + +Claude Mercier looked and looked, and wondered, and at last longed: +longed to comfort, to cherish, to draw to himself and shelter the +budding womanhood before him, so fragile now, so full of promise for the +future. And quick as the flame had sprung up under her breath, a magic +flame awoke in his heart, and burned high and hot. If he did not lodge +here, + + The sky might fall, fish fly, and sheep pursue + The tawny monarch of the Libyan strand! + +But he would lodge here. He coughed. + +She started and turned, and seeing him, seeing that he had not gone, she +rose with a frown. "What is it?" she said. "For what are you waiting, +sir?" + +"I have something in charge for Madame Royaume," he answered. + +"I will give it her," she returned sharply. "Why did you not say so at +once?" And she held out her hand. + +"No," he said hardily. "I have it in charge for her hand only." + +"I am her daughter." + +He shook his head stubbornly. + +What she would have done on that--her face was hard and promised +nothing--is uncertain. Fortunately for the young man's hopes, a dull +report as of a stick striking the floor in some room above reached their +ears; he saw her eyes flicker, alter, grow soft. "Wait!" she said +imperiously; and stooping to take one of the pipkins from the fire, she +poured its contents into a wooden bowl which stood beside her on the +table. She added a horn-spoon and a pinch of salt, fetched a slice of +coarse bread from a cupboard in one of the dressers, and taking all in +skilled steady hands, hands childishly small, though brown as nuts, she +disappeared through the door of the staircase. + +He waited, looking about the room, and at this, and at that, with a new +interest. He took up the book which lay on the settle: it was a learned +volume, part of the works of Paracelsus, with strange figures and +diagrams interwoven with the crabbed Latin text. A passage which he +deciphered, abashed him by its profundity, and he laid the book down, +and went from one to another of the black-framed engravings; from these +to an oval piece in coarse Limoges enamel, which hung over the little +shelf of books. At length he heard a step descending from the upper +floors, and presently she appeared in the doorway. + +"My mother will see you," she said, her tone as ungracious as her look. +"But you will say nothing of lodging here, if it please you. Do you +hear?" she added, her voice rising to a more imperious note. + +He nodded. + +She turned on the lowest step. "She is bed-ridden," she muttered, as if +she felt the need of explanation. "She is not to be disturbed with house +matters, or who comes or goes. You understand that, do you?" + +He nodded, with a mental reservation, and followed her up the confined +staircase. Turning sharply at the head of the first flight he saw before +him a long narrow passage, lighted by a window that looked to the back. +On the left of the passage which led to a second set of stairs, were two +doors, one near the head of the lower flight, the other at the foot of +the second. She led him past both--they were closed--and up the second +stairs and into a room under the tiles, a room of good size but with a +roof which sloped in unexpected places. + +A woman lay there, not uncomely; rather comely with the beauty of +advancing years, though weak and frail if not ill. It was the woman of +whom he had so often heard his father speak with gratitude and respect. +It was neither of his father, however, nor of her, that Claude Mercier +thought as he stood holding Madame Royaume's hand and looking down at +her. For the girl who had gone before him into the room had passed to +the other side of the bed, and the glance which she and her mother +exchanged as the daughter leant over the couch, the message of love and +protection on one side, of love and confidence on the other--that +message and the tone, wondrous gentle, in which the girl, so curt and +abrupt below, named him--these revealed a bond and an affection for +which the life of his own family furnished him with no precedent. + +For his mother had many children, and his father still lived. But these +two, his heart told him as he held Madame Royaume's shrivelled hand in +his, were alone. They had each but the other, and lived each in the +other, in this room under the tiles with the deep-set dormer windows +that looked across the Pays de Gex to the Jura. For how much that +prospect of vale and mountain stood in their lives, how often they rose +to it from the same bed, how often looked at it in sunshine and shadow +with the house still and quiet below them, he seemed to know--to guess. +He had a swift mental vision of their lives, and then Madame Royaume's +voice recalled him to himself. + +"You are newly come to Geneva?" she said, gazing at him. + +"I arrived yesterday." + +"Yes, yes, of course," she answered. She spoke quickly and nervously. +"Yes, you told me so." And she turned to her daughter and laid her hand +on hers as if she talked more easily so. "Your father, Monsieur +Mercier," with an obvious effort, "is well, I hope?" + +"Perfectly, and he begged me to convey his grateful remembrances. Those +of my mother also," the young man added warmly. + +"Yes, he was a good man! I remember when, when he was ill, and M. +Chausse--the pastor, you know"--the reminiscence appeared to agitate +her--"was ill also----" + +The girl leant over her quickly. "Monsieur Mercier has brought something +for you, mother," she said. + +"Ah?" + +"His grateful remembrances and this letter," Claude murmured with a +blush. He knew that the letter contained no more than he had already +said; compliments, and the hope that Madame Royaume might be able to +receive the son as she had received the father. + +"Ah!" Madame Royaume repeated, taking the letter with fingers that shook +a little. + +"You shall read it when Monsieur Mercier is gone," her daughter said. +With that she looked across at the young man. Her eyes commanded him to +take his leave. + +But he was resolute. "My father expresses the hope," he said, "that you +will grant me the same privilege of living under your roof, Madame, +which was so highly prized by him." + +"Of course, of course," she answered eagerly, her eyes lighting up. "I +am not myself, sir, able to overlook the house--but, Anne, you will see +to--to this being done?" + +"My dear mother, we have no room!" the girl replied; and stooping, hid +her face while she whispered in her mother's ear. Then aloud, "We are so +full, so--it goes so well," she continued gaily. "We never have any +room. I am sure, sir,"--again she faced him across the bed--"it is a +disappointment to my mother, but it cannot be helped." + +"Dear, dear, it is unfortunate!" Madame Royaume exclaimed; and then with +a fond look at her daughter, "Anne manages so well!" + +"Yet if there be a room at any time vacant?" + +"You shall assuredly have it." + +"But, mother dear," the girl cried, "M. Grio and M. Basterga are +permanent on the floor below. And Esau and Louis are now with us, and +have but just entered on their course at college. And you know," she +continued softly, "no one ever leaves your house before they are obliged +to leave it, mother dear!" + +The mother patted the daughter's hand. "No," she said proudly. "It is +true. And we cannot turn any one away. And yet," looking up at Anne, +"the son of Messer Mercier? You do not think--do you think that we could +put him----" + +"A closet however small!" Claude cried. + +"Unfortunately the room beyond this can only be entered through this +one." + +"It is out of the question!" the girl responded quickly; and for the +first time her tone rang a little hard. The next instant she seemed to +repent of her petulance; she stooped and kissed the thin face sunk in +the pillow's softness. Then, rising, "I am sorry," she continued stiffly +and decidedly. "But it is impossible!" + +"Still--if a vacancy should occur?" he pleaded. + +Her eyes met his defiantly. "We will inform you," she said. + +"Thank you," he answered humbly. "Perhaps I am fatiguing your mother?" + +"I think you are a little tired, dear," the girl said, stooping over +her. "A little fatigues you." + +Madame's cheeks were flushed; her eyes shone brightly, even feverishly. +Claude saw this, and having pushed his plea and his suit as far as he +dared, he hastened to take his leave. His thoughts had been busy with +his chances all the time, his eyes with the woman's face; yet he bore +away with him a curiously vivid picture of the room, of the bow-pot +blooming in the farther dormer, of the brass skillet beside the green +boughs which filled the hearth, of the spinning wheel in the middle of +the floor, and the great Bible on the linen chest beside the bed, of the +sloping roof, and a queer triangular cupboard which filled one corner. + +At the time, as he followed the girl downstairs, he thought of none of +these things. He only asked himself what mystery lay in the bosom of +this quiet house, and what he should say when he stood in the room below +at bay before her. Of one thing he was still sure--sure, ay and surer, +since he had seen her with her mother, + + The sky might fall, fish fly, and sheep pursue + The tawny monarch of the Libyan strand! + +but he lodged here. The mention of his adversary of last night, which +had not escaped his ear, had only hardened him in his resolution. The +room of Esau--or was it Louis' room--must be his! He must be Jacob the +Supplanter. + +She did not speak as she preceded him down the stairs, and before they +emerged one after the other into the living-room, which was still +unoccupied, he had formed his plan. When she moved towards the outer +door to open it he refused to follow: he stood still. "Pardon me," he +said, "would you mind giving me the name of the young man who admitted +me?" + +"I do not see----" + +"I only want his name." + +"Esau Tissot." + +"And his room? Which was it?" + +Grudgingly she pointed to the nearer of the two closets, that of which +the door stood open. + +"That one?" + +"Yes." + +He stepped quickly into it, and surveyed it carefully. Then he laid his +cap on the low truckle-bed. "Very good," he said, raising his voice and +speaking through the open door, "I will take it." And he came out again. + +The girl's eyes sparkled. "If you think," she cried, her temper showing +in her face, "that that will do you any good----" + +"I don't think," he said, cutting her short, "I take it. Your mother +undertook that I should have the first vacant room. Tissot resigned this +room this morning. I take it. I consider myself fortunate--most +fortunate." + +Her colour came and went. "If you were a boor," she cried, "you could +not behave worse!" + +"Then I am a boor!" + +"But you will find," she continued, "that you cannot force your way +into a house like this. You will find that such things are not done in +Geneva. I will have you put out!" + +"Why?" he asked, craftily resorting to argument. "When I ask only to +remain and be quiet? Why, when you have, or to-night will have, an empty +room? Why, when you lodged Tissot, will you not lodge me? In what am I +worse than Tissot or Grio," he continued, "or--I forget the other's +name? Have I the plague, or the falling sickness? Am I Papist or Arian? +What have I done that I may not lie in Geneva, may not lie in your +house? Tell me, give me a reason, show me the cause, and I will go." + +Her anger had died down while he spoke and while she listened. Instead, +the lowness of heart to which she had yielded when she thought herself +alone before the hearth showed in every line of her figure. "You do not +know what you are doing," she said sadly. And she turned and looked +through the casement. "You do not know what you are asking, or to what +you are coming." + +"Did Tissot know when he came?" + +"You are not Tissot," she answered in a low tone, "and may fare worse." + +"Or better," he answered gaily. "And at worst----" + +"Worse or better you will repent it," she retorted. "You will repent it +bitterly!" + +"I may," he answered. "But at least you never shall." + +She turned and looked at him at that; looked at him as if the curtain of +apathy fell from her eyes and she saw him for the first time as he was, +a young man, upright and not uncomely. She looked at him with her mind +as well as her eyes, and seeing felt curiosity about him, pity for him, +felt her own pulses stirred by his presence and his aspect. A faint +colour, softer than the storm-flag which had fluttered there a minute +before, rose to her cheeks; her lips began to tremble. He feared that +she was going to weep, and "That is settled!" he said cheerfully. +"Good!" and he went into the little room and brought out his cap. "I lay +last night at the 'Bible and Hand,' and I must fetch my cloak and pack." + +She stayed him by a gesture. "One moment," she said. "You are determined +to--to do this? To lodge here?" + +"Firmly," he answered, smiling. + +"Then wait." She passed by him and, moving to the fireplace, raised the +lid of the great black pot. The broth inside was boiling and bubbling to +within an inch of the lip, the steam rose from it in a fragrant cloud. +She took an iron spoon and looked at him, a strange look in her eyes. +"Stand where you are," she said, "and I will try you, if you are fit to +come to us or no. Stand, do you hear," she repeated, a note of +excitation, almost of mockery, in her voice, "where you are whatever +happens! You understand?" + +"Yes, I am to stand here, whatever happens," he answered, wondering. +What was she going to do? + +She was going to do a thing outside the limits of his imagination. She +dipped the iron spoon in the pot and, extending her left arm, +deliberately allowed some drops of the scalding liquor to fall on the +bare flesh. He saw the arm wince, saw red blisters spring out on the +white skin, he caught the sharp indraw of her breath, but he did not +move. Again she dipped the spoon, looking at him with defiant eyes, and +with the same deliberation she let the stuff fall on the living flesh. +This time the perspiration sprang out on her brow, her face burned +suddenly hot, her whole frame shrank under the torture. + +"Don't!" he cried hoarsely. "I will not bear it! Don't!" And he uttered +a cry half-articulate, like a beast's. + +"Stand there!" she said. And still he stood: stood, his hands clenched +and his lips drawn back from his teeth, while she dipped the spoon +again, and--though her arm shook now like an aspen and there were tears +of pain in her eyes--let the dreadful stuff fall a third time. + +She was white when she turned to him. "If you do it again," he cried +furiously, "I will upset--the cursed pot." + +"I have done," she said, smiling faintly. "I am not very brave--after +all!" And going to the dresser, her knees trembling under her, she +poured out some water and drank it greedily. Then she turned to him, "Do +you understand?" she said with a long tense look. "Are you prepared? If +you come here, you will see me suffer worse things, things a hundred +times, a thousand times worse than that. You will see me suffer, and you +will have to stand and see it. You will have to stand and suffer it. You +will have to stand! If you cannot, do not come." + +"I stood it," he answered doggedly. "But there are things flesh and +blood cannot stand. There is a limit----" + +"The limit I shall fix," she said proudly. "Not you." + +"But you will fix it?" + +"Perhaps. At any rate, that is the bargain. You may accept or refuse. +You do not know where I stand, and I do. You must see and be blind, feel +and be dumb, hear and make no answer, unless I speak--if you are to come +here." + +"But you will speak--sometime?" + +"I do not know," she answered wearily, and her whole form wilting she +looked away from him. "I do not know. Go now, if you please--and +remember!" + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE QUINTESSENTIAL STONE. + + +The old town of Geneva, pent in the angle between lake and river, and +cramped for many generations by the narrow corselet of its walls, was +not large; it was still high noon when Mercier, after paying his +reckoning at the "Bible and Hand," and collecting his possessions, found +himself again in the Corraterie. A pleasant breeze stirred the leafy +branches which shaded the ramparts, and he stood a moment beside one of +the small steep-roofed watch-towers, and resting his burden on the +breast-high wall, gazed across the hazy landscape to the mountains, +beyond which lay Chatillon and his home. + +Yet it was not of his home he was thinking as he gazed; nor was it his +mother's or his father's face that the dancing heat of mid-day mirrored +for him as he dreamed. Oh, happy days of youth when an hour and a face +change all, and a glance from shy eyes, or the pout of strange lips +blinds to the world and the world's ambitions! Happy youth! But alas for +the studies this youth had come so far to pursue, for the theology he +had crossed those mountains to imbibe--at the pure source and fount of +evangelical doctrine! Alas for the venerable Beza, pillar and pattern of +the faith, whom he had thirsted to see, and the grave of Calvin, aim and +end of his pilgrimage! All Geneva held but one face for him now, one +presence, one gracious personality. A scarlet blister on a round white +arm, the quiver of a girl's lip a-tremble on the verge of tears--these +and no longing for home, these and no memory of father or mother or the +days of childhood, filled his heart to overflowing. He dreamed with his +eyes on the hills, but it was not + + Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, + Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, + +the things he had come to study; but of a woman's trouble and the secret +life of the house behind him, of which he was about to form part. + +At length the call of a sentry at the Porte Tertasse startled him from +his thoughts. He roused himself, and uncertain how long he had lingered +he took up his cloak and bag and, turning, hastened across the street to +the door at the head of the four steps. He found it on the latch, and +with a confident air, which belied his real feelings, he pushed it open +and presented himself. + +For a moment he fancied that the room held only one person. This was a +young man who sat at the table in the middle of the room and, surprised +by the appearance of a stranger, suspended his spoon in the air that he +might the better gaze at him. But when Claude had set down his bag +behind the door, and turned to salute the other, he discovered his +error; and despite himself he paused in the act of advancing, unable to +hide his concern. At the table on the hearth, staring at him in silence, +sat two other men. And one of the two was Grio. + +Mercier paused we have said; he expected an outburst of anger if not an +assault. But a second glance at the old ruffian's face relieved him: a +stare of vacant wonder made it plain that Grio sober retained little of +the doings of Grio drunk. Nevertheless, the silent gaze of the +three--for no one greeted him--took Claude aback; and it was but +awkwardly and with embarrassment that he approached the table, and +prepared to add himself to the party. Something in their looks as well +as their silence whispered him unwelcome. He blushed, and addressing the +young man at the larger table-- + +"I have taken Tissot's room," he said shyly. "This is his seat, I +suppose. May I take it?" And indicating an empty bowl and spoon on the +nearer side of the table, he made as if he would sit down before them. + +In place of answering, the young man looked from him to the two on the +hearth, and laughed--a foolish, frightened laugh. The sound led +Mercier's eyes in the same direction, and he appreciated for the first +time the aspect of the man who sat with Grio; a man of great height and +vast bulk, with a large plump face and small grey eyes. It struck +Mercier as he met the fixed stare of those eyes, that he had entered +with less ceremony than was becoming, and that he ought to make amends +for it; and, in the act of sitting down in the vacant seat, he turned +and bowed politely to the two at the other table. + +"Tissotius timuit, jam peregrinus adest!" the big man murmured in a +voice at once silky and sonorous. Then ignoring Mercier, but looking +blandly at the young man who sat facing him at the table, "What is this +of Tissot?" he continued. "Can it be," with a side-glance at the +newcomer, "that we have lost our--I may not call him our quintessence or +alcahest--rather shall I say our baser ore, that at the virgin touch of +our philosophical stone blushed into ruddy gold? And burned ever +brighter and hotter in her presence! Tissot gone, and with him all those +fair experiments! Is it possible?" + +The young man's grin showed that he savoured a jest. But, "I know +nothing," he muttered sheepishly. "'Tis new to me." + +"Tissot gone!" the big man repeated in a tone humorously melancholy. "No +more shall we + + Upon his viler metal test our purest pure, + And see him transmutations three endure! + +Tissot gone! And you, sir, come in his place. What change is here! A +stranger, I believe?" + +"In Geneva, yes," Claude answered, wondering and a little abashed. The +man spoke with an air of power and weight. + +"And a student, doubtless in our Academia? Like our Tissot? Yes. It may +be," he continued in the same smooth tones wherein ridicule and +politeness appeared to be so nicely mingled that it was difficult to +judge if he spoke in jest or earnest, "like him in other things! It may +be that we have gained and not lost. And that qualities finer and more +susceptible underlie an exterior more polished and an ease more +complete," he bowed, "than our poor Tissot could boast! But here is + + Our stone angelical whereby + All secret potencies to light are brought! + +Doubtless"--with a wave of the hand he indicated the girl who had that +moment entered--"you have met before?" + +"I could not otherwise," Claude answered coldly--he began to resent both +the man and his manner--"have engaged the lodging." And he rose to take +from the girl's hand the broth she was bringing him. She, on her side, +made no sign that she noticed a change, or that it was no longer Tissot +she served. She gave him what he needed, mechanically and without +meeting his eyes. Then turning to the others, she waited on them after +the same fashion. For a minute or two there was silence in the room. + +A strange silence, Claude thought, listening and wondering: as strange +and embarrassing as the talk of the man who shared with Grio the table +by the fireplace: as strange as the atmosphere about them, which hung +heavy, to his fancy, and oppressive, fraught with unintelligible +railleries, with subtle jests and sneers. The girl went to and fro, from +one to another, her face pale, her manner quiet. And had he not seen her +earlier with another look in her eyes, had he not detected a sinister +something underlying the big man's good humour, he would have learned +nothing from her; he would have fancied that all was as it should be in +the house and in the company. + +As it was he understood nothing. But he felt that a something was wrong, +that a something overhung the party. Seated as he was he could not +without turning see the faces of the two at the other table, nor watch +the girl when she waited on them. But the suspicion of a smile which +hovered on the lips of the young man who sat opposite him--whom he could +see--kept him on his guard. Was a trick in preparation? Were they about +to make him pay his footing? No, for they had no notice of his coming. +They could not have laid the mine. Then why that smile? And why this +silence? + +On a sudden he caught the sound of a movement behind him, the swirl of a +petticoat, and the clang of a pewter plate as it fell noisily to the +floor. His companion looked up swiftly, the smile on his face broadening +to a snigger. Claude turned too as quickly as he could and looked, his +face hot, his mind suspecting some prank to be played on him; to his +astonishment he discovered nothing to account for the laugh. The girl +appeared to be bending over the embers on the hearth, the men to be +engaged with their meal; and baffled and perplexed he turned again and, +his ears burning, bent over his plate. He was glad when the stout man +broke the silence for the second time. + +"Agrippa," he said, "has this of amalgams. That whereas gold, silver, +tin are valuable in themselves, they attain when mixed with mercury to a +certain light and sparkling character, as who should say the bubbles on +wine, or the light resistance of beauty, which in the one case and the +other add to the charm. Such to our simple pleasures"--he continued with +a rumble of deep laughter--"our simple pleasures, which I must now also +call our pleasures of the past, was our Tissot! Who, running fluid +hither and thither, where resistance might be least of use, was as it +were the ultimate sting of enjoyment. Is it possible that we have in our +friend a new Tissot?" + +The young man at the table giggled. "I did not know Tissot!" Claude +replied sharply and with a burning face--they were certainly laughing at +him. "And therefore I cannot say." + +"Mercury, which completes the amalgam," the stout man muttered absently +and as if to himself, "when heated sublimes over!" Then turning after a +moment's silence to the girl, "What says our Quintessential Stone to +this?" he continued. "Her Tissot gone will she still work her wonders? +Still of base Grios and the weak alloys red bridegrooms make? +Still--kind Anne, your hand!" + +Silence! Silence again. What were they doing? Claude, full of suspicion, +turned to see what it meant; turned to learn what it was on which the +greedy eyes of his table-fellow were fixed so intently. And now he saw, +more or less. The stout man and Grio had their heads together and their +faces bent over the girl's hand, which the former held. On them, +however, Claude scarcely bestowed a glance. It was the girl's face which +caught and held his eyes, nay, made them burn. Had it blushed, had it +showed white, he had borne the thing more lightly, he had understood it +better. But her face showed dull and apathetic; as she stood looking +down at the men, suffering them to do what they would with her hand, a +strange passivity was its sole expression. When the big man (whose name +Claude learned later was Basterga), after inspecting the palm, kissed it +with mock passion, and so surrendered it to Grio, who also pressed his +coarse lips to it, while the young man beside Claude laughed, no change +came over her. Released, she turned again to the hearth, impassive. And +Claude, his heart beating, recognised that this was the hundredth +performance; that so far from being a new thing it was a thing so old as +to be stale to her, moving her less, though there were insult and +derision in every glance of the men's eyes, than it moved him. + +And noting this he began in a dim way to understand. This was the thing +which Tissot had not been able to bear; which in the end had driven the +young man with the small chin from the house. This was the pleasantry to +which his feeble resistance, his outbursts of anger, of jealousy, or of +protest had but added piquancy, the ultimate sting of pleasure to the +jaded palate of the performers. This was the obsession under which she +lay, the trial and persecution which she had warned him he would find it +hard to witness. + +Hard? He believed her, trifling as was the thing he had seen. For behind +it he had a glimpse of other and worse things, and behind all of some +shadowy brooding mystery which compelled her to suffer them and forbade +her to complain. What that was he could not conceive, what it could be +he could not conceive: nor had he long to consider the question. He +found the shifty eyes of his table-fellow fixed upon him, and, though +the moment his own eyes met them they were averted, he fancied that they +sped a glance of intelligence to the table behind him, and he hastened +to curb, if not his feelings, at least the show of them. He had his +warning. It was not as Tissot he must act if he would help her, but more +warily, more patiently, biding her time, and letting the blow, when the +time came, precede the word. Unwarned, he had acted it is probable as +Tissot had acted, weakly and stormily: warned, he had no excuse if he +failed her. Young as he was he saw this. The fault lay with him if he +made the position worse instead of better. + +Whether, do what he would, his feelings made themselves known--for the +shoulders can speak, and eloquently, on occasion--or the reverse was the +case, and his failure to rise to the bait disappointed the tormentor, +the big man, Basterga, presently resumed the attack. + +"Tissotius pereat, Tissotianus adest!" he muttered with a sneer. "But +perhaps, young sir, Latinity is not one of your subjects. The tongue of +the immortal Cicero----" + +"I speak it a little," Claude answered quietly. "It were foolish to +approach the door of learning without the key." + +"Oh, you are a wit, young sir! Well, with your wit and your Latinity can +you construe this:-- + + Stultitiam expellas, furca tamen usque recurret + Tissotius periit terque quaterque redit!" + +"I think so," Claude replied gravely. + +"Good, if it please you! And the meaning?" + +"Tissot was a fool, and you are another!" the young man returned. "Will +you now solve me one, reverend sir, with all submission?" + +"Said and done!" the big man answered disdainfully. + +"Nec volucres plumae faciunt nec cuspis Achillem! Construe me that then +if you will!" + +Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "Fine feathers do not make fine birds!" +he said. "If you apply it to me," he continued with a contemptuous face, +"I----" + +"Oh, no, to your company," Claude answered. Self-control comes hardly to +the young, and he had already forgotten his _role_. "Ask him what +happened last night at the 'Bible and Hand,'" he continued, pointing to +Grio, "and how he stands now with his friend the Syndic!" + +"The Syndic?" + +"The Syndic Blondel!" + +The moment the words had passed his lips, Claude repented. He saw that +he had struck a note more serious than he intended. The big man did not +move, but over his fat face crept a watching expression; he was plainly +startled. His eyes, reduced almost to pin-points, seemed for an instant +the eyes of a cat about to spring. The effect was so evident indeed that +it bewildered Claude and so completely diverted his attention from Grio, +the real target, that when the bully, who had listened stupidly to the +exchange of wit, proved by a brutal oath his comprehension of the +reference to himself, the young man scarcely heard him. + +"The Syndic Blondel?" Basterga muttered after a pregnant pause. "What +know you of him, pray?" + +Before the young man could answer, Grio broke in. "So you have followed +me here, have you?" he cried, striking his jug on the table and glaring +across the board at the offender. "You weren't content to escape last +night it seems. Now----" + +"Enough!" Basterga muttered, the keen expression of his face unchanged. +"Softly! Softly! Where are we? I don't understand. What is this? Last +night----" + +"I want not to rake up bygones if you will let them be," Claude answered +with a sulky air, half assumed. "It was you who attacked me." + +"You puppy!" Grio roared. "Do you think----" + +"Enough!" Basterga said again: and his eyes leaving the young man fixed +themselves on his companion. "I begin to understand," he murmured, his +voice low, but not the less menacing for that, or for the cat-like purr +in it. "I begin to comprehend. This is one of your tricks, Messer Grio. +One of the clever tricks you play in your cups! Some day you'll do that +in them will--No!" repressing the bully as he attempted to rise. "Have +done now and let us understand. The 'Bible and Hand,' eh? 'Twas there, I +suppose, you and this youth met, and----" + +"Quarrelled," said Claude sullenly. "That's all." + +"And you followed him hither?" + +"No, I did not." + +"No? Then how come you here?" Basterga asked, his eyes still watchful. +"In this house, I mean? 'Tis not easy to find." + +"My father lodged here," Claude vouchsafed. And he shrugged his +shoulders, thinking that with that the matter was clear. + +But Basterga continued to eye him with something that was not far +removed from suspicion. "Oh," he said. "That is it, is it? Your father +lodged here. And the Syndic--Blondel, was it you said? How comes he into +it? Grio was prating of him, I suppose?" For an instant, while he waited +the answer to the question, his eyes shrank again to pin-points. + +"He came in and found us at sword-play," Claude answered. "Or just +falling to it. And though the fault was not mine, he would have sent me +to prison if I had not had a letter for him." + +"Oh!" And returning with a manifest effort to the tone and manner of a +few minutes before:-- + + "Impiger, Iracundus, Inexorabilis, acer + Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis," + +he hummed. "I doubt if such manners will be appreciated in Geneva, young +man," and furtively he wiped his brow. "To old stagers like my friend +here who has given his proofs of fidelity to the State, some indulgence +is granted----" + +"I see that," Claude answered with sarcasm. + +"I am saying it. But you, if you will not be warned, will soon find or +make the town too hot for you." + +"He will find this house too hot for him!" growled his companion, who +had made more than one vain attempt to assert himself. "And that to-day! +To-day! Perdition, I know him now," he continued, fixing his bloodshot +eyes on the young man, "and if he crows here as he crowed last night, +his comb must be cut! As well soon as late, for there will be no living +with him! There, don't hold me, man! Let me at him!" And he tried to +rise. + +"Fool, have done!" Basterga replied, still restraining him, but only by +the exertion of considerable force. And then in a lower tone but one +partially audible, "Do you want to draw the eyes of all Geneva this +way?" he continued. "Do you want the house marked and watched and every +gossip's tongue wagging about it? You did harm enough last night, I'll +answer, and well if no worse comes of it! Have done, I say, or I shall +speak, you know to whom!" + +"Why does he come here? Why does he follow me?" the sot complained. + +"Cannot you hear that his father lodged here?" + +"A lie!" Grio cried vehemently. "He is spying on us! First at the 'Bible +and Hand' last night, and then here! It is you who are the fool, man. +Let me go! Let me at him, I say!" + +"I shall not!" the big man answered firmly. And he whispered in the +other's ear something which Claude could not catch. Whatever it was it +cooled Grio's rage. He ceased to struggle, nodded sulkily and sat back. +He stretched out his hand, took a long draught, and having emptied his +jug, "Here's Geneva!" he said, wiping his lips with the air of a man who +had given a toast. "Only don't let him cross me! That is all. Where is +the wench?" + +"She has gone upstairs," Basterga answered with one eye on Claude. He +seemed to be unable to shake off a secret doubt of him. + +"Then let her come down," Grio answered with a grin, half drunken, half +brutal, "and make her show sport. Here, you there," to the young man who +shared Claude's table, "call her down and----" + +"Sit still!" Basterga growled, and he trod--Claude was almost sure of +it--on the bully's foot. "It is late, and these young gentlemen should +be at their themes. Theology, young sir," he turned to Claude with the +slightest shade of over-civility in his pompous tone, "like the pursuit +of the Alcahest, which some call the Quintessence of the Elements, +allows no rival near its throne!" + +"I attend my first lecture to-morrow," Claude answered drily. And he +kept his seat. His face was red and his hand trembled. They would call +her down for their sport, would they! Not in his presence, nor again in +his absence, if he could avoid it. + +Grio struck the table. "Call her down!" he ordered in a tone which +betrayed the influence of his last draught. "Do you hear!" And he looked +fiercely at Louis Gentilis, the young man who sat opposite Claude. + +But Louis only looked at Basterga and grinned. + +And Basterga it was plain was not in the mood to amuse himself. Whatever +the reason, the big man was no longer at his ease in Mercier's company. +Some unpleasant thought, some suspicion, born of the incident at the +"Bible and Hand," seemed to rankle in his mind, and, strive as he +would, betrayed its presence in the tone of his voice and the glance of +his eye. He was uneasy, nor could he hide his uneasiness. To the look +which Gentilis shot at him he replied by one which imperatively bade the +young man keep his seat. "Enough fooling for to-day," he said, and +stealthily he repressed Grio's resistance. "Enough! Enough! I see that +the young gentleman does not altogether understand our humours. He will +come to them in time, in time," his voice almost fawning, "and see we +mean no harm. Did I understand," he continued, addressing Claude +directly, "that your father knew Messer Blondel?" + +"Who is now Syndic? My uncle did," Claude answered rather curtly. He was +more and more puzzled by the change in Basterga's manner. Was the big +man a poltroon whom the bold front shown to Grio brought to heel? Or was +there something behind, some secret upon which his words had unwittingly +touched? + +"He is a good man," Basterga said. "And of the first in Geneva. His +brother too, who is Procureur-General. Their father died for the State, +and the sons, the Syndic in particular, served with high honour in the +war. Savoy has no stouter foe than Philibert Blondel, nor Geneva a more +devoted son." And he drank as if he drank a toast to them. + +Claude nodded. + +"A man of great parts too. Probably you will wait on him?" + +"Next week. I was near waiting on him after another fashion," Claude +continued rather grimly. "Between him and your friend there," with a +glance at Grio, who had relapsed into a moody glaring silence, "I was +like to get more gyves than justice." + +The big man laughed. "Our friend here has served the State," he +remarked, "and does what another may not. Come, Messer Grio," he +continued, clapping him on the shoulder, as he rose from his seat. "We +have sat long enough. If the young ones will not stir, it becomes the +old ones to set an example. Will you to my room and view the +precipitation of which I told you?" + +Grio gave a snarling assent, and got to his feet; and the party broke up +with no more words. Claude took his cap and prepared to withdraw, well +content with himself and the line he had taken. But he did not leave the +house until his ears assured him that the two who had ascended the +stairs together had actually repaired to Basterga's room on the first +floor, and there shut themselves up. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +CAESAR BASTERGA. + + +Had it been Mercier's eye in place of his ear which attended the two men +to the upper room, he would have remarked--perhaps with surprise, since +he had gained some knowledge of Grio's temper--that in proportion as +they mounted the staircase, the toper's crest drooped, and his arrogance +ebbed away; until at the door of Basterga's chamber, it was but a +sneaking and awkward man who crossed the threshold. + +Nor was the reason far to seek. Whatever the standpoint of the two men +in public, their relations to one another in private were delivered up, +stamped and sealed in that moment of entrance. While Basterga, leaving +the other to close the door, strode across the room to the window and +stood gazing out, his very back stern and contemptuous, Grio fidgeted +and frowned, waiting with ill-concealed penitence, until the other chose +to address him. At length Basterga turned, and his gleaming eyes, his +moon-face pale with anger, withered his companion. + +"Again! Again!" he growled--it seemed he dare not lift his voice. "Will +you never be satisfied until we are broken on the wheel? You dog, you! +The sooner you are broken the better, were that all! Ay, and were that +all, I could watch the bar fall with pleasure! But do you think I will +see the fruit of years of planning, do you think that I will see the +reward of this brain--this! this, you brainless idiot, who know not +what a brain is"--and he tapped his brow repeatedly with an earnestness +almost grotesque--"do you think that I will see this cast away, because +you swill, swine that you are! Swill and prate in your cups!" + +"'Fore God, I said nothing!" Grio whined. "I said nothing! It was only +that he would not drink and I----" + +"Made him?" + +"No, he would not, I say, and we were coming to blows. And then----" + +"He gave back, did he?" + +"No, Messer Blondel came in." + +Caesar Basterga stretched out his huge arms. "Fool! Fool! Fool!" he +hissed, with a gesture of despair. "There it is! And Blondel, who should +have sent you to the whipping-post, or out of Geneva, has to cloak you! +And men ask why, and what there is between our most upright Syndic and a +drunken, bragging----" + +"Softly," Grio muttered, with a flash of sullen resentment. "Softly, +Messer Basterga! I----" + +"A drunken, swilling, prating pig!" the other persisted. "A broken +soldier living on an hour of chance service? Pooh, man," with contempt, +"do not threaten me! Do you think that I do not know you more than half +craven? The lad below there would cut your comb yet, did I suffer it. +But that is not the point. The point is that you must needs advertise +the world that you and the Syndic, who has charge of the walls, are +hail-fellows, and the world will ask why! Or he must deal with you as +you deserve and out you go from Geneva!" + +"Per Bacco! I am not the only soldier," Grio muttered, "who ruffles it +here!" + +"No! And is not that half our battle?" Basterga rejoined, gazing on him +with massive scorn. "To make use of them and their grumbling, and their +distaste for the Venerable Company of Pastors who rule us! Such men are +our tools; but tools only, and senseless tools, for Geneva won for the +Grand Duke, and what will they be the better, save in the way of a +little more licence and a little more drink? But for you I had something +better! Is the little farm in Piedmont not worth a month's abstinence? +Is drink-money for your old age, when else you must starve or stab in +the purlieus of Genoa, not worth one month's sobriety? But you must +needs for the sake of a single night's debauch ruin me and get yourself +broken on the wheel!" + +Grio shrank under his eye. "There is no harm done," he muttered at last. +"Nobody suspects what is between us." + +"How do you know that?" came the retort. "What? You think it is natural +Blondel should favour such as you?" + +"It will not be the first time Geneva cloak has covered Genoa velvet!" + +"Velvet!" Basterga repeated with a sneer. "Rags rather!" And then more +quickly, "But that is not all, nor the half. Do you think Blondel, who +is on the point, Blondel, who will and will not and on whom all must +turn, Blondel the upright, the impeccable, the patriotic, without whom +we can do nothing, and who, I tell you, hangs in the balance--do you +think he likes it, blockhead? Or is the more inclined to trust his life +with us when he sees us brawlers, toss-pots, common swillers? Do you +think he on whom I am bringing to bear all the resources of this +brain--this!"--and again the big man tapped his forehead with tragic +earnestness--"and whom you could as much move to side with us as you +could move yonder peak of the Jura from its base--do you think he will +deem better of our part for this?" + +"Well, no." + +"No! No, a thousand times!" + +"But I count drunk the same as sober for that!" Grio cried, plucking up +spirit and speaking with a gleam of defiance in his eye. "For it is my +opinion that you have no more chance of moving him than I have! And so +to be plain you have it, Messer Basterga. For how are you going to move +him? With what? Tell me that!" + +"Ah!" + +"With money?" Grio continued with a fluency which showed he spoke on a +subject to which he had given much thought. "He is rich and ten thousand +crowns would not buy him. And the Grand Duke, much as he craves Geneva, +will not spend over boldly." + +"No, I shall not move him with money." + +"With power and rank, then? Will the Grand Duke make him Governor of +Geneva? No, for he dare not trust him. And less than that, what is it to +Syndic Blondel, whose word to-day is all but law in Geneva?" + +"No, nor with power," Basterga answered quietly. + +"Is it with revenge, then? There are men I know who love revenge. But he +is not of the south, and at such a risk revenge were dearly bought." + +"No, nor with revenge," Basterga replied. + +"A woman, then? For that is all that is left," Grio rejoined in triumph. +Once he had spoken out, he had put himself on a level with his master; +he had worsted him, or he was much mistaken. "Perhaps, from the way you +have played with the little prude below, it is a woman. But they are +plenty, even in Geneva, and he is rich and old." + +"No, nor with a woman." + +"Then with what?" + +"With this!" Basterga replied. And for the third time, drawing himself +up to his full height, he tapped his brow. "Do you doubt its power?" + +For answer Grio shrugged his shoulders, his manner sullen and +contemptuous. + +"You do?" + +"I don't see how it works, Messer Basterga," the veteran muttered. "I +say not you have not good wits. You have, I grant it. But the best of +wits must have their means and method. It is not by wishing and +willing----" + +"How know you that?" + +"Eh?" + +"How know you that?" Basterga repeated with sudden energy, and he shook +a massive finger before the other's eyes. "But how know you anything," +he continued with disdain, as he dropped the hand again, and turned on +his heel, "dolt, imbecile, rudiment that you are? Ay, and blind to boot, +for it was but the other day I worked a miracle before you, and you +learned nothing from it." + +"It is no question of miracles," the other muttered doggedly. "But of +how you will persuade the Syndic Blondel to betray Geneva to Savoy!" + +"Is it so? Then tell me this: the girl below who smacked your face a +month back because you laid a hand upon her wrist, and who would have +had you put to the door the same day--how did I tame her? Can you answer +me that?" + +Grio's face fell remarkably. "No, master," he said, nodding +thoughtfully. "I grant it. I cannot. A wilder filly was never handled." + +"So! And yet I tamed her. And she suffers you! She's sport for us within +bounds. Yet do you think she likes it when you paw her hand or lay your +dirty arm about her waist, or steal a kiss? Think you the blood mounts +and ebbs for nothing? Or the tears rise and the lip trembles and the +limbs shake for sheer pleasure. I tell you, if eyes could slay, you had +breathed your last some weeks ago." + +"I know," Grio answered, nodding thoughtfully. "I have wondered and +wondered, ay, many a time, how you did it." + +"Yet I did it? You grant that?" + +"Yes." + +"And you do not understand--with what?" + +Grio shook his head. + +"Then why mistrust me now, blockhead," the other retorted, "when I say +that as I charmed her, I can charm Blondel? Ay, and more easily. You +know not how I did the one, nor how I shall do the other," the big man +continued. "But what of that?" And in a louder voice, and with a gusto +which showed how genuine was his delight in the metre, + + "Pauci quos aequus amavit + Jupiter aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus + Dis geniti potuere," + +he mouthed. "But that," he added, looking scornfully at his confederate, +"is Greek to you!" + +Grio's altered aspect, his crestfallen air owned the virtue of the +argument if not of the citation; which he did not understand. He drew a +deep breath. "Per Bacco," he said, "if you succeed in doing it, Messer +Basterga----" + +"I shall do it," Basterga retorted, "if you do not spoil all with your +drunken tricks!" + +Grio was silent a moment, sunk plainly in reflection. Presently his +bloodshot eyes began to travel respectfully and even timidly over the +objects about him. In truth the room in which he found himself was +worthy of inspection, for it was no common room, either in aspect or +furnishing. It boasted, it is true, none of the weird properties, the +skulls and corpse-lights, dead hands, and waxen masks with which the +necromancer of that day sought to impress the vulgar mind. But in place +of these a multitude of objects, quaint, curious, or valuable, filled +that half of the room which was farther from the fire-hearth. On the +wall, flanked by a lute and some odd-looking rubrical calendars, were +three or four silver discs, engraved with the signs of the Zodiac; these +were hung in such a position as to catch the light which entered through +the heavily leaded casement. On the window-seat below them, a pile of +Plantins and Elzevirs threatened to bury a steel casket. On the table, +several rolls of vellum and papyrus, peeping from metal cylinders, leant +against a row of brass-bound folios. A handsome fur covering masked the +truckle-bed, but this, too, bore its share of books, as did two or three +long trunks covered with stamped and gilded leather which stood against +the wall and were so long that the ladies of the day had the credit of +hiding their gallants in them. On stools lay more books, and yet more +books, with a medley of other things: a silver flagon, and some weapons, +a chess-board, an enamelled triptych and the like. + +In a word, this half of the room wore the aspect of a library, +low-roofed, dark and richly furnished. The other half, partly divided +from it by a curtain, struck the eye differently. A stove of peculiar +fashion, equipped with a powerful bellows, cumbered the hearth; before +this on a long table were ranged a profusion of phials and retorts, +glass vessels of odd shapes, and earthen pots. Crucibles and alembics +stood in the ashes before the stove, and on a sideboard placed under the +window were scattered a set of silver scales, a chemist's mask, and a +number of similar objects. Cards bearing abstruse calculations hung +everywhere on the walls; and over the fireplace, inscribed in gold and +black letters, the Greek word "EUREKA" was conspicuous. + +The existence of such a room in the quiet house in the Corraterie was +little suspected by the neighbours, and if known would have struck them +with amazement. To Grio its aspect was familiar: but in this case +familiarity had not removed his awe of the unknown and the magical. He +looked about him now, and after a pause:-- + +"I suppose you do it--with these," he murmured, and with an almost +imperceptible shiver he pointed to the crucibles. + +"With those?" Basterga exclaimed, and had the other ascribed +supernatural virtues to the cinders or the bellows he could not have +thrown greater scorn into his words. "Do you think I ply this base +mechanic art for aught but to profit by the ignorance of the vulgar? Or +think by pots and pans and mixing vile substances to make this, which by +nature is this, into that which by nature it is not! I, a scholar? A +scholar? No, I tell you, there was never alchemist yet could transmute +but one thing--poor into rich, rich into poor!" + +"But," Grio murmured with a look and in a voice of disappointment, "is +not that the true transmutation which a thousand have died seeking, and +one here and there, it is rumoured, has found? From lead to gold, Messer +Basterga?" + +"Ay, but the lead is the poor alchemist, who gets gold from his patron +by his trick. And the gold is the poor fool who finds him in his living, +and being sucked, turns to lead! There you have your transmutation." + +"Yet----" + +"There is no yet!" + +"But Agrippa," Grio persisted, "Cornelius Agrippa, who sojourned here in +Geneva and of whom, master, you speak daily--was he not a learned man?" + +"Ay, even as I am!" Caesar Basterga answered, swelling visibly with +pride. "But constrained, even as I am, to ply the baser trade and stoop +to that we see and touch and smell! Faugh! What lot more cursed than to +quit the pure ether of Latinity for the lower region of matter? And in +place of cultivating the _literae humaniores_, which is the true +cultivation of the mind, and sets a man, mark you, on a level with +princes, to stoop to handle virgin milk and dragon's blood, as they +style their vile mixtures; or else grope in dead men's bodies for the +thing which killed them. Which is a pure handicraft and cheirergon, +unworthy a scholar, who stoops of right to naught but the goose-quill!" + +"And yet, master, by these same things----" + +"Men grow rich," Basterga continued with a sneer, "and get power? Ay, +and the bastard sits in the chair of the legitimate; and pure learning +goes bare while the seekers after the Stone and the Elixir (who, in +these days are descending to invent even lesser things and smaller +advantages that in the learned tongues have not so much as names) grow +in princes' favour and draw on their treasuries! But what says Seneca? +'It is not the office of Philosophy to teach men to use their hands. The +object of her lessons is to form the soul and the taste.' And Aldus +Manucius, vir doctissimus, magister noster," here he raised his hand to +his head as if he would uncover, "says also the same, but in a Latinity +more pure and translucent, as is his custom." + +Grio scratched his head. The other's vehemence, whether he sneered or +praised, flew high above his dull understanding. He had his share of the +reverence for learning which marked the ignorant of that age: but to +what better end, he pondered stupidly, could learning be directed than +to the discovery of that which must make its owner the most enviable of +mortals, the master of wealth and youth and pleasure! It was not to +this, however, that he directed his objection: the _argumentum ad +hominem_ came more easily to him. "But you do this?" he said, pointing +to the paraphernalia about the stove. + +"Ay," Basterga rejoined with vehemence. "And why, my friend? Because the +noble rewards and the consideration which former times bestowed on +learning are to-day diverted to baser pursuits! Erasmus was the friend +of princes, and the correspondent of kings. Della Scala was the +companion of an emperor; Morus, the Englishman, was the right arm of a +king. And I, Caesar Basterga of Padua, bred in the pure Latinity of our +Master Manucius, yield to none of these. Yet am I, if I would live, +forced to stoop 'ad vulgus captandum!' I must kneel that I may rise! I +must wade through the mire of this base pursuit that I may reach the +firm ground of wealth and learned ease. But think you that I am the dupe +of the art wherewith I dupe others? Or, that once I have my foot on firm +ground I will stoop again to the things of matter and sense? No, by +Hercules!" the big man continued, his eye kindling, his form dilating. +"This scheme once successful, this feat that should supply me for life, +once performed, Caesar Basterga of Padua will know how to add, to those +laurels which he has already gained, + + The bays of Scala and the wreath of More, + Erasmus' palm and that which Lipsius wore." + +And in a kind of frenzy of enthusiasm the scholar fell to pacing the +floor, now mouthing hexameters, now spurning with his foot a pot or an +alembic which had the ill-luck to lie in his path. Grio watched him, and +watching him, grew only more puzzled--and more puzzled. He could have +understood a moral shrinking from the enterprise on which they were both +embarked--the betrayal of the city that gave them shelter. He could have +understood--he had superstition enough--a moral distaste for alchemy and +those practices of the black art which his mind connected with it. But +this superiority of the scholar, this aloofness, not from the treachery, +but from the handicraft, was beyond him. For that reason it imposed on +him the more. + +Not the less, however, was he importunate to know wherein Basterga +trusted. To rave of Scholarship and Scaliger was one thing, to bring +Blondel into the plot which was to transfer Geneva to Savoy and strike +the heaviest blow at the Reformed that had been struck in that +generation, was another thing and one remote. The Syndic was a trifle +discontented and inclined to intrigue; that was true, Grio knew it. But +to parley with the Grand Duke's emissaries, and strive to get and give +not, that was one thing; while to betray the town and deliver it tied +and bound into the hands of its arch-enemy, was another and a far more +weighty matter. One, too, to which in Grio's judgment--and in the dark +lanes of life he had seen and weighed many men--the magistrate would +never be brought. + +"Shall you need my aid with him?" he asked after a while, seeing the +scholar still wrapt in thought. The question was not lacking in craft. + +"Your aid? With whom?" + +"With Messer Blondel." + +"Pshaw, man," Basterga answered, rousing himself from his reverie. "I +had forgotten him and was thinking of that villain Scioppius and his +tract against Joseph Justus. Do you know," he continued with a snort of +indignation, "that in his _Hyperbolimaeus_, not content with the +statement that Joseph Justus left his laundress's bill at Louvain +unpaid, he alleges that I--I, Caesar Basterga of Padua--was broken on the +wheel at Munster a year ago for the murder of a gentleman!" + +Grio turned a shade paler. "If this business miscarry," he said, "the +statement may prove within a year of the mark. Or nearer, at any rate, +than may please us." + +Basterga smiled disdainfully. "Think it not!" he answered, extending his +arms and yawning with unaffected sincerity. "There was never scholar yet +died on the wheel." + +"No?" + +"No, friend, no. Nor will, unless it be Scioppius, and he is unworthy of +the name of scholar. No, we have our disease, and die of it, but it is +not that. Nevertheless," he continued with magnanimity, "I will not deny +that when Master Pert-Tongue downstairs put our names together so pat, +it scared me. It scared me. For how many chances were there against such +an accident? Or what room to think it an accident, when he spoke clearly +with the _animus pugnandi_? No, I'll not deny he touched me home." + +Grio nodded grimly. "I would we were rid of him!" he growled. "The young +viper! I foresee danger from him." + +"Possibly," Basterga replied. "Possibly. In that case measures must be +taken. But I hope there may be no necessity. And now, I expect Messer +Blondel in an hour, and have need, my friend, of thought and solitude +before he comes. Knock at my door at eight this evening and I may have +news for you." + +"You don't think to resolve him to-night?" Grio muttered with a look of +incredulity. + +"It may be. I do not know. In the meantime silence, and keep sober!" + +"Ay, ay!" + +"But it is more than ay, ay!" Basterga retorted with irritation; with +something of the temper, indeed, which he had betrayed at the beginning +of the interview. "Scholars die otherwise, but many a broken soldier has +come to the wheel! So do you have a care of it! If you do not----" + +"I have said I will!" Grio cried sharply. "Enough scolding, master. I've +a notion you'll find your own task a little beyond your hand. See if I +am not right!" he added. And with this show of temper on his side, he +went out and shut the door loudly behind him. + +Basterga stood a few moments in thought. At length, + + "Dimidium facti, qui bene c[oe]pit, habet!" + +he muttered. And shrugging his shoulders he looked about him, judging +with an artistic eye the effect which the room would have on a stranger. +Apparently he was not perfectly content with it, for, stepping to one of +the long trunks, he drew from it a gold chain, some medals and a +jewelled dagger, and flung these carelessly on a box in a corner. He set +up the alembics and pipkins which he had overturned, and here and there +he opened a black-lettered folio, discovered an inch or two of crabbed +Hebrew, or the corner of an illuminated script. A cameo dropped in one +place, a clay figure of Minerva set up in another, completed the +picture. + +His next proceeding was less intelligible. He unearthed from the pile of +duo-decimos on the window-seat the steel casket which has been +mentioned. It was about twelve inches long and as many wide; and as deep +as it was broad. Wrought in high relief on the front appeared an +elaborate representation of Christ healing the sick; on each end, below +a massive ring, appeared a similar design. The box had an appearance of +strength out of proportion to its size; and was furnished with two +locks, protected and partly hidden by tiny shields. + +Basterga handling it gently polished it awhile with a cloth, then +bearing it to the inner end of the room he set it on a bracket beside +the hearth. This place was evidently made for it, for on either side of +the bracket hung a steel chain and padlock; with which, and the rings, +the scholar proceeded to secure the casket to the wall. This done, he +stepped back and contemplated the arrangement with a smile of +contemptuous amusement. + +"It is neither so large as the Horse of Troy," he murmured complacently, +"nor so small as the Wafer that purchased Paris. It is neither so deep +as hell, nor so high as heaven, nor so craftily fastened a wise man may +not open it, nor so strong a fool may not smash it. But it may suffice. +Messer Blondel is no Solomon, and may swallow this as well as another +thing. In which event, Ave atque vale, Geneva! But here he comes. And +now to cast the bait!" + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE ELIXIR VITAE. + + +As the Syndic crossed the threshold of the scholar's room, he uncovered +with an air of condescension that, do what he would, was not free from +uneasiness. He had persuaded himself--he had been all the morning +persuading himself--that any man might pay a visit to a learned +scholar--why not? Moreover, that a magistrate in paying such a visit was +but in the performance of his duty, and might plume himself accordingly +on the act. + +Yet two things like worms in the bud would gnaw at his peace. The first +was conscience: if the Syndic did not know he had reason to suspect that +Basterga bore the Grand Duke's commission, and was in Geneva to further +his master's ends. The second source of his uneasiness he did not +acknowledge even to himself, and yet it was the more powerful: it was a +suspicion--a strong suspicion, though he had met Basterga but +twice--that in parleying with the scholar he was dealing with a man for +whom he was no match, puff himself out as he might; and who secretly +despised him. + +Perhaps the fact that the latter feeling ceased to vex him before he had +been a minute in the room, was the best testimony to Basterga's tact we +could desire. Not that the scholar was either effusive or abject. It was +rather by a frank address which took equality for granted, and by an +easy assumption that the visit had no importance, that he calmed Messer +Blondel's nerves and soothed his pride. + +Presently, "If I do not the honour of my poor apartment so pressingly as +some," he said, "it is out of no lack of respect, Messer Syndic. But +because, having had much experience of visitors, I know that nothing +fits them so well as to be left at liberty, nothing irks them so much as +to be over-pressed. Here now I have some things that are thought to be +curious, even in Padua, but I do not know whether they will interest +you." + +"Manuscripts?" + +"Yes, manuscripts and the like. This," Basterga lifted one from the +table and placed it in his visitor's hands, "is a facsimile, prepared +with the utmost care, of the 'Codex Vaticanus,' the most ancient +manuscript of the New Testament. Of interest in Geneva, where by the +hands of your great printer, Stephens, M. de Beza has done so much to +advance the knowledge of the sacred text. But you are looking at that +chart?" + +"Yes. What is it, if it please you?" + +"It is a plan of the ancient city of Aurelia," Basterga replied, "which +Caesar, in the first book of his Commentaries places in Switzerland, but +which, some say, should be rather in Savoy." + +"Indeed, Aurelia?" the Syndic muttered, turning it about. It was a plan +beautifully and elaborately finished, but, like most of the plans of +that day, it was without names. "Aurelia?" + +"Yes, Aurelia." + +"But I seem to--is this water?" + +"Yes, a lake," Basterga replied, stooping with a faint smile to the +plan. + +"And this a river?" + +"Yes." + +"Aurelia? But--I seem to know the line of this wall, and these bastions. +Why, it is--Messer Basterga," in a tone of surprise, not unmingled with +anger--"you play with me! it is Geneva!" + +Basterga permitted his smile to become more apparent. "Oh no, Aurelia," +he said lightly and almost jocosely. "Aurelia in Savoy, I assure you. +Whatever it is, however, we have no need to take it to heart, Messer +Blondel. Believe me, it comes from, and is not on its way to, the Grand +Duke's library at Turin." + +The Syndic showed his displeasure by putting the map from him. + +"Your taste is rather for other things," Basterga continued, affecting +to misunderstand the act. "This illuminated manuscript, now, may +interest you? It is in characters which are probably strange to you?" + +"Is it Hebrew?" the Syndic muttered stiffly, his temper still asserting +itself. + +"No, it is in the ancient Arabic character; that into which the works of +Aristotle were translated as far back as the ninth century of our era. +It is a curious treatise by the Arabic sage, Ibn Jasher, who was the +teacher of Ibn Zohr, who was the teacher of Averroes. It was carried +from Spain to Rome about the year 1000 by the learned Pope Sylvester the +Second, who spoke Arabic and of whose library it formed part." + +"Indeed!" Blondel responded, staring at it. "It must be of great value. +How came it into your possession, Messer Basterga?" + +Basterga opened his mouth and shut it again. "I do not think I can tell +you that," he said. + +"It contains, I suppose, many curious things?" + +"Curious?" Basterga replied impulsively, "I should say so! Why, it was +in that volume I found----" And there in apparent confusion he broke +off. He laughed awkwardly, and then, "Well, you know," he resumed, "we +students find many things interest us which would fail to touch the man +of affairs". As if he wished to change the subject, he took the +manuscript from the Syndic's hand and threw it carelessly on the table. + +Messer Blondel thought the carelessness overdone, and, his interest +aroused, he followed the manuscript, he scarcely knew why, with his +eyes. "I think I have heard the name of Averroes?" he said. "Was he not +a physician?" + +"He was many things," Basterga answered negligently. "As a physician he +was, I believe, rather visionary than practical. I have his _Colliget_, +his most famous work in that line, but for my part, in the case of an +ordinary disease, I would rather trust myself," with a shrug of +contempt, "to the Grand Duke's physician." + +"But in the case of an extraordinary disease?" the Syndic asked +shrewdly. + +Basterga frowned. "I meant in any disease," he said. "Did I say +extraordinary?" + +"Yes," Messer Blondel answered stoutly. The frown had not escaped him. +"But I take it, you are something of a physician yourself?" + +"I have studied in the school of Fallopius, the chirurgeon of Padua," +the scholar answered coldly. "But I am a scholar, Messer Blondel, not a +physician, much less a practitioner of the ancillary art, which I take +to be but a base and mechanical handicraft." + +"Yet, chemistry--you pursue that?" the other rejoined with a glance at +the farther table and its load of strange-looking phials and retorts. + +"As an amusement," Basterga replied with a gesture of haughty +deprecation. "A parergon, if you please. I take it, a man may dip into +the mystical writings of Paracelsus without prejudice to his Latinity; +and into the cabalistic lore of the school of Cordova without losing his +taste for the pure oratory of the immortal Cicero. Virgil himself, if +we may believe Helinandus, gave the weight of his great name to such +sports. And Cornelius Agrippa, my learned forerunner in Geneva----" + +"Went something farther than that!" the Syndic struck in with a meaning +nod, twice repeated. "It was whispered, and more than whispered--I had +it from my father--that he raised the devil here, Messer Blondel; the +very same that at Louvain strangled one of Agrippa's scholars who broke +in on him before he could sink through the floor." + +Basterga's face took on an expression of supreme scorn. "Idle tales!" he +said. "Fit only for women! Surely you do not believe them, Messer +Blondel?" + +"I?" + +"Yes, you, Messer Syndic." + +"But this, at any rate, you'll not deny," Blondel retorted eagerly, +"that he discovered the Philosopher's Stone?" + +"And lived poor, and died no richer?" Basterga rejoined in a tone of +increasing scorn. + +"Well, for the matter of that," the Syndic answered more slowly, "that +may be explained." + +"How?" + +"They say, and you must have heard it, that the gold he made in that way +turned in three days to egg-shells and parings of horn." + +"Yet having it three days," Basterga asked with a sneer, "might he not +buy all he wanted?" + +"Well, I can only say that my father, who saw him more than once in the +street, always told me--and I do not know any one who should have known +better----" + +"Pshaw, Messer Blondel, you amaze me!" the scholar struck in, rising +from his seat and adopting a tone at once contemptuous and dictatorial. +"Do you not know," he continued, "that the Philosopher's Stone was and +is but a figure of speech, which stands as some say for the perfect +element in nature, or as others say for the vital principle--that +vivifying power which evades and ever must evade the search of men? Do +you not know that the sages whose speculations took that direction were +endangered by accusations of witchcraft; and that it was to evade these +and to give their researches such an aspect as would command the +confidence of the vulgar, that they gave out that they were seeking +either the Philosopher's Stone, which would make all men rich, or the +Elixir Vitae, which would confer immortality. Believe me, they were +themselves no slaves to these expressions; nor were the initiated among +their followers. But as time went on, tyros, tempted by sounds, and +caught by theories of transmutation, began to interpret them literally, +and, straying aside, spent their lives in the vain pursuit of wealth or +youth. Poor fools!" + +Messer Blondel stared. Had Basterga, assailing him from a different +side, broached the precise story to which, in the case of Agrippa or +Albertus Magnus, the Syndic was prepared to give credence, he had +certainly received the overture with suspicion if not with contempt. He +had certainly been very far from staking good florins upon it. But when +the experimenter in the midst of the apparatus of science, and +surrounded by things which imposed on the vulgar, denied their value, +and laughed at the legends of wealth and strength obtained by their +means--this fact of itself went very far towards convincing him that +Basterga had made a discovery and was keeping it back. + +The vital principle, the essential element, the final good, these were +fine phrases, though they had a pagan ring. But men, the Syndic argued, +did not spend money, and read much and live laborious days, merely to +coin phrases. Men did not surround themselves with costly apparatus only +to prove a theory that had no practical value. "He has discovered +something," Blondel concluded in his mind, "if it be not the +Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Life. I am sure he has discovered +something." And with eyes grown sharp and greedy, the magistrate raked +the room. + +The scholar stood thoughtful where he had paused, and did not seem to +notice him. + +"Then do you mean," Blondel resumed after a while, "that all your work +there"--he indicated by a nod the chemical half of the room--"has been +thrown away?" + +"Well----" + +"Not quite, I think?" the Syndic said, his small eyes twinkling. "Eh, +Messer Basterga, not quite? Now be candid." + +"Well, I would not say," Basterga answered coldly, and as it seemed +unwillingly, "that I have not derived something from the researches with +which I have amused my leisure. But nothing of value to the general." + +"Yet something of value to yourself," Blondel said, his head on one +side. + +Basterga frowned, then shrugged his shoulders. "Well, yes," he said at +length, "as it happens, I have. But a thing of no use to any one else, +for the simple reason----" + +"That you have only enough for yourself!" + +The scholar looked astonished and a little offended. + +"I do not know how you learned that," he said curtly, "but you are +right. I had no intention of telling you as much, but, as you have +guessed that, I do not mind adding that it is a remedy for a disease +which the most learned physicians do not pretend to cure." + +"A remedy?" + +"Yes, vital and certain." + +"And you discovered it?" + +"No, I did not discover it," Basterga replied modestly. "But the story +is so long that I will ask you to excuse me." + +"I shall not excuse you if you do not favour me with it," the Syndic +answered eagerly. As he leaned forward there was a light in his eyes +that had not been in them a few minutes before. His hand, too, shook as +he moved it from the arm of his chair to his knee. "Nay, but, I pray +you, indulge me," he continued, in a tone anxious and almost submissive. +"I shall not betray your secrets. I am no philosopher, and no physician, +and, had I the will, I could make no use of your confidence." + +"That is true," Basterga replied. "And, after all, the matter is simple. +I do not know why I should refuse to oblige you. I have said that I did +not discover this remedy. That is so. But it happened that in trying, by +way of amusement, certain precipitations, I obtained not that which I +sought--nor had I expected," he continued, smiling, "to obtain that, for +it was the Elixir of Life, which, as I have told you, does not +exist--but a substance new in my experience, and which seemed to me to +possess some peculiar properties. I tested it in all the ways known to +me, but without benefit or enlightenment; and in the end I was about to +cast it aside, when I chanced on a passage in the manuscript of Ibn +Jasher--the same, in fact, that I showed you a few minutes ago." + +"And you found?" The Syndic's attitude as he leaned forward, with parted +lips and a hand on each knee, betrayed an interest so abnormal that it +was odd that Basterga did not notice it. + +Instead, "I found that he had made," the scholar replied quietly, "as +far back as the tenth century the same experiment which I had just +completed. And with the same result." + +"He obtained the substance?" + +Basterga nodded. + +"And discovered? What?" Blondel asked eagerly. "Its use?" + +"A certain use," the other replied cautiously. "Or, rather, it was not +he, but an associate, called by him the Physician of Aleppo, who +discovered it. This man was the pupil of the learned Rhazes, and the +tutor of the equally learned Avicenna, the link, in fact, between them; +but his name, for some reason, perhaps because he mixed with his +practice a greater degree of mysticism than was approved by the Arabian +schools of the next generation, has not come down to us. This man +identified the product which had defied Ibn Jasher's tests with a +substance even then considered by most to be fabulous, or to be +extracted only from the horn of the unicorn if that animal existed. That +it had some of the properties of the fabled substance, he proceeded to +prove to the satisfaction of Ibn Jasher by curing of a certain incurable +disease five persons." + +"No more than five?" + +"No." + +"Why?" + +"The substance was exhausted." + +Blondel gasped. "Why did he not make more?" he cried. His voice was +querulous, almost savage. + +"The experiment," Basterga answered, "of which it was the product was +costly." + +Blondel's face turned purple. "Costly?" he cried. "Costly? When the +lives of men hung in the balance." + +"True," Basterga replied with a smile; "but I was about to say that, +costly as it was, it was not its price which hindered the production of +a further supply. The reason was more simple. He could not extract it." + +"Could not? But he had made it once?" + +"Precisely." + +"Then why could he not make it again?" the Syndic asked. He was +genuinely, honestly angry. It was strange how much he took the matter to +heart. + +"He could not," Basterga answered. "He repeated the process again and +again, but the peculiar product, which at the first trial had resulted +from the precipitation, was not obtained." + +"There was something lacking!" + +"There was something lacking," Basterga answered. "But what that was +which was lacking, or how it had entered into the alembic in the first +instance, could not be discovered. The sage tried the experiment under +all known conditions, and particularly when the moon was in the same +quarter and when the sun was in the same house. He tried it, indeed, +thrice on the corresponding day of the year, but--the product did not +issue." + +"How do you account for that?" + +"Probably, in the first instance, an impurity in one of the drugs +introduced a foreign substance into the alembic. That chance never +occurred again, as far as I can learn, until, amusing myself with the +same precipitation, I--I, Caesar Basterga of Padua," the scholar +continued, not boastfully but in a tone thoughtful and almost absent, +"in the last year of the last century, hit at length upon the same +result." + +The Syndic leaned forward; his hands gripped his knees more tightly. +"And you," he said, "can repeat it?" + +Basterga shook his head sorrowfully. "No," he said, "I cannot. Not that +I have myself essayed the experiment more than thrice. I could not +afford it. But a correspondent, M. de Laurens, of Paris, physician to +the King, has, at the expense of a wealthy patient, spent more than +fifteen thousand florins in essays. Alas, without result." + +The big man spoke with his eyes on the floor. Had he turned them on the +Syndic he must have seen that he was greatly agitated. Beads of moisture +stood on his brow, his face was red, he swallowed often and with +difficulty. At length, with an effort at composure, "Possibly your +product--is not, after all, the same as Ibn Jasher's?" he said. + +"I tested it in the same way," Basterga answered quietly. + +"What? By curing persons of that disease?" + +"Yes," Basterga rejoined. "And I would to Heaven," he continued, with +the first spirt of feeling which he had allowed to escape him, "that I +had held my hand after the first proof. Instead, I must needs try it +again and again, and again." + +"For nothing?" + +Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "No," he said, "not for nothing." By a +gesture he indicated the objects about him. "I am not a poor man now, +Messer Blondel. Not for nothing, but too cheaply. And so often that I +have now remaining but one portion of that substance which all the +science of Padua cannot renew. One portion, only, alas!" he repeated +with regret. + +"Enough to cure one person?" the Syndic exclaimed. + +"Yes." + +"And the disease?" Blondel rose as he spoke. "The disease?" he repeated. +He extended his trembling arms to the other. No longer, even if he +wished it, could Basterga feign himself blind to the agitation which +shook, which almost convulsed, the Syndic's meagre frame. "The disease? +Is it not that which men call the Scholar's? Is it not that? But I know +it is." + +Basterga with something of astonishment in his face inclined his head. + +"And I have that disease! I!" the Syndic cried, standing before him a +piteous figure. He raised his hands above his head in a gesture which +challenged the compassion of gods and men. "I! In two years----" His +voice failed, he could not go on. + +"Believe me, Messer Blondel," Basterga answered after a long and +sorrowful pause, "I am grieved. Deeply grieved," he continued in a tone +of feeling, "to hear this. Do the physicians give no hope?" + +"Sons of the Horse-Leech!" the Syndic cried, a new passion shaking him +in its turn. "They give me two years! Two years! And it may be less. +Less!" he cried, raising his voice. "I, who go to and fro here and +there, like other men with no mark upon me! I, who walk the streets in +sunshine and rain like other men! Yet, for them the sky is bright, and +they have years to live. For me, one more summer, and--night! Two more +years at the most--and night! And I, but fifty-eight!" + +The big man looked at him with eyes of compassion. "It may be," he said, +after a pause, "that the physicians are wrong, Messer Blondel. I have +known such a case." + +"They are, they shall be wrong!" Blondel replied. "For you will give me +your remedy! It was God led me here to-day, it was God put it in your +heart to tell me this. You will give me your remedy and I shall live! +You will, will you not? Man, you can pity!" And joining his hands he +made as if he would kneel at the other's feet. "You can pity, and you +will?" + +"Alas, alas," Basterga replied, much and strongly moved. "I cannot." + +"Cannot?" + +"Cannot." + +The Syndic glared at him. "Why?" he cried, "Why not? If I give you----" + +"If you were to give me the half of your fortune," Basterga answered +solemnly, "it were useless! I myself have the first symptoms of the +disease." + +"You?" + +"Yes, I." + +The Syndic fell back in his chair. A groan broke from him that bore +witness at once to the bitterness of his soul and the finality of the +argument. He seemed in a moment shrunk to half his size. In a moment +disease and the shadow of death clouded his features; his cheeks were +leaden; his eyes, without light or understanding, conveyed no meaning to +his brain. "You, too!" he muttered mechanically. "You, too!" + +"Yes," Basterga replied in a sorrowful voice. "I, too. No wonder I feel +for you. I have not known it long, nor has it proceeded far in my case. +I have even hopes, at least there are times when I have hopes, that the +physicians may be mistaken." + +Blondel's small eyes bulged suddenly larger. "In that event?" he cried +hoarsely. "In that event surely----" + +"Even in that event I cannot aid you," the big man answered, spreading +out his hands. "I am pledged by the most solemn oath to retain the one +portion I have for the use of the Grand Duke, my patron. And apart from +that oath, the benefits I have received at his hand are such as to give +him a claim second only to my necessity. A claim, Messer Blondel, +which--I say it sorrowfully--I dare not set aside for any private +feeling or private gain." + +Blondel rose violently, his hands clawing the air. "And I must die?" he +cried, his voice thick with rage. "I must die because he _may_ be ill? +Because--because----" He stopped, struggling with himself, unable, it +seemed, to articulate. By-and-by it became apparent that the pause had +another origin, for when he spoke he had conquered his passion. "Pardon +me," he said, still hoarsely, but in a different tone--the tone of one +who saw that violence could not help him. "I was forgetting myself. +Life--life is sweet to all, Messer Basterga, and we cannot lightly see +it pass from us. To have life within sight, to know it within this room, +perhaps within reach----" + +"Not quite that," Basterga murmured, his eyes wandering to the steel +casket, chained to the wall beside the hearth. "Still, I understand; +and, believe me," he added in a tone of sympathy, "I feel for you, +Messer Blondel. I feel deeply for you." + +"Feel?" the Syndic muttered. For an instant his eyes gleamed savagely, +the veins of his temples swelled. "Feel!" + +"But what can I do?" + +Blondel could have answered, but to what advantage? What could words +profit him, seeing that it was a life for a life, and that, as all that +a man hath he will give for his life, so there is nothing another hath +that he will take for it. Argument was useless; prayer, in view of the +other's confession, beside the mark. The magistrate saw this, and made +an effort to resume his dignity. "We will talk another day," he +murmured, pressing his hand to his brow, "another day!" And he turned to +the door. "You will not mention what I have said to you, Messer +Basterga?" + +"Not a syllable," his host answered, as he followed him out. The +abruptness of the departure did not surprise him. "Believe me, I feel +for you, Messer Blondel." + +The Syndic acknowledged the phrase by a gesture not without pathos, and, +passing out, stumbled blindly down the narrow stairs. Basterga attended +him with respect to the outer door, and there they parted in silence. +The magistrate, his shoulders bowed, walked slowly to the left, where, +turning into the town through the inner gate, the Porte Tertasse, he +disappeared. The big man waited a while, sunning himself on the steps, +his face towards the ramparts. + +"He will come back, oh, yes, he will come back," he purred, smiling all +over his large face. "For I, Caesar Basterga, have a brain. And 'tis +better a brain than thews and sinews, gold or lands, seeing that it has +all these at command when I need them. The fish is hooked. It will be +strange if I do not land him before the year is out. But the bribe to +his physician--it was a happy thought: a happy thought of this brain of +Caesar Basterga, graduate of Padua, _viri valde periti, doctissimique_!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TO TAKE OR LEAVE. + + +The house in the Corraterie, near the Porte Tertasse, differed in no +outward respect from its neighbours. The same row of chestnut trees +darkened its lower windows, the same breezy view of the Rhone meadows, +the sloping vineyards and the far-off Jura lightened its upper rooms. A +kindred life, a life apparently as quiet and demure, moved within its +walls. Yet was the house a house apart. Silently and secretly, it had +absorbed and sucked and drawn into itself the hearts and souls and minds +of two men. It held for the one that which the old prize above all +things in the world--life; and for the other, that which the young set +above life--love. + +Life? The Syndic did not doubt; the bait had been dangled before his +eyes with too much cunning, too much skill. In a casket, in a room in +that house in the Corraterie, his life lay hidden; his life, and he +could not come at it! His life? Was it a marvel that waking or sleeping +he saw only that house, and that room, and that casket chained to the +wall; that he saw at one time the four steps rising to the door, and the +placid front with its three tiers of windows; at another time, the room +itself with its litter of scripts and dark-bound books, and rich +furnishings, and phials and jars and strangely shaped alembics? Was it a +marvel that in the dreams of the night the sick man toiled up and up and +up the narrow staircase, of which every point remained fixed in his +mind; or that waking, whatever his task, or wherever he might be, alone +or in company, in his parlour or in the Town House, he still fell +a-dreaming of the room and the box--the room and the box that held his +life? + +Had this been the worst! But it was not. There were times, bitter times, +dark hours, when the pains were upon him, and he saw his fate clear +before him; for he had known men die of the disease which held him in +its clutches, and he knew how they had died. And then he must needs lock +himself into his room that other eyes might not witness the passionate +fits of revolt, of rage and horror, and weak weeping, into which the +knowledge cast him. And out of which he presently came back to--_the +house_. His life lay there, in that room, in that house, and he could +not come at it! He could not come at it! But he would! He would! + +It issued in that always; in some plan or scheme for gaining possession +of the philtre. Some of the plans that occurred to him were wild and +desperate; dangerous and hopeless on the face of them. Others were +merely violent; others again, of which craft was the mainspring, held +out a prospect of success. For a whole day the notion of arresting +Basterga on a charge of treason, and seizing the steel casket together +with his papers, was uppermost. It seemed feasible, and was feasible; +nay, it was more than feasible, it was easy; for already there were +rumours of the man abroad, and his name had been mentioned at the +council table. The Syndic had only to give the word, and the arrest +would be made, the search instituted, the papers and casket seized. Nay, +if he did not give the word, it was possible that others might. + +But when he thought of that step, that irrevocable step, he knew that he +would not have the courage to take it. For if Basterga had so much as +two minutes' notice, if his ear so much as caught the tread of those who +came to take him, he might, in pure malignity, pour the medicine on the +floor, or he might so hide it as to defy search. And at the thought--at +the thought of the destruction of that wherein lay his only chance of +life, his only hope of seeing the sun and feeling again the balmy breath +of spring, the Syndic trembled and shook and sweated with rage and fear. +No, he would not have the courage. He would not dare. For a week and +more after the thought occurred to him, he dared not approach the +scholar's lodging, or be seen in the neighbourhood, so great was his +fear of arousing Basterga's suspicions and setting him on his guard. + +At the end of a fortnight or so, the choice of ways was presented to him +in a concrete form; and with an abruptness which placed him on the edge +of perplexity. It was at a morning meeting of the smaller council. The +day was dull, the chamber warm, the business to be transacted +monotonous; and Blondel, far from well and interested in one thing +only--beside which the most important affairs of Geneva seemed small as +the doings of an ant-hill viewed through a glass--had fallen asleep, or +nearly asleep. Naturally a restless and wakeful man, of thin habit and +nervous temperament, he had never done such a thing before: and it was +unfortunate that he succumbed on this occasion, for while he drowsed the +current of business changed. The debate grew serious, even vital. +Finally he awoke to the knowledge of place and time with a name ringing +in his ears; a name so fixed in his waking thoughts that, before he knew +where he was or what he was doing, he repeated it in a tone that drew +all eyes upon him. + +"Basterga!" + +Some knew he had slept and smiled; more had not noticed it, and turned, +struck by the strange tone in which he echoed the name. Fabri, the First +Syndic, who sat two places from him, and had just taken a letter from +the secretary, leaned forward so as to view him. "Ay, Basterga," he +said, "an Italian, I take it. Do you know him, Messer Blondel?" + +He was awake now, but, confused and startled, inclined to believe that +he was on his trial; and that the faint parleyings with treason, small +things hard to define, to which he had stooped, were known. +Mechanically, to gain time, he repeated the name: "Basterga?" + +"Yes," Fabri repeated. "Do you know him?" + +"Caesar Basterga, is it?" + +"That is his name." + +He was himself now, though his nerves still shook; himself so far as he +could be, while ignorant of what had passed, and how he came to be +challenged. "Yes, I know him," he said slowly, "if you mean a Paduan, a +scholar of some note, I believe. Who applied to me--I dare say it would +be six weeks back--for a licence to stay a while in the town." + +"Which you granted?" + +"In the usual course. He had letters from"--Blondel shrugged his +shoulders--"I forget from whom. What of him?" with a steady look at +Baudichon the councillor, his life-long rival, and the quarter whence if +trouble were brewing it was to be expected. "What of him?" he repeated, +throwing himself back in his chair, and tapping the table with his +fingers. + +"This," Fabri answered, waving the letter which he had in his hands. + +"But I do not know what that is," Blondel replied coolly. "I am +afraid"--he looked at his neighbour on either side--"was I asleep?" + +"I fear so," said one, while the other smiled. They were his very good +friends and allies. + +"Well, it is not like me. I can say that I am not often," with a keen +look at Baudichon, "caught napping! And now, M. Fabri," he continued +with his usual practical air, "I have delayed the business long enough. +What is it? And what is that?" He pointed to the letter in the First +Syndic's hands. + +"Well, it is really your affair in the main," Fabri answered, "since as +Fourth Syndic you are responsible for the guard and the city's safety; +and ours afterwards. It is a warning," he continued, his eyes reverting +to the page before him, "from our secret agent in Turin, whose name I +need not mention"--Blondel nodded--"informing us of a fresh attempt to +be made on the city before Christmas; by means of rafts formed of +hurdles and capable of transporting whole companies of soldiers. These +he has seen tried in the River Po, and they performed the work. Having +reached the walls by their means the assailants are to mount by ladders +which are being made to fit into one another. They are covered with +black cloth, and can be laid against the wall without noise. It +sounds--circumstantial?" Fabri commented, breaking off and looking at +Blondel. + +The Syndic nodded thoughtfully. "Yes," he said, "I think so. I think +also," he continued, "that with the aid of my friend, Captain Blandano, +I shall be able to give a good account of the rafts and the ladders." + +Baudichon the councillor interposed. "But that is not all," he muttered, +rolling ponderously in his chair as he spoke. He was a stout man with a +double chin and a weighty manner; honest, but slow, and the spokesman of +the more wealthy burghers. His neighbour Petitot, a man of singular +appearance, lean, with a long thin drooping nose, commonly supported +him. Petitot, who bore the nickname of "the Inquisitor," represented the +Venerable Company of Pastors, and was viewed with especial distaste by +the turbulent spirits whom the war had left in the city, as well as by +the lower ranks, who upheld Blondel. In sense and vigour the Fourth +Syndic was more than a match for the two precisians: but honesty of +purpose has a weight of its own that slowly makes itself felt. "That is +not all," Baudichon repeated after a glance at his neighbour and ally +Petitot, "I want to know----" + +"One moment, M. Baudichon, if you please," Fabri said, cutting him +short, amid a partial titter; the phrase "I want to know" was so often +on the councillor's lips that it had become ridiculous. "One moment; as +you say, that is not all. The writer proceeds to warn us that the Grand +Duke's lieutenant, M. d'Albigny, has taken a house on the Italian side +of the frontier, and is there constructing a huge petard on wheels which +is to be dragged up to the gate----" + +"With the ladders and rafts?" + +"They seem to belong to another scheme," Fabri said, as he turned back +and conned the letter afresh. + +"With M. d'Albigny at the bottom of both?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, if he be not more successful with this," Blondel answered +contemptuously, "than he was with the attempt to mine the Arsenal--which +ended in supplying us with two or three casks of powder--I think Captain +Blandano and I may deal with him." + +A murmur of assent approved the boast; but it did not proceed from all. +There were men at the table who had children, who had wives, who had +daughters, whose faces were grave. Just thirty years had passed over the +world since the horrors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew--to be +speedily followed by the sack of Antwerp--had paled the cheek of Europe. +Just thirty years were to elapse and the sack of Magdeburg was to prove +a match and more than a match for both in horror and cruelty. That the +Papists, if they entered, would deal more gently with Geneva, the head +and front of offence, or extend to the Mother of Heretics mercy which +they had refused to her children, these men did not believe. The +presence of an enemy ever lurking within a league of their gates, ever +threatening them by night and by day, had shaken their nerves. They +feared everything, they feared always. In fitful sleep, in the small +hours, they heard their doors smashed in; their dreams were disturbed by +cries and shrieks, by the din of bells, and the clash of weapons. + +To these men Blondel seemed over confident. But no one took on himself +to gainsay him in his particular province, the superintendence of the +guard; and though Baudichon sighed and Petitot shook his head, the word +was left with him. "Is that all, Messer Fabri?" he asked. + +"Yes, if we lay it to heart." + +"But I want to know," Baudichon struck in, puffing pompously, "what is +to be done about--Basterga." + +"Basterga? To be sure I was forgetting him," Fabri answered. "What is to +be done? What do you say, Messer Blondel? What are we to do about him?" + +"I will tell you if you will tell me what the point is that touches him. +You forget, Messer Syndic"--with a somewhat sickly smile--"that I was +asleep." + +"The letter," Fabri replied, returning to it, "touches him seriously. It +asserts that a person of that name is here in the Grand Duke's interest, +that he is in the secret of these plots, and that we should do well to +expel him, if we do not seize and imprison him." + +"And you want to know----" + +"I want to know," Baudichon answered, rolling in his chair as was his +habit when delivering himself, "what you know of him, Messer Blondel." + +Blondel turned rudely on him, perhaps to hide a slight ebb of colour +from his cheeks. "What I know?" he said. + +"Ay, ay." + +"No more than you know!" + +"But," Petitot retorted in his dry, thin voice, "it was you, Messer +Blondel, not Messer Baudichon, who gave him permission to reside in the +town." + +"And I want to know," Baudichon chimed in remorselessly, "what +credentials he had. That is what I want to know!" + +"Credentials? Oh, something formal! I don't know what," Blondel replied +rudely. He looked to the secretary who sat at the foot of the table. "Do +you know?" he asked. + +"No, Messer Syndic," the man replied. "I remember that a licence was +granted to him in the name of Caesar Basterga, graduate of Padua; and +doubtless--for licences to reside are not granted without such--he had +letters, but I do not recall from whom. They would be returned to him +with the licence." + +"And that is all," Petitot said, his long nose drooping, his inquisitive +eyes looking over his glasses, "that you know about him, Messer +Blondel?" + +Did they know anything, and, if so, what did they know? Blondel +hesitated. This persistence, this continual harping on one point, began +to alarm him. But he carried it bravely. "Do you mean as to his +convictions?" he asked with a sneer. + +"No, I mean at all!" + +"I want to know," Baudichon added--the parrot phrase began to carry to +Blondel's ears the note of fate--"what you know about him." + +This time a pause betrayed Blondel's hesitation. Should he admit that he +had been to Basterga's lodging; or dared he deny a fact that might imply +an intimacy greater than he had acknowledged? A faint perspiration rose +on his brow as he decided that he dare not. "I know that he lives in a +house in the Corraterie," he answered, "a house beside the Porte +Tertasse, and that he is a scholar--I believe of some repute. I know so +much," he continued boldly, "because he wrote to thank me for the +licence, and, by way of acknowledgment, invited me to visit his lodging +to view a rare manuscript of the Scriptures. I did so, and remained a +few minutes with him. That is all I know of him. I suppose," with a grim +look at Baudichon and the Inquisitor, who had exchanged meaning glances, +"it is not alleged that I am in the plot with him? Or that he has +confided to me the Grand Duke's plans?" + +Fabri laughed heartily at the notion, and the laugh, which was echoed by +four-fifths of those at the table, cleared the air. Petitot, it is true, +limited himself to a smile, and Baudichon shrugged his shoulders. But +for the moment the challenge silenced them. The game passed to Blondel's +hands, and his spirits rose. "If M. Baudichon wants to know more about +him," he said contemptuously, "I dare say that the information can be +obtained." + +"The point is," Fabri answered, "what are we to do?" + +"As to--what?" + +"As to expelling him or seizing him." + +"Oh!" The exclamation fell from Blondel's lips before he could stay it. +He saw what was coming, and the dilemma in which he was to be placed. + +"We have the letter before us," the First Syndic continued, "and apart +from it, we know nothing for this person or against him." He looked +round the table and met assenting glances. "I think, therefore, that it +will be well, to leave it to Messer Blondel. He is responsible for the +safety of the city, and it should be for him to say what is to be +done." + +"Yes, yes," several voices agreed. "Leave it to Messer Blondel." + +"You assent to that, Messer Baudichon?" + +"I suppose so," the councillor muttered reluctantly. + +"Very good," said Fabri. "Then, Messer Blondel, it remains with you to +say what is to be done." + +The Fourth Syndic hesitated, and with reason; had Baudichon, had the +Inquisitor known the whole, they could hardly have placed him in a more +awkward dilemma. If he took the course that prudence in his own +interests dictated, and shielded Basterga, his action might lay him open +to future criticism. If, on the other hand, he gave the word to expel or +seize him, he broke at once and for ever with the man who held his last +chance of life in the hollow of his hand. + +And yet, if he dared adopt the latter course, if he dared give the word +to seize, there was a chance, and a good chance, that he would find the +_remedium_ in the casket; for with a little arrangement Basterga might +be arrested out of doors, or be allured to a particular place and there +be set upon. But in that way lay risk; a risk that chilled the current +of the Syndic's blood. There was the chance that the attempt might fail; +the chance that Basterga might escape; the chance that he might have the +_remedium_ about him--and destroy it; the chance that he might have +hidden it. There were so many chances, in a word, that the Syndic's +heart stood still as he enumerated them, and pictured the crash of his +last hope of life. + +He could not face the risk. He could not. Though duty, though courage +dictated the venture, craven fear--fear for the loss of the new-born +hope that for a week had buoyed him up--carried it. Hurriedly at last, +as if he feared that he might change his mind, he pronounced his +decision. + +"I doubt the wisdom of touching him," he said. "To seize him if he be +guilty proclaims our knowledge of the plot; it will be laid aside, and +another, of which we may not be informed, will be hatched. But let him +be watched, and it will be hard if with the knowledge we have we cannot +do something more than frustrate his scheme." + +After an interval of silence, "Well," Fabri said, drawing a deep breath +and looking round, "I believe you are right. What do you say, Messer +Baudichon?" + +"Messer Blondel knows the man," Baudichon answered drily. "He is, +therefore, the best judge." + +Blondel reddened. "I see you are determined to lay the responsibility on +me," he cried. + +"The responsibility is on you already!" Petitot retorted. "You have +decided. I trust it may turn out as you expect." + +"And as you do not expect!" + +"No; but you see"--and again the Inquisitor looked over his +glasses--"you know the man, have been to his lodging, have conversed +with him, and are the best judge what he is! I have had naught to do +with him. By the way," he turned to Fabri, "he is at Mere Royaume's, is +he not? Is there not a Spaniard of the name of Grio lodging there?" + +Blondel did not answer and the secretary looked up from his register. +"An old soldier, Messer Petitot?" he said. "Yes, there is." + +"Perhaps you know him also, Messer Blondel?" + +"Yes, I know him. He served the State," Blondel answered quietly. He had +winked at more than one irregularity on the part of Grio, and at the +sound of the name anger gave place to caution. "I have also," he +continued, "my eye upon him, as I shall have it upon Basterga. Will that +satisfy you, Messer Petitot?" + +The councillor leaned forward. "Fac salvam Genevam!" he replied in a +voice low and not quite steady. "Do that, keep Geneva safe--guard well +our faith, our wives and little ones--and I care not what you do!" And +he rose from his seat. + +The Fourth Syndic did not answer. Those few words that in a moment +raised the discussion from the low level of detail on which the +Inquisitor commonly wasted himself, and set it on the true plane of +patriotism--for with all his faults Petitot was a patriot--silenced +Blondel while they irritated and puzzled him. Why did the man assume +such airs? Why talk as if he and he alone cared for Geneva? Why bear +himself as if he and he alone had shed and was prepared to shed his +blood for the State? Why, indeed? Blondel snarled his indignation, but +made no other answer. + +A few minutes later, as he descended the stairs, he laughed at the +momentary annoyance which he had felt. What did it matter to him, a +dying man, who had the better or who the worse, who posed, or who +believed in the pose? It was of moment indeed that his enemies had +contrived to fix him with the responsibility of arresting Basterga, or +of leaving him at large: that they had contrived to connect him with the +Paduan, and made him accountable to an extent which did not please him +for the man's future behaviour. But yet again what did that +matter--after all? Of what moment was it--after all? He was a dying man. +Was anything of moment to him except the one thing which Basterga had it +in his power to grant or to withhold, to give or to deny? + +Nothing! Nothing! + +He pondered on what had passed, and wondered if he had not done +foolishly. Certainly he had let slip a grand, a unique opportunity of +seizing the man and of snatching the _remedium_. He had put the chance +from him at the risk of future blame. Now he was of two minds about it. +Of two minds: but of one mind only about another thing. As he veered +this way and that in his mind, now cursing his cowardice, and now +thanking God that he had not taken the irrevocable step, + + Opportunity + That work'st our thoughts into desires, desires + To resolutions, + +kindled in him a burning impatience to act. If he did not act, if he +were not going to act, if he were not going to take some surer and safer +step, he had been foolish and trebly foolish to let slip the opportunity +that had been his. + +But he would act. For a fortnight he had abstained from visiting +Basterga, and had even absented himself from the neighbourhood of the +house lest the scholar's suspicions should be wakened. But to what +purpose if he were not going to act? If he were not going to build on +the ground so carefully prepared, to what end this wariness and this +abstention? + +Within an hour the Syndic, long so wary, had worked himself into a fever +and, rather than remain inactive, was ripe for any step, however +venturesome, provided it led to the _remedium_. He had still the +prudence to postpone action until night; but when darkness had fairly +set in and the bell of St. Peter, inviting the townsfolk to the evening +preaching, had ceased to sound--an indication that he would meet few in +the streets--he cloaked himself, and, issuing forth, bent his steps +across the Bourg du Four in the direction of the Corraterie. + +Even now he had no plan in his mind. But amid the medley of schemes that +for a week had been hatching in his brain, he hoped to be guided by +circumstances to that one which gave surest promise of success. Nor was +his courage as deeply rooted as he fancied: the day had told on his +nerves; he shivered in the breeze and started at a sound. Yet as often +as he paused or hesitated, the words "A dying man! A dying man!" rang in +his ears and urged him on. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +A SECOND TISSOT. + + +Messer Blondel's sagacity in forbearing completely and for so long a +period the neighbourhood of Basterga proved an unpleasant surprise to +one man; and that was the man most concerned. For a day or two the +scholar lived in a fool's paradise, and hugging himself on certain +success, anticipated with confidence the entertainment which he would +derive from the antics of the fish as it played about the bait, now +advancing and now retreating. He had formed a low opinion of the +magistrate's astuteness, and forgetting that there is a cunning which is +rudimentary and of the primitives, he entertained for some time no +misgiving. But when day after day passed by and still, though more than +a week had elapsed, Blondel did not appear, nor make any overture, when, +watch he never so carefully in the dusk of the evening or at the quiet +hours of the day, he caught no glimpse of the Syndic's lurking figure, +he began to doubt. He began to fear. He began to wait about the door +himself in the hope of detecting the other: and a dozen times between +dawn and dark he was on his feet at the upper window, looking warily +down, on the chance of seeing him in the Corraterie. + +At last, slowly and against his will, the fear that the fish would not +bite began to take hold of him. Either the Syndic was honest, or he was +patient as well as cunning. In no other way could Basterga explain his +dupe's inaction. And presently, when he had almost brought himself to +accept the former conclusion, on an evening something more than a week +later, a thing happened that added sharpness to his anxiety. He was +crossing the bridge from the Quarter of St. Gervais, when a man cloaked +to the eyes slipped from the shadow of the mills, a little before him, +and with a slight but unmistakable gesture of invitation proceeded in +front of him without turning his head. + +There was mist on the face of the river that rushed in a cataract below; +a steady rain was falling, and darkness itself was not far off. There +were few abroad, and those were going their ways without looking behind +them. A better time for a secret rendezvous could not be, and Messer +Basterga's heart leapt up and his spirits rose as he followed the +cloaked figure. At the end of the bridge the man turned leftwards on to +a deserted wharf between two mills; Basterga followed. Near the water's +edge the projecting upper floor of a granary promised shelter from the +rain; under this the stranger halted, and turning, lowered with a +brusque gesture his cloak from his face. Alas, the eager "Why, Messer +Blondel----" that leapt to Basterga's lips died on them. He stood +speechless with disappointment, choking with chagrin. The stranger noted +it and laughed. + +"Well," he said in French, his tone dry and sarcastic, "you do not seem +overpleased to see me, Monsieur Basterga! Nor am I surprised. Large +promises have ever small fulfilments!" + +"His Highness has discovered that?" Basterga replied, in a tone no less +sarcastic. For his temper was roused. + +The stranger's eyes flickered, as if the other's words touched a sore. +"His Highness is growing impatient!" he returned, his tone somewhat +warmer. "That is what he has sent me to say. He has waited long, and he +bids me convey to you that if he is to wait longer he must have some +security that you are likely to succeed in your design." + +"Or he will employ other means?" + +"Precisely. Had he followed my advice," the stranger continued with an +air of lofty arrogance, "he would have done so long ago." + +"M. d'Albigny," Basterga answered, spreading out his hands with an +ironical gesture, "would prefer to dig mines under the Tour du Pin near +the College, and under the Porte Neuve! To smuggle fireworks into the +Arsenal and the Town House; and then, on the eve of execution, to fail +as utterly as he failed last time! More utterly than my plan can fail, +for I shall not put Geneva on its guard--as he did! Nor set every enemy +of the Grand Duke talking--as he did!" + +M. d'Albigny--for he it was--let drop an oath. "Are you doing anything +at all?" he asked savagely, dropping the thin veil of irony that +shrouded his temper. "That is the question. Are you moving?" + +"That will appear." + +"When? When, man? That is what his Highness wants to know. At present +there is no appearance of anything." + +"No," Basterga replied with fine irony. "There is not. I know it. It is +only when the fireworks are discovered and the mines opened and the +engineers are flying for their lives--that there is really an appearance +of something." + +"And that is the answer I am to carry to the Grand Duke?" d'Albigny +retorted in a tone which betrayed how deeply he resented such taunts at +the lips of his inferior. "That is all you have to tell him?" + +Basterga was silent awhile. When he spoke again, it was in a lower and +more cautious tone. "No; you may tell his Highness this," he said, after +glancing warily behind him. "You may tell him this. The longest night in +the year is approaching. Not many weeks divide us from it. Let him give +me until that night. Then let him bring his troops and ladders and the +rest of it--the care whereof is your lordship's, not mine--to a part of +the walls which I will indicate, and he shall find the guards withdrawn, +and Geneva at his feet." + +"The longest night? But that is some weeks distant," d'Albigny answered +in a grumbling tone. Still it was evident that he was impressed by the +precision of the other's promise. + +"Was Rome built in a day? Or can Geneva be destroyed in a day?" Basterga +retorted. + +"If I had my hand on it!" d'Albigny answered truculently, "the task +would not take more than a day!" He was a Southern Frenchman and an +ardent Catholic; an officer of high rank in the employ of Savoy; for the +rest, proud, brave, and difficult. + +"Ay, but you have not your hand on it, M. d'Albigny!" Basterga retorted +coolly. "Nor will you ever have your hand on it, without help from me." + +"And that is all you have to say?" + +"At present." + +"Very good," d'Albigny replied, nodding contemptuously. "If his Highness +be wise----" + +"He is wise. At least," Basterga continued drily, "he is wiser than M. +d'Albigny. He knows that it is better to wait and win, than leap and +lose." + +"But what of the discontented you were to bring to a head?" d'Albigny +retorted, remembering with relief another head of complaint, on which he +had been charged to deliver himself. "The old soldiers and rufflers +whom the peace has left unemployed, and with whom the man Grio was to +aid you? Surely waiting will not help you with them! There should be +some in Geneva who like not the rule of the Pastors and the drone of +psalms and hymns! Men who, if I know them, must be on fire for a change! +Come, Monsieur Basterga, is no use to be made of them?" + +"Ay," Basterga answered, after stepping back a pace to assure himself by +a careful look that no one was remarking a colloquy which the time and +the weather rendered suspicious. "Use them if you please. Let them drink +and swear and raise petty riots, and keep the Syndics on their guard! It +is all they are good for, M. d'Albigny; and I cannot say that aught +keeps back the cause so much as Grio's friends and their line of +conduct!" + +"So! that is your opinion, is it, Monsieur Basterga?" d'Albigny +answered. "And with it I must go as I came! I am of no use here, it +seems?" + +"Of great use presently, of none now," Basterga replied with greater +respect than he had hitherto exhibited. "Frankly, M. d'Albigny, they +fear you and suspect you. But if President Rochette of Chambery, who has +the confidence of the Pastors, were to visit us on some pretext or +other, say to settle such small matters as the peace has left in doubt, +it might soothe their spirits and allay their suspicions. He, rather +than M. d'Albigny, is the helper I need at present." + +D'Albigny grunted, but it was evident that the other's boldness +impressed him. "You think, then, that they suspect us?" he said. + +"How should they not? Tell me that. How should they not? Rochette's task +must be to lull those suspicions to sleep. In the meantime I----" + +"Yes?" + +"Will be at work," Basterga replied. He laughed drily as if it pleased +him to baulk the other's curiosity. Softly he added under his breath, + + "Captique dolis, lacrimisque coactis, + Quos neque Tydides, nec Larrissaeus Achilles + Non anni domuere decem, non mille carinae! + +D'Albigny nodded. "Well, I trust you are really counting on something +solid," he answered. "For you are taking a great deal upon yourself, +Monsieur Basterga. I hope you understand that," he added with a +searching look. + +"I take all on myself," the big man answered. + +The Frenchman was far from content, but he argued no more. He reflected +a moment, considering whether he had forgotten anything: then, muttering +that he would convey Basterga's views to the Grand Duke, he pulled his +cloak more closely about his face, and with a curt nod of farewell, he +turned on his heel and was gone. A moment, and he was lost to sight +between the wooden mills and sheds which flanked the bridge on either +side, and rendered it at once as narrow and as picturesque as were most +of the bridges of the day. Basterga, left solitary, waited a while +before he left his shelter. Satisfied at length that the coast was +clear, he continued his way into the town, and thinking deeply as he +went came presently to the Corraterie. It cannot be said that his +meditations were of the most pleasant; and perhaps for this reason he +walked slowly. When he entered the house, shaking the moisture from his +cloak and cap, he found the others seated at table and well advanced in +their meal. He was twenty minutes late. + +He was a clever man. But at times, in moments of irritation, the sense +of his cleverness and of his superiority to the mass of men led him to +do the thing which he had better have left undone. It was so this +evening. Face to face with d'Albigny, he had put a bold face on the +difficulties which surrounded him: he had let no sign of doubt or +uncertainty, no word of fear respecting the outcome escape him. But the +moment he found himself at liberty, the critical situation of his +affairs, if the Syndic refused to take the bait, recurred to his mind, +and harassed him. He had no _confidante_, no one to whom he could +breathe his fears, no one to whom he could explain the situation, or +with whom he could take credit for his coolness: and the curb of +silence, while it exasperated his temper, augmented a hundredfold the +contempt in which he held the unconscious companions among whom chance +and his mission had thrown him. A spiteful desire to show that contempt +sparkled in his eyes as he took his seat at the table this evening; but +for a minute or two after he had begun his meal he kept silence. + +On a mind such as his, outward things have small effect; otherwise the +cheerful homeliness of the scene must have soothed him. The lamp, +telling of present autumn and approaching winter, had been lit: a +wood-fire crackled pleasantly in the great fireplace and was reflected +in rows of pewter plates on either dresser: a fragrant stew scented the +air; all that a philosopher of the true type could have asked was at his +service. But Basterga belonged rather to the fifteenth century, the +century of the south, which was expiring, than to the century of the +north which was opening. Splendour rather than comfort, the gorgeousness +of Venice, of red-haired dames, stiff-clad in Titian velvets, of tables +gleaming with silk and gold and ruby glass, rather than the plain +homeliness which Geneva shared with the Dutch cities, held his mind. +To-night in particular his lip curled as he looked round. To-night in +particular ill-pleased and ill-content he found the place and the +company well matched, the one and the other mean and contemptible! + +One there--Gentilis--marked the great man's mood, and, cringing, after +his kind, kept his eyes low on his platter. Grio, too, knew enough to +seek refuge in sullen silence. Claude alone, impatient of the constraint +which descended on the party at the great man's coming, continued to +talk in a raised voice. "Good soup to-night, Anne," he said cheerfully. +For days past he had been using himself to speak to her easily and +lightly, as if she were no more to him than to the others. + +She did not answer--she seldom did. But "Good?" Basterga sneered in his +most cutting tone. "Ay, for schoolboys! And such as have no palate save +for pap!" + +Claude being young took the thrust a little to heart. He returned it +with a boy's impertinence. "We none of us grow thin on it," he said with +a glance at the other's bulk. + +Basterga's eyes gleamed. "Grease and dish-washings," he exclaimed. And +then, as if he knew where he could most easily wound his antagonist, he +turned to the girl. + +"If Hebe had brought such liquor to Jupiter," he sneered, "do you think +he had given her Hercules for a husband, as I shall presently give you +Grio? Ha! You flush at the prospect, do you? You colour and tremble," he +continued mockingly, "as if it were the wedding-day. You'll sleep little +to-night, I see, for thinking of your Hercules!" With grim irony he +pointed to his loutish companion, whose gross purple face seemed the +coarser for the small peaked beard that, after the fashion of the day, +adorned his lower lip. "Hercules, do I call him? Adonis rather." + +"Why not Bacchus?" Claude muttered, his eyes on his plate. In spite of +the strongest resolutions, he could not keep silence. + +"Bacchus? And why, boy?" frowning darkly. + +"He were better bestowed on a tun of wine," the youth retorted, without +looking up. + +"That you might take his place, I suppose?" Basterga retorted swiftly. +"What say you, girl? Will you have him?" And when she did not answer, +"Bread, do you hear?" he cried harshly and imperiously. "Bread, I say!" +And having forced her to come within reach to serve him, "What do you +say to it?" he continued, his hand on the trencher, his eyes on her +face. "Answer me, girl, will you have him?" + +She did not answer, but that which he had quite falsely attributed to +her before, a blush, slowly and painfully darkened her cheeks and neck. +He seized her brutally by the chin, and forced her to raise her face. +"Blushing, I see?" he continued. "Blushing, blushing, eh? So it is for +him you thrill, and lie awake, and dream of kisses, is it? For this new +youth and not for Grio? Nay, struggle not! Wrest not yourself away! Let +Grio, too, see you!" + +Claude, his back to the scene, drove his nails into the palms of his +hands. He would not turn. He would not, he dared not see what was +passing, or how they were handling her, lest the fury in his breast +sweep all away, and he rise up and disobey her! When a movement told him +that Basterga had released her--with a last ugly taunt aimed as much at +him as at her--he still sat bearing it, curbing, drilling, compelling +himself to be silent. Ay, and still to be silent, though the voice that +so cruelly wounded her was scarcely mute before it began again. + +"Tissot, indeed!" Basterga cried in the same tone of bitter jeering. "A +fig for Tissot! No more shall we + + Upon his viler metal test our purest pure, + And see him transmutations three endure! + +And why? Because a mightier than Tissot is here! Because," with a coarse +laugh, + + "Our stone angelical whereby + All secret potencies to light are brought + +has itself suffered a transmutation! A transmutation do I say! Rather an +eclipse, a darkening! He, whom matrons for their maidens fear, has come, +has seen, has conquered! And we poor mortals bow before him." + +Still Claude, his face burning, his ears tingling, put force upon +himself and sat mute, his eyes on the board. He would not look round, he +would not acknowledge what was passing. Basterga's tone conveyed a +meaning coarser and more offensive than the words he spoke; and Claude +knew it, and knew that the girl, at whom he dared not look knew it, as +she stood helpless, a butt, a target for their gloating eyes. He would +not look for he remembered. He saw the scalding liquid blister the skin, +saw the rounded arm quiver with pain; and remembering and seeing, he was +resolved that the lesson should not be lost on him. If it was only by +suffering he could serve her, he would serve her. + +He dared not look even at Gentilis, who sat opposite him; and who was +staring in gross rapture at the girl's confusion, and the burning +blushes, so long banished from her pale features. For to look at that +mean mask of a man was the same thing as to strike! Unfortunately, as it +happened, his silence and lack of spirit had a result which he had not +foreseen. It encouraged the others to carry their brutality to greater +and even greater lengths. Grio flung a gross jest in the girl's face: +Basterga asked her mockingly how long she had loved. They got no answer; +on which the big man asked his question again, his voice grown menacing; +and still she would not answer. She had taken refuge from Grio's +coarseness in the farthest corner of the hearth: where stooping over a +pot, she hid her burning face. Had they gone too far at last? So far, +that in despair she had made up her mind to resist? Claude wondered. He +hoped that they had. + +Basterga, too, thought it possible; but he smiled wickedly, in the pride +of his resources. He struck the table sharply with his knife-haft. +"What?" he cried. "You don't answer me, girl? You withstand me, do you? +To heel! To heel! Stand out in front of me, you jade, and answer me at +once. There! Stand there! Do you hear?" With a mocking eye he indicated +with his knife the spot that took his fancy. + +She hesitated a moment, scarlet revolt in her face; she hesitated for a +long moment; and the lad thought that surely the time had come. But then +she obeyed. She obeyed! And at that Claude at last looked up; he could +look up safely now for something, even as she obeyed, had put a bridle +on his rage and given him control over it. That something was doubt. Why +did she comply? Why obey, endure, suffer at this man's hands that which +it was a shame a woman should suffer at any man's? What was his hold +over her? What was his power? Was it possible, ah, was it possible that +she had done anything to give him power? Was it possible---- + +"Stand there!" Basterga repeated, licking his lips. He was in a cruel +temper: harassed himself, he would make some one suffer. "Remember who +you are, wench, and where you are! And answer me! How long have you +loved him?" + +The face no longer burned: her blushes had sunk behind the mask of +apathy, the pallid mask, hiding terror and the shame of her sex, which +her face had worn before, which had become habitual to her. "I have not +loved him," she answered in a low voice. + +"Louder!" + +"I have not loved him." + +"You do not love him?" + +"No." She did not look at Claude, but dully, mechanically, she stared +straight before her. + +Grio laughed boisterously. "A dose for young Hopeful!" he cried. "Ho! +Ho! How do you feel now, Master Jackanapes?" + +The big man smiled. + + "Galle, quid insanis? inquit, Tua cura Lycoris + Perque nives alium perque horrida castra secuta est!" + +he murmured. He bowed ironically in Claude's direction. "The gentleman +passes beyond the jurisdiction of the court," he said. "She will have +none of him, it seems; nor we either! He is dismissed." + +Claude, his eyes burning, shrugged his shoulders and did not budge. If +they thought to rid themselves of him by this fooling they would learn +their mistake. They wished him to go: the greater reason he should stay. +A little thing--the sight of a small brown hand twitching painfully, +while her face and all the rest of her was still and impassive, had +expelled his doubts for the time--had driven all but love and pity and +burning indignation from his breast. All but these, and the memory of +her lesson and her will. He had promised and he must suffer. + +Whether Basterga was deceived by his inaction, or of set purpose was +minded to try how far they could go with him, the big man turned again +to his victim. "With you, my girl," he said, "it is otherwise. The soup +was bad, and you are mutinous. Two faults that must be paid for. There +was something of this, I remember, when Tissot--our good Tissot, who +amused us so much--first came. And we tamed you then. You paid forfeit, +I think. You kissed Tissot, I think; or Tissot kissed you." + +"No, it was I kissed her," Gentilis said with a smirk. "She chose me." + +"Under compulsion," Basterga retorted drily. "Will you ransom her +again?" + +"Willingly! But it should be two this time," Gentilis said grinning. +"Being for the second offence, a double----" + +"Pain," quoth Basterga. "Very good. Do you hear, my girl? Go to +Gentilis, and see you let him kiss you twice! And see we see and hear +it. And have a care! Have a care! Or next time your modesty may not +escape so easily! To him at once, and----" + +"No!" The cry came from Claude. He was on his feet, his face on fire. +"No!" he repeated passionately. + +"No?" + +"Not while I am here! Not under compulsion," the young man cried. "Shame +on you!" He turned to the others, generous wrath in his face. "Shame on +you to torture a woman so--a woman alone! And you three to one!" + +Basterga's face grew dark. "You are right! We are three," he muttered, +his hand slowly seeking a weapon in the corner behind him. "You speak +truth there, we are three--to one! And----" + +"You maybe twenty, I will not suffer it!" the lad cried gallantly. "You +may be a hundred----" + +But on that word, in the full tide of speech he stopped. His voice died +as suddenly as it had been raised, he stammered, his whole bearing +changed. He had met her eyes: he had read in them reproach, warning, +rebuke. Too late he had remembered his promise. + +The big man leaned forward. "What may we be?" he asked. "You were going, +I think, to say that we might be--that we might be----" + +But Claude did not answer. He was passing through a moment of such +misery as he had never experienced. To give way to them now, to lower +his flag before them after he had challenged them! To abandon her to +them, to see her--oh, it was more than he could do, more than he could +suffer! It was---- + +"Pray go on," Basterga sneered, "if you have not said your say. Do not +think of us!" + +Oh, bitter! But he remembered how the scalding liquor had fallen on the +tender skin. "I have said it," he muttered hoarsely. "I have said it," +and by a movement of his hand, pathetic enough had any understood it, he +seemed to withdraw himself and his opposition. + +But when, obedient to Basterga's eye, the girl moved to Gentilis' side +and bent her cheek--which flamed, not by reason of Gentilis or the +coming kisses, but of Claude's presence and his cry for her--he could +not bear it. He could not stay and see it, though to go was to abandon +her perhaps to worse treatment. He rose with a cry and snatched his cap, +and tore open the door. With rage in his heart and their laughter, their +mocking, triumphant laughter, in his ears, he sprang down the steps. + +A coward! That was what he must seem to them. A coward's part, that was +the part they had seen him play. Into the darkness, into the night, what +mattered whither, when such fierce anger boiled within him? Such +self-contempt. What mattered whither when he knew how he had failed! Ay, +failed and played the Tissot! The Tissot and the weakling! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +ON THE THRESHOLD. + + +He hurried along the ramparts in a rage with those whom he had left, in +a still greater rage with himself. He had played the Tissot with a +vengeance. He had flown at them in weak passion, he had recoiled as +weakly, he had left them to call him coward. Now, even now, he was +fleeing from them, and they were jeering at him. Ay, jeering at him; +their laughter followed him, and burned his ears. + +The rain that beat on his fevered face, the moist wind from the Rhone +Valley below, could not wipe out _that_--the defeat and the shame. The +darkness through which he hurried could not hide it from his eyes. Thus +had Tissot begun, flying out at them, fleeing from them, a thing of +mingled fury and weakness. He knew how they had regarded Tissot. So they +now regarded him. + +And the girl? What shame lay on his manhood who had abandoned her, who +had left her to be their sport! His rage boiled over as he thought of +her, and with the rain-laden wind buffeting his brow he halted and made +as if he would return. But to what end if she would not have his aid, to +what end if she would not suffer him? With a furious gesture, he hurried +on afresh, only to be arrested, by-and-by, at the corner of the ramparts +near the Bourg du Four, by a dreadful thought. What if he had deceived +himself? What if he had given back before them, not because she had +willed it, not because she had looked at him, not in compliance with +her wishes; but in face of the odds against him, and by virtue of some +streak of cowardice latent in his nature? The more he thought of it, the +more he doubted if she had looked at him; the more likely it seemed that +the look had been a straw, at which his craven soul had grasped! + +The thought maddened him. But it was too late to return, too late to +undo his act. He must have left them a full half-hour. The town was +growing quiet, the sound of the evening psalms was ceasing. The rustle +of the wind among the branches covered the tread of the sentries as they +walked the wall between the Porte Neuve and the Mint tower; only their +harsh voices as they met midway and challenged came at intervals to his +ears. It must be hard on ten o'clock. Or, no, there was the bell of St. +Peter's proclaiming the half-hour after nine. + +He was ashamed to return to the house, yet he must return; and +by-and-by, reluctantly and doggedly, he set his face that way. The wind +and rain had cooled his brow, but not his brain, and he was still in a +fever of resentment and shame when his lagging feet brought him to the +house. He passed it irresolutely once, unable to make up his mind to +enter and face them. Then, cursing himself for a poltroon, he turned +again and made for the door. + +He was within half a dozen strides of it when a dark figure detached +itself from the doorway, and stumbled down the steps. Its aim seemed to +be to escape, and leaping to the conclusion that it was Gentilis, and +that some trick was being prepared for him, Claude sprang forward. His +hand shot out, he grasped the other's neck. His wrath blazed up. + +"You rogue!" he said. "I'll teach you to lie in wait for me!" And +shifting his grasp from the man's neck to his shoulder, he turned him +round regardless of his struggles. As he did so the man's hat fell off. +With amazement Claude recognised the features of the Syndic Blondel. + +The young man's arm fell, and he stared, open-mouthed and aghast, the +passion with which he had seized the stranger whelmed in astonishment. + +The Syndic, on the other hand, behaved with a strange composure. +Breathing rather quickly, but vouchsafing no word of explanation, he +straightened the crumpled linen about his neck, and set right his coat. +He was proceeding, still in silence, to pick up his hat, when Claude, +anticipating the action, secured the hat and restored it to him. + +"Thank you," he said. And then, stiffly, "Come with me," he continued. + +He turned as he spoke and led the way to a spot at some distance from +the house, yet within sight of the door; there he wheeled about. "I was +coming to see you," he said, steadfastly confronting Claude. "Why have +you not called upon me, young man, in accordance with the invitation I +gave you?" + +Claude stared. The Syndic's matter-of-factness and the ease with which +he ignored what had just passed staggered him. Perhaps after all Blondel +had come for this, and had been startled while waiting at the door by +the quickness of his approach. "I--I had overlooked it," he murmured, +trying to accept the situation. + +"Then," the Syndic answered shrewdly, "I can see that you have not +wanted anything." + +"No." + +"You lodge there?" Blondel continued, pointing to the house. "But I know +you do. And keep late hours, I fear. You are not alone in the house, I +think?" + +"No," Claude replied; and on a sudden, as his mind went back to the +house and those in it, there leapt into it the temptation to tell all to +this man, a magistrate, and appeal to him in the girl's behalf. He +could not speak to a more proper person, if he sought the city through; +and here was the opportunity, brought unsought, to his door. But then he +had not the girl's leave to speak; could he speak without her leave? He +shifted his feet, and to gain time, "No," he said slowly, "there are two +or three who lodge in the house." + +"Is not the person with whom you quarrelled at the inn one of them?" the +Syndic asked. "Eh? Is not he one?" + +"Yes," Claude answered; and the recollection of the scene and of the +support which the Syndic had given to Grio checked the impulse to speak. +Perhaps after all the girl knew best. + +"And a person of the name of Basterga, I think?" + +Claude nodded. He dared not trust himself to speak now. Could it be that +a whisper of what was passing in the house had reached the magistrates? + +The Syndic coughed. He glanced from the distant door, now a mere blur in +the obscurity, to his companion's face and back again to the door--of +which he seemed reluctant to lose sight. For a moment he seemed at a +loss how to proceed. When he did speak, after a long pause, it was in a +dry curt tone. "It is about him I wish to hear something," he said. "I +look to you as a good citizen to afford such information as the State +requires. The matter is more important than you think. I ask you what +you know of that man." + +"Messer Basterga!" + +"Yes." + +Claude stared. "I know no good," he answered, more and more surprised. +"I do not like him, Messer Syndic." + +"But he is a learned man, I believe. He passes for such, does he not?" + +"Yes." + +"Yet you do not like him. Why?" + +Claude's face burned. "He puts his learning to no good use," he blurted +out. "He uses it to--to torture women. If I could tell you all--all, +Messer Blondel," the young man continued, in growing excitement, "you +would understand me better! He gains power over people, a strange power, +and abuses it." + +"Power? What do you mean? What kind of power?" + +"God knows." + +The Syndic stared a moment, his face expressive of contempt. This was +not the line he had meant his questions to take. What did it matter to +him how the man treated women? Pshaw! Then suddenly a light--as of +satisfaction, or discovery--gleamed in his eyes. "Do you mean," he +muttered, lowering his voice, "by sorcery?" + +"God knows." + +"By evil arts?" + +The young man shook his head. "I do not know," he answered, almost +pettishly. "How should I? But he has a power. A secret power! I do not +understand him or it!" + +The Syndic looked at him darkly thoughtful. "You did not know that that +was said of him?" he asked. + +"That he----" + +"Has magical arts?" + +Claude shook his head. + +"Nor that he has a laboratory upstairs?" Blondel continued, fixing the +young man gravely with his eyes. "A laboratory in which he reads much in +unknown tongues? And speaks much when no one is present? And tries +experiments with strange substances?" + +Claude shook his head. "No!" he said. "Never! I never heard it." + +He never had; but in his eyes dawned none the less a look of horror. No +man in those days doubted the existence of the devilish arts at which +Blondel hinted--arts by the use of which one being could make himself +master of the will and person of another. No man doubted their +existence: and that they were rare, were difficult, were seldom brought +within a man's experience, made them only the more hateful without +making them seem to the men of that day the less probable. That they +were often exercised at the cost of the innocent and pure, who in this +way were added to the accursed brood--few doubted this too; but the full +horror of it could be known only to the man who loved, and who +reverenced where he loved. Fortunately, men who never doubted the +reality of witchcraft, seldom conceived of it as touching those about +them; and it was only slowly that Claude took in the meaning of the +Syndic's suggestion, or discerned how perfectly it accounted for a thing +otherwise unaccountable--the mysterious sway which the scholar held over +the young girl. + +But he reached, he came to that point at last; and his silence and +agitation were more eloquent than words. The Syndic, who had not shot +his bolt wholly at a venture--for to accuse Basterga of the black art +had passed through his mind before--saw that he had hit the mark; and he +pushed his advantage. "Have you noted aught," he asked, "to bear out the +idea that he is given to such practices?" + +Claude was silent in sheer horror: horror of the thing suggested to him, +horror of the punishment in which he might involve the innocent. + +"I don't know!" he stammered at last, and almost incoherently. "I know +nothing! Don't ask me! God grant it be not so!" And he covered his face. + +"Amen! Amen, indeed," Blondel answered gravely. "But now for the woman, +over whom you said he had power?" + +"I said?" + +"Aye, you, a minute ago! Who is she? Is she one of the household? Come, +young man, you must answer me," the Syndic continued with severity +proportioned to the other's hesitation. "I know much, and a little more +light may enable us to act and to bring the guilty to punishment. Does +she live in the house?" + +Only the darkness hid Claude's pallor. "There is a woman," he muttered +reluctantly, "who lives in the house. But I know nothing! I have no +proof! Nothing, nothing!" + +"But you suspect! You suspect, young man," the Syndic continued, eyeing +him sternly, "and suspecting you would leave her in the clutches of the +devil whose she must become, body and soul! For shame!" + +"But I do not believe it!" Claude cried fiercely. "I do not believe it!" + +"Of her?" + +"Of her? No! _Mon dieu!_ No! She is a child! She is innocent! Innocent +as----" + +"The day! you would say?" the Syndic struck in, almost solemnly. "The +likelier prey? The choicest are ever the devil's morsels." + +"And you think that she----" + +"God help her, if she be in his power! This man," the Syndic continued, +laying his hand on the other's arm, "has ruined hundreds by his secret +arts, by his foul practices, by his sorceries. He has made Venice too +hot for him. In Padua they will have him no more. Genoa has driven him +forth. If you doubt this character of him there is an easy proof; for it +is whispered, nay, it is almost certain, in what his power lies. Do you +know his room?" + +"No." + +"No?" in a tone of dismay. "But is it not on a level with yours?" + +"No," Claude answered, shivering; "it is over mine." + +"No matter, there is an easy mode of proving him," the Syndic replied; +and despite himself his tone was eager. "If he be the man they say he +is, there is in his room a box of steel chained to the wall. It contains +the spell he uses. By means of it he can enter where he pleases, he can +enslave women to his will, he----" + +"And you do not seize it?" Claude cried in a tone of horror. + +"He has the Grand Duke's protection," the Syndic answered smoothly, "and +to touch him without clear proof might cause much trouble to the State." + +"And for that you suffer him," Claude exclaimed, his voice trembling. +"You suffer him to work his will? You suffer him----" + +"I must follow the law," Blondel answered, shaking his head. He looked +warily round; the dark ramparts were quiet. "I act but as a magistrate. +Were I a mere man and knew him, as I know him now, for what he is--a +foul magician weaving his spells about the young, ensnaring, with his +sorceries, the souls of innocent women, corrupting--but what is it, +young man?" + +"He is within?" + +"No; he left the house a minute or so before you arrived. But what is +it?" Seizing the young man's arm he restrained him. "Where are you +going?" + +"To his room!" Claude answered between his set teeth. "Be he man or +devil--to his room!" + +"You dare?" + +"I dare and I will!" Resisting the Syndic's feigned efforts to hold him +back, he strode towards the door. "That spell shall not be his another +hour." + +But Blondel terrified by his sudden success, and loth, now the time was +come, to put all on a cast, kept his hand on him. "Stay! Stay!" he +babbled, dragging him back. "Do not be rash!" + +"Stay, and leave him to ruin her!" + +"Still, listen! Whatever you do, listen!" the Syndic answered; and +insisted, clinging to him. His agitation was such, that had Claude +retained his powers of observation, he must have found something strange +in this anxiety. "Listen! If you find the casket, on your life touch +nothing in it! On your life!" Blondel repeated, his hands clinging more +tightly to the other's arm. "Bring it entire--touch nothing! If you do +not promise me I will raise the alarm here and now! To open it, I warn +you, is to risk all!" + +"I will bring it!" Claude answered, his foot on the steps, his hand on +the latch. "I will bring it!" + +"Ay, but you do not know what hangs on it! You will bring it as you find +it?" + +His persistence was so strange, he clung to the young man's arm with so +complete an abandonment of his ordinary manner, that, with the latch +half raised, Claude looked at him in wonder. "Very well, I will bring it +as I find it!" he muttered. Then, notwithstanding a movement which the +Syndic made to restrain him, he pushed the door. + +It was not locked, and, in a moment, he stood in the living-room which +he had left little more than an hour before. It was untenanted, but not +in darkness; a rushlight, set in an earthen vessel on the hearth, flung +long shadows on the walls and ceiling, and gave to the room, so homely +in its every-day aspect, a sinister look. The door of Gentilis' room was +shut; probably he was asleep. That at the foot of the staircase was also +shut. Claude stood a moment, frowning; then he crossed the floor +towards the staircase door. But though his mind was fixed, the spell of +the other's excitement told on him: the flicker of the rushlight made +him start; and half-way across the room a sound at his elbow brought him +up as if he had been stabbed. He turned his head, expecting to find the +big man's eyes bent on him from some corner. He found instead the +Syndic, who had stolen in after him, and with a dark anxious face was +standing like a shadow of guilt between him and the door. + +The young man resented the alarm which the other had caused him. "If you +are going, go," he muttered. "And if you will do it yourself, Messer +Syndic, so much the better." He pointed to the door of the staircase. + +The Syndic recoiled, his beard wagging senilely. "No, no," he babbled. +"No, I will go back." + +It was no longer the formal magistrate, but a frightened man who stood +at Claude's elbow. And this was so clear that superstition, which is of +all things the most infectious, began to shake the young man's +resolution. Desperately he threw it off, and went to open the door. Then +he reflected that it would be dark upstairs, he must have a light; and +re-crossing the floor he brought the rushlight from the hearth. Holding +it aloft he opened the creaking door and began to ascend the stairs. + +With every step the awe of the other world grew on him; while the +shadow, which he had found at his elbow below, followed him upwards. +When he paused at the head of the flight the Syndic's face was on a +level with his knee, the Syndic's eyes were fixed on his. + +Claude did not understand this; but the man's company was welcome now; +and the sight of Basterga's door, not three paces from the place where +he stood, diverted his thoughts. He had not been above stairs since the +day of his arrival, but he knew that Basterga's room was the nearest to +the stairs. That was the door then; behind that door the Italian wrought +his devilish spells! + +His light, smoky and wavering, cast black shadows on the walls of the +passage as he moved. The air seemed heavy, laden with some strange drug; +the house was still, with the stillness which precedes horror. Not many +men of his time, suspecting what he suspected, would have opened that +door, or at that hour of the night would have entered that room. But +Claude, though he feared, though he shuddered, though unearthly terrors +pressed upon him, possessed a charm that supported his courage: the +memory of the scene in the room below, of the scalding drops falling on +the white skin, of the girl looking at him with that face of pain. The +devil was strong, but there was a stronger; and in the strength of love +the young man approached the door and tried it. It was locked. + +Somehow the fact augmented his courage. "Where the devil is, is no need +of locks," he muttered, and he felt above the door, then, stooping, +groped under it. In the latter place he found the key, thrust out of +sight between door and floor, where doubtless it was Basterga's custom +to hide it. He drew it out, and with a grim face set it in the lock. + +"Quick!" muttered a voice in his ear, and turning he saw that the Syndic +was trembling with eagerness. "Quick, quick! Or he may return!" + +Claude smiled. If he did not fear the devil he certainly did not fear +Basterga. He was about to turn the key in the lock when a sound stayed +his hand, ay, and rooted him to the spot. Yet it was only a laugh--but a +laugh such as his ears had never caught before, a laugh full of ghastly, +shrill, unearthly mirth. It rang through the passage, through the +house, through the night; but whence it proceeded, whether from some +being at his elbow, or from above stairs, or below, it was impossible to +say; and the blood gone from his face, Claude stood, peering over his +shoulder into the dark corners of the passage. Again that laugh rose, +shrill, mocking, unearthly; and this time his hand fell from the lock. + +The Syndic, utterly unmanned, leant sweating against the wall. He called +upon the name of his Maker. "My God!" he muttered. "My God!" + +"_There is no God!_" + +The words, each syllable of them clear, though spoken in a voice shrill +and cracked and strange, and such as neither of them had ever heard +before, were beyond doubt. Close on them followed a shriek of weird +laughter, and then the blasphemy repeated in the same tone of mockery. +The hair crept on Claude's head, the blood withdrew to his heart. The +key which he had drawn out of the lock fell from the hand it seemed to +freeze. + +With distended eyes he glared down the passage. The words were still in +the air, the laughter echoed in his brain, the shadows cast by the +shaking rushlight danced and took weird shapes. A rustling as of black +wings gathered about him, unseen shapes hovered closer and closer--was +it his fancy or did he hear them? + +He tried to disbelieve, he strove to withstand his terror; and a moment +his fortitude held. Then, as the Syndic, shaking as with the palsy, +tottered, with a hand on either wall down the stairs, and moaning aloud +in his terror, felt his way across the room below, Claude's courage, +too, gave way; not in face of that he saw, but of that which he fancied. +He turned too, and with a greater show of composure, and still carrying +the light, he stumbled down the stairs and into the room below. + +There, for an instant sense and nerve returned, and he stood. He turned +even, and made as if he would re-ascend the staircase. But he had no +sooner thrust his head into it, and paused an instant to listen ere he +ventured, than a faint echo of the same mirthless laughter reached him, +and he turned shuddering, and fled--fled out of the room, out of the +house, out of the light, to the same spot under the trees whence he had +started with so bold a heart a few minutes earlier. + +The Syndic was there before him--or no, not the Syndic, but a stricken +man, clinging to a tree; seized now and again with a fresh fit of +trembling. "Take me home," he babbled. "There is no hope! There is no +hope. Take me home!" + +His house was not far off, and Claude, when he had a little recovered +himself, assented, gave the tottering man his arm and supported him--he +needed support--until they reached the dwelling in the Bourg du Four. +Still a wreck Blondel was by this time a little more coherent. He +foresaw solitude, and dreaded it; and would have had the other enter and +pass the night with him. But the young man, already ashamed of his +weakness, already doubting and questioning, refused, and would say no +more than that he would return on the morrow. With an aspect apparently +composed, he insisted on taking his leave, turned from the door and +retraced his steps to the Corraterie. But when he came to the house, he +lacked, brave as he was, the heart to enter; and passing it, he spent +the time until daybreak, in walking up and down the rampart within +hearing of the sentries. + +His mind grown somewhat calmer, he set himself to recall, precisely and +exactly, the thing that had happened. But recall it as he might, he +could not account for it. The words of blasphemy that had scorched his +ears as the key entered the lock, had been uttered, he was sure, in no +voice known to him; nay more, in no voice of human intonation. How could +he explain them? How account for them save in one way? How defend his +cowardice save on one ground? He shuddered, gazing at the house, and +murmuring now a prayer, and now a word of exorcism. But the day had +come, the sky was red, and the sun was near its rising before he took +courage and dared to cross the threshold. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +MELUSINA. + + +Even then, with the daylight about him, he crept into the house under a +weight of awe and dread. He left the door ajar that the daylight might +enter with him and dispel the shadows: and when he had crossed the +threshold it was with a pale and frowning face that he advanced to the +middle of the floor, and stood peering round the deserted living-room. +No one was stirring above or below, the house and all within it slept: +the rushlight stand, its wick long extinguished, remained where he had +set it down in the panic of his flight. + +With that exception--he eyed it darkly--no trace of the mysterious event +of the night was visible. The room wore, or minute by minute assumed, +its daylight aspect. Nor had he stood long gazing upon it before he +breathed more freely and felt his heart lightened. What was to be +thought, what could be thought in the circumstances, he was not prepared +to say. But the panic of the night was gone with the darkness; and with +it all thought--if in the depths he had really sunk so low--of +relinquishing the woman he loved to the powers of evil. + +To the powers of evil! To a fate as much worse than death as the soul +and the mind are higher than the body! Was he really face to face with +that? Was this house, so quiet, so peaceful, so commonplace, in reality +the theatre of one of those manifestations of Satan's power which were +the horror of the age? His senses affirmed it, and yet he doubted. Such +things were, he did not deny it. Few men of the time denied it. But +presented to him, brought within his experience, they shocked him to the +point of disbelief. He found that from the thing which he was prepared +to admit in the general, he dissented fiercely and instinctively in the +particular. + +What, the woman he loved! Was he to believe her delivered, soul and +body, to the power of Satan? Never! All that was sane and wholesome and +courageous in the man rebelled against the thought. He would not believe +it. The pots and pans on the hearth, the simple implements of work and +life, on which his eyes alighted wherever he turned them, and to none of +which her hand was stranger, his memory of the love that was between her +and her mother, his picture of the sacred life led by those two above +stairs, all gave the lie to it! Her subjection to Basterga, her +submission to contumely and to insult--there must be a reason for these, +a natural and innocent reason could he hit on it. The strange +occurrences of the night, the blasphemous words, the mocking laughter, +at the worst they might not import a mastery over her. He shuddered as +he recalled them, they rang in his ears and brain, the vividness of his +memory of them was remarkable. But they might not have relation to her. + +He stood long in moody thought, but his ears never for an instant +relaxed their vigil, their hearkening for he knew not what. At length he +passed into his bedcloset, and cooled his hot face with water and +repaired his dress. Coming out again, he found the house still quiet, +the door as he had left it, the daylight pouring in through the +aperture. No one was moving, he was still safe from interruption; and a +curiosity to visit the passage above and learn if aught abnormal was to +be seen, took possession of him. It was just possible that Basterga had +not returned; that the key still lay where he had dropped it! + +He opened the door of the staircase and listened. He heard nothing, and +he stole half-way up the flight and again stood. Still all was silent. +He mounted more boldly then, and he was within four steps of the +top--whence, turning his head a little, he could command the +passage--when a sound arrested him. It was a sound easily explicable +though it startled him; for a moment later Anne Royaume appeared at the +foot of the upper flight of stairs, and moved along the passage towards +him. + +She did not see him, and he could have escaped unnoticed, had he retired +at once. But he stood fixed to the spot by something in her appearance; +a something that, as she moved slowly towards him, fancying herself +alone, filled him with dread, and with something worse than +dread--suspicion. + +For if ever woman looked as if she had come from a witch's Sabbath, if +ever girl, scarce more than child, walked as if she had plucked the +fruit of the Tree and savoured it bitter, it was the girl before him. +Despair--it seemed to him--rode her like a hag. Dejection, fear, misery, +were in her whole bearing. Her eyes looked out from black hollows, her +cheeks were pallid, her mouth was nerveless. Three sleepless nights, he +thought, could not have changed a woman thus--no, nor thrice three; and +he who had seen her last night and saw her now, gazed fascinated and +bewildered, asking himself what had happened, what it meant. + +Alas, for answer there rose the spectre which he had been striving to +lay; the spectre that had for the men of that day so appalling, so +shocking a reality. Witchcraft! The word rang in his brain. Witchcraft +would account for this, ay, for all; for her long submission to vile +behests and viler men; for that which he had heard in this house at +midnight; for that which the Syndic had whispered of Basterga; for that +which he noted in her now! Would account for it; ay, but by fixing her +with a guilt, not of this world, terrible, abnormal: by fixing her with +a love of things vile, unspeakable, monstrous, a love that must deprive +her life of all joy, all sweetness, all truth, all purity! A guilt and a +love that showed her thus! + +But thus, for a moment only. The next she espied his face above the +landing-edge, perceived that he watched her, detected, perhaps, +something of his feeling. With startling abruptness her features +underwent a change. Her cheeks flamed high, her eyes sparkled with +resentment. "You!" she cried--and her causeless anger, her impatience of +his presence, confirmed the dreadful idea he had conceived. "You!" she +repeated. "How dare you come here? How dare you? What are you doing +here? Your room is below. Go down, sir!" + +He did not move, but he met her eyes; he tried to read her soul, his own +quaking. And his look, sombre and stern--for he saw a gulf opening at +his feet--should have given her pause. Instead, her anger faced him down +and mastered him. "Do you hear me?" she flung at him. "Do you hear me? +If you have aught to say, if you are not as those others, go down! Go +down, and I will hear you there!" + +He went down then, giving way to her, and she followed him. She closed +the staircase door behind them; and that done, in the living-room with +her he would have spoken. But with a glance at Gentilis' door, she +silenced him, and led the way through the outer door to the open air. +The hour was still early, the sun was barely risen. Save for a sentry +sleeping at his post on the ramparts, there was no one within sight, and +she crossed the open space to the low wall that looked down upon the +Rhone. There, in a spot where the partly stripped branches which shaded +the rampart hid them from the windows, she turned to him. "Now," she +said--there was a smouldering fire in her eyes--"if you have aught to +say to me, say it. Say it now!" + +He hesitated. He had had time to think, and he found the burden laid +upon him heavy. "I do not know," he answered, "that I have any right to +speak to you." + +"Right!" she cried; and let her bitterness have way in that word. +"Right! Does any stay for that where I am concerned? Or ask my leave, or +crave my will, sir? Right? You have the same right to flout and jeer and +scorn me, the same right to watch and play the spy on me, to hearken at +my door, and follow me, that they have! Ay, and the same right to bid me +come and go, and answer at your will, that others have! Do you scruple a +little at beginning?" she continued mockingly. "It will wear off. It +will come easy by-and-by! For you are like the others!" + +"No!" + +"You are as the others! You begin as they began!" she repeated, giving +the reins to her indignation. "The day you came, last night even, I +thought you different. I deemed you"--she pressed her hand to her bosom +as if she stilled a pain--"other than you are! I confess it. But you are +their fellow. You begin as they began, by listening on stairs and at +doors, by dogging me and playing eavesdropper, by hearkening to what I +say and do. Right?" she repeated the word bitterly, mockingly, with +fierce unhappiness. "You have the right that they have! The same right!" + +"Have I?" he asked slowly. His face was sombre and strangely old. + +"Yes!" + +"Then how did I gain it?" he retorted with a dark look. "How"--his tone +was as gloomy as his face--"did they gain it? Or--he?" + +"He?" The flame was gone from her face. She trembled a little. + +"Yes, he--Basterga," he replied, his eyes losing no whit of the change +in her. "How did he gain the right which he has handed on to others, the +right to shame you, to lay hand on you, to treat you as he does? This is +a free city. Women are no slaves here. What then is the secret between +you and him?" Claude continued grimly. "What is your secret?" + +"My secret!" Her passion dwindled under his eyes, under his words. + +"Ay," Claude answered, "and his! His secret and yours. What is the thing +between you and him?" he continued, his eyes fixed on her, "so dark, so +weighty, so dangerous, you must needs for it suffer his touch, bear his +look, be smooth to him though you loathe him? What is it?" + +"Perhaps--love," she muttered, with a forced smile. But it did not +deceive him. + +"You loathe him!" he said. + +"I may have loved him--once," she faltered. + +"You never loved him," he retorted. All the shyness of youth, all the +bashfulness of man with maiden were gone. Under the weight of that +thought, that dreadful thought, he had grown old in a few minutes. His +tone was hard, his manner pitiless. "You never loved him!" he repeated, +the very immodesty of her excuse confirming his fears. "And I ask you, +what is it? What is it that is between you and him? What is it that +gives him this power over you?" + +"Nothing," she stammered, pale to the lips. + +"Nothing! And was it for nothing that you were startled when you found +me upstairs? When you found me watching you five minutes ago, was it for +nothing that you flamed with rage----" + +"You had no right to be there." + +"No? Yet it was an innocent thing enough--to be there," he answered. "To +be there, this morning." And then, giving the words all the meaning of +which his voice was capable, "To have been there last night," he +continued, "were a different thing perhaps." + +"Were you there?" Her voice was barely audible. + +"I was." + +It was dreadful to see how she sank under that, how she cringed before +him, her anger gone, her colour gone, the light fled from her eyes--eyes +grown suddenly secretive. It was a minute, it seemed a minute at least, +before she could frame a word, a single word. Then, "What do you know?" +she whispered. But for the wall against which she leant, she must have +fallen. + +"What do I know?" + +She nodded, unable to repeat the words. + +"I was at the door of Basterga's room last night." + +"Last night!" + +"Yes. I had the key of his room in my hand. I was putting it into the +lock when I heard----" + +"Hush!" She stepped forward, she would have put her hand over his mouth. +"Hush! Hush!" + +The terror of her eyes, the glance she cast behind her, echoed the word +more clearly than her lips. "Hush! Hush!" + +He could not bear to look at her. Her voice, her terror, the very +defence she had striven to make confirmed him in his worst suspicions. +The thing was too certain, too apparent; in mercy to himself as well as +to her, he averted his eyes. + +They fell on the hills on which he had gazed that morning barely a +fortnight earlier, when the autumn haze had mirrored her face; and all +his thoughts, his heart, his fancy had been hers, her prize, her easy +capture. And now he dared not look on her face. He could not bear to see +it distorted by the terrors of an evil conscience. Even her words when +she spoke again jarred on him. + +"You knew the voice?" she whispered. + +"I did not know it," he answered brokenly. "I knew--whose it was." + +"Mine?" + +"Yes." He scarcely breathed the word. + +She did not cry "Hush!" this time, but she caught her breath; and after +a moment's pause, "Still--you did not recognise it?" she murmured. "You +did not know that it was my voice?" Could it be that after all she hoped +to blind him? + +"I did not." + +"Thank God!" + +"Thank God?" He stared at her, echoing the words in his astonishment. +How dared she name the sacred name? + +She read his thoughts. "Yes," she said hardily, "why not?" + +He turned on her. "Why not?" he cried. "Why not? You dare to thank Him, +who last night denied Him? You dare to name His name in the light, who +in the darkness----You! And you are not afraid?" + +"Afraid?" she repeated. There was a strange light, almost a smile he +would have deemed it had he thought that possible, in her face, "Nay, +perhaps; perhaps. For even the devils, we are told, believe and +tremble." + +His jaw fell; for a moment he gazed at her in sheer bewilderment. Then, +as the full import of her words and her look overwhelmed him, he turned +to the wall and bowed his face on his arms. His whole being shook, his +soul was sick. What was he to say to her? What was he to do? Flee from +her presence as from the presence of Antichrist? Avoid her henceforth as +he valued his soul? Pluck even the memory of her from his mind? Or +wrestle with her, argue with her, snatch her from the foul spells and +enchantments that now held her, the tool and chosen instrument of the +evil one, in their fiendish grip? + +He felt a Churchman's horror--Protestant as he was--at the thought of a +woman possessed. But for that reason, and because he was in the way of +becoming a minister, was it not his duty to measure his strength with +the Adversary? Alas! he could conceive of no words, no thoughts, no +arguments adequate to that strife. Had he been a Papist he might have +turned with hope, even with pious confidence, to the Holy Stoup, the +Bell and Book and Candle, to the Relics, and hundred Exorcisms of his +Church. But the colder and more abstract faith of Calvin, while it +admitted the possibility of such possessions, supplied no weapons of a +material kind. + +He groaned in his impotence, stifled by the unwholesome atmosphere of +his thoughts. He dared not even ponder too long on what she was who +stood beside him; nor peer too closely through the murky veil that hid +her being. To do so might be to risk his soul, to become a partner in +her guilt. He might conjecture what dark thoughts and dreadful aptitudes +lurked behind the girl's gentle mask, he might strive to learn by what +black arts she had been seduced, what power over visible things had been +the price of her apostasy, what Sabbath-mark, seal and pledge of that +apostasy she bore--but at what peril! At what risk of soul and body! His +brain reeled, his blood raced at the thought. + +Such things had lately been, he knew. Had there not been a dreadful +outbreak in Alsace--Alsace, the neighbour almost of Geneva--within the +last few years. In Thann and Turckheim, places within a couple of days' +journey of Geneva, scores had suffered for such practices; and some of +these not old and ugly, but young and handsome, girls and pages of the +Court and young wives! Had not the most unlikely persons confessed to +practices the most dreadful? The most innocent in appearance to things +unspeakable! + +But--with a sudden revulsion of feeling--that was in Alsace, he told +himself. That was in Alsace! Such things did not happen here at men's +elbows! He must have been mad to think it or dream it. And, lifting his +head, he looked about him. The sun had risen higher, the rich vale of +the Rhone, extended at his feet, lay bathed in air and light and +brightness. The burnished hills, the brown, tilled slopes, the gleaming +river, the fairness of that rare landscape clad in morning freshness, +gave the lie to the suspicions he had been indulging, gave the lie, +there and then, to possibilities he dared not have denied in school or +pulpit. Nature spoke to his heart, and with smiling face denied the +unnatural. In Bamberg and Wurzburg and Alsace, but not here! In +Magdeburg, but not here! In Edinburgh, but not here! The world of beauty +and light and growth on which he looked would have none of the dark +devil's world of which he had been dreaming: the dark devil's world +which the sophists and churchmen and the weak-witted of twoscore +generations had built up! + +He turned and looked at her, the scales fallen from his eyes. Though she +was still pale, she had recovered her composure and she met his gaze +without blenching. But now, behind the passive defiance, grave rather +than sullen, which she presented to his attack, the weakness, the +helplessness, the heart pain of the woman were plain. + +He discerned them, and while he hungered for a more explicit denial, for +a cry of indignant protest, for a passionate repudiation, he found some +comfort in that look. And his heart spoke. "I do not believe it!" he +cried impetuously, in perfect forgetfulness of the fact that he had not +put his charge into words. "I do not--I will not! Only say that it is +false! And I will say no more." + +Her answer was as cold water thrown upon him. "I will tell you nothing," +she answered. + +"Why not? Why not?" he cried. + +"You ask why not," she answered slowly. "Are you so short of memory? Is +it so long since, against my will and prayers, you came into yonder +house--that you forget what I said and what I did? And what you +promised?" + +"My God!" he cried in excitement. "You do not know where you stand! You +do not know what perils threaten you. This is no time," he continued, +holding out his hands to her in growing agitation, "for sticking on +scruples or raising trifles. Tell me all!" + +"I will tell you nothing!" she replied with the same quiet firmness. "I +have suffered. I suffer. Can you not suffer a little?" + +"Not blasphemy!" he said. "Not that! Tell me"--his voice, his face grew +suppliant--"tell me only that it was not your voice, Anne. Tell me that +it was not you who spoke! Tell me--but that." + +"I will tell you nothing!" she answered in the same tone. + +"You do not know----" + +"I know what it is you have in your mind!" she replied. "What it is you +are thinking of me. That they will burn me in the Bourg du Four +presently, as they burned the girl in Aix last year! As they burned the +woman in Besancon not many months since; I have seen those who saw it. +As they did to two women in Zurich--my mother was there! As they did to +five hundred people in Geneva in my grandfather's time. It is that," she +continued, a strange wild light in her eyes, "that you think they will +do to me?" + +"God forbid!" he cried. + +"Nay, you may do it, too, if you choose," she answered, gravely +regarding him. "But I do not think you will, for you are young, almost +as young as I am, and, having done it, you would have many years to live +and think. You would remember in those years that it was my mother who +nursed your father, that it was you who came to us not we to you, that +it was you who promised to aid us, not I who sought your aid! You would +remember all these things of a morning when you awoke early: and +this--that in the end you gave me up to the law and burned me." + +"God forbid!" he cried, and hid his face with his hands. The very +quietness of her speech set an edge on horror. "God forbid!" + +"Ay, but men allow!" she answered drearily. "What if I was mad last +night, and in my madness denied my Maker? I am sane to-day, but I must +burn, if it be known! I must burn!" + +"Not by my mouth!" he cried, his brow damp with sweat. "Never, I swear +it! If there be guilt, on my head be the guilt!" + +"You mean it? You mean that?" she said. + +"I do." + +"You will be silent?" + +"I will." + +Her lips parted, hope in her eyes shone--hope which showed how deep her +despair had been. "And you will ask no questions?" she whispered. + +"I will ask no questions," he answered. He stifled a sigh. + +She drew a deep breath of relief, but she did not thank him. It was a +thing for which no thanks could be given. She stood a while, sad and +thoughtful, reflecting, it seemed, on what had passed; then she turned +slowly and left him, crossed the open space, and entered the house, +walking as one under a heavy burden. + +And he? He remained, troubled at one time by the yearning to follow and +comfort and cherish her; cast at another into a cold sweat by the +recollection of that voice in the night, and the strange ties which +bound her to Basterga. Innocent, it seemed to him, that connection could +not be. Based on aught but evil it could hardly be. Yet he must endure, +witness, cloak it. He must wait, helpless and inactive, the issue of it. +He must lie on the rack, drawn one way by love of her, drawn the other +by daily and hourly suspicions, suspicions so strong and so terrible +that even love could hardly cast them out. + +For the voice he had heard at midnight, and the horrid laughter, which +greeted the words of sacrilege--were facts. And her subjection to +Basterga, the man of evil past the evil name, was a fact. And her terror +and her avowal were facts. He could not doubt, he could not deny them. +Only--he loved her. He loved her even while he doubted her, even while +he admitted that women as young and as innocent had been guilty of the +blackest practices and the most evil arts. He loved her and he suffered: +doubting, though he could not abandon her. The air was fresh about him, +the world lay sunlit under his eyes. But the beauty of the world had not +saved young and tender women, who on such mornings had walked barefoot, +none comforting them, to the fiery expiation of their crimes. +Perhaps--perhaps among the thousands who had witnessed their last agony, +one man hidden in the crowd, had vainly closed ears and eyes, one man +had died a hundred deaths in one. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +AUCTIO FIT: VENIT VITA. + + +In his spacious chestnut-panelled parlour, in a high-backed oaken chair +that had throned for centuries the Abbots of Bellerive, Messer Blondel +sat brooding with his chin upon his breast. The chestnut-panelled +parlour was new. The shields of the Cantons which formed a frieze above +the panels shone brightly, the or and azure, gules and argent of their +quarterings, undimmed by time or wood-smoke. The innumerable panes of +the long heavily leaded windows which looked out on the Bourg du Four +were still rain-proof; the light which they admitted still found +something garish in the portrait of the Syndic--by Schouten--that formed +the central panel of the mantelpiece. New and stately, the room had not +its pair in Geneva; and dear to its owner's heart had it been a short, a +very short time before. He had anticipated no more lasting pleasure, +looked forward to no safer gratification for his declining years, than +to sit, as he now sat, surrounded by its grandeur. In due time--not at +once, lest the people take alarm or his enemies occasion--he had +determined to rebuild the whole house after the same fashion. The plans +of the oaken gallery, the staircase and dining-chamber, prepared by a +trusty craftsman of Basle, lay at this moment in the drawer of the +bureau beside his chair. + +Now all was changed. A fiat had gone forth, which placed him alike +beyond the envy of his friends, and the hatred of his foes. He must +die. He must die, and leave these pleasant things, this goodly room, +that future of which he had dreamed. Another man would lie warm in the +chamber he had prepared; another would be Syndic and bear his wand. The +years of stately plenty which he had foreseen, were already as last +year's harvest. No wonder that the sheen of portrait and panel, the +pride of echoing oak, were fled; or that the eyes with which he gazed on +the things about him were dull and lifeless. + +Dull and lifeless at one moment, and clouded by the apathy of despair; +at another bright with the fierce fever of revolt. In the one phase or +the other he had passed many hours of late, some of them amid the +dead-sea grandeur of this room. And he had had his hours of hope also. A +fortnight back a ray of hope, bright as the goblin light which shines +the more brilliantly the darker be the night, had shone on him and +amused and enchanted him. And then, in one moment, God and man--or if +not God, the devil--had joined to quench the hope; and this morning he +sat sunk in deepest despair, all in and around him dark. Hitherto he had +regarded appearances. He had hidden alike his malady and his fears, his +apathy and his mad revolt; he had lived as usual. But this morning he +was beyond that. He could not rouse himself, he could not be doing. His +servants, wondering why he did not go abroad or betake himself to some +task, came and peeped at him, and went away whispering and pointing and +nudging one another. And he knew it. But he paid no heed to them or to +anything, until it happened that his eyes, resting dully on the street, +marked a man who paused before the door and looked at the house, in +doubt it seemed, whether he should seek to enter or should pass on. + +For an appreciable time the Syndic watched the loiterer without seeing +him. What did it matter to a dying man--a man whom heaven, impassive, +abandoned to the evil powers--who came or who went? But by-and-by his +eyes conveyed the identity of the man to his brain; and he rose to his +feet, laying his hands on a bell which stood on the table beside him. In +the act of ringing he changed his mind, and laying the bell down, he +strode himself to the outer door, the house door, and opened it. The man +was still in the street. Scarcely showing himself, Blondel caught his +eye, signed to him to enter, and held the door while he did so. + +Claude Mercier--for he it was--entered awkwardly. He followed the Syndic +into the parlour, and standing with his cap in his hand, began +shamefacedly to explain that he had come to learn how the Syndic was, +after--after that which had happened----He did not finish the sentence. + +For that matter, Blondel did not allow him to finish. He had passed at +sight of the youth into the other of the two conditions between which +his days were divided. His eyes glittered, his hands trembled. "Have you +done anything?" he asked eagerly; and the voice in which he said it +surprised the young man. "Have you done anything?" + +"As to Basterga, do you mean, Messer Syndic?" + +"As to what else? What else?" + +"No, Messer Blondel, I have not." + +"Nor learned anything?" + +"No, nothing." + +"But you don't mean--to leave it there?" Blondel cried, his voice rising +high. And he sat down and rose up again. "You have done nothing, but you +are going to do something? What will it be? What?" And then as he +discerned the other's surprise, and read suspicion in his eyes, he +curbed himself, lowered his tone, and with an effort was himself. "Young +man," he said, wiping his brow, "I am still ridden--by what happened +last night. I have lain, since we parted, under an overwhelming sense of +the presence of evil. Of evil," he repeated, still speaking a little +wildly, "such as this God-fearing town should not know even by repute! +You think me over-anxious? But I have felt the hot blast of the furnace +on my cheek, my head bears even now the smell of the burning. Hell gapes +near us!" He was beginning to tremble afresh, partly with impatience of +this parleying, partly with anxiety to pluck from the other his answer. +The glitter was returning to his eyes. "Hell gapes near us," he +repeated. "And I ask you, young man, what are you going to do?" + +"I?" + +"Yes, you!" + +Claude stared. "What would you have me do?" he asked. + +"What would you have done last night?" the Syndic retorted. "Did you ask +me then? Did you wait for my permission? Did you wait even for my +presence?" + +"No, but----" + +"But what?" + +"Things are changed." + +"Changed? How?" Blondel's tone sank to one of unnatural calm; but his +frame shook and his face was purple with the pressure he put upon +himself. "What is changed? Who has changed it?" he continued; to see his +chance of life hang on the will of this imbecile was almost more than he +could bear. "Speak out! Let me know what has happened." + +"You know what happened as well as I do," Claude answered slowly. He had +given his word to the girl that he would not interfere, but he began to +see difficulties of which he had not thought. "It was enough for me! He +may be all you said he was, Messer Syndic, but----" + +"But you no longer burn to break the spell?" Blondel cried. "You no +longer desire to snatch from him the woman you love? You will stand by +and see her perish body and soul in this web of iniquity? You are +frightened, and will leave her to the law!" He thrust out his thin +flushed face, his pointed beard wagging malignantly. "For that is what +will come of it! To the law, you understand! I warn you, the magistrates +in Geneva bear not the sword in vain." + +The young man's brow grew damp. The crisis was nearer than he had +feared. "But--she has done nothing!" he faltered. + +"The tool with the hand that uses it! The idol and him who made it!" the +Syndic cried, swaying himself to and fro. + +Claude stared. "But you know nothing!" he made shift to say after a +pause. "You have nothing against her, Messer Blondel. He may be all you +say, but she----" + +"I have ears!" + +The tone said more than the words, and Claude trembled. He knew the +width of the net where witchcraft or blasphemy was in question. He knew +that, were Basterga seized, all in the house would be taken with him, +and though men often escaped for the fright, it was seldom that women +went free so cheaply. The knowledge of this tied his tongue; and urgent +as he felt the need to be, he could only glare helplessly at the +magistrate. + +Blondel, on his part, saw the effect of his words, and desperately +resolved to force the young man to his will, he followed up the blow. +"If you would see her burn, well and good!" he cried. "It is for you to +choose. Either break the spell, bring me the box, and set her free; or +see the law take its course! Last night----" + +"Last night," Claude replied, hurt to the quick, "you were not so bold, +Messer Blondel!" + +The Syndic winced, but merged his wrath in an anxiety a thousand times +deeper. "Last night is not to-day," he answered. "Midnight is not +daylight! I have told you where the spell is, where, at least, it is +reputed to be, what it does, and under what sway it lays her; you who +love her--and I see you do--you who have access to the house at all +hours, who can watch him out----" + +"We watched him out last night!" Claude muttered. + +"Ay, but day is day! In the daylight----" + +"But it is not laid on me to do this! I am not the only one----" + +"You love her!" + +"Who has access to the house." + +"Are you a coward?" + +Claude breathed hard. He was driven to the wall. Between his promise to +her, and the Syndic's demand, he found himself helpless. And the demand +was not so unreasonable. For it was true that he loved her, and that he +had access to the house; and if the plan suggested seemed unusual, if it +was not the course most obvious or most natural, it was hardly for him +to cavil at a scheme which promised to save her, not only from the evil +influence which mysteriously swayed her, but from the law, and the +danger of an accusation of witchcraft. Apart from his promise he would +have chosen this course; as it had been his first impulse to pursue it +the evening before. But now he had given his word to her that he would +not interfere, and he was conscious that he understood but in part how +she stood. That being so---- + +"A coward!" the Syndic repeated, savagely and coarsely. He had waited in +intolerable suspense for the other's answer. "That is what you are, with +all your boasting!--A coward! Afraid of--why, man, of what are you +afraid? Basterga?" + +"It may be," Claude answered sullenly. + +"Basterga? Why----" But on the word Blondel stopped; and over his face +came a startling change. The rage died out of it and the flush; and +fear, and a cringing embarrassment, took the place of them. In the same +instant the change was made, and Claude saw that which caused it. +Basterga himself stood in the half-open doorway, looking towards them. + +For a few seconds no one spoke. The magistrate's tongue clave to the +roof of his mouth, as the scholar advanced, cap in hand, and bowed to +one and the other. The florid politeness of his bearing thinly veiling +the sarcasm of his address when he spoke. + +"O mire conjunctio!" he said. "Happy is Geneva where age thinks no shame +of consorting with youth! And youth, thrice happy, imbibes wisdom at the +feet of age! Messer Blondel," he continued, looking to him, and dropping +in a degree the irony of his tone, "I have not seen you for so long, I +feared that something was amiss, and I come to inquire. It is not so, I +hope?" + +The Syndic, unable to mask his confusion, forced a sickly phrase of +denial. He had dreaded nothing so much as to be surprised by Basterga in +the young man's company: for his conscience warned him that to find him +with Mercier and to read his plan, would be one and the same thing to +the scholar's astuteness. And here was the discovery made, and made so +abruptly and at so unfortunate a moment that to carry it off was out of +his power, though he knew that every halting word and guilty look bore +witness against him. + +"No? that is well," Basterga answered, smiling broadly as he glanced +from one face to the other. "That is well!" He had the air of a +good-natured pedagogue who espies his boys in a venial offence, and will +not notice it save by a sly word. "Very well! And you, my friend," he +continued, addressing Claude, "is it not true what I said, + + Terque Quaterque redit! + +You fled in haste last night, but we meet again! Your method in affairs +is the reverse, I fear, of that which your friend here would advise: +namely, that to carry out a plan one should begin slowly, and end +quickly; thereby putting on the true helmet of Plato, as it has been +called by a learned Englishman of our time." + +Claude glowered at him, almost as much at a loss as the Syndic, but for +another reason. To exchange commonplaces with the man who held the woman +he loved by an evil hold, who owned a power so baneful, so foul--to +bandy words with such an one was beyond him. He could only glare at him +in speechless indignation. + +"You bear malice, I fear," the big man said. There was no doubt that he +was master of the situation. "Do you know that in the words of the same +learned person whom I have cited--a marvellous exemplar amid that +fog-headed people--vindictive persons live the life of witches, who as +they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate." + +The blood left Claude's face. "What do you mean?" he muttered, finding +his voice at last. + +"Who hates, burns. Who loves, burns also. But that is by the way." + +"Burns?" + +"Ay," with a grin, "burns! It seems to come home to you. Burns! Fie, +young man; you hate, I fear, beyond measure, or love beyond measure, if +you so fear the fire. What, you must leave us? It is not very mannerly," +with sarcasm, "to go while I speak!" + +But Claude could bear no more. He snatched his cap from the table, and +with an incoherent word, aimed at the Syndic and meant for +leave-taking, he made for the door, plucked it open and disappeared. + +The scholar smiled as he looked after him. "A foolish young man," he +said, "who will assuredly, if he be not stayed, end unfortunate. It is +the way of Frenchmen, Messer Blondel. They act without method and strike +without intention, bear into age the follies of youth, and wear the +gravity neither of the north nor of the south. But that reminds me," he +continued, speaking low and bending towards the other with a look of +sympathy--"you are better, I hope?" + +The words were harmless, but they conveyed more than their surface +meaning, and they touched the Syndic to the quick. He had begun to +compose himself; now he had much ado not to gnash his teeth in the +scholar's face. "Better?" he ejaculated bitterly. "What chance have I of +being better? Better? Are you?" He began to tremble, his hands on the +arms of his chair. "Otherwise, if you are not, you will soon have cause +to know what I feel." + +"I am better," Basterga answered with fervour. "I thank Heaven for it." + +Blondel rose to his feet, his hands still clutching the chair. "What!" +he cried. "You--you have not tried the----" + +"The _remedium_?" The scholar shook his head. "No, on the contrary, I am +relieved from my fears. The alarm was baseless. I have it not, I thank +Heaven. I have not the disease. Nor, if there be any certainty in +medicine, shall have it." + +The Syndic, alas for human nature, could have struck him in the face! + +"You have it not?" he snarled. "You have it not?" And then regaining +control of himself, "I suppose I ought," with a forced and ghastly +smile, "to felicitate you on your escape." + +"Rather to felicitate yourself," Basterga answered. "Or so I had hoped +two days ago." + +"Myself?" + +"Yes," Basterga replied lightly. "For as soon as I found that I had no +need of the _remedium_, I thought of you. That was natural. And it +occurred to me--nay, calm yourself!" + +"Quick! Quick! + +"Nay, calm yourself, my dear Messer Blondel," Basterga repeated with +outward solicitude and inward amusement. "Be calm, or you will do +yourself an injury; you will indeed! In your state you should be +prudent; you should govern yourself--one never knows. And besides, the +thought, to which I refer--I see you recognise what it was----" + +"Yes! yes! Go on! Go on!" + +"Proved futile." + +"Futile?" + +"Yes, I am sorry to say it. Futile." + +"Futile!" The wretched man's voice rose almost to a scream as he +repeated the word. He rose and sat down again. "Then how did you--why +did you----" He stopped, fighting for words, and, unable to frame them, +clutched the air with his hands. A moment he mouthed dumbly, then "Tell +me!" he gasped. "Speak, man, speak! How was it? Cannot you see--that you +are killing me?" + +Basterga saw indeed that he had gone nearer to it than he had intended: +for a moment the starting eyes and purple face alarmed him. In all +haste, he gave up playing with the others fears. "It occurred to me," he +said, "that as I no longer needed the medicine myself, there was only +the Grand Duke to be considered, I thought that he might be willing to +waive his claim, since he is as yet free from the disease. And four +days ago I despatched a messenger whom I could trust to him at Turin. I +had hopes of a favourable reply, and in that event, I should not have +lost a minute in waiting upon you. For I am bound to say, Messer +Blondel"--the big man rubbed his chin and eyed the other +benevolently--"your case appealed to me in an especial manner. I felt +myself moved, I scarcely know why, to do all I could on your behalf. +Alas, the answer dashed my hopes." + +"What was it?" Blondel's voice sounded hollow and unnatural. Sunk in the +high-backed chair, his chin fallen on his breast, it was in his eyes +alone, peering from below bent brows, that he seemed to live. + +"He would not waive his claim," Basterga answered gently, "save on +a--but in substance that was all." + +Blondel raised himself slowly and stiffly in the chair. His lips parted. +"In substance?" he muttered hoarsely, "There was more then?" + +Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "There was. Save, the Grand Duke added, +on the condition--but the condition which followed was inadmissible." + +Blondel gave vent to a cackling laugh. "Inadmissible?" he muttered. +"Inadmissible." And then, "You are not a dying man, Messer Basterga, or +you would think--few things inadmissible." + +"Impossible, then." + +"What was it? What was it?"--with a gesture eloquent of the impatience +that was choking him. + +"He asked," Basterga replied reluctantly, "a price." + +"A price?" + +The big man nodded. + +The Syndic rose up and sat down again. "Why did you not say so? Why did +you not say so at once?" he cried fiercely. "Is it about that you have +been fencing all this time? Is that what you were seeking? And I +fancied--A price, eh? I suppose"--in a lower tone, and with a gleam of +cunning in his eyes--"he does not really want--the impossible? I am not +a very rich man, Messer Basterga--you know that; and I am sure you would +tell him. You would tell him that men do not count wealth here as they +do in Genoa or Venice, or even in Florence. I am sure you would put him +right on that," with a faint whine in his tone. "He would not strip a +man to the last rag. He would not ask--thousands for it." + +"No," Basterga answered, with something of asperity and even contempt in +his tone. "He does not ask thousands for it, Messer Blondel. But he +asks, none the less, something you cannot give." + +"Money?" + +"No." + +"Then--what is it?" Blondel leant forward in growing fury. "Why do you +fence with me? What is it, man?" + +Basterga did not answer for a moment. At length, shrugging his +shoulders, and speaking between jest and earnest, "The town of Geneva," +he said. "No more, no less." + +The Syndic started violently, then was still. But the hand which in the +first instant of surprise he had raised to shield his eyes, trembled; +and behind it great drops of sweat rose on his brow, and bore witness to +the conflict in his breast. + +"You are jesting," he said presently, without removing his hand. + +"It is no jest," Basterga answered soberly. "You know the Grand Duke's +keen desire. We have talked of it before. And were it only a matter," he +shrugged his shoulders, "of the how--of ways and means in fact--there +need be no impossibility, your position being what it is. But I know +the feeling you entertain on the subject, Messer Blondel; and though I +do not agree with you, for we look at the thing from different sides, I +had no hope that you would come to it." + +"Never!" + +"No. So much so, that I had it in my mind to keep the condition to +myself. But----" + +"Why did you not, then?" + +"Hope against hope," the big man answered, with a shrug and a laugh. +"After all, a live dog is better than a dead lion--only you will not see +it. We are ruled, the most of us, by our feelings, and die for our side +without asking ourselves whether a single person would be a ducat the +worse if the other side won. It is not philosophical," with another +shrug. "That is all." + +Apparently Blondel was not listening, for "The Duke must be mad!" he +ejaculated, as the other uttered his last word. + +"Oh no." + +"Mad!" the Syndic repeated harshly, his eyes still shaded by his hand. +"Does he think," with bitterness, "that I am the man to run through the +streets crying 'Viva Savoia!' To raise a hopeless _emeute_ at the head +of the drunken ruffians who, since the war, have been the curse of the +place! And be thrown into the common jail, and hurried thence to the +scaffold! If he looks for that----" + +"He does not." + +"He is mad." + +"He does not," Basterga repeated, unmoved. "The Grand Duke is as sane as +I am." + +"Then what does he expect?" + +But the big man laughed. "No, no, Messer Blondel," he said. "You push me +too far. You mean nothing, and meaning nothing, all's said and done. I +wish," he continued, rising to his feet, and reverting to the tone of +sympathy which he had for the moment laid aside, "I wish I might +endeavour to show you the thing as I see it, in a word, as a philosopher +sees it, and as men of culture in all ages, rising above the prejudices +of the vulgar, have seen it. For after all, as Persius says, + + Live while thou liv'st! for death will make us all, + A name, a nothing, but an old wife's tale. + +But I must not," reluctantly. "I know that." + +The Syndic had lowered his hand; but he still sat with his eyes averted, +gazing sullenly at the corner of the floor. + +"I knew it when I came," Basterga resumed after a pause, "and therefore +I was loth to speak to you." + +"Yes." + +"You understand, I am sure?" + +The Syndic moved in his chair, but did not speak, and Basterga took up +his cap with a sigh. "I would I had brought you better news, Messer +Blondel," he said, as he rose and turned to go. "But _Cor ne edito!_ I +am the happier for speaking, though I have done no good!" And with a +gesture of farewell, not without its dignity, he bowed, opened the door, +and went out, leaving the Syndic to his reflections. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +BY THIS OR THAT. + + +Long after Basterga, with an exultant smile and the words "I have limed +him!" on his lips, had passed into the Bourg du Four and gone to his +lodging, the Syndic sat frowning in his chair. From time to time a sigh +deep and heart-rending, a sigh that must have melted even Petitot, even +Baudichon, swelled his breast; and more than once he raised his eyes to +his painted effigy over the mantel, and cast on it a look that claimed +the pity of men and Heaven. + +Nevertheless with each sigh and glance, though sigh and glance lost no +whit of their fervour, it might have been observed that his face grew +brighter; and that little by little, as he reflected on what had passed, +he sat more firmly and strongly in his chair. + +Not that he purposed buying his life at the price which Basterga had put +on it. Never! But when a ship is on the lee-shore it is pleasant to know +that if one anchor fails to hold there is a second, albeit a borrowed +one. The knowledge steadies the nerves and enables the mind to deal more +firmly with the crisis. Or--to put the image in a shape nearer to the +fact--though the power to escape by a shameful surrender may sap the +courage of the garrison, it may also enable it to array its defences +without panic. The Syndic, for the present at least, entertained no +thought of saving himself by a shameful compliance; it was indeed +because the compliance was so shameful, and the impossibility of +stooping to it so complete, that he sighed thus deeply, and raised eyes +so piteous to his own portrait. He who stood almost in the position of +Pater Patriae to Geneva, to betray Geneva! He the father of his country +to betray his country! Perish the thought! But, alas, he too must +perish, unless he could hit on some other way of winning the _remedium_. + +Still, it is not to be gainsaid that the Syndic went about the search +for this other way in a more cheerful spirit; and revolved this plan and +that plan in a mind more at ease. The ominous shadow of the night, the +sequent gloom of the morning were gone; in their place rode an almost +giddy hopefulness to which no scheme seemed too fanciful, no plan +without its promise. Betray his country! Never, never! Though, be it +noted, there was small scope in the Republic for such a man as himself, +and he had received and could receive but a tithe of the honour he +deserved! While other men, Baudichon and Petitot for instance, to say +nothing of Fabri and Du Pin, reaped where they had not sown. + +That, by the way; for it had naught to do with the matter in hand--the +discovery of a scheme which would place the _remedium_ within his grasp. +He thought awhile of the young student. He might make a second attempt +to coerce him. But Claude's flat refusal to go farther with the matter, +a refusal on which, up to the time of Basterga's abrupt entrance, the +Syndic had made no impression, was a factor; and reluctantly, after some +thought, Blondel put him out of his mind. + +To do the thing himself was his next idea. But the scare of the night +before had given him a distaste for the house; and he shrank from the +attempt with a timidity he did not understand. He held the room in +abhorrence, the house in dread; and though he told himself that in the +last resort--perhaps he meant the last but one--he should venture, +while there was any other way he put that plan aside. + +And there was another way: there were others through whom the thing +could be done. Grio, indeed, who had access to the room and the box, was +Basterga's creature; and the Syndic dared not tamper with him. But there +was a third lodger, a young fellow, of whom the inquiries he had made +respecting the house had apprised him. Blondel had met Gentilis more +than once, and marked him; and the lad's weak chin and shifty eyes, no +less than the servility with which he saluted the magistrate had not +been lost on the observer. The youth, granted he was not under +Basterga's thumb, was unlikely to refuse a request backed by authority. + +As he reflected, the very person who was in his thoughts passed the +window, moving with the shuffling gait and sidelong look which betrayed +his character. The Syndic took his presence for an omen: tempted by it, +he rose precipitately, seized his head-gear and cane, and hurried into +the street. He glanced up and down, and saw Louis in the distance moving +in the direction of the College. He followed. Three or four youths, +bearing books, were hastening in the same direction through the narrow +street of the Coppersmiths, and the Syndic fell in behind them. He dared +not hasten over-much, for a dozen curious eyes watched him from the +noisy beetle-browed stalls on either side; and presently, finding that +he did not gain, he was making up his mind to await a better occasion, +when Louis, abandoning a companion who had just joined him, dived into +one of the brassfounders' shops. + +The Syndic walked on slowly, returning here and there a reverential +salute. He was nearly at the gate of the College, when Louis, late and +in haste, overtook him, and hurried by him. Blondel doubted an instant +what he should do; doubted now the moment for action was come the +wisdom of the step he had in his mind. But a feverish desire to act had +seized upon him, and after a moment's hesitation he raised his voice. +"Young man," he said, "a moment! Here!" + +Louis, not quite out of earshot, turned, found the magistrate's eye upon +him, wavered, and at last came to him. He cringed low, wondering what he +had done amiss. + +"I know your face," Blondel said, fixing him with a penetrating look. +"Do you not lodge, my lad, in a house in the Corraterie? Near the Porte +Tertasse?" + +"Yes, Messer Syndic," Louis answered, overpowered by the honour of the +great man's address, and still wondering what evil was in store for him. + +"The Mere Royaume's?" + +"Yes, Messer Syndic." + +"Then you can do me--or rather"--with an expression of growing +severity--"you can do the State a service. Step this way, and listen to +me, young man!" And his asperity increased by the fear that he was +taking an unwise step, he told the youth, in curt stiff sentences, such +facts as he thought necessary. + +The young student listened thunderstruck, his mouth open, and an +expression of fatuous alarm on his face. "Letters?" he muttered, when +the Syndic had come to a certain point in the story he had decided to +tell. + +"Yes, papers of importance to the State," the Syndic replied weightily, +"of which it is necessary that possession should be taken as quietly as +possible." + +"And they are----" + +"They are in the steel box chained to the wall of his apartment. Be it +your task, young man, to bring the box and the letters unread and +untouched to me. Opportunities of securing them in Messer Basterga's +absence cannot but occur," he continued more benignly. "Choose one +wisely, use it boldly, and the care of your fortunes will be in better +hands than yours! A word to Basterga, on the other hand," Blondel +continued slowly, and with a deadly look--he had not failed to notice +that Louis winced at the name of Basterga--"and you will find yourself +in the prison of the Two Hundred, destined to share the fate of the +conspirators." + +The young man began to shake. "Conspirators?" he cried faintly. The word +brought vividly before him the horrors of the scaffold and the wheel. +"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Why did I go to that house to lodge?" + +"Do your duty," the Syndic said, "and you need fear nothing." + +"But if I cannot--do it?" the youth stammered, his teeth chattering. He +to penetrate to Basterga's room unbidden! He to rob the formidable man +and perhaps be caught in the act! He to deceive him and meet his eye at +meals! Impossible! "But if I cannot--do it?" he repeated, cowering. + +"The State knows no such word!" the Syndic returned grimly. "Cannot," he +continued slowly, "means will not. Do your duty and fear nothing. Do it +not, pause, hesitate, breathe but a syllable of that which I have told +you, and you will have all to fear. All!" + +He saw too late that it was he himself who had all to fear; that in +taking the lad before him into his confidence, he had placed himself in +the hands of a craven. But he had done it. He had gone too far, moved by +the foolish impulse of the moment, to retreat. His sole chance lay in +showing the lad on which side danger pressed him most closely; on +frightening him completely. And when Louis did not reply:-- + +"You do not answer me?" Blondel said in his sternest tones. "You do not +reply? Am I to understand that you decline? That you refuse to perform +the task which the State assigns to you? In that case be sure you will +perish with those whom the Two Hundred know to be the enemies of Geneva, +and for whom the rack and the wheel are at this moment prepared." + +"No!" Louis cried passionately; he almost fell on his knees in the open +street. "No, no! I will go anywhere, do anything, Messer Syndic! I swear +I will; I am no enemy! No conspirator!" + +"You may be no enemy. But you must show yourself a friend!" + +"I will! I will indeed." + +"And no syllable of this will pass your lips?" + +"As I live, Messer Syndic! Nothing! Nothing!" + +When he had repeated this several times with the earnestness of extreme +terror, and appeared to have laid to heart such particulars as Blondel +thought he should know, the Syndic dismissed him, letting him go with a +last injunction to be silent and a last threat. + +By mere force of habit the lad would have gone forward and entered the +College; but on the threshold he felt how unfit he was to meet his +fellows' eyes, and he turned and hastened as fast as his trembling limbs +would carry him towards his home. The streets, to his excited +imagination, were full of spies; he fancied his every movement watched, +his footsteps counted. If he lingered they might suppose him lukewarm, +if he paused they might think him ill-affected. His speed must show his +zeal. His poor little heart beat in his breast as if it would spring +from it, but he did not stay nor look aside until the door of the house +in the Corraterie closed behind him. + +Then within the house there fell upon him--alas! what a thing it is to +be a coward--a new fear. The fear was not the fear of Basterga, the +bully and cynic, whom he had known and fawned on and flattered; but of +Basterga the dark and dangerous conspirator, of whom he now heard, ready +to repay with the dagger the least attempt to penetrate his secrets! On +his entrance he had flung himself face downward on his pallet in the +little closet in which he slept; but at that thought he sprang up, +suffocated by it; already he fancied himself in the hands of the +desperadoes whom he had betrayed, already he pictured slow and lingering +deaths. But again, at the remembrance of the task laid upon him, he +flung himself prostrate, writhing, and cursing his fate, and shedding +tears of panic. He to beard Basterga! He to betray him! Impossible! Yet +if he failed, the rack and the wheel awaited him. Either way lay danger, +on either side yawned torture and death. And he was a coward. He wept +and shuddered, abandoning himself to a very paroxysm of terror. + +When his door was pushed open a minute later, he did not hear the +movement; with his head buried in the pillow he did not see the face of +wonder, mingled with alarm, which viewed him from the doorway. He had +forgotten that it was Anne Royaume's custom to attend to the young men's +rooms during their absence at the afternoon lecture; and when her voice, +asking in startled accents what was amiss and if he were ill, reached +his ears, he sought, with a smothered shriek, to cover his head with the +bedclothes. He fancied that Basterga was upon him! + +"What is the matter?" she repeated, advancing slowly to the side of the +bed. Then, getting no answer, she dragged the coverlet off him. "What is +it? Don't you know me?" + +He sat up then, saw who it was and came gradually to himself, but with +many sighs and tears. She stood, looking down on him with contempt. "Has +some one been beating you?" she asked, and searched with hard eyes--he +had been no friend to her--for signs of ill-treatment. + +He shook his head. "Worse," he sobbed. "Far worse! Oh, what will become +of me? What will become of me? Lord, have mercy upon me! Lord, have +mercy upon me!" + +Her lip curled. Perhaps she was comparing him with another youth who had +spoken to her that morning in a different strain. + +"I don't think it matters much," she said scornfully, "what becomes of +you." + +"Matters?" he exclaimed. + +"If you are such a coward as this! Tell me what it is. What has +happened? If it is not that some one has beaten you, I don't know what +it is--unless you have been doing something wrong, and they have put you +out of the University? Is it that?" + +"No!" he cried fretfully. "Worse, worse! And do you leave me! You can do +nothing! No one can do anything!" + +She had her own troubles, and to-day was almost sinking under them. But +this was not her way of bearing them. She shrugged her shoulders +contemptuously. "Very well," she said, "I will go if I can do nothing." + +"Do?" he cried vehemently. "What can you do?" And then, in the act of +turning from him, she stood; so startling was the change, so marvellous +the transformation which she saw come over his face. "Do," he repeated, +trembling violently, and speaking in a tone as much altered as his +expression. He rose to his feet. "Do? Perhaps you--you can do +something--still. Wait. Please wait a minute! I--I was not quite +myself." He passed his hand across his brow. She did not know that +behind his face of frightened stupor his mind was working cunningly, +following up the idea that had occurred to him. + +She began to think him mad. But though she held him in distaste, she had +no fear of him; and even when he closed the door with a cringing air, +and a look that implored indulgence, she held her ground. "Only, you +need not close the door," she said coldly. "There is no one in the house +except my mother." + +"Messer Basterga?" + +"He has gone out. Is it of him," in sudden enlightenment, "that you are +afraid?" + +He nodded sullenly. "Yes," he said; and then he paused, eyeing her in +doubt if he could trust her. At last, "It is, but, if you dared do it, I +know how I could draw his teeth! How I could"--with the cruel grin of +the coward--"squeeze him! squeeze him!" and he went through the act with +his nervous, shaking fingers. "I could hold him like that! I could hold +him powerless as the dog that would bite and dare not!" + +She stared at him. "You?" she said; it was hard to say whether +incredulity or scorn were written more plainly on her face. "You?" + +"I! I!" he replied, with the same gesture of holding something. "And I +know how to put him in your power also!" + +"In my power!" + +"Ay." + +Her face grew hard as if she too held her enemy passive in her grip. +Then her lip curled, and she laughed in scorn. "Ay! And what must I do +to bring that about? Something, I suppose, you dare not, Louis?" + +"Something you can do more easily than I," he answered doggedly. "A +small thing, too," he continued, clasping his hands in his eagerness and +looking at her with imploring eyes. "A nothing, a mere nothing!" + +"And yet it will do so much?" + +"I swear it will." + +"Then," she retorted, eyeing him shrewdly, "if it is so easy to do why +were you undone a minute ago? And puling like a child in arms?" + +"Because," he said, flushing under her eyes, "it--it is not easy for me +to do. And I did not see my way." + +"It looked like it." + +"But I see it now if you will help me. You have only to take a packet of +letters from his room--and you go there when you please--and he is +yours! While you have the letters he dare not stir hand or foot, lest +you bring him to the scaffold!" + +"Bring him to the scaffold?" + +"Get the letters, give them to me, and I will answer for the rest." +Louis' voice was low, but he shook with excitement. "See!" he continued, +his eyes at all times prominent, almost starting from his head, "it +might be done this minute. This minute!" + +"It might," the girl replied, watching him coldly. "But it will not be +done either this minute or at all unless you tell me what is in the +letters, and how you come to know about them." + +Should he tell her? He fancied that he had no choice. "Messer Blondel +the Syndic wants the letters," he answered sullenly. And, urged farther +by her expression of disbelief, he told the astonished girl the story +which Blondel had told him. The fact that he believed it went far with +her; why, for the rest, doubt a story so extraordinary that it seemed to +bear the stamp of truth? + +"And that is all?" she said when he came to the end. + +"Is it not enough?" + +"It may be enough," she replied, her resolute manner in strange contrast +with his cowardly haste. "Only there is a thing not clear. If the Syndic +knows what is in the letters, why does he not seize them and Basterga +with them--the traitor with the proof of his treason?" + +"Because he is afraid of the Grand Duke," Louis cried. "If he seize +Basterga and miss the proof of his treason, what then?" + +"Then he is not sure that the letters are there?" Anne replied keenly. + +"He is not sure that they would be there when he came to seize them," +Louis answered. "Basterga might have a dozen confederates in the house +ready at a sign to destroy the letters." + +She nodded. + +"And that is what they will make us out to be," he continued, his voice +sinking as his fears returned upon him. "The Syndic threatened as much; +and such things have happened a hundred times. I tell you, if we do not +do something, we shall suffer with him. But do it, and he is in your +power! And if he has any hold on you, it is gone!" + +The blood surged to her face. Hold upon her? Ah! Rage--or was it +hope?--lightened in her eyes and transformed her face. She was thinking, +he guessed, of the hundred insults she had undergone at Basterga's +hands, of the shame-compelling taunts to which she had been forced to +listen, of the loathed touch she had been forced to bear. If there was +aught in her mind beyond this, any motive deeper or more divine, he did +not perceive it; enough, that he saw that she wavered, and he pressed +her. + +"You will be free," he cried passionately. "Freed from him! Freed from +fear of him! Say you will do it! Say that you will do it," he continued +fervently, and he made as if he would kneel before her. "Do it, and I +swear that never shall a word to displease you pass my lips." + +With a glance of scorn that pierced even his selfishness, "Swear only," +she said, "that you have told me the truth! I ask no more." + +"I swear it on my salvation!" + +She drew a deep breath. + +"I will do it," she said. "The steel box which is chained to the wall?" + +"Yes, yes," he panted, "you cannot mistake it. The key----" + +"I know where he keeps it." + +She said no more, but turned, and regarding his thanks as little as if +they had been the wind passing by her, she opened the door, crossed the +living-room, and vanished up the staircase. He followed her as far as +the foot of the stairs, and there stood listening and shifting his feet +and biting his nails in an agony of suspense. She had not deigned to bid +him watch for Basterga's coming, but he did so; his eyes on the outer +door, through which the scholar must enter, and his tongue and feet in +readiness to warn her or save himself, according as the pressure of +danger directed the one or the other step. + +Meanwhile his ears were on the stretch to catch what she did. He heard +her try the door of the room. It was locked. He heard her shake it. Then +he guessed that she fetched a key, for after an interval, which seemed +an age, he caught the grating of the wards in the lock. After that, she +was quiet so long, that but for the apprehensions of Basterga's coming, +which weighed on his coward soul, he must have gone up in sheer jealousy +so see what she was doing. + +Not that he distrusted her. Even while he waited, and while the thing +hung in the balance, he smiled to think how cleverly he had contrived +it. On the side of the authorities he would gain favour by delivering +the letters: on the other side, if Basterga retained power to harm, it +was not he who had taken the letters, nor he who would be exposed to the +first blast of vengeance--but the girl. The blame for her, the credit +for him! From the nettle danger his wits had plucked the flower safety. +But for his fears he could have chuckled; and then he heard her leave +the room, and relock the door. With a gasp of relief, he retired a pace +or two, and waited, his eyes fixed on the doorway through which she must +enter. + +She was long in coming, and when she came his hand, extended to receive +the letters, fell by his side, the whispered question died on his lips. +Her face told him that she had failed. It might have told him also that +she had built far more on the attempt than she had let him perceive. But +what was that to him? It was enough for him that she had not the +letters. He could have torn her with his hands. "Where are they? Where +are they?" he cried, advancing upon her. "You have not got them?" + +"Got them?" And then she straightened herself, and with a passionate +glance at the door, "No! And he has not come in time to take me in the +act, it seems. As I have no doubt you planned, you villain! That I might +be more and deeper in his power!" + +"No! No!" he cried, recoiling. "I never thought of it!" + +"Yes, yes!" she retorted. + +He wrung his hands. How was he to make her understand? "I swear," he +cried, and he fell on his knees with uplifted hands. "I swear on my +knees I thought of no such thing. The tale I told you was true! True, +every word of it! And the letters----" + +"There are no letters!" she said. + +"In the box?" + +"None." + +He sprang to his feet. He shook his fist at her in low ignoble rage. +"You lie!" he cried. "You have not looked. You have played with me. You +have gone into the room and come out again, but you have not looked, you +have not dared to look." + +"I have looked," she answered quietly. "In the box that is chained to +the wall. There are no papers in it. There is nothing in it except a +small phial." + +"A phial?" + +"Of some golden liquid." + +"That is all?" + +"All!" + +Louis Gentilis stared at her, open-mouthed. Had the Syndic deceived him? +Or had some one deceived the Syndic? + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE CUP AND THE LIP. + + +Blondel could not hide the agitation he felt as he listened to his +unexpected visitors, and saw whither their errand tended. Fabri, who was +leader of the deputation of three who had come upon him without warning, +discerned this; much more Baudichon and Petitot, whose eyes were on the +watch for the least sign of weakness. And Blondel was conscious that +they saw it, and on that account strove the more to mask his feelings +under a show of decision. "I have little doubt that I shall have news +within the hour," he said. "Before night, I must have news." And nodding +with the air of a man who knew much which he could not impart, he leant +back in the old abbot's chair. + +But Fabri had not come for that, nor was he to be satisfied with that; +and, after a pause, "Yes," he replied, "I know. That may be so. But you +see, Messer Blondel, this affair is not quite where it was yesterday, or +we should not have come to you to-day. The King of France--I am sure we +are much indebted to him--does not write on light occasions, and his +warning is explicit. From Paris, then, we get the same story as from +Turin. And this being so, and the King's tale agreeing with our +agent's----" + +"He does not mention Basterga!" Blondel objected. He repented the moment +he had said it. + +"By name, no. But he says----" + +"Enough for any one with eyes!" Petitot exclaimed. + +"He says," Fabri repeated, requesting the other by a gesture to be +silent, "that the Grand Duke's emissary is a Paduan expelled from Venice +or from Genoa. That is near enough. And I confess, were I in your place, +Messer Blondel----" + +"With your responsibilities," Petitot muttered through closed teeth. + +"I should want to know--more about him." This from Baudichon. + +Fabri nodded assent. "I think so," he said. "I really think so. In fact, +I may go farther and say that were I in your place, Messer Blondel, I +should seize him to-day." + +"Ay, within the hour!" + +"This minute!" said Baudichon, last of the three. And all three, their +ultimatum delivered, looked at Blondel, a challenge in their eyes. If he +stood out longer, if he still declined to take the step which prudence +demanded, the step on which they were all agreed, they would know that +there was something behind, something of which he had not told them. + +Blondel read the look, and it perturbed him. But not to the point of +sapping the resolution which he had formed at the Council Table, and to +which, once formed, he clung with the obstinacy of an obstinate man. The +_remedium_ first; afterwards what they would, but the _remedium_ first. +He was not going to risk life, warm life, the vista of sunny unending +to-morrows, of springs and summers and the melting of snows, for a +craze, a scare, an imaginary danger! Why at that very minute the lad +whom he had commissioned to seize the thing might be on the way with it. +At any minute a step might sound on the threshold, and herald the +promise of life. And then--then they might deal with Basterga as they +pleased. Then they might hang the Paduan high as Haman, if they pleased. +But until then--his mind was made up. + +"I do not agree with you," he said, his underlip thrust out, his head +trembling a little. + +"You will not arrest him?" + +"No, I shall not arrest him," he replied, hardening himself to meet +their protestant and indignant eyes. "Nor would you," he continued with +bravado, "in my place. If you knew as much as I do." + +"But if you know," Baudichon said, "I would like to know also." + +"The responsibility is mine." Blondel swayed himself from side to side +in his chair as he said it. "The responsibility is mine, and I am +willing to bear it. It is the old difference of policy between us," he +continued, addressing Petitot. "You are willing to grasp at every petty +advantage, I am willing----" + +"To risk much to gain much," Petitot exclaimed. + +"To take some risk to gain a real advantage," Blondel retorted, +correcting him with an eye to Fabri; whom alone, as the one impartial +hearer, he feared. "For to what does the course which you are so eager +to take amount? You seize Basterga: later, you will release him at the +Grand Duke's request. What are we the better? What is gained?" + +"Safety." + +"No, on the other hand, danger. Danger! For, warned that we have +detected their plot, they will hatch another plot, and instead of +working as at present under our eyes, they will work below the surface +with augmented care and secrecy: and will, perhaps, deceive us. No, my +friends"--throwing himself back in his chair with an air of patronage, +almost of contempt--for by dint of repeating his argument he had come to +believe it, and to plume himself upon it--"I look farther ahead than +you do, and for the sake of future gain am willing to take--present +responsibility." + +They were silent awhile: his old mastery was beginning to assert itself. +Then Petitot spoke. "You take a heavy responsibility," he said, "a heavy +charge, Messer Blondel. What if harm come of it?" + +Blondel shrugged his shoulders. + +"You have no wife, Messer Blondel." + +The Fourth Syndic stared. What did the man mean? + +"You have no daughters," Petitot continued, a slight quaver in his tone. +"You have no little children, you sleep well of nights, the fall of +wood-ash does not rouse you, you do not listen when you awake. You do +not----" he paused, the last barrier of reserve broken down, the tears +standing openly in his eyes--"it is foolish perhaps--you do not yearn, +Messer Blondel, to take all you love in your arms, and shelter them and +cover them from the horrors that threaten us, the horrors that may fall +on us--any night! You do not"--he looked at Baudichon and the stout +man's face grew pale, he averted his eyes--"you do not dream of these +things, Messer Blondel, nor awake to fancy them, but we do. We do!" he +repeated in accents which went to the hearts of all, "day and night, +rising and lying down, waking and sleeping. And we--dare run no risks." + +In the silence which followed Blondel's fingers tapped restlessly on the +table. He cleared his throat and voice. + +"But there, I tell you there are no risks," he said. He was moved +nevertheless. + +Petitot bowed, humbly for him. "Very good," he said. "I do not say that +you are not right. But----" + +"And moment by moment I expect news. It might come at this minute, it +might come at any minute," the Syndic continued. With a glance at the +window he moved his chair, as if to shake off the spell that Petitot +had cast over him. "Besides--you do not expect the town to be taken in +an hour from now?" + +"No." + +"In broad daylight?" + +Petitot shook his head, "God knows what I expect!" he murmured +despondently. + +"When the information we have points to a night attack?" + +Fabri nodded. "That is true," he said. + +"And the walls are well guarded at night." + +Fabri nodded again. "Yes," he said, "it is true. I think, Messer +Petitot," he went on, turning to him, "we are a little over-fearful." + +The two others were silent, and Blondel eyed them harshly, aware that he +had mastered them, yet hating them. Petitot's appeal to his +feelings--which had touched and moved Blondel even while he resented it +as something cruel and unfair--had lacked but a little of success. But +missing, failing by ever so little, it left the three ill-equipped to +continue the struggle on lower grounds. They sat silent, Fabri almost +convinced, the others dejected: and Blondel sat silent also, hardened by +his victory, and hating them for the manner of it. Was not his life as +dear to him as their wives and children were to them? And was it not at +stake? Yet he did not whine and pule to them. God! they whine, they +complain, who had long years to live and rose of mornings without +counting the days, and, at the worst and were Geneva taken, had but the +common risks to run and many a chance of escape! While he--yet he did +not pule to them! He did not stab them unfairly, cruelly, striving to +reach their tender spots, to take advantage of their kindness of heart. +He had no thought, no notion of betraying them; but, had he such, it +would serve them right! It would repay them selfishness for +selfishness, greed for greed! In his place they would not hesitate. He +could see at what a price they set their petty lives, and how little +they would scruple to buy them in the dearest market. Well was it for +Geneva that it was he and not they whom God saw fit to try. And he +glowered at them. Wives and daughters! What were wives and daughters +beside life, warm life, life stretching forward pleasantly, +indefinitely, morning after morning, day after day--life and a +continuance of good things? + +Immersed as he was in this train of thought, it was none the less he who +first caught the sound of a foot on the threshold, and a summons at the +door. He rose to his feet. Already in his mind's eye he saw Basterga +cast to the lions: and why not? The sooner the better if the _remedium_ +were really at the door. "There may be news even now," he said, striving +to master his emotion, and to speak with the superiority of a few +minutes before. "One moment, by your leave! I will see and let you know +if it be so, Messer Fabri." + +"Do by all means," Fabri answered earnestly. "You will greatly relieve +me." + +"Ay, indeed, I hope it is so," Petitot murmured. + +"I will see, and--and return," Blondel repeated, beginning to stammer. +"I--I shall not be a minute." The struggle for composure was vain; his +head was on fire, his limbs twitched. Had it come? + +Yet when he reached the door he paused, afraid to open. What if it were +not the _remedium_, what if it were some trifle? What if--but as he +hesitated, his hand, half eager, half reluctant, rested on the latch, +the door slid ajar, and his eyes met the complacent smirking face of his +messenger. He fancied that he read success in Gentilis' looks, and his +heart leapt up. "I shall be back in a moment," he babbled, speaking over +his shoulder to those whom he left. "In a moment, gentlemen, one +moment!" And going out he closed the door behind him--closed it +jealously, that they might not hear. + +"I hope he has news will decide him," Petitot muttered lowering his +voice involuntarily. "Messer Blondel is over-courageous for me!" He +shook his head dismally. + +"He is very courageous," Fabri assented in the same undertone. "Perhaps +even--a little rash." + +Baudichon grunted. "Rash!" he repeated. "I would like to know what he +expects? I would like to know----" + +A cry as of a wild beast cut short the word: a blow, a shriek of pain +followed, the door flew open; as they rose to their feet in wonder, into +the room fell a lad--it was Louis--a red weal across his face, his arm +raised to protect his head. Close on him, his eyes flaming, his cane +quivering in the air, pressed Messer Blondel. In their presence he aimed +another blow at the lad: but the blow fell short, and before he could +raise his stick a third time the astonished looks of the three in the +room reminded him where he was, and in a measure sobered him. But he was +still unable to articulate: and the poor smarting wretch cowering behind +the magistrates was not more deeply or more visibly moved. + +"Steady, steady, Messer Blondel!" Fabri said. "I fear something untoward +has happened. What is it?" And he put himself more decidedly between +them. + +"He has ruined us!" + +"Not that, I hope?" + +"Ruined us! Ruined us!" Blondel panted, his rage almost choking him. "He +had it in his hands and let it go. He let it go!" + +"That which you----" + +"That which I"--a pause--"commissioned him to get." + +"But you did not! Oh, worshipful gentlemen," Gentilis wailed, turning to +them, "indeed, he did not tell me to bring aught but papers! I swear he +did not." + +"Whatever was there, I said! Whatever was there!" the Syndic screamed. + +"No, worshipful sir!" amid a storm of sobs. "No, no! Indeed no! And how +was I to know? There was naught but that in the box, and who would think +treason lay in a----" + +"Mischief lay in it!" + +"In a bottle!" + +"And treason," Blondel thundered, drowning his last word, "for aught you +knew! Who are you to judge where treason lies, or may lie? Oh, pig, dog, +fool," he continued, carried away by a fresh paroxysm of rage, at the +thought that he had had it in his grasp and let it go! "If I could score +your back!" And he brandished his cane. + +"You have scored his face pretty fairly," Baudichon muttered. "To score +his back too----" + +"Were nothing for the offence! Nothing! As you would say if you knew +it," Blondel panted. + +"Indeed?" + +"Ay." + +"Then I would like to know it. What is it he has done?" + +"He has left undone that which he was ordered to do," Blondel answered +more soberly than he had yet spoken. He had recovered something of his +power to reason. "That is what he has done. But for his default we +should at this moment be in a position to seize Basterga." + +"Ay?" + +"Ay, and to seize him with proof of his guilt! Proof and to spare." + +"But I could not know," Louis whimpered. "Worshipful gentlemen, I could +not know. I could not know what it was you wanted." + +"I told you to bring the contents of the box." + +"Letters, ay! Letters, worthy sir, but not----" + +"Silence, and go into that room!" Blondel pointed with a shaking finger +to a small inner serving-room at the end of the parlour. "Go!" he +repeated peremptorily, "and stay there until I come to you." + +Then, but not until the lad had taken his tear-bedabbled face into the +closet and had closed the door behind him, the Syndic turned to the +three. "I ask your pardon," he said, making no attempt to disguise the +agitation which still moved him. "But it was enough, it was more than +enough, to try me." He paused and wiped his brow, on which the sweat +stood in beads. "He had under his hand the papers," looking at them a +little askance as if he doubted whether the explanation would pass, +"that we need! The papers that would convict Basterga. And because they +did not wear the appearance he expected--because they were disguised, +you understand--they were in a bottle in fact--and were not precisely +what he expected----" + +"He left them?" + +"He left them." There was something like a tear, a leaden drop, in the +corner of the Fourth Syndic's eye. + +"Still if he had access to them once," Petitot suggested briskly, "what +has been done once may be done twice. He may gain access to them again. +Why not?" + +"He may, but he may not. Still, I should have thought of that and--and +made allowance," Blondel answered with a fair show of candour. "But too +often an occasion let slip does not return, as you well know. The least +disorder in the box he searched may put Basterga on the alert, and wreck +my plans." + +They did not answer. They felt one and all, Petitot and Baudichon no +less than Fabri, that they had done this man an injustice. His passion, +his chagrin, his singleness of aim, the depth of his disappointment, +disarmed even those who were in the daily habit of differing from him. +Was this--this the man whom they had secretly accused of lukewarmness? +And to whom they had hesitated to entrust the safety of the city? They +had done him wrong. They had not credited him with a tithe of the +feeling, the single-mindedness, the patriotism which it was plain he +possessed. + +They stood silent, while Blondel, aware of the precipice, to the verge +of which his improvident passion had drawn him, watched them out of the +corner of his eye, uncertain how far their comprehension of the scene +had gone. He trembled to think how nearly he had betrayed his secret; +and took the more shame to himself, inasmuch as in cooler blood he saw +the lad's error to be far from irremediable. As Petitot said, that which +could be done so easily and quickly could be done a second time. If only +he had not struck the lad! If only he had commanded himself, and spoken +him fairly and sent him back! Almost by this time the _remedium_ might +be here. Ay, here, in the palm of his hand! The reflection stabbed +Blondel so poignantly, the sense of his folly went so deep, he groaned +aloud. + +That groan fairly won over Baudichon, who was by nature of a kind heart. +"Tut, tut," he said; "you must not take it to heart, Messer Blondel. Try +again." + +"Unless, indeed," Petitot murmured, but with respect, "Messer Blondel +knows the mistake to be fraught with consequences more grave than we +suppose." + +The Fourth Syndic smiled awry: that was precisely what he did know. But +"No," he said, "the thing can be cured. I am sorry I lost my temper. Not +a moment must be wasted, however. I will see this young man: if he +raises any difficulty, I have still another agent whom I can employ. And +by to-morrow at latest----" + +"You may still have the thing in your hands." + +"I think so. I certainly think so." + +"Good. Then till to-morrow," Fabri answered, as he took his cap from the +table and with the others turned towards the door. "Good luck, Messer +Blondel. We are reassured. We feel that our interests are in good +hands." + +"Yes," said Petitot almost warmly. "Still, caution, caution! Messer +Blondel. One bad man within the gates----" + +"May be hung!" Blondel cried gaily. + +"Ay, may be! But unhung is a graver foe than five hundred men without! +It is that I would have you bear in mind." + +"I will bear it in mind," the Fourth Syndic answered. "And when I can +hang him," with a vindictive look, "be sure I will--and high as Haman!" + +He attended them with solicitude to the door, being set by what had +happened a little more upon his behaviour. That done and the outer door +closed upon them, he returned to the parlour, but did not at once seek +the young man, upon whom he had taken the precaution of turning the key. + +Instead he stood a while, pondering with a pale face; a haggard, paler +replica he seemed of the stiff, hard portrait on the panel over the +mantel. He was wondering why he had let himself go so foolishly; he was +recognising with a sinking heart that it was to his illness he owed it +that he had so frequently of late lost control of himself. + +For a man to discover that the power of self-mastery is passing from him +is only a degree less appalling than the consciousness of insanity +itself; and Blondel cowered, trembling under the thought. If aught +could strengthen his purpose it was the suspicion that the insidious +disease from which he suffered was already sapping the outworks of that +mind on whose clever combinations he depended for his one chance of +cure. + +Yet while the thought strengthened, it terrified him. "I must make no +second mistake--no second mistake!" he muttered, his eyes on the door of +the serving-room. "No second mistake!" And he waited a while considering +the matter in all its aspects. Should he tell Louis more than he had +told him already? It seemed needless. To send the lad with curt, stern +words to fetch that which he had omitted to bring--this seemed the more +straight-forward way: and the more certain, too, since the lad had now +seen the other magistrates, and could have no doubt of their concurrence +or of the importance of the task entrusted to him. Blondel decided on +that course, and advancing to the door he opened it and called to his +prisoner to come out. + +To his credit be it said the sight of the lad's wealed face gave the +Syndic something of a shock. He was soon to be more gravely shaken. +Instigated partly by curiosity, partly by the desire to fix Louis' +scared faculties, he began by asking what was the aspect of the phial +which the lad had omitted to bring. "What was its colour and size, and +how full was it?" he proceeded, striving to speak gently and to make +allowance for the cowering weakness of the youth before him. "Do you +hear?" he urged. "Of what shape was it? You can tell that at least. You +handled it, I suppose? You took it out of the metal box?" + +Louis burst into tears. + +Blondel had much ado--for it was true, he had small command of +himself--not to strike the lad again. Instead, "Fool," he said, "what do +your tears help you or advance me? Speak, I tell you, and answer my +question! What was the appearance of this flask or bottle, or what it +was--that you left there?" + +The lad sank to his knees. Fear and pain had robbed him of the petty +cunning he possessed. He no longer knew what to tell nor what to +withhold. And in a breath the truth was out. "Don't strike me!" he +wailed, guarding his smarting face with his arm. "And I'll tell you all! +I will indeed!" + +The Syndic knew then that there was more to learn. "All?" he repeated, +aghast. + +"Ay, the truth. All the truth," Louis moaned. "I didn't see it. I did +not go to it! I dared not! I swear I dared not.'" + +"You did not see it?" the Syndic said slowly. "The phial? You did not +see the phial?" + +"No." + +This time Messer Blondel did not strike. He leant heavily upon the +table; his face, which a moment before had been swollen with impatience, +turned a sickly white. "You--you didn't see it?" he muttered--his tone +had sunk to a whisper. "You didn't see it? Then all you told me was a +lie? There was nothing--no bottle in the box? But how, then, did you +know anything of a bottle? Did he"--with a sharp spasm of pain--"send +you here to tell me this?" + +"No, no! She told me. She looked--for me in the box." + +"Who?" + +"Anne. Anne Royaume! I was afraid," the lad continued, speaking with a +little more confidence, as he saw that the Syndic made no movement to +strike him, "and she said that she would look for me. She could go to +his room, and run little risk. But if he had caught me there he would +have killed me! Indeed he would!" Louis repeated desperately, as he +read the storm-signs that began to darken the Syndic's face. + +"You told her then?" + +"I could not do it myself! I could not indeed." + +He cowered lower; but he fared better than he expected. The Syndic drew +a long fluttering breath, a breath of returning life, of returning hope. +The colour, too, began to come back to his cheeks. After all, it might +have been worse. He had thought it worse. He had thought himself +discovered, tricked, discomfited by the man against whom he had pitted +his wits, with his life for stake. Whereas--it seemed a small thing in +comparison--this meant only the inclusion of one more in the secret, the +running of one more risk, the hazarding another tongue. And the lad had +not been so unwise. She had easier access to the room than he, and ran +less risk of suspicion or detection. Why not employ her in place of the +lad? + +The youth grovelling before him wondered to see him calm, and plucking +up spirit stood upright. "You must go back to her, and ask her to get it +for you," Blondel said firmly. "You can be back within the half-hour, +bringing it." + +Louis began to shrink. His eyes sank. "She will not give it me," he +muttered. + +"No?" Blondel, as he repeated the word, wondered at his own moderation. +But the shock had been heavy; he felt the effect of it. He was languid, +almost half-hearted. Moreover, a new idea had taken root in his mind. +"You can try her," he said. + +"I can try her, but she will not give it me," Louis repeated with a new +obstinacy. As the Syndic grew mild he grew sullen. The change was in the +other, not in himself. Subtly he knew that the Syndic was no longer in +the mood to strike. + +Blondel ruminated. It might be better, it might even be safer, if he saw +the girl himself. The story--of treason and a bottle--which had imposed +on his colleagues might not move her much. It might be wiser to attack +her on other grounds, grounds on which women lay more open. And +self-pity whispered with a tear that the truth, than which he could +conceive nothing more moving, nothing more sublimely sad, might go +farther with a woman than bribes or threats or the most skilful +inventions. He made up his mind. He would tell the truth, or something +like it, something as like it as he dared tell her. + +"Very well," he said, "you can go! But be silent! A word to him--I shall +learn it sooner or later--and you perish on the wheel! You can go now. I +shall put the matter in other hands." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +A MYSTERY SOLVED. + + +Whether Basterga, seeing that Claude was less pliant than he had looked +to find him, shunned occasion of collision with him, or the Paduan being +in better spirits was less prone to fall foul of his companions, certain +it is that life for a time after the outbreak at supper ran more quietly +in the house in the Corraterie. Claude's gloomy face--he had not +forgiven--bade beware of him; and little save on the subject of Louis' +disfigured cheek--of which the most pointed questions could extract no +explanation--passed among them at table. But outward peace was preserved +and a show of ease. Grio's brutal nature broke out once or twice when he +had had wine; but discouraged by Basterga, he subsided quickly. And +Louis, starting at a voice and trembling at a knock, with the fear of +the Syndic always upon him, showed a nervousness which more than once +drew the Italian's eye to him. But on the whole a calm prevailed; a +stranger entering at noon or during the evening meal might have deemed +the party ill-assorted and silent, but lacking neither in amity nor +ease. + +Meantime, under cover of this calm, destined to be short-lived and +holding in suspense the makings of a storm of no mean violence, two +persons were drawing nearer to one another. A confidence, even a +confidence not perfect, is a tie above most. Nor does love play at any +time a higher part than when it repeats "I do not understand--I trust". +By the common light of day, which showed Anne moving to and fro about +her household tasks, at once the minister and the providence of the +home, the dark suspicion that had for a moment--a moment only!--mastered +Claude's judgment, lost shape and reality. It was impossible to see her +bending over the hearth, or arranging her mother's simple meal, it was +impossible to witness her patience, her industry, her deftness, to +behold her, ever gentle yet supporting with a man's fortitude the trials +of her position, trials of the bitterness of which she had given him +proof--it was impossible, in a word, to watch her in her daily life, +without perceiving the wickedness as well as the folly of the thought +which had possessed him. + +True, the more he saw of her the graver seemed the mystery; and the more +deeply he wondered. But he no longer dreaded the answer to the riddle; +nor did he fear to meet at some turn or corner a Megaera head that should +freeze his soul. Wickedness there might be, cruelty there might be, and +shame; but the blood ran too briskly in his veins and he had looked too +often into the girl's candid eyes--reading something there which had not +been there formerly--to fear to find either at her door. + +He had taken to coming to the living-room a little before nightfall; +there he would seat himself beside the hearth while she prepared the +evening meal. The glow of the wood-fire, reflected in rows of burnished +pewters, or given back by the night-backed casements, the savour of the +coming meal, the bubbling of the black pot between which and the table +her nimble feet carried her a dozen times in as many minutes, the +pleasant, homely room with its touches of refinement and its winter +comfort, these were excuses enough had he not brought the book which lay +unheeded on his knee. + +But in truth he offered her no excuse. With scarce a word an +understanding had grown up between them that not a million words could +have made more clear. Each played the appropriated part. He looked and +she bore the look, and if she blushed the fire was warrant, and if he +stared it was the blind man's hour between day and night, and why should +he not sit idle as well as another? Soon there was not a turn of her +head or a line of her figure that he did not know; not a trick of her +walk, not a pose of her hand as she waited for a pot to boil that he +could not see in the dark; not a gleam from her hair as she stooped to +the blaze, nor a turn of her wrist as she shielded her face that was not +as familiar to him as if he had known her from childhood. + +In these hours she let the mask fall. The apathy, which had been the +least natural as it had been the most common garb of her young face, and +which had grown to be the cover and veil of her feelings, dropped from +her. Seated in the shadow, while she moved, now in the glow of the +burning embers, now obscured, he read her mind without disguise--save in +one dark nook--watched unrebuked the eye fall and the lip tremble, or in +rarer moments saw the shy smile dimple the corner of her cheek. Not +seldom she stood before him sad: sad without disguise, her bowed head +and drooping shoulders the proof of gloomy thoughts, that strayed, he +fancied, far from her work or her companion. And sometimes a tear fell +and she wiped it away, making no attempt to hide it; and sometimes she +would shiver and sigh as if in pain or fear. + +At these times he longed for Basterga's throat; and the blood of old +Enguerrande de Beauvais, his ancestor, dust these four hundred years at +"Damietta of the South," raced in him, and he choked with rage and +grief, and for the time could scarcely see. Yet with this pulse of wrath +were mingled delicious thrills. The tear which she did not hide from +him was his gage of love. The brooding eye, the infrequent smile, the +start, the reverie were for him only, and for no other. They were the +gift to him of her secret life, her inmost heart. + +It was an odd love-making, and bizarre. To Grio, even to men more +delicate and more finely wrought, it might have seemed no love-making at +all. But the wood-smoke that perfumed the air, sweetened it, the +firelight wrapped it about, the pots and pans and simple things of life, +amid which it passed, hallowed it. His eyes attending her hither and +thither without reserve, without concealment, unabashed, laid his heart +at her feet, not once, but a hundred times in the evening; and as often, +her endurance of the look, more rarely her sudden blush or smile, +accepted the offering. + +And scarce a word said: for though they had the room to themselves, they +knew that they were never alone or unheeded. Basterga, indeed, sat above +stairs and only descended to his meals; and Grio also was above when he +was not at the tavern. But Louis sulked in his closet beside them, +divided from them only by a door, whence he might emerge at any minute. +As a fact he would have emerged many times, but for two things. The +first was his marked face, which he was chary of showing; the second, +the notion which he had got that the balance of things in the house was +changing, and the reign of petty bullying, in which he had so much +delighted, approaching its end. With Basterga exposed to arrest, and the +girl's help become of value to the authorities, it needed little acumen +to discern this. He still feared Basterga; nay, he lived in such terror, +lest the part he had played should come to the scholar's ears, that he +prayed for his arrest night and morning, and whenever during the day an +especial fit of dread seized him. But he feared Anne also, for she might +betray him to Basterga; and of young Mercier's quality--that he was no +Tissot to be brow-beaten, or thrust aside--he had had proof on the night +of the fracas at supper. Essentially a coward, Louis' aim was to be on +the stronger side; and once persuaded that this was the side on which +they stood, he let them be. + +On several consecutive evenings the two passed an hour or more in this +silent communion. On the last the door of Louis' room stood open, the +young man had not come in, and for the first time they were really +alone. But the fact did not at once loosen Claude's tongue; and if the +girl noticed it, or expected aught to come of it, more than had come of +their companionship on other evenings, she hid her feelings with a +woman's ease. He remarked, however, that she was more thoughtful and +downcast than usual, and several times he saw her break off in the +middle of a task and listen nervously as for something she expected. +Presently:-- + +"Are you listening for Louis?" he asked. + +She turned on him, her eyes less kind than usual. "No," she said, almost +defiantly. "Was I listening?" + +"I thought so," he said. + +She turned away again, and went on with her work. But by-and-by as she +stooped over the fire a tear fell and pattered audibly in the wood-ash +on the hearth; and another. With an impatient gesture she wiped away a +third. He saw all--she made no attempt to hide them--and he bit his lip +and drove his finger-ends into his palms in the effort to be silent. +Presently he had his reward. + +"I am sorry," she said in a low tone. "I was listening, and I knew I +was. I do not know why I deceived you." + +"Why will you not tell me all?" he cried. + +"I cannot!" she answered, her breast heaving passionately. "I cannot!" +For the first time in his knowledge of her, she broke down completely, +and sinking on a bench with her back to the table she sobbed bitterly, +her face in her hands. For some minutes she rocked herself to and fro in +a paroxysm of trouble. + +He had risen and stood watching her awkwardly, longing to comfort her, +but ignorant how to go about it, and feeling acutely his helplessness +and his _gaucherie_. Sad she had always been, and at her best +despondent, with gleams of cheerfulness as fitful as brief. But this +evening her abandonment to her grief convinced him that something more +than ordinary was amiss, that some danger more serious than ordinary +threatened. He felt no surprise therefore when, a little later, she +arrested her sobbing, raised her head, and with suspended breath and +tear-stained face listened with that scared intentness which had +impressed him before. + +She feared! He could not be mistaken. Fear looked out of her strained +eyes, fear hung breathless on her parted lips. He was sure of it. And +"Is it Basterga?" he cried. "Is it of him that you are afraid? If you +are----" + +"Hush!" she cried, raising her hand in warning. "Hush!" And then, "You +did not--hear anything?" she asked. For an instant her eyes met his. + +"No." He met her look, puzzled; and, obeying her gesture, he listened +afresh. "No, I heard nothing. But----" + +He heard nothing even now, nothing; but whatever it was sharpened her +hearing to an abnormal pitch, it was clear that she did. She was on her +feet; with a startled cry she was round the table and half-way across +the room, while he stared, the word suspended on his lips. A second, and +her hand was on the latch of the staircase door. Then as she opened it, +he sprang forward to accompany her, to help her, to protect her if +necessary. "Let me come!" he said. "Let me help you. Whatever it is, I +can do something." + +She turned on him fiercely. "Go back!" she said. All the confidence, +the gentleness, the docility of the last three days were gone; and in +their place suspicion glared at him from eyes grown spiteful as a cat's. +"Go back!" she repeated. "I do not want you! I do not want any one, or +any help! Or any protection! Go, do you hear, and let me be!" + +As she ceased to speak, a sound from above stairs--a sound which this +time, the door being open, did reach his ears, froze the words on his +lips. It was the sound of a voice, yet no common voice, Heaven be +thanked! A moment she continued to confront him, her face one mute, +despairing denial! Then she slammed the door in his teeth, and he heard +her panting breath and fleeing footsteps speed up the stairs and along +the passage, and--more faintly now--he heard her ascend the upper +flight. Then--silence. + +Silence! But he had heard enough. He paused a moment irresolute, +uncertain, his hand raised to the latch. Then the hand fell to his side, +he turned, and went softly--very softly back to the hearth. The +firelight playing on his face showed it much moved; moved and softened +almost to the semblance of a woman's. For there were tears in his +eyes--eyes singularly bright; and his features worked, as if he had some +ado to repress a sob. In truth he had. In a breath, in the time it takes +to utter a single sound, he had hit on the secret, he had come to the +bottom of the mystery, he had learnt that which Basterga, favoured by +the position of his room on the upper floor, had learned two months +before, that which Grio might have learned, had he been anything but the +dull gross toper he was! He had learned, or in a moment of intuition +guessed--all. The power of Basterga, that power over the girl which had +so much puzzled and perplexed him, was his also now, to use or misuse, +hold or resign. + +Yet his first feeling was not one of joy; nor for that matter his +second. The impression went deeper, went to the heart of the man. An +infinite tenderness, a tenderness which swelled his breast to bursting, +a yearning that, man as he was, stopped little short of tears, these +were his, these it was thrilled his soul to the point of pain. The room +in which he stood, homely as it showed, plain as it was, seemed +glorified, the hearth transfigured. He could have knelt and kissed the +floor which the girl had trodden, coming and going, serving and making +ready--under that burden; the burden that dignified and hallowed the +bearer. What had it not cost her--that burden? What had it not meant to +her, what suspense by day, what terror of nights, what haggard +awakenings--such as that of which he had been the ignorant witness--what +watches above, what slights and insults below! Was it a marvel that the +cheeks had lost their colour, the eyes their light, the whole face its +life and meaning? Nay, the wonder was that she had borne the weight so +long, always expecting, always dreading, stabbed in the tenderest +affection; with for confidant an enemy and for stay an ignorant! Viewed +through the medium of the man's love, which can so easily idealise where +it rests, the love of the daughter for the mother, that must have +touched and softened the hardest--or so, but for the case of Basterga, +one would have judged--seemed so holy, so beautiful, so pure a thing +that the young man felt that, having known it, he must be the better for +it all his life. + +And then his mind turned to another point in the story, and he recalled +what had passed above stairs on that day when he had entered a stranger, +and gone up. With what a smiling face of love had she leant over her +mother's bed. With what cheerfulness had she lied of that which passed +below, what a countenance had she put on all--no house more prosperous, +no life more gay--how bravely had she carried it! The peace and neatness +and comfort of the room with its windows looking over the Rhone valley, +and its spinning-wheel and linen chest and blooming bow-pot, all came +back to him; so that he understood many things which had passed before +him then, and then had roused but a passing and a trifling wonder. + +Her anxiety lest he should take lodging there and add one more to the +chances of espial, one more to the witnesses of her misery; her secret +nods and looks, and that gently checked outburst of excitement on Madame +Royaume's part, which even at the time had seemed odd--all were plain +now. Ay, plain; but suffused with a light so beautiful, set in an +atmosphere so pure and high, that no view of God's earth, even from the +eyrie of those lofty windows, and though dawn or sunset flung its +fairest glamour over the scene, could so fill the heart of man with +gratitude and admiration! + +Up and down in the days gone by, his thoughts followed her through the +house. Now he saw her ascend and enter, and finding all well, mask--but +at what a cost--her aching heart under smiles and cheerful looks and +soft laughter. He heard the voice that was so seldom heard downstairs +murmur loving words, and little jests, and dear foolish trifles; heard +it for the hundredth time reiterate the false assurances that affection +hallowed. He was witness to the patient tendance, the pious offices, the +tireless service of hand and eye, that went on in that room under the +tiles; witness to the long communion hand in hand, with the world shut +out; to the anxious scrutiny, to the daily departure. A sad departure, +though daily and more than daily taken; for she who descended carried a +weight of fear and anxiety. As she came down the weary stairs, stage by +stage, he saw the brightness die from eye and lip, and pale fear or dull +despair seize on its place. He saw--and his heart was full--the slender +figure, the pallid face enter the room in which he stood--it might be at +the dawning when the cold shadow of the night still lay on all, from the +dead ashes on the hearth to the fallen pot and displaced bench; or it +might be at mid-day, to meet sneers and taunts and ignoble looks; and +his heart was full. His face burned, his eyes filled, he could have +kissed the floor she had walked over, the wooden spoon her hand had +touched, the trencher-edge--done any foolish thing to prove his love. + +Love? It was a deeper thing than love, a holier, purer thing--that which +he felt. Such a feeling as the rough spearsmen of the Orleannais had for +Joan the maid; or the great Florentine for the girl whom he saw for the +first time at the banquet in the house of the Portinari; or as that man, +who carried to his grave the Queen's glove, yet had never touched it +with his bare hand. + +Alas, that such feelings cannot last, nor such moments endure; that in +the footsteps of the priest, be he never so holy, treads ever the +grinning acolyte with his mind on sweet things. They pass, these +feelings, and too quickly. But once to have had them, once to have lived +such moments, once to have known a woman and loved her in such wise +leaves no man as he was before; leaves him at the least with a memory of +a higher life. + +That the acolyte in Claude's case took the form of Louis Gentilis made +him no more welcome. Claude was still dreaming on his feet, still +viewing in a kind of happy amaze the simple things about him, things +that for him wore + + The light that never was on land or sea, + +and that this world puts on but once for each of us, when Gentilis +opened the door and entered, bringing with him a rush of rain, and a +gust of night air. He breathed quickly as if he had been running, yet +having closed the door, he paused before he advanced into the room; and +he seemed surprised, and at a nonplus. After a moment, "Supper is not +ready?" he said. + +"It is not time," Claude answered curtly. The vision of an angel does +not necessarily purify at all points, and he had small stomach for +Master Louis at any time. + +The youth winced under the tone, but stood his ground. + +"Where is Anne?" he asked, something sullenly. + +"Upstairs. Why do you ask?" + +"Messer Basterga is not coming to supper. Nor Grio. They bade me tell +her. And that they would be late." + +"Very well, I will tell her." + +But it was evident that that was not all Louis had in his mind. He +remained fidgeting by the door, his cap in his hand; and his face, had +Claude marked it--but he had already turned a contemptuous shoulder on +him--was a picture of doubt and indecision. At length, "I've a message +for you," he muttered nervously. "From Messer Blondel the Syndic. He +wants to see you--now." + +Claude turned, and if he had not looked at the other before, he made up +for it now. "Oh!" he said at last, after a stare that bespoke both +surprise and suspicion. "He does, does he? And who made you his +messenger?" + +"He met me in the street--just now." + +"He knows you, then?" + +"He knows I live here," Louis muttered. + +"He pays us a vast amount of attention," Claude replied with polite +irony. "Nevertheless"--he turned again to the fire--"I cannot pleasure +him," he continued curtly, "this time." + +"But he wants to see you," Gentilis persisted desperately. It was plain +that he was on pins and needles. "At his house. Cannot you believe me?" +in a querulous tone. "It is all fair and above board. I swear it is." + +"Is it?" + +"It is--I swear it is. He sent me. Do you doubt me?" he added with +undisguised eagerness. + +Claude was about to say, with no politeness at all, that he did, and to +repeat his refusal in stronger terms, when his ear caught the same sound +which had revealed so much to him a few minutes earlier at the foot of +the stairs. It came more faintly this time, deadened by the closed door +of the staircase, but to his enlightened senses it proclaimed so clearly +what it was--the echo of a cracked, shrill voice, of a laugh insane, +uncanny, elfish--that he trembled lest Louis should hear it also and +gain the clue. That was a thing to be avoided at all costs; and even as +this occurred to him he saw the way to avoid it. Basterga and Grio were +absent: if this fool could be removed, even for an hour or two, Anne +would have the house to herself, and by midnight the crisis might be +overpast. + +"I will come with you," he said. + +Louis uttered a sigh of relief. He had expected--and he had very nearly +received--another answer. "Good," he said. "But he does not want me." + +"Both or neither," Claude replied coolly. "For all I know 'tis an +ambush." + +"No, no!" + +"In which event I shall see that you share it. Or it may be a scheme to +draw me from here, and then if harm be done while I am away----" + +"Harm? What harm?" Louis muttered. + +"Any harm! If harm be done, I say, I shall then have you at hand to pay +me for it. So--both or neither!" + +For a moment Louis' hang-dog face--none the handsomer for the mark of +the Syndic's cane--spelt refusal. Then he changed his mind. He nodded +sulkily. "Very well," he said. "But it is raining, and I have no great +wish to--Hush! What is that?" He raised his hand in the attitude of one +listening and his eyes sought his companion's. "What is that? Did you +not hear something--like a scream upstairs?" + +"I hear something like a fool downstairs!" Claude retorted gruffly. + +"But it was--I certainly heard something!" Louis persisted, raising his +hand again. "It sounded----" + +"If we are to go, let us go!" Claude cried with temper. "Come, if you +want me to go! It is not my expedition," he continued, moving noisily +hither and thither in search of his staff and cloak. "It is your affair, +and--where is my cap?" + +"I should think it is in your room," Louis answered meekly. "It was only +that I thought it might be Anne. That there might be----" + +"Two fools in the house instead of one!" Claude broke in, emerging +noisily, and slamming the door of his closet behind him. "There, come, +and we may hope to be back to supper some time to-night! Do you hear?" +And jealously shepherding the other out of the house, he withdrew the +key when both had passed the threshold. Locking the door on the outside, +he thrust the key under it. "There!" he said, smiling at his cleverness, +"now, who enters--knocks!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +"AND ONLY ONE DOSE IN ALL THE WORLD!" + + +In his picture of the life led by the two women on the upper floor of +the house in the Corraterie, that picture which by a singular intuition +he had conceived on the day of his arrival, Claude had not gone far +astray. In all respects but one the picture was truly drawn. Than the +love between mother and daughter, no tie could be imagined at once more +simple and more holy; no union more real and pure than that which bound +together these two women, left lonely in days of war and trouble in the +midst of a city permanently besieged and menaced by an enduring peril. +Almost forgotten by the world below, which had its own cares, its +alarums and excursions, its strivings and aims, they lived for one +another. The weak health of the one and the brave spirit of the other +had gradually inverted their positions; and the younger was mother, the +elder, daughter. Yet each retained, in addition, the pious instincts of +the original relation. To each the welfare of the other was the prime +thought. To give the other the better portion, be it of food or wine, of +freedom from care, or ease of mind, and to take the worse, was to each +the ground plan of life, as it was its chiefest joy. + +In their eyrie above the anxious city they led an existence all their +own. Between them were a hundred jests, Greek to others; and whimsical +ways, and fond sayings and old smiles a thousand times repeated. And +things that must be done after one fashion or the sky would fall; and +others that must be done after another fashion or the world would end. +When the house was empty of boarders, or nearly empty--though at such +times the cupboard also was apt to be bare--there were long hours spent +upstairs and surveys of household gear, carried up with difficulty, and +reviews of linen and much talk of it, and small meals, taken at the open +windows that looked over the Rhone valley and commanded the sunset view. +Such times were times of gaiety though not of prosperity, and far from +the worst hours of life--had they but persisted. + +But in the March of 1601 a great calamity fell on these two. A fire, +which consumed several houses near the Corraterie, and flung wide +through the streets the rumour that the enemy had entered, struck the +bedridden woman--aroused at midnight by shouts and the glare of +flames--with so dire a terror, not on her own account but on her +daughter's, that she was never the same again. For weeks at a time she +appeared to be as of old, save for some increase of weakness and +tremulousness. But below the surface the brain was out of poise, and +under the least pressure of excitement she betrayed the change in a +manner so appalling--by the loud negation of those beliefs which in +saner moments were most dear to her, and especially by a denial of the +Providence and goodness of God--that even her child, even the being who +knew her and loved her best, shuddered lest Satan, visible and +triumphant, should rise to confront her. + +Fortunately the fits of this mysterious malady were short as they were +appalling, and to the minds of that day, suspicious. And in the +beginning Anne had the support of an old physician, well-nigh their only +intimate. True, even he was scared by a form of disease, new and beyond +his science; but he prescribed a sedative and he kept counsel. He went +further: for sufficiently enlightened himself to believe in the +innocence of these attacks, he none the less explained to the daughter +the peril to which her mother's aberrations must expose her were they +known to the vulgar; and he bade her hide them with all the care +imaginable. + +Anne, on this would fain have adopted the safest course and kept the +house empty; to the end that to the horror of her mother's fits of +delirium might not be added the chance of eavesdropping. But to do this +was to starve, as well as to reveal to Madame Royaume the fact of those +seizures of which no one in the world was more ignorant than the good +woman who suffered under them. It followed that to Anne's burden of +dread by reason of the outer world, whom she must at all costs deceive, +was added the weight of concealment from the one from whom she had never +kept anything in her life. A thing which augmented immeasurably the +loneliness of her position and the weight of her load. + +Presently the drama, always pitiful, increased in intensity. The old +leech who had been her stay and helper died, and left her to face the +danger alone. A month later Basterga discovered the secret and +henceforth held it over her. From this time she led a life of which +Claude, in his dreams upon the hearth, exaggerated neither the tragedy +nor the beauty. The load had been heavy before. Now to fear was added +contumely, and to vague apprehensions the immediate prospect of +discovery and peril. The grip of the big scholar, subtle, cruel, +tightening day by day and hour by hour, was on her youth; slowly it +paralysed in her all joy, all spirit, all the impulses of life and hope, +that were natural to her age. + +That through all she showed an indomitable spirit, we know. We have seen +how she bore herself when threatened from an unexpected quarter on the +morning when Claude Mercier, after overhearing her mother's ravings, had +his doubts confirmed by the sight of her depression on the stairs. How +boldly she met his attack, unforeseen as it was, how bravely she +shielded her other and dearer self, how deftly she made use of the +chance which the young man's soberer sense afforded her, will be +remembered. But not even in that pinch, no, nor in that worse hour when +Basterga, having discovered his knowledge to her, gave her--as a cat +plays with a mouse which it is presently to tear to pieces--a little law +and a little space, did she come so near to despair as on this evening +when the echo of her mother's insane laughter drew her from the +living-room at an hour without precedent. + +For hitherto Madame Royaume's attacks had come on in the night only. +With a regularity not unknown in the morbid world they occurred about +midnight, an hour when her daughter could attend to her and when the +house below lay wrapped in sleep. A change in this respect doubled the +danger, therefore. It did more: the prospect of being summoned at any +hour shook, if it did not break, the last remains of Anne's strength. To +be liable at all times to such interruptions, to tremble while serving a +meal or making a bed lest the dreadful sound arise and reveal all, to +listen below and above and never to feel safe for a minute, never! +never!--who could face, who could endure, who could lie down and rise up +under this burden? + +It could not be. As Anne ascended the stairs she felt that the end was +coming, was come. Strive as she might, war as she might, with all the +instinct, all the ferocity, of a mother defending her young, the end was +come. The secret could not be kept long. Even while she administered the +medicine with shaking hands, while with tears in her voice she strove +to still the patient and silence her wild words, even while she +restrained by force the feeble strength that would and could not, while +in a word she omitted no precaution, relaxed no effort, her heart told +her with every pulsation that the end was come. + +And presently, when Madame was quiet and slept, the girl bowed her head +over the unconscious object of her love and wept, bitterly, +passionately, wetting with her tears the long grey hair that strewed the +pillow, as she recalled with pitiful clearness all the stages of +concealment, all the things which she had done to avert this end. +Vainly, futilely, for it was come. The dark mornings of winter recurred +to her mind, those mornings when she had risen and dressed herself by +rushlight, with this fear redoubling the chill gloom of the cold house; +the nights, too, when all had been well, and in the last hour before +sleep, finding her mother sane and cheerful, she had nursed the hope +that the latest attack might be the last. The evenings brightened by +that hope, the mornings darkened by its extinction, the rare hours of +brooding, the days and weeks of brave struggle, of tendance never +failing, of smiles veiling a sick heart--she lived all these again, +looking pitifully back, straining tenderly in her arms the dear being +she loved. + +And then, stabbing her back to life in the midst of her exhaustion, the +thought pierced her that even now she was hastening the end by her +absence. They would be asking for her below; they must be asking for her +already. The supper-time was come, was past, perhaps; and she was not +there! She tried to picture what would happen, what already must be +happening; and rising and dashing the tears from her face she stood +listening. Perhaps Claude would make some excuse to the others; or, +perhaps--how much had he guessed? + +Her mother was passive now, sunk in the torpor which followed the +attack and from which the poor woman would awake in happy +unconsciousness of the whole. Anne saw that her charge might be left, +and hastily smoothing the tangle of luxuriant hair which had fallen +about her face, she opened the door. Another might have stayed to allay +the fever of her cheeks, to remove the traces of her tears, to stay the +quivering of her hands; but such small cares were not for her, nor for +the occasion. She could form no idea of the length of time she had spent +upstairs, a half-hour, or an hour and a half; and without more ado she +raised the latch, slipped out, and turning the key on her patient ran +down the upper flight of stairs. + +She anticipated many things, but not that which she encountered--silence +on the upper landing, and below when she had descended and opened the +staircase door--an empty room. The place was vacant; the tables were as +she had left them, half laid; the pot was gently simmering over the +fire. + +What had happened? The supper-hour was past, yet none of the four who +should have sat down to the meal were here. Had they overheard her +mother's terrible cry--those words which voiced the woman's despair on +finding, as she fancied, the city betrayed? And were they gone to +denounce her? The thought was discarded as soon as formed; and before +she could hit on a second explanation a hasty knocking on the door +turned her eyes that way. + +The four who lodged in the house were not in the habit of knocking, for +the door was only locked at night when the last retired. She approached +it then, wondering, hesitated an instant, and at last, collecting her +courage, raised the latch. The door resisted her impulse. It was locked. + +She tried it twice, and it was only as she drew back the second time +that she saw the key lying at the foot of the door. That deepened the +mystery. Why had they locked her in? Why, when they had done so, had +they thrust the key under the door and so placed it in her power? Had +Claude Mercier done it that the others might not enter to hear what he +had heard and discover what he had discovered? Possibly. In which case +the knocker--who at that instant made a second and more earnest attack +upon the door--must be one of the others, and the sooner she opened the +door the less would be the suspicion created. + +With an apology trembling on her lips she hastened to open. Then she +stood bewildered; she saw before her, not one of the lodgers, but Messer +Blondel. "I wish to speak to you," the magistrate said with firmness. +Before she knew what was happening he had motioned to her to go before +him into the house, and following had locked the door behind them. + +She knew him by sight, as did all Geneva; and the blood, which surprise +at the sight of a stranger had brought to her cheeks, fled as she +recognised the Syndic. Had they betrayed her, then, while she lingered +upstairs? Had they locked her in while they summoned the magistrate? And +was he here to make inquiries about--something he had heard? + +His voice cut short her thoughts without allaying her fears. "I wish to +speak to you alone," he said. "Are you alone, girl?" His manner was +quiet, but masked excitement. His eyes scrutinised her and searched the +room by turns. + +She nodded, unable to speak. + +"There is no one in the house with you?" + +"Only my mother," she murmured. + +"She is bedridden, is she not? She cannot hear us?" he added, frowning. + +"No, but I am expecting the others to return." + +"Messer Basterga?" + +"Yes." + +"He will not return before morning," the Syndic replied with decision, +"nor his companion. The two young men are safe also. If you are alone, +therefore, I wish to speak to you." + +She bowed her head, trembling and wondering, fearing what the next +moment might disclose. + +"The young man who lodges here--of the name of Gentilis--he came to you +some time ago and told you that the State needed certain letters which +the man Basterga kept in a steel box upstairs? That is so, is it not?" + +"Yes, Messer Syndic." + +"And you looked for them?" + +"Yes, I--I was told that you desired them." + +"You found a phial? You found a phial?" the Syndic repeated, passing his +tongue over his lips. His face was flushed; his eyes shone with a +peculiar brightness. + +"I found a small bottle," she answered slowly. "There was nothing else." + +He raised his hand. If she had known how the delay of a second tortured +him! "Describe it to me!" he said. "What was it like?" + +Wondering, the girl tried to describe it. "It was small and of a strange +shape, of thin glass, Messer Syndic," she said. "Shot with gold, or +there was gold afloat in the liquid inside. I do not know which." + +"It was not empty?" + +"No, it was three parts full." + +His hand went to his mouth, to hide the working of his lips. "And there +was with it--a paper, I think?" + +"No." + +"A scrap of parchment then? Some words, some figures?" His voice rose +as he read a negative in her face. "There was something, surely?" + +"There was nothing," she said. "Had there been a scrap even of +writing----" + +"Yes, yes?" He could not control his impatience. + +"I should have sent it to you. I should have thought," she continued +earnestly, "that it was that you needed, Messer Syndic; that it was that +the State needed. But there was nothing." + +"Well, be there papers with it or be there not, I must have that phial!" + +Anne stared. "But I do not think"--she ventured with hesitation--and +then as she gained courage, she went on more firmly--"that I can take +it! I dare not, Messer Syndic." + +"Why not?" + +"Papers for the State--were one thing," she stammered in confusion; "but +to take this--a bottle--would be stealing!" + +The Syndic's eyes sparkled. His passion overcame him. "Girl, don't play +with me!" he cried. "Don't dare to play with me!" And then as she shrank +back alarmed by his tone, and shocked by this sudden peeping forth of +the tragic and the real, lo, in a twinkling he was another man, +trembling, and holding out shaking hands to her. "Get it for me!" he +said. "Get it for me, girl! I will tell you what it is! If I had told +you before, I had had it now, and I should be whole and well! whole and +well. You have a heart and can pity! Women can pity. Then pity me! I am +rich, but I am dying! I am a dying man, rising up and lying down, +counting the days as I walk the streets, and seeing the shroud rise +higher and higher upon my breast!" + +He paused for breath, endeavouring to gain some command of himself; +while she, carried off her feet by this rush of words, stared at him in +stupefaction. Before he came he had made up his mind to tell her the +truth--or something like the truth. But he had not intended to tell the +truth in this way until, face to face with her and met by her scruples, +he let the impulse to tell the whole carry him away. + +He steadied his lips with a shaking hand. "You know now why I want it," +he resumed, speaking huskily and with restrained emotion. "'Tis life! +Life, girl! In that"--he fought with himself before he could bring out +the word--"in that phial is my life! Is life for whoever takes it! It is +the _remedium_, it is strength, life, youth, and but one--but one dose +in all the world! Do you wonder--I am dying!--that I want it? Do you +wonder--I am dying!--that I will have it? But"--with a strange grimace +intended to reassure her--"I frighten you, I frighten you." + +"No!" she said, though in truth she had unconsciously retreated almost +to the door of the staircase before his extended hands. "But I--I +scarcely understand, Messer Blondel. If you will please to tell me----" + +"Yes, yes!" + +"What Messer Basterga--how he comes to have this?" She must parley with +him until she could collect her thoughts; until she could make up her +mind whether he was sane or mad and what it behoved her to do. + +"Comes to have it!" he cried vehemently. "God knows! And what matter? +'Tis the _remedium_, I tell you, whoever has it! It is life, strength, +youth!" he repeated, his eyes glittering, his face working, and the +impulse to tell her not the truth only, but more even than the truth, if +he might thereby dazzle her, carrying him away. "It is health of body, +though you be dying, as I am! And health of mind though you be +possessed of devils! It is a cure for all ills, for all weaknesses, all +diseases, even," with a queer grimace, "for the Scholar's evil! Think +you, if it were not rare, if it were not something above the common, if +it were not what leeches seek in vain, I should be here! I should have +more than enough to buy it, I, Messer Blondel of Geneva!" He ceased, +lacking breath. + +"But," she said timidly, "will not Messer Basterga give it to you? Or +sell it to you?" + +"Give it to me? Sell it to me? He?" Blondel's hands flew out and clawed +the air as if he had the Paduan before him, and would tear it from him. +"He give it me? No, he will not. Nor sell it! He is keeping it for the +Grand Duke! The Grand Duke? Curse him; why should he escape more than +another?" + +Anne stared. Was she dreaming or had her brain given way? Or was this +really Messer Blondel the austere Syndic, this man standing before her, +shaking in his limbs as he poured forth this strange farrago of +_remedia_ and scholars and princes and the rest? Or if she were not mad +was he mad? Or could there be truth, any truth, any fact in the medley? +His clammy face, his trembling hands, answered for his belief in it. But +could there be such a thing in nature as this of which he spoke? She had +heard of panaceas, things which cured all ills alike; but hitherto they +had found no place in her simple creed. Yet that he believed she could +not doubt; and how much more he knew than she did! Such things might be; +in the cabinets of princes, perhaps, purchasable by a huge fortune and +by the labour, the engrossment, the devotion of a life. She did not +know; and for him his acts spoke. + +"It was this that Louis Gentilis was seeking?" she murmured. + +"What else?" he retorted, opening and shutting his hands. "Had I told +him the truth, as I have told you, the thing had been in my grasp now!" + +"But are you sure," she ventured to ask with respect, "that it will do +these things, Messer Blondel?" + +He flung up his hands in a gesture of impatience. "And more! And more!" +he cried. "It is life and strength, I tell you! Health and youth! For +body or mind, for the old or the young! But enough! Enough, girl!" he +resumed in an altered tone, a tone grown peremptory and urgent. "Get it +me! Do you hear? Stand no longer talking! At any moment they may return, +and--and it may be too late." + +Too late! It was too late already. The door shook even as he spoke under +an angry summons. As he stiffened where he stood, his eyes fixed upon +it, his hand still pointing her to his bidding, a face showed white at +the window and vanished again. An instant he imagined it Basterga's; and +hand, voice, eyes, all hung frozen. Then he saw his mistake--to +whomsoever the face belonged, it was not Basterga's; and finding voice +and breath again, "Quick!" he muttered fiercely, "do you hear, girl? Get +it! Get it before they enter!" + +Her hand was on the latch of the inner door. Another second and, swayed +by his will, she would have gone up and got the thing he needed, and the +stout door would have shielded them, and within the staircase he might +have taken it from her and no one been the wiser. But as she turned, +there came a second attack on the door, so loud, so persistent, so +furious, that she faltered, remembering that the duplicate key of +Basterga's chamber was in her mother's room, and that she must mount to +the top of the house for it. + +He saw her hesitation, and, shaken by the face which had looked in out +of the night, and which still might be watching his movements, his +resolution gave way. The habit of a life of formalism prevailed. The +thing was as good as his, she would get it presently. Why, then, cause +talk and scandal by keeping these persons--whoever they were--outside, +when the thing might be had without talk? + +"To-night!" he cried rapidly. "Get it to-night, then! Do you hear, girl? +You will be sure to get it?" His eyes flitted from her to the door and +back again. "Basterga will not return until to-morrow. You will get it +to-night!" + +She murmured some form of assent. + +"Then open the door! open the door!" he urged impatiently. And with a +stifled oath, "A little more and they will rouse the town!" + +She ran to obey, the door flew open, and into the room bundled first +Louis without his cap; and then on his heels and gripping him by the +nape, Claude Mercier. Nor did the latter seem in the least degree +abashed by the presence in which he found himself. On the contrary, he +looked at the Syndic, his head high; as if he, and not the magistrate, +had the right to an explanation. + +But Blondel had recovered himself. "Come, come!" he said sternly. "What +is this, young man? Are you drunk?" + +"Why was the door locked?" + +"That you might not interrupt me," Blondel replied severely, "while I +asked some questions. I have it in my mind to ask you some also. You +took him to my house?" he continued, addressing Louis. + +Louis whined that he had. + +"You were late then?" His cold eye returned to Claude. "You were late, I +warrant. Attend me to-morrow at nine, young man. Do you hear? Do you +understand?" + +"Yes." + +"Then have a care you are there, or the officers will fetch you. And +you," he continued, turning more graciously to Anne, "see, young woman, +you keep counsel. A still tongue buys friends, and is a service to the +State. With that--good-night." + +He looked from one to the other with a sour smile, nodded, and passed +out. + +He left Claude staring, and something bewildered in the middle of the +room. The love, the pity, the admiration of which the lad's heart had +been full an hour before, still hungered for expression; but it was not +easy to vent such feelings before Louis, nor at a moment when the +Syndic's cold eye and the puzzle of his presence there chilled for the +time the atmosphere of the room. + +Claude, indeed, was utterly perplexed by what he had seen; and before he +could decide what he would do, Anne, ignoring the need of explanation, +had taken the matter into her own hands. She had begun to set out the +meal; and Louis, smiling maliciously, had seated himself in his place. +To speak with any effect then, or to find words adequate to the feelings +that had moved him a while before, was impossible. A moment later, the +opportunity was gone. + +"You must please to wait on yourselves," the girl said wearily. "My +mother is not well, and I may not come down again this evening." As she +spoke, she lifted from the table the little tray which she had prepared. + +He was in time to open the door for her; and even then, had she glanced +at him, his eyes must have told her much, perhaps enough. But she did +not look at him. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts; pressing +thoughts they must have been. She passed him as if he had been a +stranger, her eyes on the tray. Worshipping, he stood, and saw her turn +the corner at the head of the flight; then with a full heart he went +back to his place. His time would come. + +And she? At the door of Basterga's room she paused and stood long in +thought, gazing at the rushlight she carried on the tray--yet seeing +nothing. A sentence, one sentence of all those which Blondel had poured +forth--not Blondel the austere Syndic, who had set the lads aside as if +they had been schoolboys, but Blondel the man, trembling, holding out +suppliant hands--rang again and again in her ears. + +"It is health of body, though you be dying as I am, and health of mind, +though you be possessed of devils!" Health of body! Health of mind! +Health of body! Health of mind! The words wrote themselves before her +eyes in letters of fire. Health of Body! Health of Mind! + +And only one dose in all the world. Only one dose in all the world! She +recalled that too. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +ON THE BRIDGE. + + +To say that the Syndic, as soon as he had withdrawn, repented of his +weakness and wished with all his heart that he had not opened until the +_remedium_ was in his hand, is only to say that he was human. He did +more than this, indeed. When he had advanced some paces in the direction +of the Porte Tertasse he returned, and for a full minute he stood before +the Royaumes' door irresolute; half-minded to knock and, casting the +fear of publicity to the winds, to say that he must have at once that +for which he had come. He would get it, if he did, he was certain of +that. And for the rest, what the young men said or thought, or what +others who heard their story might say or think, mattered not a straw +now that he came to consider it; since he could have Basterga seized on +the morrow, and all would pass for a part of his affair. + +Yet he did not knock. A downward step on the slope of indecision is hard +to retrace. He reflected that he would get the _remedium_ in the +morning. He would certainly get it. The girl was won over, Basterga was +away. Practically, he had no one to fear. And to make a stir when the +matter could be arranged without a stir was not the part of a wise man +in the position of a magistrate. Slowly he turned and walked away. + +But, as if his good angel touched him on the shoulder, under the Porte +Tertasse he had qualms; and again he stood. And when, after a shorter +interval and with less indecision, he resumed his course, it was by no +means with the air of a victor. He would receive what he needed in the +morning: he dared not admit a doubt of that. And yet--was it a vague +presentiment that weighed on him as he walked, or only the wintry night +wind that caused the blood to run more slowly and more tamely in his +veins? He had not fared ill in his venture, he had made success certain. +And yet he was unreasonably, he was unaccountably, he was undefinably +depressed. + +He grew more cheerful when he had had his supper and seated before a +half-flagon of wine gave the reins to his imagination. For the space of +a golden hour he held the _remedium_ in his grasp, he felt its +life-giving influence course through his frame, he tasted again of +health and strength and manhood, he saw before him years of success and +power and triumph! In comparison to it the bath of Pelias, though +endowed with the virtues which lying Medea attributed to it, had not +seemed more desirable, nor the elixir of life, nor the herb of Anticyra. +Nor was it until he had taken the magic draught once and twice and +thrice in fancy, and as often hugged himself on health renewed and life +restored that a thought, which had visited him at an earlier period of +the evening, recurred and little by little sobered him. + +This was the reflection that he knew nothing of the quantity of the +potion which he must take, nothing of the time or of the manner of +taking it. Was it to be taken all at once, or in doses? Pure, or diluted +with wine, or with water, or with _aqua vitae_? At any hour, or at +midnight, or at a particular epoch of the moon's age, or when this or +that star was in the ascendant? + +The question bulked larger as he considered it; for in life no trouble +is surmounted but another appears to confront us; nor is the most +perfect success of an imperfect world without its drawback. Now that he +held the elixir his, now that in fancy he had it in his grasp, the +problem of the mode and the quantity which had seemed trivial and +negligible a few days or hours before, grew to formidable dimensions; +nor could he of himself discover any solution of it. He had counted on +finding with the potion some scrap of writing, some memorandum, some +hieroglyphics at least, that, interpreted by such skill as he could +command, would give him the clue he sought. But if there was nothing, as +the girl asserted, not a line nor a sign, the matter could be resolved +in one way only. He must resort to pressure. With the potion and the man +in his possession, he must force the secret from Basterga; force it by +threats or promises or aught that would weigh with a man who lay +helpless and in a dungeon. It would not be difficult to get the truth in +that way: not at all difficult. It seemed, indeed, as if Providence--and +Fabri and Petitot and Baudichon--had arranged to put the man in his +power _ad hoc_. + +He hugged this thought to him, and grew so enamoured of it that he +wondered that he had not had the courage to seize Basterga in the +beginning. He had allowed himself to be disturbed by phantoms; there lay +the truth. He should have seen that the scholar dared not for his own +sake destroy a thing so precious, a thing by which he might, at the +worst, ransom his life. The Syndic wondered that he had not discerned +that point before: and still in sanguine humour he retired to bed, and +slept better than he had slept for weeks, ay, for months. The elixir was +his, as good as his; if he did not presently have Messer Basterga by the +nape he was much mistaken. + +He had had the scholar watched and knew whither he was gone and that he +would not return before noon. At nine o'clock, therefore, the hour at +which he had directed Claude to come to him at his house, he approached +the Royaumes' door. Pluming himself on the stratagem by which twice in +the twenty-four hours he had rid himself of an inconvenient witness, he +opened the door boldly and entered. + +On the hearth, cap in hand, stood not Claude, but Louis. The lad wore +the sneaking air as of one surprised in a shameful action, which such +characters wear even when innocently employed. But his actions proved +that he was not surprised. With finger on his lip, and eyes enjoining +caution, he signed to the Syndic to be silent, and with head aside set +the example of listening. + +The Syndic was not the man to suffer fools gladly, and he opened his +mouth. He closed it--all but too late. All but too late, if--the thought +sent cold shivers down his back--if Basterga had returned. With an air +almost as furtive as that of the lad before him, he signed to him to +approach. + +Louis crossed the room with a show of caution the more strange as the +early December sun was shining and all without was cheerful. "Has he +come back?" Blondel whispered. + +"Claude?" + +"Fool!" Low as the Syndic pitched his tone it expressed a world of +contempt. "No, Basterga?" + +The youth shook his head, and again laying his finger to his lips +listened. + +"What! He has not?" Blondel's colour returned, his eyes bulged out with +passion. What did the imbecile mean? Because he knew certain things did +he think himself privileged to play the fool? The Syndic's fingers +tingled. Another second and he had broken the silence with a vengeance, +when-- + +"You are--too late!" Louis muttered. "Too late!" he repeated with +protruded lips. + +Blondel glared at him as if he would annihilate him. Too late? What did +this creature know? Or how could it be too late, if Basterga had not +returned? Yet the Syndic was shaken. His fingers no longer tingled for +the other's cheek; he no longer panted to break the silence in a way +that should startle him. On the contrary, he listened; while his eyes +passed swiftly round the room, to gather what was amiss. But all seemed +in order. The lads' bowls and spoons stood on the table, the great roll +of brown bread lay beside them, and a book, probably Claude's, lay face +downwards on the board. The door of one of the bedrooms stood open. The +Syndic's suspicious gaze halted at the closed door. He pointed to it. + +Louis shook his head; then, seeing that this was not enough, "There is +no one there," he whispered. "But I cannot tell you here. I will follow +you, honoured sir, to----" + +"The Porte Tertasse." + +"Mercier would meet us, by your leave," Louis rejoined with a faint +grin. + +The magistrate glared at the tool who on a sudden was turned adviser. +Still, for the time he must humour him. "The mills, then, on the +bridge," he muttered. And he opened the door with care and went out. +With a dreadful sense of coming evil he went along the Corraterie and +took his way down the steep to the bridge which, far below, curbed the +blue rushing waters of the Rhone. The roar of the icy torrent and of the +busy mills, stupendous as it was, was not loud enough to deaden the two +words that clung to his ears, "Too late! Too late!" Nor did the frosty +sunshine, gloriously reflected from the line of snowy peaks to eastward, +avail to pierce the gloom in which he walked. For Louis Gentilis, if it +should turn out that he had inflicted this penance for naught, there was +preparing an evil hour. + +The magistrate turned aside on a part of the bridge between two mills. +With his back to the wind-swept lake and its wide expanse of ruffled +waves, he stood a little apart from the current of crossers, on a space +kept clear of loiterers by the keen breeze. He seemed, if any curious +eye fell on him, to be engaged in watching the swirling torrent pour +from the narrow channel beneath him, as in warmer weather many a one +stood to watch it. Here two minutes later Louis found him; and if +Blondel still cherished hope, if he still fought against fear, or +maintained courage, the lad's smirking face was enough to end all. + +For a moment, such was the effect on him, Blondel could not speak. At +last, with an effort, "What is it?" he said. "What has happened?" + +"Much," Louis replied glibly. "Last night, after you had gone, honoured +sir, I judged by this and that, that there was something afoot. And +being devoted to your interests, and seeking only to serve you----" + +"The point! The point!" the Syndic ejaculated. "What has happened?" + +"Treachery," the young man answered, mouthing his words with enjoyment; +it was for him a happy moment. "Black, wicked treachery!" with a glance +behind him. "The worst, sir, the worst, if I rightly apprehend the +matter." + +"Curse you," Blondel cried, contrary to his custom, for he was no +swearer, "you will kill me, if you do not speak." + +"But----" + +"What has happened. What has happened, man!" + +"I was going to tell you, honoured sir, that I watched her----" + +"Anne? The girl?" + +"Yes, and an hour before midnight she took that which you wished me to +get--the bottle. She went to Basterga's room, and----" + +"Took it! Well? Well?" The Syndic's face, grey a moment before, was +dangerously suffused with blood. The cane that had inflicted the bruise +Louis still wore across his visage, quivered ominously. Public as the +bridge was, open to obloquy and remark as an assault must lay him, +Blondel was within an inch of striking the lad again. "Well? Well?" he +repeated. "Is that all you have to tell me?" + +"Would it were!" Louis replied, raising his open hands with +sanctimonious fervour. "Alas, sir!" + +"You watched her?" + +"I watched her back to her room." + +"Upstairs?" + +"Yes, the room which she occupies with her mother. And kneeling and +listening, and seeing what I could for your sake," the knave continued, +not a feature evincing the shame he should have felt, "I saw her handle +the phial at a little table opposite the door, but hidden by a curtain +from the bed." + +The Syndic's eyes conveyed the question his lips refused to frame. No +man, submitted to the torture, has ever suffered more than he was +suffering. + +But Louis had as much mind to avenge himself as the bravest, if he could +do so safely; and he would not be hurried. "She held it to the light," +he said, dwelling on every syllable, "and turned it this way and that, +and I could see bubbles as of gold----" + +"Ah!" + +"Whirling and leaping up and down in it as if they lived--God guard us +from the evil one! Then she knelt----" + +The Syndic uttered an involuntary cry. + +"And prayed," Louis continued, confirming his astonishing statement by a +nod. "But whether to it--'twas on the table before her--or to the devil, +or otherwise, I know not. Only"--with damnatory candour--"it had a +strange aspect. Certainly she knelt, and it was on the table in front of +her, and her forehead rested on her hands, and----" + +"What then? What then? By Heaven, the point!" gasped Blondel, writhing +in torture. "What then? blind worm that you are, can you not see that +you are killing me? What did she do with it? Tell me!" + +"She poured it into a glass, and----" + +"She drank it?" + +"No, she carried it to her mother," Louis replied as slowly as he dared. +Fawning on the hand that had struck him, he would fain bite it if he +could do so safely. "I did not see what followed," he went on, "they +were behind the screen. But I heard her say that it was Madame's +medicine. And I made out enough----" + +"Ah!" + +"To be sure that her mother drank it." + +Blondel stared at him a moment, wide-eyed; then, with a cry of despair, +bitter, final, indescribable, the Syndic turned and hurried away. He did +not hear the timid remonstrances which Louis, who followed a few paces +behind, ventured to utter. He did not heed the wondering looks of those +whom he jostled as he plunged into the current of passers and thrust his +way across the bridge in the direction whence he had come. The one +impulse in his blind brain was to get home, that he might be alone, to +think and moan and bewail himself unwatched; even as the first instinct +of the wounded beast is to seek its lair and lie hidden, there to await +with piteous eyes and the divine patience of animals the coming of +death. + +But this man had the instinct only, not the patience. In his case would +come with thought wild rages, gnawings of regret, tears of blood. That +he might have, and had not, that he had failed by so little, that he +had been worsted by his own tools--these things and the bitter irony of +life's chances would madden and torment him. In an hour he would live a +lifetime of remorse; yet find in his worst moments no thought more +poignant than the reflection that had he played the game with courage, +had he grasped the nettle boldly, had he seized Basterga while it was +yet time, he might have lived! He might have lived! Ah, God! + +Meanwhile Louis, though consumed with desire to see what would happen, +remained on the bridge. He had tasted a fearful joy and would fain +savour more of it if he could do so with a whole skin. But to follow +seemed perilous; he held the Syndic's mood in too great awe for that. He +did the next best thing. He hastened to a projecting part of the bridge +a few paces from the spot where they had conferred; there he raised +himself on the parapet that he might see which way Blondel turned at the +end of the bridge. If he entered the town no more could be made of it: +but if he turned right-handed and by the rampart to the Corraterie, +Louis' mind was made up to risk something. He would follow to the +Royaumes' house. The magistrate could hardly blame him for going to his +own lodging! + +It was a busy hour, and, cold as it was, a fair number of people were +passing between the island and the upper town. For a moment, look as he +might, he could not discern the Syndic's spare figure; and he was +beginning to think that he had missed him when he saw something that in +a twinkling turned his thoughts. On the bank a little beside the end of +the bridge stood Claude Mercier. He carried a heavy stick in his hand, +and he was waiting: waiting, with his eyes fixed on our friend, and a +look in those eyes that even at that distance raised a gentle sweat on +Louis' brow. + +It required little imagination to follow Claude's past movements. He had +gone to the Syndic's house at nine, and finding himself tricked a second +time had returned hot-foot to the Corraterie. Thence he had tracked the +two to this place. But how long had he been waiting, Louis wondered; and +how much had he seen? Something for certain. His face announced that; +and Louis, hot all over, despite the keen wind and frosty air, augured +the worst. Cowards however have always one course open. The way was +clear behind him. He could cross the island to the St. Gervais bank, and +if he were nimble he might give his pursuer the slip in the maze of +small streets beside the water. It was odd if the lapse of a few hours +did not cool young Mercier's wrath, and restore him to a frame of mind +in which he might be brought to hear reason. + +No sooner planned than done. Or rather it would have been done if +turning to see that the way was clear behind him, Louis had not +discovered a second watcher, who from a spot on the edge of the island +was marking his movements with grim attention. This watcher was +Basterga. Moreover the glance which apprised Louis of this showed him +that the scholar's face was as black as thunder. + +Then, if the gods looked down that day upon any mortal with pity, they +must have looked down on this young man; who was a coward. At the one +end of the bridge, Claude, with an ugly weapon and a face to match! At +the other, Basterga, with a black brow and Heaven alone could say how +much knowledge of his treachery! The scholar could not know of the loss +of the phial, indeed, for it was clear that he had just returned to the +city by the St. Gervais gate. But that he soon would know of it, that he +knew something already, that he had been a witness to the colloquy with +the Syndic--this was certain. + +At any rate Louis thought so, and his knees trembled under him. He had +no longer a way of retreat, and out of the corner of his eye he saw +Claude beginning to advance. What was he to do? The perspiration burst +out on him. He turned this way and that, now casting wild eyes at the +whirling current below, now piteous eyes--the eyes of a calf on its way +to the shambles, and as little regarded--on the thin stream of passers. +How could they go on their way and leave him to the mercies of this +madman? + +He smothered a shriek as Claude, now less than twenty paces away, sped a +look at him. Claude, indeed, was thinking of Anne and her wrongs; and of +a certain kiss. His face told this so plainly, and that passion was his +master, that Louis' cheek grew white. What if the ruffian threw him into +the river? What if--and then like every coward, he chose the remoter +danger. With Claude at hand, he turned and fled, dashed blindly through +the passers on the bridge, flung himself on Basterga, and, seizing the +big scholar by the arm, strove to shelter himself behind him. + +"He is mad!" he gasped. "Mad! Save me! He is going to throw me over!" + +"Steady!" Basterga answered; and he opposed his huge form to Claude's +rush. "What is this, young man? Coming to blows in the street? For +shame! For shame!" He moved again so as still to confront him. + +"Give him up!" Claude panted, scarcely preventing himself from attacking +both. "Give him up, I say, and----" + +"Not till I have heard what he has done! Steady, young man, keep your +distance!" + +"I will tell you everything! Everything!" Louis whined, clinging to his +arm. + +"Do you hear what he says?" Basterga replied. "In the meantime, I tell +you to keep your distance, young man. I am not used to be jostled!" + +Claude hesitated a moment, scowling. Then, "Very well!" he said, drawing +off with a gesture of menace. "It is only put off: I shall pay him +another time. It is waiting for you, sneak, bear that in mind!" And +shrugging his shoulders he turned with as much dignity as he could and +moved off. + +Basterga wheeled from him to the other. "So!" he said. "You have +something to tell me, it seems?" And taking the trembling Louis by the +arm, he drew him aside, a few paces from the approach of the bridge. In +doing this he hung a moment searching the bridge and the farther bank +with a keen gaze. He knew, and for some hours had known, on what a +narrow edge of peril he stood, and that only Blondel's influence +protected him from arrest. Yet he had returned: he had not hesitated to +put his head again into the lion's mouth. Still if Louis' words meant +that certain arrest awaited him, he was not too proud to save himself. + +He could discern no officers on the bridge, and satisfied on the point +of immediate danger, he turned to his shivering ally. "Well, what is +it?" he said. "Speak!" + +"I'll tell you the truth," Louis gabbled. + +"You had better!" Basterga replied, in a tone that meant much more than +he said. "Or you will find me worse to deal with than yonder hot-head! I +will answer for that." + +"Messer Blondel has been at the house," Louis murmured glibly, his mind +centred on the question how much he should tell. "Last night and again +this morning. He has been closeted with Anne and Mercier. And there has +been some talk--of a box or a bottle." + +"Were they in my room?" Basterga asked, his brow contracting. + +"No, downstairs." + +"Did they get--the box or the bottle?" There was a dangerous note in +Basterga's voice; and a look in his eyes that scared the lad. + +Louis, as his instinct was, lied again, fleeing the more pressing peril. +"Not to my knowledge," he said. + +"And you?" The scholar eyed him with bland suavity. "You had nothing to +do--with all this, I suppose?" + +"I listened. I was in my room, but they thought I was out. When I went," +the liar continued, "they discovered me; and Messer Blondel followed me +and overtook me on the bridge and threatened--that he would have me +arrested if I were not silent." + +"You refused to be silent, of course?" + +But Louis was too acute to be caught in a trap so patent. He knew that +Basterga would not believe in his courage, if he swore to it. "No, I +said I would be silent," he answered. "And I should have been," he +continued with candour, "if I had not run into your arms." + +"But if you assented to his wish," Basterga retorted, eyeing him keenly, +"why did he depart after that fashion?" + +"Something happened to him," Louis said. "I do not know what. He seemed +to be in distress, or to be ill." + +"I could see that," the scholar answered dryly. "But Master Claude? What +of him? And why was he so enamoured of you that he could not be parted +from you?" + +"It was to punish me for listening. They followed me different ways." + +"I see. And that is the truth, is it?" + +"I swear it is!" + +The scholar saw no reason why it should not be the truth. Louis, a +facile tool, had always been of his, the stronger, party. If Blondel +tampered with any one, he would naturally, if he knew aught of the +house, suborn Claude or Anne. And Louis, spying and fleeing, and when +overtaken, promising silence, was quite in the picture. The only thing, +indeed, which stood out awkwardly, and refused to fall into place, was +the fashion in which the Syndic had turned and gone off the bridge. And +for that there might be reasons. He might have been seized with a sudden +attack of his illness, or he might have perceived Basterga watching him +from the farther bank. + +On the whole, the scholar, forgetting that cowards are ever liars, saw +no reason to doubt Louis' story. It did but add one more to the motives +he had for action: immediate, decisive, striking action, if he would +save his neck, if he would succeed in his plans. That the Syndic alone +stood between him and arrest, that by the Syndic alone he lived, he had +learned at a meeting at which he had been present the previous night at +the Grand Duke's country house four leagues distant. D'Albigny had been +there, and Brunaulieu, Captain of the Grand Duke's Guards, and Father +Alexander, who dreamed of the Episcopate of Geneva, and others--the +chiefs of the plot, his patrons. To his mortification they had been able +to tell him things he had not learned, though he was within the city, +and they without. Among others, that the Council had certain knowledge +of him and his plans, and but for the urgency of Blondel would have +arrested him a fortnight before. + +His companions at the midnight supper had detected his dismay, and had +derided him, thinking that with that there was an end of the mysterious +scheme which he had refused to impart. They fancied that he would not +return to the city, or venture his head a second time within the lion's +jaws. But they reckoned without their man, Basterga with all his faults +was brave; and he had failed in too many schemes to resign this one +lightly. + + "Si fractus illabatur orbis + Impavidum ferient ruinae," + +he murmured; and he had ventured, he had passed the gates, he was here. +Here, with his eyes open to the peril, and open to the necessity of +immediate action if the slender thread by which all hung were not to +snap untimely. + +Blondel! He lived by Blondel. And Blondel--why had he left the bridge in +that strange fashion? Abruptly, desperately, as if something had +befallen him. Why? He must learn, and that quickly. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +A GLOVE AND WHAT CAME OF IT. + + +Meanwhile, Claude, robbed of his prey, had gone into the town in great +disgust. As he passed from the bridge, and paused before he entered the +huddle of narrow streets that climbed the hill, he had on his left the +glittering heights of snow, rising ridge above ridge to the blue; and +most distant among them Mont Blanc itself, etherealised by the frosty +sunshine and clear air of a December morning. But Mont Blanc might have +been a marsh, the Rhone, pouring its icy volume from the lake, might +have been a brook, for him. Aware, at length, of the peril in which Anne +stood, and not doubting that these colloquies of Messers Blondel and +Louis, these man[oe]uvrings to be rid of his presence, were part of a +conspiracy against her, he burned with the desire to thwart it. They had +made a puppet of him; they had sent him to and fro at their will and +pleasure; and they had done this, no doubt, in order that in his absence +they might work--Heaven knew what vile and miserable work! But he would +know, too! He was going to know! He would not be so tricked thrice. + +His indignation went beyond the Syndic. The smug-faced towns-folk whom +he met and jostled in the narrow ways, and whose grave starched looks he +countered with hot defiant glances--he included them in his anathema. He +extended to them the contempt in which he held Blondel and Louis and the +rest. They were all of a breed, a bigoted breed; all dull, blind worms, +insensible to the beauty of self-sacrifice, or the purity of affection. +All, self-sufficient dolts, as far removed, as immeasurably divided from +her whom he loved, as the gloomy lanes of this close city lay below the +clear loveliness of the snow-peaks! For, after all, he had lifted his +eyes to the mountains. + +One thing only perplexed him. He understood the attitude of Basterga and +Grio and Louis towards the girl. He discerned the sword of Damocles that +they held over her, the fear of a charge of witchcraft, or of some vile +heresy, in which they kept her. But how came Blondel in the plot? What +was his part, what his object? If he had been sincere in that attempt on +Basterga's secrets, which Madame's delirious words had frustrated, was +he sincere now? Was his object now as then--the suppression of the +devilish practices of which he had warned Claude, and in the punishment +of which he had threatened to include the girl with her tempter? +Presumably it was, and he was still trying to reach the goal by other +ways, using Louis as he had used Claude, or tried to use him. + +And yet Claude doubted. He began to suspect--for love is jealous--that +Blondel had behind this a more secret, a more personal, a more selfish +aim. Had the young girl, still in her teens, caught the fancy of the man +of sixty? There was nothing unnatural in the idea; such things were, +even in Geneva; and Louis was a go-between, not above the task. In that +case she who had showed a brave front to Basterga all these months, who +had not blenched before the daily and hourly persecution to which she +had been exposed in her home, was not likely to succumb to the senile +advances of a man who might be her grandfather! + +If he did not hold her secret. But if he did hold it? If he did hold +it, and the cruel power it gave? If he held it, he who had only to lift +his hand to consign her to duress on a charge so dark and dangerous that +innocence itself was no protection against it? So plausible that even +her lover had for a short time held it true? What then? + +Claude, who had by this time reached the Tertasse gate and passed +through it from the town side, paused on the ramparts and bared his +head. What then? + +He had his answer. Framed in the immensity of sky and earth that lay +before him, he saw his loneliness and hers, his insignificance and hers, +his helplessness and hers; he, a foreigner, young, without name or +reputation, or aught but a strong right hand; she, almost a child, alone +or worse than alone, in this great city--one of the weak things which +the world's car daily and hourly crushes into the mud, their very cries +unheard and unheeded. Of no more account than the straw which the turbid +Rhone, bore one moment on its swirling tide, and the next swallowed from +sight beneath its current! + +They were two--and a mad woman! And against them were Blondel and +Basterga and Grio and Louis, and presently all the town of Geneva! All +these gloomy, narrow, righteous men, and shrieking, frightened +women--frightened lest any drop of the pitch fall on them and destroy +them! Love is a marvellous educator. Almost as clearly as we of a later +day, he saw how outbreaks of superstition, such as that which he +dreaded, began, and came to a head, and ended. A chance word at a door, +a spiteful rumour or a sick child, the charge, the torture, the widening +net of accusation, the fire in the market-place. So it had been in +Bamberg and Wurzburg, in Geneva two generations back, in Alsace scarce +as many years back: at Edinburgh in Scotland where thirty persons had +suffered in one day--ten years ago that; in the district of Como, where +a round thousand had suffered! + +Nobility had not availed to save some, nor court-favour others; nor +wealth, nor youth, nor beauty. And what had he or she to urge, what had +they to put forward that would in the smallest degree avail them? That +could even for a moment stem or avert the current of popular madness +which power itself had striven in vain to dam. Nothing! + +And yet he did not blench, nor would he; being half French and of good +blood, at a time when good French blood ran the more generously for a +half century of war. He would not have blenched, even if he had not, +from the sunlit view of God's earth and heaven which lay before his +eyes, drawn other thoughts than that one of his own littleness and +insignificance. As this view of vale and mountain had once before lifted +his judgment above the miasma of a cruel superstition, so it raised him +now above creeping fears and filled him with confidence in something +more stable than magistrates or mobs. Love, like the sunlight, shone +aslant the dark places of the prospect and filled them with warmth. +Sacrifice for her he loved took on the beauty of the peaks, cold but +lovely; and hope and courage, like the clear blue of the vault above, +looked smiling down on the brief dangers and the brief troubles of man's +making. + +The clock of St. Gervais was striking eleven as, still in exalted mood, +he turned his back on the view and entered the house in the Corraterie. +He had entered on his return from his fruitless visit to Blondel, and +had satisfied himself that Anne was safe. Doubtless she was still safe, +for the house was quiet. + +In his new mood he was almost inclined to quarrel with this. In the +ardour of his passion he would gladly have seen the danger immediate, +the peril present, that he might prove to her how much he loved her, +how deeply he felt for her, what he would dare for her. To die on the +hearth of the living-room, at her feet and saving her, seemed for a +moment the thing most desirable--the purest happiness! + +That was denied him. The house was quiet, as in a morning it commonly +was. So quiet that he recalled without effort the dreams which he had +dreamed on that spot, and the thoughts which had filled his heart to +bursting a few hours before. The great pot was there, simmering on its +hook; and on the small table beside it, the table that Basterga and Grio +occupied, stood a platter with a few dried herbs and a knife fresh from +her hand. Claude made sure that he was unobserved, and raising the knife +to his lips, kissed the haft gently and reverently, thinking what she +had suffered many a day while using it! What fear, and grief and +humiliation, and---- + +He stood erect, his face red: he listened intently. Upstairs, breaking +the long silence of the house, opening as it were a window to admit the +sun, a voice had uplifted itself in song. The voice had some of the +tones of Anne's voice, and something that reminded him of her voice. But +when had he heard her sing? When had aught so clear, so mirthful, or so +young fallen from her as this; this melody, laden with life and youth +and abundance, that rose and fell and floated to his ears through the +half-open door of the staircase? + +He crept to the staircase door and listened; yes, it was her voice, but +not such as he had ever heard it. It was her voice as he could fancy it +in another life, a life in which she was as other girls, darkened by no +fear, pinched by no anxiety, crushed by no contumely; such as her voice +might have been, uplifted in the garden of his old home on the French +border, amid bees and flowers and fresh-scented herbs. Her voice, +doubtless, it was; but it sorted so ill with the thoughts he had been +thinking, that with his astonishment was mingled something of shock and +of loss. He had dreamed of dying for her or with her, and she sang! He +was prepared for peril, and her voice vied with the lark's in joyous +trills. + +Leaning forward to hear more clearly, he touched the door. It was ajar, +and before he could hinder it, it closed with a sharp sound. The singing +ceased with an abruptness that told, or he was much mistaken, of +self-remembrance. And presently, after an interval of no more than a few +seconds, during which he pictured the singer listening, he heard her +begin to descend. + +Two men may do the same thing from motives as far apart as the poles. +Claude did what Louis would have done. As the foot drew near the +staircase door, treading, less willingly, less lightly, more like that +of Anne with every step, he slid into his closet, and stood. Through the +crack between the hinges of the open door, he would be able to view her +face when she appeared. + +A second later she came, and he saw. The light of the song was still in +her eyes, but mingled, as she looked round the room to learn who was +there, with something of exaltation and defiance. Christian maidens +might have worn some such aspect, he thought--but he was in love--as +they passed to the lions. Or Esther, when she went unbidden into the +inner court of the King's House, and before the golden sceptre moved. +Something had happened to her. But what? + +She did not see him, and after standing a moment to assure herself that +she was alone, she passed to the hearth. She lifted the lid of the pot, +bent over it, and slowly stirred the broth; then, having covered it +again, she began to chop the dried herbs on the platter. Even in her +manner of doing this, he fancied a change; a something unlike the Anne +he had known, the Anne he had come to love. The face was more animated, +the action quicker, the step lighter, the carriage more free. She began +to sing, and stopped; fell into a reverie, with the knife in her hand, +and the herb half cut; again roused herself to finish her task; finally +having slid the herbs from the platter to the pot, she stood in a second +reverie, with her eyes fixed on the window. + +He began to feel the falseness of his position. It was too late to show +himself, and if she discovered him what would she think of him? Would +she believe that in spying upon her he had some evil purpose, some low +motive, such as Louis might have had? His cheek grew hot. And then--he +forgot himself. + +Her eyes had left the window and fallen to the window-seat. It was the +thing she did then which drew him out of himself. Moving to the +window--he had to stoop forward to keep her within the range of his +sight--she took from it a glove, held it a moment, regarding it; then +with a tender, yet whimsical laugh, a laugh half happiness, half +ridicule of herself, she kissed it. + +It was Claude's glove. And if, with that before his eyes he could have +restrained himself, the option was not his. She turned in the act, and +saw him; with a startled cry she put--none too soon--the table between +them. + +They faced one another across it, he flushed, eager, with love in his +eyes, and on his lips; she blushing but not ashamed, her new-found joy +in her eyes, and in the pose of her head. + +"Anne!" he cried. "I know now! I know! I have seen and you cannot +deceive me!" + +"In what?" she said, a smile trembling on her lips. "And of what, Messer +Claude, are you so certain, if you please?" + +"That you love me!" he replied. "But not a hundredth part"--he stretched +his arms across the table towards her "as much as I love you and have +loved you for weeks! As I loved you even before I learned last +night----" + +"What?" Into her face--that had not found one hard look to rebuke his +boldness--came something of her old silent, watchful self. "What did you +learn last night?" + +"Your secret!" + +"I have none!" Quick as thought the words came from her lips. "I have +none! God is merciful," with a gesture of her open arms, as if she put +something from her, "and it is gone! If you know, if you guess aught of +what it was"--her eyes questioned his and read in them if not that which +he knew, that which he thought of her. + +"I ask you to be silent." + +"I will, after I have----" + +"Now! Always!" + +"Not till I have spoken once!" he cried. "Not till I have told you once +what I think of you! Last night I heard. And I understood. I saw what +you had gone through, what you had feared, what had been your life all +these weeks, rising and lying down! I saw what you meant when you bade +me go anywhere but here, and why you suffered what you did at their +hands, and why they dared to treat you--so! And had they been here I +would have killed them!" he added, his eyes sparkling. "And had you been +here----" + +"Yes?" she did not seek to check him now. Her bearing was changed, her +eyes, soft and tender, met his as no eyes had ever met his. + +"I should have worshipped you! I should have knelt as I kneel now!" he +cried. And sinking on his knees he extended his arms across the table +and took her unresisting hands. "If you no longer have a secret, you +had one, and I bless God for it! For without it I might not have known +you, Anne! I might not have----" + +"Perhaps you do not know me now," she said; but she did not withdraw her +hands or her eyes. Only into the latter grew a shade of trouble. "I have +done--you do not know what I have done. I am a thief." + +"Pah!" + +"It is true. I am a thief." + +"What is it to me?" He laughed a laugh as tender as her eyes. "You are a +thief, for you have stolen my heart. For the rest, do you think that I +do not know you now? That I can be twice deceived? Twice take gold for +dross, and my own for another thing? I know you!" + +"But you do not know," she said tremulously, "what I have done--what I +did last night--or what may come of it." + +"I know that what comes of it will happen, not to one but to two," he +replied bravely. "And that is all I ask to know. That, and that you are +content it shall be so?" + +"Content?" + +"Yes." + +"Content!" + +There are things, other than wine, that bring truth to the surface. That +which had happened to the girl in the last few hours, that which had +melted her into unwonted song, was of these things; and the tone of her +voice as she repeated the word "Content!" the surrender of her eyes that +placed her heart in his keeping, as frankly as she left her hands in +his, proclaimed it. The reserves of her sex, the tricks of coyness and +reticence men look for in maids, were shaken from her; and as man to man +her eyes told him the truth, told him that if she had ever doubted she +no longer doubted that she loved him. In the heart which a single +passion, the purest of which men and women are capable, had engrossed +so long, Nature, who, expel her as you will, will still return, had won +her right and carved her kingdom. + +And she knew that it was well with her--whatever the upshot of last +night. To be lonely no more; to be no longer the protector, but the +protected; to know the comfort of the strong arm as well as of the +following eye, the joy of receiving as well as of giving; to know that, +however dark the future might lower, she had no longer to face it alone, +no longer to plan and hope and fear and suffer alone, but with +_him_--the sense of these things so mingled with her gratitude on her +mother's account that the new affection, instead of weakening the old +became as it were part of it; while the old stretched onwards its pious +hand to bless the new. + +If Claude did not read all this in her eyes, and in that one word +"Content?" he read so much that never devotee before relic rose more +gently or more reverently to his feet. Because all was his he would take +nothing. "As I stand by you, may God stand by me," he said, still +holding her hands in his, and with the table between them. + +"I have no fear," she replied in a low voice. "Yet--if you fail, may He +forgive you as fully as I must forgive you. What shall I say to you on +my part, Messer Claude?" + +"That you love me." + +"I love you," she murmured with an intonation which ravished the young +man's heart and brought the blood to his cheeks. "I love you. What +more?" + +"There is no more," he cried. "There can be no more. If that be true, +nothing matters." + +"No!" she said, beginning to tremble under a weight of emotion too heavy +for her, following as it did the excitement of the night. "No!" she +continued, raising her eyes which had fallen before the ardour of his +gaze. "But there must be something you wish to ask me. You must wish to +know----" + +"I have heard what I wished to know." + +"But----" + +"Tell me what you please." + +She stood in thought an instant: then, with a sigh, "He came to me last +evening," she said, "when you were at his house." + +"Messer Blondel?" + +"Yes. He wished me to procure for him a certain drug that Messer +Basterga kept in his room." + +Claude stared. "In a steel casket chained to the wall?" he asked. + +"Yes," she whispered with some surprise. "You knew of it, then? He had +tried to procure it through Louis, and on the pretence that the box +contained papers needed by the State. Failing in that he came last +evening to me, and told me the truth." + +"The truth?" Claude asked, wondering. "But was it the truth?" + +"It was." Her eyes, like stars on a rainy night, shone softly. "I have +proved it." Again, with a ring of exultation in her voice, "I have +proved it!" she cried. + +"How?" + +"There was in the box a drug, he told me, possessed of an almost +miraculous power over disease of body and mind; so rare and so wonderful +that none could buy it, and he knew of but this one dose, of which +Messer Basterga had possessed himself. He begged me to take it and to +give it to him. He had on him, he said, a fatal illness, and if he did +not get this--he must die." Her voice shook. "He must die! Now God help +him!" + +"You took it." + +"I took it." Her face, as her eyes dropped before his, betrayed trouble +and doubt. "I took it," she continued, trembling. "If I have done wrong, +God forgive me. For I stole it." + +His face betrayed his amazement, but he did not release her hands. +"Why?" he said. + +"To give it to her," she answered. "To my mother. I thought then that it +was right--it was a chance. I thought--now I don't know, I don't know!" +she repeated. The shade on her face grew deeper. "I thought I was right +then. Now--I--I am frightened." She looked at him with eyes in which her +doubts were mirrored. She shivered, she who had been so joyous a moment +before, and her hands, which hitherto had lain passive in his, returned +his pressure feverishly. "I fear now!" she exclaimed. "I fear! What is +it? What has happened--in the last minute?" + +He would have drawn her to him, seeing that her nerves were shaken; but +the table was between them, and before he could pass round it, a sound +caught his ear, a shadow fell between them, and looking up he discovered +Basterga's face peering through the nearer casement. It was pressed +against the small leaded panes, and possibly it was this which by +flattening the huge features imparted to them a look of malignity. Or +the look--which startled Claude, albeit he was no coward--might have +been only the natural expression of one, who suspected what was afoot +between them and came to mar it. Whatever it meant, the girl's cry of +dismay found an echo on Claude's lips. Involuntarily he dropped her +hands; but--and the action was symbolical of the change in her life--he +stepped at the same moment between her and the door. Whatever she had +done, right or wrong, was his concern now. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE _REMEDIUM_. + + +We have seen that for Claude, as he hurried from the bridge, the faces +he met in the narrow streets of the old town were altered by the medium +through which he viewed them; and appeared gloomy, sordid and fanatical. +In the eyes of Blondel, who had passed that way before him, the same +faces wore a look of selfishness, stupendously and heartlessly cruel. +And not the faces only; the very houses and ways, the blue sky overhead, +and the snow-peaks--when for an instant he caught sight of them--bore +the same aspect. All wore their every-day air, and mocked the despair in +his heart. All flung in his teeth the fact, the incredible fact, that +whether he died or lived, stayed or went, the world would proceed; that +the eternal hills, ay, and the insensate bricks and mortar, that had +seen his father pass, would see him pass, and would be standing when he +was gone into the darkness. + +There are few things that to the mind of man in his despondent moods are +more strange, or more shocking, than the permanence of trifles. The +small things to which his brain and his hand have given shape, which he +can, if he will, crush out of form, and resolve into their primitive +atoms, outlive him! They lie on the table when he is gone, are unchanged +by his removal, serve another master as they have served him, preach to +another generation the same lesson. The face is dust, but the canvas +smiles from the wall. The hand is withered, but the pencil is still in +the tray and is used by another. There are times when the irony of this +thought bites deep into the mind, and goads the mortal to revolt. Had +Blondel, as he climbed the hill, possessed the power of Orimanes to +blast at will, few of those whom he met, few on whom he turned the +gloomy fire of his eyes, would have reached their houses that day or +seen another sun. + +He was within a hundred paces of his home, when a big man, passing along +the Bourg du Four, but on the other side of the way, saw him and came +across the road to intercept him. It was Baudichon, his double chin more +pendulent, his massive face more dully wistful than ordinary; for the +times had got upon the Councillor's nerves, and day by day he grew more +anxious, slept worse of nights, and listened much before he went to bed. + +"Messer Blondel," he called out, in a voice more peremptory than was +often addressed to the Fourth Syndic's ear. "Messer Syndic! One moment, +if you please!" + +Blondel stopped and turned to him. Outwardly the Syndic was cool, +inwardly he was at a white heat that at any moment might impel him to +the wildest action. "Well?" he said. "What is it, M. Baudichon?" + +"I want to know----" + +"Of course!" The sneer was savage and undisguised. "What, this time, if +I may be so bold?" + +Baudichon breathed quickly, partly with the haste he had made across the +road, partly in irritation at the gibe. "This only," he said. "How far +you purpose to try our patience? A week ago you were for delaying the +arrest you know of--for a day. It was a matter of hours then." + +"It was." + +"But days have passed, and are passing! and we have no explanation; +nothing is done. And every night we run a fresh risk, and every +morning--so far--we thank God that our throats are still whole; and +every day we strive to see you, and you are out, or engaged, or about to +do it, or awaiting news! But this cannot go on for ever! Nor," puffing +out his cheeks, "shall we always bear it!" + +"Messer Baudichon!" Blondel retorted, the passion he had so far +restrained gleaming in his eyes, and imparting a tremor to his voice, +"are you Fourth Syndic or am I?" + +"You! You, certainly. Who denies it?" the stout man said. "But----" + +"But what? But what?" + +"We would know what you think we are, that we can bear this suspense." + +"I will tell you what I think you are!" + +"By your leave?" + +"_A fat hog!_" the Syndic shrieked. "And as brainless as a hog fit for +the butcher! That for you! and your like!" + +And before the astounded Baudichon, whose brain was slow to take in new +facts, had grasped the full enormity of the insult flung at him, the +Syndic was a dozen paces distant. He had eased his mind, and that for +the moment was much; though he still ground his teeth, and, had +Baudichon followed him, would have struck the Councillor without thought +or hesitation. The pigs! The hogs! To press him with their wretched +affairs: to press him at this moment when the grave yawned at his feet, +and the coffin opened for him! + +To be sure he might now do with Basterga as he pleased without thought +or drawback; but for their benefit--never! He paused at his door, and +cast a haggard glance up and down; at the irregular line of gables +which he had known from childhood, the steep, red roofs, the cobble +pavement, the bakers' signs that hung here and there and with the wide +eaves darkened the way; and he cursed all he saw in the frenzy of his +rage. Let Basterga, Savoy, d'Albigny do their worst! What was it to him? +Why should he move? He went into his house despairing. + +Unto this last hour a little hope had shone through the darkness. At +times the odds had seemed to be against him, at one time Heaven itself +had seemed to declare itself his foe. But the _remedium_ had existed, +the thing was still possible, the light burned, though distant, feeble, +flickering. He had told himself that he despaired; but he had not known +what real despair was until this moment, until he sat, as he saw now, +among the Dead Sea splendours of his parlour, the fingers of his right +hand drumming on the arm of the abbot's chair, his shaggy eyelids +drooping over his brooding eyes. + +Ah, God! If he had stayed to take the stuff when it lay in his power! If +he had refused to open until he held it in his hand! If, even after that +act of folly, he had refused to go until she gave it him! How +inconceivable his madness seemed now, his fear of scandal, his thought +of others! Others? There was one of whom he dared not think; for when he +did his head began to tremble on his shoulders; and he had to clutch the +arms of the chair to stay the palsy that shook him. If _she_, the girl +who had destroyed him, thought it was all one to him whom the drug +advantaged, or who lived or who died, he would teach her--before he +died! He would teach her! There was no extremity of pain or shame she +should not taste, accursed witch, accursed thief, as she was! But he +must not think of that, or of her, now; or he would die before his time. +He had a little time yet, if he were careful, if he were cool, if he +were left a brief space to recover himself. A little, a very little +time! + +Whose were that foot and that voice? Basterga's? The Syndic's eyes +gleamed, he raised his head. There was another score he had to pay! His +own score, not Baudichon's. Fool, to have left his treasure unguarded +for every thieving wench to take! Fool, thrice and again, for putting +his neck back into the lion's mouth. Stealthily Blondel pulled the +handbell nearer to him and covered it with his cloak. He would have +added a weapon, but there was no arm within reach, and while he +hesitated between his chair and the door of the small inner room, the +outer door opened, and Basterga appeared and advanced, smiling, towards +him. + +"Your servant, Messer Syndic," he said. "I heard that you had been +inquiring for me in my absence, and I am here to place myself at your +disposition. You are not looking----" he stopped short, in feigned +surprise. "There is nothing wrong, I hope?" + +Had the scholar been such a man as Baudichon, Blondel's answer would +have been one frenzied shriek of insults and reproaches. But face to +face with Basterga's massive quietude, with his giant bulk, with that +air, at once masterful and cynical, which proclaimed to those with whom +he talked that he gave them but half his mind while reading theirs, the +wrath of the smaller man cooled. A moment his lips writhed, without +sound; then, "Wrong?" he cried, his voice harsh and broken. "Wrong? All +is wrong!" + +"You are not well?" Basterga said, eyeing him with concern. + +"Well? I shall never be better! Never!" Blondel shrieked. And after a +pause, "Curse you!" he added. "It is your doing!" + +Basterga stared. He was in the dark as to what had happened, though the +Syndic's manner on leaving the bridge had prepared him for something. +"My doing, Messer Blondel?" he said. "Why? What have I done?" + +"Done?" + +"Ay, done! It was not my fault," the scholar continued, with a touch of +sternness, "that I could not offer you the _remedium_ on easy terms. Nor +mine, that hard as the terms were, you did not accept them. Besides," he +continued, slowly and with meaning, + + "Terque quaterque redit! + +You remember the Sibylline books? How often they were offered, and the +terms? It is not too late, Messer Blondel--even now. While there is life +there is hope, there is more than hope. There is certainty." + +"Is there?" Blondel cried; he extended a lean hand, shaking with +vindictive passion. "Is there? Go and look in your casket, fool! Go and +look in your steel box!" he hissed. "Go! And see if it be not too late!" + +For a moment Basterga peered at him, his brow contracted, his eyes +screwed up. The blow was unexpected. Then, "Have you taken the stuff?" +he muttered. + +"I? No! But she has!" And on that, seeing the change in the other's +face--for, for once, the scholar's mask slipped and suffered his +consternation to appear--Blondel laughed triumphantly: in torture +himself, he revelled in a disaster that touched another. "She has! She +has!" + +"She? Who?" + +"The girl of the house! Anne you call her! Curse her! child of +perdition, as she is! She!" And he clawed the air. + +"She has taken it?" Basterga spoke incredulously, but his brow was damp, +his cheeks were a shade more sallow than usual; he did not deceive the +other's penetration. "Impossible!" he continued, striving to rally his +forces. "Why should she take it? She has no illness, no disease! +Try"--he swallowed something--"to be clear, man. Try to be clear. Who +has told you this cock-and-bull story?" + +"It is the truth." + +"She has taken it?" + +"To give to her mother--yes." + +"And she?" + +"Has taken it? Yes." + +The scholar, ordinarily so cool and self-contained, could not withhold +an execration. His small eyes glittered, his face swelled with rage; for +a moment he was within a little of an explosion. Of what mad, what +insensate folly, unworthy of a schoolboy, worthy only of a sot, an +imbecile, a Grio, had he been guilty! To leave the potion, that if it +had not the virtues which he ascribed to it, had virtue--or it had not +served his purpose of deceiving the Syndic during some days or hours--to +leave the potion unprotected, at the mercy of a chance hand, of a +treacherous girl! Safeguarded, in appearance only, and to blind his +dupe! It seemed incredible that he could have been so careless! + +True, he might replace the stuff at some expense; but not in a day or an +hour. And how--with one dose in all the world!--keep up the farce? The +dose consumed, the play was at an end. An end--or, no, was he losing his +wits, his courage? On the instant, in the twinkling of an eye, he shaped +a fresh course. + +He cursed the girl anew, and apparently with the same fervour. "A +month's work it cost me!" he cried. "A month's work! and ten gold +pieces!" + +The Syndic, pale, and almost in a state of collapse--for the bitter +satisfaction of imparting the news no longer supported him--stared. "A +month's work?" he muttered. "A month? Years you told me! And a fortune!" + +"I told you? Never!" Basterga opened his eyes in seeming amazement. +"Never, good sir, in all my life!" he repeated emphatically. +"But"--returning grimly to his former point--"ten gold pieces, or a +fortune--no matter which, she shall pay dearly for it, the thieving +jade!" + +The Syndic sat heavily in his seat, and, with a hand on either arm of +the abbot's chair, stared dully at the other. "A fortune, you told me," +he said, in a voice little above a whisper. "And years. Was it a +fiction, all a fiction? About Ibn Jasher, and the Physician of Aleppo, +and M. Laurens of Paris, and--and the rest?" + +Basterga deliberately took a turn to the window, came back, and stood +looking down at him. "Mon Dieu!" he muttered. "Is it possible?" + +"Eh?" + +"I can scarcely believe it!" The scholar spoke with a calmness half +cynical, half compassionate. "But I suppose you really think that of me, +though it seems incredible! You are under the impression that the drug +this jade stole was the _remedium_ of Ibn Jasher, the one incomparable +and sovereign result of long years of study and research? You believe +that I kept this in a mere locked box, the key accessible by all who +knew my habits, and the treasure at the mercy of the first thief! Mon +Dieu! Mon Dieu! If I said it a thousand times I could not express my +astonishment. I might be the vine grower of the proverb, + + Cui saepe viator + Cessisset magna compellans voce cucullum!" + +The Syndic heard him without changing the attitude of weakness and +exhaustion into which he had fallen on sitting down. But midway in the +other's harangue, his lips parted, he held his breath, and in his eyes +grew a faint light of dawning hope. "But if it be not so?" he muttered +feebly. "If this be not so, why----" + +"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" + +"Why did you look so startled a moment ago?" + +"Why, man? Because ten pieces of gold are ten pieces! To me at least! +And the potion, which was made after a recipe of that same Messer +Laurens of Paris, cost no less. It is a love-philtre, beneficent to the +young, but if taken by the old so noxious, that had you swallowed it," +with a grin, "you had not been long Syndic, Messer Blondel!" + +Blondel shook his head. "You do not deceive me," he muttered. For though +he was anxious to believe, as yet he could not. He could not; he had +seen the other's face. "It is the _remedium_ she has taken! I feel it." + +"And given to her mother?" + +Blondel inclined his head. + +The scholar laughed contemptuously. "Then is the test easy," he said. +"If it be the _remedium_ you will find her mother, who has not left her +bed for three years, grown strong and well and vigorous, and like to him +who lifted up his bed and walked. But if it be the love-philtre, you +have but to come with me, and you will find her----" He did not finish +the sentence, but a shrug of his shoulders and a mysterious smile filled +the gap. + +Imperceptibly Blondel had raised himself in his chair. The gleam of +hope, once lighted in his eyes, was growing bright. "How?" he asked. +"How shall we find her? If it be the philtre only that she has taken--as +you say?" + +"If it be the philtre? The mother, you mean?" + +"Yes." + +"Mad! Mad!" Basterga repeated with decision, "and beside herself. As you +had been," he continued grimly, "had you by any chance taken the _aqua +Medeae_." + +"That you kept in the steel box?" + +"Ay." + +"You are sure it was not the _remedium_?" Blondel leaned forward. If +only he could believe it, if only it were the truth, how great the +difference! No wonder that the muscles of his lean throat swelled, and +his hands closed convulsively on the arms of his great chair, as he +strove to read the other's mind. + +He had as soon read a printed page without light. The scholar saw that +it needed but a little to convince him, and took his line with +confidence; nor without some pride in the wits that had saved him. "The +_remedium_?" he repeated with impatient wonder. "Do you know that the +_remedium_ is unique? That it is a man's life? That in the world's +history it scarce appears once in five hundred years? That all the +wealth of kings cannot produce it, nor the Spanish Indies furnish it? Do +you remember these things, Messer Blondel, and do you ask if I keep it +like a common philtre in a box in my lodgings?" He snorted in contempt, +and going disdainfully to the hearth spat in the fire as if he could not +brook the idea. Then returning to the Syndic's side, he took up his +story in a different tone. "The _remedium_," he said, "my good friend, +is in the Grand Duke's Treasury at Turin. It is in a steel box, it is +true, but in one with three locks and three keys, sealed with the Grand +Duke's private signet and with mine; and laid where the Treasurer +himself cannot meddle with it." + +The Syndic sat up straight, and with his eyes fixed sullenly on the +floor fingered his beard. He was almost persuaded, but not quite. Could +it be, could it really be that the thing still existed? That it was +still to be obtained, that life by its means was still possible? + +"Well?" Basterga said, when the silence had lasted some time. + +"The proof!" Blondel retorted, excitement once more over-mastering him. +"Let me have the proof! Let me see, man, if the woman be mad." + +But the scholar, leaning Atlas-like, against the wall beside the long +low window, with his arms crossed, and his great head sunk on his +breast, did not move. He saw that this was his hour and he must use it. +"To what purpose?" he answered slowly: and he shrugged his shoulders. +"Why go to the trouble? The _remedium_ is in Turin. And if it be not, it +is the Grand Duke's affair only, and mine, since you will not come to +his terms. I would, I confess," he continued, in a more kindly tone, +"that it were your affair also, Messer Blondel. I would I could have +made you see things as they are and as I see them. As, believe me, +Messer Petitot would see them were he in your place; as Messer Fabri and +Messer Baudichon--I warrant it--do see them; as--pardon me--all who rank +themselves among the wise and the illuminate, see them. For all such, +believe me, these are times of enlightening, when the words which past +generations have woven into shackles for men's minds fall from them, and +are seen to be but the straw they are; when men move, like children +awaking from foolish dreams, and life----" + +The Syndic's eyes glowed dully. + +"Life," Basterga continued sonorously, "is seen to be that which it is, +the one thing needful which makes all other things of use, and without +which all other things are superfluities! Bethink you a minute, Messer +Blondel! Would Petitot give his life to save yours?" + +The Syndic smiled after a sickly fashion. Petitot? The stickling pedant! +The thin, niggling whipster! + +"Or Messer Fabri?" + +Blondel shook his head. + +"Or Messer Baudichon?" + +"I called him but now--a fat hog!" + +It was Basterga's turn to shake his head. "He is not one to forget," he +said gravely. "I fear you will hear of that again, Messer Blondel. I +fear it will make trouble for you. But if these will not, is there any +man in Geneva, any man you can name, who would give his life for you?" + +"Do men give life so easily?" Blondel answered, moving painfully in his +chair. + +"Yet you will give yours for them! You will give yours! And who will be +a ducat the better?" + +"I shall at least die for freedom," the Syndic muttered, gnawing his +moustache. + +"A word!" + +"For the religion, then." + +"It is that which men make it!" the scholar retorted. "There have been +good men of all religions, though we dare not say as much in public, or +in Geneva. 'Tis not the religion. 'Tis the way men live it! Was John +Bernardino of Assisi, whom some call St. Francis, a worse man than +Arnold of Brescia, the Reformer? Or is your Beza a better man than +Messer Francis of Sales? Or would the heavens fall if Geneva embraced +the faith of the good Archbishop of Milan? Words, Messer Blondel, +believe me, words!" + +"Yet men die for them!" + +"Not wise men. And when you have died for them, who will thank you?" The +Syndic groaned. "Who will know, or style you martyr?" Basterga continued +forcibly. "Baudichon, whom you have called a fat hog? He will sit in +your seat. Petitot--he said but a little while ago that he would buy +this house if he lived long enough." + +"He did?" The Syndic came to his feet as if a spring had raised him. + +"Certainly. And he is a rich man, you know." + +"May the Bise search his bones!" Blondel cried, trembling with fury. For +this was the realisation of his worst fears. Petitot to live in his +house, lie warm in his bed, sneer at his memory across the table that +had been his, rule in the Council where he had been first! Petitot, that +miserable crawler who had clogged his efforts for years, who had shared, +without deserving, his honours, who had spied on him and carped at him +day by day and hour by hour! Petitot to succeed him! To be all and own +all, and sun himself in the popular eye, and say "Geneva, it is I!" +While he, Blondel, lay rotting and forgotten, stark, beneath snow and +rain, winter wind and summer drought! + +Perish Geneva first! Perish friend and foe alike! + +The Syndic wavered. His hand shook, his thin dry cheek burned with +fever, his lips moved unceasingly. Why should he die? They would not die +for him. Nay, they would not thank him, they would not praise him. A +traitor? To live he must turn traitor? Ay, but try Petitot, and see if +he would not do the same! Or Baudichon, who could not sleep of nights +for fear--how would he act with death staring him in the face? The +bravest soldiers when disarmed, or called upon to surrender or die, +capitulate without blame. And that was his position. + +Life, too; dear, warm life! Life that might hold much for him still. +Hitherto these men and their fellows had hampered and thwarted him, +marred his plans and balked his efforts. Freed from them and supported +by an enlightened and ambitious prince, he might rise to heights +hitherto invisible. He might lift up and cast down at will, might rule +the Council as his creatures, might live to see Berne and the Cantons at +his feet, might leave Geneva the capital of a great and wealthy country. + +All this, at his will; or he might die! Die and rot and be forgotten +like a dog that is cast out. + +He did not believe in his heart that faith and honour were words; +fetters woven by wise men to hamper fools. He did not believe that all +religions were alike, and good or bad as men made them. But on the one +side was life, and on the other death. And he longed to live. + +"I would that I could make you see things as I see them," Basterga +resumed, in a gentle tone. Patiently waiting the other's pleasure he had +not missed an expression of his countenance, and, thinking the moment +ripe, he used his last argument. "Believe me, I have the will, all the +will, to help you. And the terms are not mine. Only I would have you +remember this, Messer Blondel: that others may do what you will not, so +that after all you may find that you have cast life away, and no one the +better. Baudichon, for instance, plays the Brutus in public. But he is a +fearful man, and a timid; and to save himself and his family--he thinks +much of his family--he would do what you will not." + +"He would do it!" the Syndic cried passionately. And he struck the +table. "He would, curse him!" + +"And he would not forget," Basterga continued, with a meaning nod, "that +you had miscalled him!" + +"No! But I will be before him!" The Syndic was on his feet again, +shaking like a leaf. + +"Ay?" Basterga blew his nose to hide the flash of triumph that shone in +his eyes. "You will be wise in time? Well, I am not surprised. I thought +that you would not be so mad--that no man could be so mad as to throw +away life for a shadow!" + +"But mind you," Blondel snarled, "the proof. I must have the proof," he +repeated. He was anxious to persuade himself that his surrender depended +on a condition; he would fain hide his shame under a show of bargaining. +"The proof, man, or I will not take a step." + +"You shall have it." + +"To-day?" + +"Within the hour." + +"And if she be not mad--I believe you are deceiving me, and it was the +_remedium_ the girl took--if she be not mad----" The Syndic, stammering +and repeating himself, broke off there. He could not meet the other's +eyes; between a shame new to him and the overpowering sense of what he +had done, he was in a pitiable state. "Curse you," with violence, "I +believe you have laid a trap for me!" he cried. "I say if she be not +mad, I have done." + +"Let it stand so," Basterga answered placidly. "Trust me, if she has +taken the philtre she will be mad enough. Which reminds me that I also +have a crow to pick with Mistress Anne." + +"Curse her!" + +"We will do more than that," Basterga murmured. "If she be not very good +we will burn her, my friend. + + Uritur infelix Dido, totaque videtur + Urbe furens!" + +His eyes were cruel, and he licked his lips as he applied the +quotation. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +THE BARGAIN STRUCK. + + +Claude, at the first sign of peril, had put himself between Anne and the +door; and, had not the fear which seized the girl at the sight of +Basterga robbed her of the power to think, she must have thrilled with a +new and delicious sensation. She, who had not for years known what it +was to be sheltered behind another, was now to know the bliss of being +protected. Nor did her lover remain on the defensive. It was he who +challenged the intruders. + +"What is it?" he asked, as the Syndic crossed the threshold; which was +darkened a moment later by the scholar's huge form. "What is your +business here, Messer Syndic, if it please you?" + +"With you, none!" Blondel answered; and pausing a little within the +door, he cast a look, cold and searching, round the apartment. His +outward composure hid a tumult of warring passions; shame and rage were +at odds within him, and rising above both was a venomous desire to exact +retribution from some one. "Nothing with you!" he repeated. "You may +stand aside, young man, or, better, go to your classes. What do you here +at this hour, and idle, were the fitting question; and not, what is my +business! Do you hear, sirrah?" with a rap of his staff of office on the +floor. "Begone to your work!" + +But Claude, who had been thirsting this hour past for realms to conquer +and dragons to subdue, and who, with his mistress beside him, felt +himself a match for any ten, was not to be put aside. His manhood +rebelled against the notion of leaving Anne with men whose looks boded +the worst. "I am at home," he replied, breathing a little more quickly, +and aware that in defying the Syndic he was casting away the scabbard. +"I am at home in this house. I have done no wrong. I am in no inn now, +and I know of no right which you have to expel me without cause from my +own lodging." + +Blondel's lean face grew darker. "You beard me?" he cried. + +"I beard no one," Claude answered hardily. "I am at home here, that is +all. If you have lawful business here, do it. I am no hindrance to you. +If you have no lawful business--and as to that," he continued, recalling +with indignation the tricks which had been employed to remove him, "I +have my opinion--I have as much right to be here as you! The more, as it +is not very long," he went on, with a glance of defiance, directed at +Basterga, "since you gave the man who now accompanies you the foulest of +characters! Since you would have me rob him! Since you called him +reprobate of the reprobate! Is he reprobate now?" + +"Silence!" + +"A corrupter of women, as you called him?" + +"Liar!" the Syndic cried, trembling with passion. "Be silent!" The blow +found him unprepared. "He lies!" he stammered, turning to his ally. + +Basterga laughed softly. He had guessed as much: none the less he +thought it time to interfere, lest his tool be put too much out of +countenance. "Gently, young man," he said, "or perhaps you may go too +far. I know you." + +"He is a liar!" Blondel repeated. + +"Probably," Basterga said, "but it matters not. It is enough that our +business here lies not with him, but with this young woman. You seem to +have taken her under your protection," he continued, addressing Claude, +"and may choose, if you please, whether you will see her haled through +the streets, or will suffer her to answer our questions here. As you +please." + +"Your questions?" Claude cried, recalling with rage the occasions on +which he had heard this man insult her. "Hear me one moment, and I will +very quickly prove----" + +He was silent with the word on his lips. Her hand on his sleeve recalled +the necessity of prudence. He bit his lip and stood glowering at them. +It was she who spoke. + +"What do you wish?" she asked in a low voice. + +Naturally courageous as she was, she could not have spoken but for the +support of her lover. For the unexpected conjunction of these two, and +their entrance together, smote her with fear. "What is your desire?" she +repeated. + +"To see your mother," Basterga answered. "We have no business with +you--at present," he added, after a perceptible pause, and with a slight +emphasis. + +She caught her breath. "You want to see my mother?" she faltered. + +"I spoke plainly," Basterga replied with sternness. "That was what I +said." + +"What do you want with her?" + +"That is our affair." + +Pale to the lips, she hesitated. Yet, after all, why should they not go +up and see her mother? Things were not to-day as they had been +yesterday: or she had done in vain that which she had done, had sinned +in vain if she had sinned. And that was a thing not to be considered. +If they found her mother as she had left her, if they found the promise +of the morning fulfilled, even their unexpected entrance would do no +harm. Her mother was sane to-day: sane and well as other people, thank +God! It was on that account she had let her heart rise like a bird's to +her lips. + +Yet, when she opened her mouth to assent, she found the words with +difficulty. "I do not know what you want," she said faintly. "Still if +you wish to see her you can go up." + +"Good!" Basterga replied, and advancing, he opened the staircase door, +then stood aside for the Syndic to ascend first. "Good! The uppermost +floor, Messer Blondel," he continued, holding the door wide. "The stairs +are narrow, but I think I can promise you that at the top you will find +what you want." + +He could not divest his tone of the triumph he felt. Slight as the +warning was, it sufficed; while the last word was still on his lips, she +snatched the door from his grasp, closed it and stood panting before it. +What inward monition had spoken to her, what she had seen, what she had +heard, besides that note of triumph in Basterga's voice, matters not. +Her mind was changed. + +"No!" she cried. "You do not go up! No!" + +"You will not let us see her?" Basterga exclaimed. + +"No!" Her breast heaving, she confronted them without fear. + +In his surprise at her action the scholar had recoiled a step: he was +fiercely angry. "Come, girl, no nonsense," he said roughly and brutally. +"Make way! Or we shall have a little to say to you of what you did in my +room last night! Do you mark me?" he continued. "I might have you +punished for it, wench! I might have you whipped and branded for it! Do +you mind me? You robbed me, and that which you took----" + +"I took at his instigation!" she retorted, pointing an accusing finger +at Blondel, who stood gnawing his beard, hating the part he was playing, +and hating still more this white-faced girl who had come so near to +ruining, if she had not ruined, his last chance of life. Hate her? The +Syndic hated her for the hour of anguish through which he had just +passed, hated her for the price--he shuddered to think of it--which he +must now pay for his life. He hated her for his present humiliation, he +hated her for his future shame. She seemed to blame for all. + +"You took it," Basterga answered, acknowledging her words only by a +disdainful shrug, "and gave it to your mother. Why, I care not. Now that +you see we know so much, will you let us go up!" + +"No!" She faced him bravely and steadfastly. "No. If you know so much, +you know also why I took it, and why I gave it to her." And then, the +radiance of unselfish love illuminating her pallid face, "I would do it +again were it to do," she said. "And again, and yet again! For you, I +have done you wrong; I have robbed you, and you may punish me. I must +bear it. But as to him," pointing to Messer Blondel, "I am innocent! +Innocent," she repeated firmly. "For he would have done it himself and +for himself; it was he who would have me do it. And if I have done it, I +have done it for another. I have robbed you, if need be I must pay the +price; but that man has naught against me in this! And for the rest, my +mother is well." + +"Ah?" + +"Ay, well! well!" she repeated, the light of joy softening her eyes as +she repeated the word. "Well! and I fear nothing." + +Basterga laughed cruelly. "Well?" he said. "Well, is she? Then let us go +up and see her. If she be well, why not?" + +"No!" + +"Why not?" + +She did not answer, but she did not make way. + +"Why not? I will tell you, if you please," he said. "And it will make +you pipe to another tune. You have given her, young woman, that which +will make her worse, and not better!" + +"She is better!" + +"For an hour, or for twelve hours!" he retorted. "That certainly. Then +worse." + +"No!" + +"No? But I see what it is," he continued--and, alas, his voice +strengthened the fear that like a dead hand was closing on her heart and +staying it; deepened the terror that like a veil was falling before her +eyes and darkening the room; so that she had much ado, gripping +finger-nails into palms, to keep her feet and let herself from fainting. +"I see what it is. You would fain play Providence," he continued--"that +is it, is it? You would play Providence? Then come! Come then, and see +what kind of Providence it is you have played. We will see if you are +right or I am right! And if she be well, or if she be ill!" And again he +moved towards the staircase. + +But she stood obstinately between him and the door. "No," she said. "You +do not go up!" She was resolute. The fear that as she listened to his +gibing tones had driven the colour from her face, had hardened it too. +For, if he were right? If for that fear there were foundation? If that +which the Syndic had led her to give and that which she had given, +proved--though for a few hours it had seemed to impart marvellous +vigour--useless or worse than useless? Then the need to keep these men +from her mother was the greater, the more desperate. How they could be +kept, for how long it was possible to keep them, she did not pause to +consider, any more than the she-wolf that crouches, snarling, between +her whelps and the hunt, counts odds. It was enough for her that if they +were right the worst had come, and naught lay between her mother's +weakness and their cruel eyes and judgments but her own feeble strength. + +Or no! she was wrong in that; she had forgotten! As she spoke, and as +Basterga with a scowl repeated the order to stand aside, Claude put her +gently but irresistibly by, and took her place. The young man's eyes +were bright, his colour high. "You will not go up!" he said, a mocking +note of challenge, replying to Basterga's tone, in his voice. "You will +not go up." + +"Fool! Will you prevent us?" + +"You will not go up! No!" + +In the very act of falling on the lad, Basterga recoiled. Claude had not +been idle while the others disputed. He had gone to the corner for his +sword, and it was the glittering point, suddenly whipped out and +flickered before his eyes that gave the scholar pause, and made him leap +back. "Pollux!" he cried, "are you mad? Put down! Put down! Do you see +the Syndic? Do you know," he continued, stamping his foot, "that it is +penal to draw in Geneva?" + +"I know that you are not going upstairs!" Claude answered gently. He was +radiant. He would not have exchanged his position for a crown. She was +looking, and he was going to fight. + +"You fool," Basterga returned, "we have but to call the watch from the +Tertasse and you will be haled to the lock-up, and jailed and whipped, +if not worse! And that jade with you! _Stultus es?_ Do you hear? Messer +Syndic, will you be thwarted in this fashion? Call these lawbreakers to +order and bid them have done!" + +"Put up!" the Syndic cried, hoarse with rage. He was beside himself, +when he thought of the position in which he had placed himself. He +looked at the two as if he would fain have slain them where they stood. +"Or I call the watch, and it will be the worse for you," he continued. +"Do you hear me? Put up?" + +"He shall not go upstairs!" Claude answered, breathing quickly. He was +pale, but utterly and fixedly resolved. If Basterga made a movement to +attack him, he would run him through whatever the consequences. + +"Then, fool, I will call the watch!" Blondel babbled, fairly beside +himself. + +Claude had no answer to that; only they should not go up. It was the +girl's readier wit furnished the answer. + +"Call them!" she cried, in a clear voice. "Call the watch, Messer +Syndic, and I will tell them the whole story. What Messer Blondel would +have had me do, and get, and give." + +"It was for the State!" the Syndic hissed. + +"And is it for the State that you come to-day with that man?" she +retorted, and with her outstretched finger she accused Basterga of +unspoken things. "That man! Last night you would have had me rob him. +The day before he was a traitor. To-day he and you are one. Are one! +What are you plotting together?" + +The Syndic shrank from the other's side under the stab of her +words--words that, uttered at random, flew, straight as the arrow that +slew Ahab, to the joint of his armour. "To-day you and that man are +one," she repeated. "One! What are you plotting together?" + +She knew as much as that, did she? She knew that they were one, and that +they were plotting together; while in the Council men were clamouring +for the Paduan's arrest, and were growing suspicious because he was not +arrested--Baudichon, whom he had called a fat hog, and Petitot, that +slow, plodding sleuth-hound of a patriot. What if light fell on the true +state of things--and less than the girl had said might cast that light? +Then the warrant might go, not for the Paduan only, but for himself. Ay, +for him! For with an enemy ever lying within a league of the gates +warrants flew quickly in Geneva. Men who sleep ill of nights, and take +the cock-crow for war's alarum, are suspicious, and, once roused, +without ruth or mercy. + +There was the joint in his harness. Once let his name be published with +Basterga's,--as must happen if the watch were summoned and the girl +spoke out--and no one could say where the matter might end, or what +suspicions might not be awakened. Nay, the matter was worse, more +perilous and more lightly balanced; for, setting himself aside, none the +less was a brawl that brought up Basterga's name, a thing to be shunned. +The least thing might precipitate the scholar's arrest; his arrest must +lead to the loss of the _remedium_, if it existed; and the loss of the +_remedium_ to the loss of that which Messer Blondel had come to value +the more dearly the more he sacrificed to keep it--the Syndic's life. + +He dared not call the watch, and he dared not use violence. As he awoke +to those two facts, he stood blinking in dismayed silence, swallowing +his rage, and hating the girl and hating the man with a dumb hatred. +Though the reasons which weighed with him were unknown to the two, they +could not be blind to his fear and his baffled mien; and had he been +alone they might have taken victory for certain. But Basterga was not +one to be so lightly thwarted. His intellect, his wit, his very mass +intimidated. Therefore it was with as much relief as surprise that Anne +read in his face the reflection of the other's doubts, and saw that he, +too, gave back. + +"You are two fools!" he said. "Two great, big fools!" There was +resignation, there was something that was almost approval in his tones. +"You do not know what you are doing! Is there no way of making you hear +reason?" + +"You cannot go up," Anne said. She had won, it seemed, without knowing +how she had won. + +Basterga grunted; and then, "Ah, well," he said, addressing Claude, "if +I had you in the fields, my lad, it would not be that bit of metal would +save you!" And he spouted with appropriate gesture-- + + "--Illum fidi aequales, genua aegra trahentem + Jactantemque utroque caput, crassumque cruorem + Ore ejectantem mixtosque in sanguine dentes + Ducunt ad navis! + +Half an hour in my company, and you would not be so bold." + +Claude smiled with pardonable contempt, but made no reply, nor did he +change his attitude. + +"Come!" Blondel muttered, addressing his ally with his eyes averted. "I +have reasons at present for letting them be!" They were strange reasons, +to judge by the hang-dog look of the proud magistrate. "But I shall know +how to deal with them by-and-by. Come, man, come!" he repeated +impatiently. And he turned towards the door and unlocked it. + +Basterga moved reluctantly after him. "Ay, we go now," he said, with a +look full of menace. "But wait a while! Caesar Basterga does not forget, +and his turn will come! Where is my cap?" + +He had let it fall on the floor, and he turned to pick it up, stooping +slowly and with difficulty as stout men do. As he raised himself, his +head still low, he butted it suddenly and with an activity for which no +one would have given him credit full into Claude's chest. The unlucky +young man, who had lowered his weapon the instant before, fell back with +a "sough" against the wall, and leant there, pale and breathless. Anne +uttered one scream, then the scholar's huge arm enfolded her neck and +drew her backwards against his breast. + +"Up! up! Messer Blondel!" he cried. "Now is your chance! Up and surprise +her!" And with his disengaged hand he gripped Claude, for further +safety, by the collar. "Up; I will keep them quiet!" + +The Syndic wasted a moment in astonishment, then he took in the +situation and the other's cleverness. Before Basterga had ceased to +speak, he was at the door of the staircase, and had dragged it open. But +as he set his foot on the lowest stair, Anne, held as she was against +Basterga's breast, and almost stifled by the arm which covered her +mouth, managed to clutch the Syndic by his skirts, and, once having +taken hold, held him with the strength of despair. In vain he struggled +and strove and wrestled to jerk himself free; in vain Basterga, hampered +by Claude, tried to drag the girl away--Blondel came away with her! She +clung to him, and even, freeing her mouth for a moment, succeeded in +uttering a scream. + +"Curse her!" Basterga foamed: and had he had a hand to spare, he would +have struck her down. "Pull, man, have you no strength! Let go, you +vixen! Let go, or----" + +He tried to press her throat, but in changing his hold allowed her to +utter a second scream, louder, more shrill, more full of passion than +the other. At the same instant a chair, knocked down by Blondel in his +efforts, fell with a crash, throwing down a pewter platter; and Claude, +white and breathless as he was, began to struggle, seeing his mistress +so handled. The four swayed to and fro. Another moment, and either the +Syndic must have jerked himself free, or the contest must have attained +to dimensions that could not escape the notice of the neighbours, when a +sound--a sound from within, from upstairs--stayed the tumult as by +magic. + +Blondel ceased to struggle, and stood aghast. Basterga relaxed his hold +upon his prisoners and listened. Claude leant back against the wall. The +girl alone--she alone moved. Without speaking, without looking, as a +bird flies to its young, she sprang to the stairs and fled up them. + +The maniacal laugh, the crazy words--a moment only, they heard them: and +then the door above, which the poor woman, so long bedridden, had +contrived in her frenzy of fear to open, closed on the sounds and +stifled them. But enough had been heard: enough to convince Blondel, +enough to justify Basterga, enough to change the fortunes of more than +one in the room. The scholar's eyes met the Syndic's. + +"Are you satisfied?" he asked, in a low voice. + +Blondel, breathing hard, nodded. + +"You heard?" + +He nodded a second time. He looked scared. + +"Then you have enough to burn the old witch and the young one with her!" +Basterga replied. He turned his small eyes, sparkling with malignity, on +the young man, who stood against the wall, pale, and but half recovered +from the blow he had sustained. "You thought to thwart me, did you, +Messer Claude? You thought yourself clever enough to play with Caesar +Basterga, did you? To hold at bay--oh, clever fellow--a magistrate and a +scholar! And defy us both! Now I will tell you what will come of it!" He +shook his great finger in front of the young man. "Your pretty bit of +pink and white will burn! Burn, see you! A show for the little boys, a +holiday for the young men and the young women, a treat for the old men, +who will see her white limbs writhe in the smoke! Ha!" as Claude, with a +face of horror, would have waved him away, "that touches you, does it? +You had not thought of that? Nay, you had not thought of other things. I +tell you, before the sun sets this evening, this house shall be +anathema! Before night what we have heard will be known abroad, and +there will be much added to it. There was a child died in the fourth +house from this on Sunday! It will be odd if she did not overlook it. +And the young wife of the Lieutenant at the Porte Tertasse, who has +ailed since her marriage--a pale thing; who knows but he looked this way +once and Mistress Anne thought ill of his defection? Ha! Ha! You would +cross Caesar Basterga, would you? No, Messer Claude," he set his huge +foot on the fallen sword which Claude had made a movement to recover. "I +fight with other weapons than that! And if you lay a finger on me"--he +extended his arms to their widest extent--"I will crush the life out of +you. That is better," as Claude stood glaring helplessly at him--"I +teach you prudence, at any rate. And as," with a sneer, "you are so apt +at learning, I will do you, if you choose, a greater kindness that man +ever did you, or woman either!" + +The young man, breathing quickly, did not speak. Perhaps his eyes were +watching for an opening; at the least appearance of one he would have +flung himself upon his enemy. + +"You do not choose. And yet, I will do it. In one word--Go! + + Teque his, puer, eripe flammis!" + +He pointed to the door with a gesture tragic enough. "Go and live, for +if you stay you die! Wait not until the chain is drawn before the door, +until boards darken the windows, and men cross the street when they +would pass! Until women hide their heads as they go by, and the market +will not sell, nor the water run for you! For then, as surely as she +will perish, you will perish with her!" + +"So be it!" Claude cried. And in his turn he pointed, not without +dignity, to the door. "Go you, and our blood be upon your head!" + +Basterga shrugged his shoulders, and in one moment put the thing and his +grand manner away from him. "Enough! we will go," he said. "You are +satisfied, Messer Syndic? Yes. Farewell, young sir, you have my last +word." And while the young man stood glowering at him, he opened the +street door, and the two passed out. + +"You will not go on with this?" Blondel muttered with a backward +gesture, as the two paused. + +"Nothing," Basterga answered in a low voice, "will suit our purpose +better. It will amuse Geneva and fill men's mouths till the time come. +For you too, Messer Blondel," he continued, with a piercing look, "will +live and not die, I take it?" + +The other knew then that the hour had come to set his seal to the +bargain: and equally, that if at this eleventh hour he would return, the +path was open. But _facilis_--known is the rest, and the grip which a +strong nature gains on a weaker, and how hardly fear, once admitted, is +cast out. Within the Syndic's sight rose one of the gates, almost within +touch rose the rampart of the city, long his own, which he was asked to +betray. The mountains of his native land, pure, cold and sunlit, stood +up against the blue depth of winter sky, eloquent of the permanence of +things, and the insignificance of men. The contemplation of them turned +his cheek a shade paler and struck terror to his heart; but did not stay +him. His eyes avoiding the other's gaze, his face shrinking and +pitiable, shame already his portion, he nodded. + +"Precisely," Basterga said. "Then nothing can better serve our purpose +than this. Let your officers know what you have heard, and know that you +would hear more--of this house. That, and a hint of evil practices and +witch's spells dropped here and there, will give your townsfolk +something to talk of and stare at and swallow--till our time come." + +"But if I bid them watch this house," Blondel muttered weakly--how fast, +how fast the thing was passing out of his hands!--"attention will be +called to you, and then, Messer Basterga----" + +"My work is done here," Basterga replied calmly. "I have crossed that +threshold for the last time. When I leave you--and it is time we +parted--I go out of the gates, not again to return until--until things +have been brought to the point at which we would have them, Messer +Blondel." + +"And that," the Syndic said with a shudder, "will be?" + +"Towards the longest night. Say, in a week or so from now. The precise +moment--that and other things, I will let you know by a safe mouth." + +"But the _remedium_? That first!" the Syndic muttered, a scowl, for a +second, darkening his face. + +Basterga smiled. "Have no fear," he replied. "That first, by all means. +And afterwards--Geneva." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE DEPARTURE OF THE RATS. + + +The wood-ash on the hearth had sunk lower and grown whiter. The last +flame that had licked the black sides of the great pot had died down +among the expiring embers. Only under the largest log glowed a tiny +cavern, carbuncle-hued; and still Claude walked restlessly from the +window to the door, or listened with a frowning face at the foot of the +stairs. One hour, two hours had passed since the Syndic's departure with +Basterga; and still Anne remained with her mother and made no sign. +Once, spurred by anxiety and the thought that he might be of use, Claude +had determined to mount and seek her; but half-way up the stairs his +courage had failed he had recoiled from a scene so tender, and so +sacred. He had descended and fallen again to moving to and fro, and +listening, and staring remorsefully at the weapon--it lay where he had +dropped it on the floor--that had failed him in his need. + +He had their threats in his ears, and by-and-by the horror of inaction, +the horror of sitting still and awaiting the worst with folded hands, +overcame him; and in a panic planning flight for them all, flight, +however hopeless, however desperate, he hurried into his bed-closet, and +began to pack his possessions. He packed impulsively until even the fat +text-books bulked in his bundle, and the folly of flying for life with a +Caesar and Melancthon on his back struck him. Then he turned all out on +the floor in a fury of haste lest she should surprise him, and think +that he had had it in his mind to desert her. + +Back he went on that to the living-room with its dying fire and +lengthening shadows; and there he resumed his solitary pacing. The room +lay silent, the house lay silent; even the rampart without, which the +biting wind kept clear of passers. He tried to reason on the position, +to settle what would happen, what steps Basterga and Blondel would take, +how the blow they threatened would fall. Would the officers of the +Syndic enter and seize the two helpless women and drag them to the +guard-house? In that case, what should he do, what could he do, since it +was most unlikely that he would be allowed to go with them or see them? +For a time the desperate notion of bolting and barring the house and +holding it against the law possessed his mind; but only to be quickly +dismissed. He was not yet mad enough for that. In the meantime was there +any one to whom he could appeal? Any course he could adopt? + +The sound of the latch rising in its socket drew his eyes to the outer +door. It opened, and he saw Louis Gentilis on the threshold. Holding the +door ajar, the young man peered in. Meeting Claude's eyes, he looked to +the stairs, as if to seek the protection of Anne's presence; failing to +find her, he made for an instant as if he would shut the door again, and +go. But apparently he saw that Claude, thoroughly dispirited, was making +no motion to carry out his threats of vengeance; and he thought better +of it. He came in slowly, and closed the door after him. Turning his cap +in his hand, and with his eyes slyly fixed on Claude, he made without a +word for his bed-closet, entered it, and closed the door behind him. + +His silence was strange, and his furtive manner impressed Claude +unpleasantly. They seemed to imply a knowledge that boded ill; nor was +the impression they made weakened when, two minutes later, the closet +door opened again, and he came out. + +"What is it?" Claude asked, speaking sharply. He was not going to put up +with mystery of this sort. + +For answer Louis' eyes met his a moment; then the young man, without +speaking, slid across the room to a chair on which lay a book. He took +up the volume; it was his. Next he discovered another possession--or so +it seemed--approached it and took seisin of it in the same dumb way; and +so with another and another. Finally, blinking and looking askance, he +passed his eyes from side to side to learn if he had overlooked +anything. + +But Claude's patience, though prolonged by curiosity, was at an end. He +took a step forward, and had the satisfaction of seeing Louis drop his +air of mystery, and recoil two paces. "If you don't speak," Claude +cried, "I will break every bone in your body! Do you hear, you sneaking +rogue? Do you forget that you are in my debt already? Tell me in two +words what this dumb show means, or I will have payment for all!" + +Master Louis cringed, divided between the desire to flee and the fear of +losing his property. "You will be foolish if you make any fuss here," he +muttered, his arm raised to ward off a blow. "Besides, I'm going," he +continued, swallowing nervously as he spoke. "Let me go." + +"Going?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you mean," Claude exclaimed in astonishment, "that you are going for +good?" + +"Yes, and if you will take my advice"--with a look of sinister +meaning--"you will go too. That is all." + +"Why? Why?" Claude repeated. + +Louis' only answer was a shudder, which told Claude that if the other +did not know all, he knew much. Dismayed and confounded, Mercier +stepped back, and, with a secret grin of satisfaction, Louis turned +again to his task of searching the room. He found presently that for +which he had been looking--his cloak. He disentangled it, with a +peculiar look, from a woman's hood, contact with which he avoided with +care. That done, he cast it over his arm, and got back into his closet. +Claude heard him moving there, and presently he emerged a second time. + +Precisely as he did so Claude caught the sound of a light footstep on +the stairs, the stair door opened, and Anne, her face weary, but +composed, came in. Her first glance fell on Louis, who, with his sack +and cloak on his arm, was in the act of closing the closet door. Habit +carried her second look to the hearth. + +"You have let the fire go out," she said. Then, turning to Louis, in a +voice cold and free from emotion, "Are you going?" she asked. + +He muttered that he was, his face a medley of fear and spite and shame. + +She nodded, but to Claude's astonishment expressed no surprise. +Meanwhile Louis, after dropping first his cloak and then his sack, in +his haste to be gone, shuffled his way to the door. The two looked on, +without moving or speaking, while he opened it, carried out his bag, +and, turning about, closed the door upon himself. They heard his +footsteps move away. + +At length Claude spoke. "The rats, I see, are leaving," he muttered. + +"Yes, the rats!" she echoed, and carried for a moment her eyes to his. +Then she knelt on the hearth, and uncovering the under side of the log, +where a little fire still smouldered, she fed it with two or three +fir-cones, and, stooping low, blew steadily on them until they caught +fire and blazed. He stood looking down at her, and marvelled at the +strength of mind that allowed her to stoop to trifles, or to think of +fires at such a time as this. He forgot that habit is of all stays the +strongest, and that to women a thousand trifles make up--God reward them +for it--the work of life: a work which instinct moves them to pursue, +though the heavens fall. + +Several hours had elapsed since he had entered hotfoot to see her; and +the day was beginning to wane. The flame of the blazing fir-cones, a +hundred times reflected in the rows of pewter plates and the surface of +the old oaken dressers, left the corners of the room in shadow. +Immediately within the windows, indeed, the daylight held its own; but +when she rose and turned to him her back was towards the casement, and +the firelight which lit up her face flickered uncertainly, and left him +in doubt whether she were moved or not. + +"You have eaten nothing!" she said, while he stood pondering what she +would say. "And it is four o'clock! I am sorry!" Her tone, which took +shame to herself, gave him a new surprise. + +He stopped her as she turned to the dresser. "Your mother is better?" he +said gently. + +"She is herself now," she replied, with a slight quaver, and without +looking at him. And she went about her work. + +Did she know? Did she understand? In his world was only one fact, in his +mind only one tremendous thought: the fact of their position, the +thought of their isolation and peril. In her treatment of Louis she had +seemed to show knowledge and a comprehension as wide as his own. But if +she knew all, could she be as calm as she was? Could she go about her +daily tasks? Could she cut and lay and fetch with busy fingers, and all +in silence? + +He thought not; and though he longed to consult her, to assure her and +comfort her, to tell her that the very isolation, the very peril in +which they stood were a happiness and a joy to him, whatever the issue, +because he shared them with her, he would not, by reason of that doubt. +He did not yet know the courage which underlies the gentlest natures: +nor did he guess that even as it was a joy to him to stand beside her in +peril, so it was a joy to her, even in that hour, to come and go for +him, to cut his bread and lay for him, to draw his wine from the great +cask under the stairs, and pour for him in the tall horn mug. + +And little said. By him, because he shrank from opening her eyes to the +danger of their position; by her, because her mind was full and she +could not trust herself to speak calmly. But he knew that she, too, had +fasted since morning, and he made her eat with him: and it was in the +thoughts of each that they had never eaten together before. For commonly +Anne took her meal with her mother, or ate as the women of her time +often ate, standing, alone, when others had finished. There are moments +when the simplest things put on the beauty and significance of rites, +and this first eating together at the small table on the fire-lit hearth +was one of such moments. He saw that she did eat; and this care for her, +and the reverence of his manner, so moved her, that at last tears rose +and choked her, and to give her time and to hide his own feelings, he +stood up and affected to get something from the fireside. + +Before he turned again, the latch rattled and the door flew open. The +freezing draught that entered, arrested him between the table and the +fire. The intruder was Grio. He stood an instant scowling on them, then +he entered and closed the door. He eyed the two with a sneering laugh, +and, turning, flung his cloak on a chair. It was ill-aimed and fell to +the ground. + +"Why the devil don't you light?" he cried violently. "Eh?" He added +something in which the words "Old hag's devilry!" were alone audible. +"Do you hear?" he continued, more coherently. "Why don't you light? What +black games are you playing, I'd like to know? I want my things!" + +Claude's fingers tingled, but danger and responsibility are sure +teachers, and he restrained himself. Neither of them answered, but Anne +fetched the lamp, and kindling a splinter of wood lighted it, and placed +it on the table. Then bringing the Spaniard's rushlight from the three +or four that stood on the dresser, she lighted it and held it out to +him. + +"Set it down!" he said, with tipsy insolence. He was not quite sober. +"Set it down! I am not going to--hic!--risk my salvation! Avaunt, Satan! +It is possible to palm the evil one, like a card I am told, +and--hic!--soul out, devil in, all lost as easy as candle goes out!" + +He had taken his candle with an unsteady hand, and unconsciously had +blown it out himself. She restrained Claude by a look, and patiently +taking the rushlight from Grio, she re-lit it and set it on the table +for him to take. + +"As a candle goes out!" he repeated, eyeing it with drunken wisdom. +"Candle out, devil in, soul lost, there you have it in three +words--clever as any of your long-winded preachers! But I want my +things. I am going before it is too late. Advise you to go too, young +man," he hiccoughed, "before you are overlooked. She is a witch! She's +the devil's mark on her, I tell you! I'd like to have the finding it!" +And with an ugly leer he advanced a step as if he would lay hands on +her. + +She shrank back, and Claude's eyes blazed. Fortunately, the bully's mind +passed to the first object of his coming; or it may be that he was sober +enough to read a warning in the younger man's face. + +"Oh! time enough," he said. "You are not so nice always, I'll be bound. +And things come--hic!--to those who wait! I don't belong to your +Sabbaths, I suppose, or you'd be freer! But I want my things, and I am +going to have them! I defy thee, Satan! And all thy works!" + +Still growling under his breath he burst open the staircase door, and +stumbled noisily upwards, the light wavering in his hand. Anne's eyes +followed him; she had advanced to the foot of the stairs, and Claude +understood the apprehension that held her. But the sounds did not +penetrate to the room on the upper floor, or Madame Royaume did not take +the alarm; perhaps she slept. And after assuring herself that Grio had +entered his room the girl returned to the table. + +The Spaniard had spoken with brutal plainness; it was no longer possible +to ignore what he had said, or to lie under any illusion as to the +girl's knowledge of her peril. Claude's eyes met hers: and for a moment +the anguished human soul peered through the mask of constancy, for a +moment the woman in her, shrinking from the ordeal and the fire, from +shame and death, thrust aside the veil, and held out quivering, piteous +hands to him. But it was for a moment only. Before he could speak she +was brave as before, quiet as he had ever seen her, patient, mistress of +herself. "It is as you said," she muttered, smiling wanly, "the rats are +leaving us." + +"Vermin!" he whispered. He could not trust himself to say more. His +voice shook, his eyes were full. + +"They have not lost time," she continued in a low tone. She did not +cease to listen, nor did her eyes leave the staircase door. "Louis +first, and now Grio. How has it reached them so quickly, do you think?" + +"Louis is hand in glove with the Syndic," he murmured. + +"And Grio?" + +"With Basterga." + +She nodded. "What do you think they will do--first?" she whispered. And +again--it went to his heart--the woman's face, fear-drawn, showed as it +were beneath the mask with which love and faith and a noble resignation +had armed her. "Do you think they will denounce us at once?" + +He shook his head in sheer inability to foresee; and then, seeing that +she continued to look anxiously for his answer, that answer which he +knew to be of no value, for minute by minute the sense of his +helplessness was weighing upon him, "It may be," he muttered. "God +knows. When Grio is gone we will talk about it." + +She began, but always with a listening ear and an eye to the open door, +to remove from the table the remains of their meal. Midway in her task, +she glanced askance at the window, under the impression that some one +was looking through it; and in any case now the lamp was lit it exposed +them to the curiosity of the rampart. She was going to close the +shutters when Claude interposed, raised the heavy shutters and bolted +and barred them. He was turning from them when Grio's step was heard +descending. + +Strange to say the Spaniard's first glance was at the windows, and he +looked genuinely taken aback when he saw that they were closed. "Why the +devil did you shut?" he exclaimed, in a rage; and passing Anne with a +sidelong movement, he flung a heavy bundle on the floor by the door. As +he turned to ascend again he met her eyes, and backing from her he made +with two of his fingers the ancient sign which southern people still use +to ward off the evil eye. Then, half shamefacedly, half recklessly, he +blundered upstairs again. A moment, and he came stumbling down; but this +time he was careful to keep the great bundle he bore between himself +and her eyes, until he had got the door open. + +That precaution taken, as if he thought the free cold air which entered +would protect him from spells, he showed himself at his ease, threw down +his bundle and faced her with an air of bravado. + +"I need not have feared," he said with a tipsy grin, "but I had +forgotten what I carry. I have a hocus-pocus here "--he touched his +breast--"written by a wise man in Ravenna, and sealed with a dead Goth's +hand, that is proof against devil or dam! And I defy thee, mistress." + +"Why?" she cried. "Why?" And the note of indignation in her voice, the +passionate challenge of her eyes, enforced the question. In the human +mind is a desire for justice that will not be denied; and even from this +drunken ruffian a sudden impulse bade her demand it. "Why should you +defy me or fear me? What have I done to you, what have I done to any +one," she continued, with noble resentment, "that you should spread this +of me? You have eaten and drunk at my hand a hundred times; have I +poisoned or injured you? I have looked at you a hundred times; have I +overlooked you? You have lain down under this roof by night a hundred +times; have I harmed you sleeping or waking, full moon or no moon?" + +For answer he leered at her slyly. "Not a whit," he said. "No." + +"No?" Her colour rose. + +"No; but you see"--with a grin--"it never leaves me, my girl." He +touched his breast. "While I wear that I am safe." + +She gasped. "Do you mean that I----" + +"I do not know what you would have done--but for that!" he retorted. +"Maimed me or wizened me, perhaps! Or, may be, made me waste away as +you did the child that died three doors away last Sunday!" + +Her face changed slowly. Prepared as she had been for the worst by many +an hour of vigil beside her mother's bed, the horror of this precise +accusation--and such an accusation--overcame her. "What?" she cried. +"You dare to say that I--that I----" She could not finish. + +But her eyes lightened, her form dilated with passion; and tipsy, +ignorant, brutish as he was, the Spaniard could not be blind to the +indignation, the resentment, the very wonder which stopped her breath +and choked her utterance. At the sight some touch of shame, some touch +of pity, made itself felt in the dull recesses even of that brain. "I +don't say it," he muttered awkwardly. "It is what they are saying in the +street." + +"In the street?" + +"Ay, where else?" He knew who said it, for he knew whence his orders +came: but he was not going to tell her. Yet the spark of kindliness +which she had kindled still lived--how could it be otherwise in presence +of her youth and gentleness? "If you'll take my advice," he continued +roughly, "you'll not show yourself in the streets unless you wish to be +mishandled, my girl. It will be time enough when the time comes. Even +now, if you were to leave your old witch of a mother and get good +protection, there is no knowing but you might be got clear! You are a +fair bit of red and white," with a grin. "And it is not far to Savoy! +Will you come if I risk it?" + +A gesture, half refusal, half loathing, answered him. + +"Oh, very well!" he said. The short-lived fit of pity passed from him; +he scowled. "You'll think differently when they have the handling of +you. I'm glad to be going, for where there's one fire there are apt to +be more; and I am a Christian, no matter who's not! Let who will burn, +I'll not!" + +He picked up one bundle and, carrying it out, raised his voice. A man, +who had shrunk, it seemed, from entering the house, showed his face in +the light which streamed from the door. To this fellow he gave the +bundle, and shouldering the other, he went heavily out, leaving the door +wide open behind him. + +Claude strode to it and closed it; but not so quickly that he had not a +glimpse of three or four pairs of eyes staring in out of the darkness; +eyes so curious, so fearful, so quickly and noiselessly withdrawn--for +even while he looked, they were gone--that he went back to the hearth +with a shiver of apprehension. + +Fortunately, she had not seen them. She stood where he had left her, in +the same attitude of amazement into which Grio's accusation had cast +her. As she met his gaze--then, at last, she melted. The lamplight +showed her eyes brimming over with tears; her lips quivered, her breast +heaved under the storm of resentment. + +"How dare they say it?" she cried. "How dare they? That I would harm a +child? A child?" And, unable to go on, she held out protesting hands to +him. "And my mother? My mother, who never injured any one or harmed a +hair of any one's head! That she--that they should say that of her! That +they should set that to her! But I will go this instant," impetuously, +"to the child's mother. She will hear me. She will know and believe me. +A mother? Yes, I will go to her!" + +"Not now," he said. "Not now, Anne!" + +"Yes, now," she persisted, deaf to his voice. She snatched up her hood +from the ground on which it had fallen, and began to put it on. + +He seized her arm. "No, not now," he said firmly. "You shall not go now. +Wait until daylight. She will listen to you more coolly then." + +She resisted him. "Why?" she said. "Why?" + +"People fancy things at night," he urged. "I know it is so. If she saw +you enter out of the darkness"--the girl with her burning eyes, her wet +cheeks, her disordered hair looked wild enough--"she might refuse to +believe you. Besides----" + +"What?" + +"I will not have you go now," he said firmly. That instant it had +flashed upon him that one of the faces he had seen outside was the face +of the dead child's mother. "I will not let you go," he repeated. "Go in +the daylight. Go to-morrow morning. Go then, if you will!" He did not +choose to tell her that he feared for her instant safety if she went +now; that, if he had his will, the streets would see her no more for +many a day. + +She gave way. She took off her hood, and laid it on the table. But for +several minutes she stood, brooding darkly and stormily, her hands +fingering the strings. To foresee is not always to be forearmed. She had +lived for months in daily and hourly expectation of the blow which had +fallen; but not the more easily for that could she brook the concrete +charge. Her heart burned, her soul was on fire. Justice, give us justice +though the heavens fall, is an instinct planted deep in man's nature! Of +the Mysterious Passion of our Lord our finite minds find no part worse +than the anguish of innocence condemned. A child? She to hurt a child? +And her mother? Her mother, so harmless, so ignorant, so tormented! She +to hurt a child? + +After a time, nevertheless, the storm began to subside. But with it died +the hope which is inherent in revolt; in proportion as she grew more +calm the forlornness of her situation rose more clearly before her. At +last that had happened which she had so long expected to happen. The +thing was known. Soon the full consequences would be upon her, the +consequences on which she dared not dwell. Shudderingly she tried to +close her eyes to the things that might lie before her, to the things at +which Grio had hinted, the things of which she had lain thinking--even +while they were distant and uncertain--through many a night of bitter +fear and fevered anticipation. + +They were at hand now, and though she averted her thoughts, she knew it. +But the wind is tempered to the shorn. Even as the prospect of future +ill can dominate the present, embitter the sweetest cup, and render +thorny the softest bed, so, sometimes, present good has the power to +obscure the future evil. As Anne sank back on the settle, her trembling +limbs almost declining to bear her, her eyes fell on her companion. +Failing to rouse her, he had seated himself on the other side of the +hearth, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his hands, in an attitude +of deep thought. And little by little, as she looked at him, her cheeks +grew, if not red, less pale, her eyes lost their tense and hopeless +gaze. She heaved a quivering sigh, and slowly carried her look round the +room. + +Its homely comfort, augmented by the hour and the firelight, seemed to +lap them round. The door was locked, the shutters were closed, the lamp +burned cheerfully. And he sat opposite--sat as if they had been long +married. The colour grew deeper in her face as she gazed; she breathed +more quickly; her eyes shone. What evil cannot be softened, what +misfortune cannot be lightened to a woman by the knowledge that she is +loved by the man she loves? That where all have fled, he remains, and +that neither fear of death nor word of man can keep him from her side? + +He looked up in the end, and caught the look on her face, the look that +a woman bestows on one man only in her life. In a moment he was on his +knees beside her, holding her hands, covering them with kisses, vowing +to save her, to save her--or to die with her! + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +IN THE DARKENED ROOM. + + +Claude flung the cloak from his head and shoulders, and sat up. It was +morning--morning, after that long, dear sitting together--and he stared +confusedly about him. He had been dreaming; all night he had slept +uneasily. But the cry that had roused him, the cry that had started that +quick beating of the heart, the cry that still rang in his waking ears +and frightened him, was no dream. + +As he rose to his feet, his senses began to take in the scene; he +remembered what had happened and where he was. The shutters were lowered +and open. The cold grey light of the early morning at this deadest +season of the year fell cheerlessly on the living-room; in which for the +greater safety of the house he had insisted on passing the night. Anne, +whose daily task it was to open the shutters, had been down then: she +must have been down, or whence the pile of fresh cones and splinters +that crackled, and spirted flame about the turned log. Perhaps it was +her mother's cry that had roused him; and she had re-ascended to her +room. + +He strode to the staircase door, opened it softly and listened. No, all +was silent above; and then a new notion struck him, and he glanced +round. Her hood was gone. It was not on the table on which he had seen +it last night. + +It was so unlikely, however, that she had gone out without telling him, +that he dismissed the notion; and, something recovered from the strange +agitation into which the cry had cast him, he yawned. He returned to the +hearth and knelt and re-arranged the sticks so that the air might have +freer access to the fire. Presently he would draw the water for her, and +fill the great kettle, and sweep the floor. The future might be gloomy, +the prospect might lower, but the present was not without its pleasures. + +All his life his slowness to guess the truth on this occasion was a +puzzle to him. For the materials were his. Slowly, gradually, as he +crouched sleepily before the fire, it grew upon him that there was a +noise in the air; a confused sound, not of one cry, but of many, that +came from the street, from the rampart. A noise, now swelling a little, +now sinking a little, that seemed as he listened not so distant as it +had sounded a while ago. Not distant at all, indeed; quite close--now! A +sound of rushing water, rather soothing; or, as it swelled, a sound of a +crowd, a gibing, mocking crowd. Yes, a crowd. And then in one instant +the change was wrought. + +He was on his feet; he was at the door. He, who a moment before had +nodded over the fire, watching the flames grow, was transformed in five +seconds into a furious man, tugging at the door, wrestling madly with +the unyielding oak. Wrestling, and still the noise rose! And still he +strained in vain, back and sinew, strained until with a cry of despair +he found that he could not win. The door was locked, the key was gone! +He was a prisoner! + +And still the noise that maddened him, rose. He sprang to the right-hand +window, the window nearest the commotion. He tore open a panel of the +small leaded panes, and thrust his head between the bars. He saw a +crowd; for an instant, in the heart of the crowd and raised above it, +he saw an uplifted arm and a white woman's face from which blood was +flowing. He drew in his head, and laid his hands to one of the bars and +flung his weight this way and that, flung it desperately, heedless of +injury. But in vain. The lead that soldered the bar into the strong +stone mullion held, and would have held against the strength of four. +With heaving breast, and hands from which the blood was starting, he +stood back, glared round him, then with a cry flung himself upon the +other window, tore it open and seized a bar--the middle one of the +three. It was loose he remembered. God! why had he not thought of it +before? Why had he wasted time? + +He wasted no more, with those shouts of cruel glee in his ears. The bar +came out in his hands. He thrust himself feet first through the +aperture. Slight as he was, it was small for him, and he stuck fast at +the hips, and had to turn on his side. The rough edges of the bars +scraped the skin, but he was through, and had dropped to his feet, the +bar which he had plucked out still in his hands. For a fraction of a +second, as he alighted, his eyes took in the crowd, and the girl at bay +against the wall. She was raised a little above her tormentors by the +steps on which she had taken refuge. + +On one side her hair hung loose, and the cheek beneath it was cut and +bleeding, giving her a piteous and tragic aspect. Four out of five of +her assailants were women; one of these had torn her face with her +nails. Streaks of mud were mingled with the blood which ran down her +neck; and even as Claude recovered himself after the drop from the +window, a missile, eluding the bent arm with which she strove to shield +her face, struck and bespattered her throat where the collar of her +frock had been torn open--perhaps by the same rough clutch which had +dragged down her hair. The ring about her--like all crowds in the +beginning--were strangely silent; but a yell of derision greeted this +success, and a stone flew, narrowly missing her, and another, and +another. A woman, holding a heavy Bible after the fashion of a shield, +was stooping and striking at her knees with a stick, striving to bring +her to the ground; and with the cruel laughter that hailed the hag's +ungainly efforts were mingled other and more ugly sounds, low curses, +execrations, and always one fatal word, "Witch! Witch!"--fatal word spat +at her by writhing mouths, hissed at her by pale lips, tossed broadcast +on the cold morning wind, to breed wherever it flew fear and hate and +suspicion. For, even while they mocked her they feared her, and shielded +themselves against her power with signs and crossings and the Holy Book. + +To all, curse and blow and threat, she had only one word. Striving +patiently to shield her face, "Let me go!" she wailed pitifully. "Let me +go! Let me go!" Strange to say, she cried even that but softly; as who +should say, "If you will not, kill me quietly, kill me without noise!" +Ay, even then, with the blood running down her face, and with those eyes +more cruel than men's eyes hemming her in, she was thinking of the +mother whom she had sheltered so long. + +"Let me go! Let me go!" she repeated. + +"Witch, you shall go!" they answered ruthlessly. "To hell!" + +"Ay, with her dam! To the water with her! To the water!" + +"Look for the devil's mark! Search her! Again, Martha! Bring her down! +Bring her down, and we'll soon see whether----" + +Then he reached them. The man, one of the few present, who had bidden +them search her fell headlong on his face in the gutter, struck behind +as by a thunder-bolt. The great Bible flew one way, the hag's stick flew +another--and in its flight felled a second woman. In a twinkling Claude +was on the steps, and in the heart of the crowd stood two people, not +one; in a twinkling his arm was round the girl, his pale, furious face +confronted her tormentors, his blazing eyes beat down theirs! More than +all, his iron bar, brandished recklessly this way and that, threatened +the brains of the man or the woman who was bold enough to withstand him. + +For he was beside himself with rage. He learned in that moment that he +was of those who fight with joy and rejoicing, and laugh where others +shake. The sight of that white, bleeding face, of that hanging hair, of +that suppliant arm, above all, the sound of that patient "Let me go! Let +me go!" that expected nothing and hoped nothing, had turned his blood to +fire. The more numerous his opponents--if they were men--the better he +would be pleased; and if they were women, such women, unsexed by hate +and superstition, as he saw before him, women looking a millionfold more +like witches than the girl they accused, the worse for them! His arm +would not falter! + +It seemed of steel indeed. The bar quivered like a reed in his grasp, +his eyes darted hither and thither, he stood an inch taller than at +other times. He was like the war-horse that sniffs the battle. + +And yet he was cool after a fashion. He must get her home, and to do so +he must not lose a moment. The vantage of the steps on which they stood, +raised a hand's breath above their assailants, was a thing to be +weighed; but it would not serve them if these cursed women mustered, and +the cowardly crew before him throve to a mob. He must home with her. But +the door was locked, and she could only go in as he had come out. Still, +she must go. + +He thought all this between one stride and another--and other thoughts +thick as leaves falling in a wind. Then, "Fools!" he thundered, and had +her down the steps, and was dragging her towards her door before they +awoke from their surprise, or thought of attacking him. The woman with +the big Bible had had her fill--though he had not struck her but her +stick--and sat where she had fallen in the mud. The other woman hugged +herself in pain. The man was in no hurry to be up, having once felt +Claude's knee in the small of his back. For a few seconds no one moved; +and when they recovered themselves he was half-way to the Royaumes' +door. + +They snatched up mud, then, and flung it after the pair with shrill +execrations. And the woman who had picked up the stick hurled it in a +frenzy after them, but wide of the mark. A dozen stones fell round them, +and the cry of "The Witch! The Witch!"--cry so ominous, so cruel, cry +fraught with death for so many poor creatures--followed hard on them. +But they were within five paces of the door now, and if he could lift +her to the window---- + +"The key," she murmured in his ear. "The key is in the lock!" + +She had her wits, too, then, and her courage! He felt a glow of pride, +his arm pressed her more closely to him. "Unlock it!" he answered, and +leaving her to it, having now no fear that she would faint or fall, he +turned on the rabble with his bar. + +But they were for words, not blows, a rabble of cowards and women. They +turned tail with screams and fled to a distance, more than one falling +in the sudden _volte-face_. He made no attempt to pursue them along the +rampart, but looked behind him, and found that she had opened the door. +She had taken out the key, and was waiting for him to enter. + +He went up the steps, entered, and she closed the door quickly. It shut +out in a moment the hootings of the returning women. While she locked it +on the inside, he raised the bars and slid them into their places. Then, +not till then, he turned to her. + +Her face averted, she was staunching the blood which trickled from her +cheek. "It was the child's mother!" she faltered, a sob in her voice. "I +went to her. I thought--that she would believe. Get me some water, +please! I must go upstairs. My mother will be frightened." + +He was astonished: on fire himself, with every pulse beating madly, he +was prepared for her to faint, to fall, to fling herself into his arms +in gratitude; prepared for everything but this self-forgetfulness. +"Water?" he said doubtfully, "but had you not better--take some wine, +Anne?" + +"To wash! To wash!" she replied sharply, almost angrily. "How can I go +to her in this state? And do you shut the shutters." + +A stone had that moment passed through a pane of one of the windows. The +rout of women were gathering before the house; the step she advised was +plainly necessary. Fortunately the Royaumes' house, like all in the +Corraterie--which formed an inner line of defence pierced by the +Tertasse gate--had outside shutters of massive thickness, capable of +being lowered from within. He closed these in haste and found, when he +turned from the task and looked for her--a small round hole in each +shutter made things dimly visible--that she was gone to soothe her +mother. + +He could not but love her the more for it. He could not but respect her +the more for her courage, for her thoughtfulness, her self-denial. But +when the heart is full and would unburden itself, when the brain teems +with pent-up thoughts, when the excitement of action and of peril wanes +and the mind would fain tell and hear and compare and remember--then to +be alone, to be solitary, is to sink below one's self. + +For a time, while his pulses still beat high, while the heat of battle +still wrought in him, and the noise without continued, and there seemed +a prospect of things to be done, he stood up against this. Thump! Thump! +They were stoning the shutters. Let them! He placed the settle across +the hearth, and in this way cut off the firelight that might have +betrayed those in the room to eyes peeping through the holes. By-and-by +the shrill vixenish cries rose louder, he caught the sound of voices in +altercation, and of hoarse orders: and slowly and reluctantly the babel +seemed to pass away. An anxious moment followed: fearfully he listened +for the knock of the law, the official summons which must make all his +efforts useless. But it did not come. + +It was when the silence which ensued had lasted some minutes that the +strangeness and aloofness of his position in this darkened room began to +weigh on his spirits. His eyes had adapted themselves to the gloom, and +he could make out the shapes of the furniture. But it was morning! It +was day! Outside, the city was beginning to go about its ordinary work, +its ordinary life. The streets were filling, the classes were mustering. +And he sat here in the dark! The longer he stared into the strange, +depressing gloom, the farther he seemed from life; the more solitary, +the more hopeless, the more ominous seemed the position. + +Alone with two women whom the worst of fates threatened! Whose pains and +ultimate lot the brawl in which he had taken part foreshadowed too +clearly. For thus and with as little cause perished in those days +thousands of the helpless and the friendless. Alone with these two, +under the roof from which all others had fled, barred with them behind +the gloomy shutters until the hour came, and their fellows, shuddering, +cast them out--what chance had he of escaping their lot? + +Or what desire to escape it? None, he told himself. None! But he who +fights best when blows are to be struck and things can be done finds it +hard to sit still where it is the inevitable that must be faced. And +while Claude told himself that he had no desire to escape, since escape +for her was impossible, his mind sought desperately the means of saving +all. The frontier lay but a league away. Conceivably they might lower +themselves from the wall by night; conceivably his strength might avail +to carry her mother to the frontier. But, alas! the crime of witchcraft +knew no frontier; the reputation of a witch once thrown abroad, flew +fast as the swiftest horse. Before they had been three days in Savoy, +the women would be reported, seized and examined; and their fate at +Faucigny or Bonneville would be no less tragic than in the Bourg du Four +of Geneva. + +Yet, something must be done, something could surely be done. But what? +The bravest caught in a net struggles the most desperately, and involves +himself the most hopelessly. And Claude felt himself caught in a net. He +felt the deadly meshes cling about his limbs, the ropes fetter and +benumb him. From the sunshine of youth, from freedom, from a life +without care, he had passed in a few days into the grip of this [Greek: +anagke], this dire necessity, this dark ante-chamber of death. Was it +wonderful that for a moment, recognising the sacrifice he was called +upon to make and its inefficacy to save, he rebelled against the love +that had drawn him to this fate, that had led him to this, that in +others' eyes had ruined him? Ay, but for a moment only. Then with a +heart bursting with pity for her, with love for her, he was himself. If +it must be, it must be. The prospect was dark as the room in which he +stood, confined and stifling, sordid and shameful; the end one which +would make his name a marvel and an astonishment. But the prospect and +the end were hers too; they would face them together. Haply he might +spare her some one pang, haply he might give her some one moment of +happiness, the support of one at least who knew her pure and spotless. +And while he thought of it--surprise of surprises--he bowed his head on +his folded arms and wept. + +Not in pity for himself, but for her. It was the thought of her +gentleness, her loving nature, her harmlessness--and the end this, the +reward this--which overcame him; which swelled his breast until only +tears could relieve it. He saw her as a dove struggling in cruel hands; +and the pity which, had there been chance or hope, or any to smite, +would have been rage, could find no other outlet. He wept like a woman; +but it was for her. + +And she, who had descended unheard, and stood even now at the door, with +a something almost divine in her face--a something that was neither love +nor compassion, maid's fancy nor mother's care, but a mingling of all +these, saw. And her heart bled for him; her arms in fancy went round +him, in fancy his head was on her breast, she comforted him. She, who a +moment before had almost sunk down on the stairs, worn out by her +sufferings and the strain of hiding them from her mother's eyes, forgot +her weakness in thought for him. + +She had no contempt for his tears. She had seen him stand between +herself and her tormentors, she had seen the flash of his eye, heard his +voice, knew him brave. But the fate, for which long thought and hours on +her knees had prepared her--so that it seemed but a black and bitter +passage with peace beyond--appalled her for him; and might well appal +him. The courage of men is active, of women passive; with a woman's +instinct she knew this, allowed for it, and allowed, too, for another +thing--that he was fasting. + +When he looked up, startled by the tinkle of pewter and the rustle of +her skirt, she was kneeling between the settle and the fire, preparing +food. He flattered himself that in the dark she had not seen him, and +when he had regained his self-control he stepped to the settle-back and +looked over it. + +"You did not see me?" he said. + +She did not answer at once, but finished what she was doing. Then she +stood up and handed him a bowl. "The bread is on the table," she said, +indicating it. She was a woman, and, dark as it was, she kept the +disfigured cheek turned from him. + +He would have replied, but she made a sign to him to eat, and, seating +herself on a stool in the corner with her plate on her lap, she set him +an example. Apart from her weary attitude, and the droop of her head, he +might have deemed the scene in which they had taken part a figment of +his brain. But round them was the gloom of the closed room! + +"You did not see me?" he repeated presently. + +She stood up. "I would I had never seen you!" she cried; and her +anguished tone bore witness to the truth of her words. "It is the worst, +it is the bitterest thing of all! of all!" she repeated. The settle was +between them, and she rested her hands on the back of it. He stooped, +and, in the darkness, covered them with kisses, while his breast heaved +with the swell of the storm which her entrance had cut short. "For all +but that I was prepared," she continued; "I was ready. I have seen for +weeks the hopelessness of it, the certain end, the fate before us. I +have counted the cost, and I have learned to look beyond for--for all we +desire. It is a sharp passage, and peace. But you"--her voice rested on +the same tragic note of monotony--"are outside the sum, and spoil all. A +little suffering will kill my mother, a little, a very little fear. I +doubt if she will live to be taken hence. And I--I can suffer. I have +known all, I have foreseen all--long! I have learned to think of it, and +I can learn by God's help to bear it! And in a little while, a very +little while, it will be over, and I shall be at rest. But you--you, my +love----" + +Her voice broke, her head sunk forward. His lips met hers in a first +kiss; a kiss, salted by the tears that ran unchecked down his face. For +a long minute there was silence in the room, a silence broken only by +the low, inarticulate murmur of his love--love whispered brokenly on her +tear-wet lips, on her cold, closed eyelids. She made no attempt to +withdraw her face, and presently the murmur grew to words of defiance, +of love that mocked at peril, mocked at shame, mocked at death, having +assurance of its own, having assurance of her. + +They fell on her ears as warm thaw-rain on frozen sward; and slowly into +the pallor of her face, the whiteness of her closed eyelids, crept a +tender blush. Strange that for a few brief moments they were happy; +strange, proof marvellous of the dominance of the inner life over the +outer, of love over death. + +"My love, my love!" + +"Again!"--he murmured. + +"My love, my love!" + +But at length she came to herself, she remembered. "You will go?" she +said. She put him from her and held him fondly at arm's length, her +hands on his shoulders. "You will go? It is all you can do for me. You +will go and live?" + +"Without you?" + +"Yes. Better, a hundred times better so--for me." + +"And for me? Why may I not save you and her?" + +"It is impossible!" + +"Nothing is impossible to love," he answered. "The nights are long, the +wall is not too high! No wall is too high for love! It is but a league +to the frontier, and I am strong." + +"Who would receive us?" she asked sadly. "Who would shelter us? In +Savoy, if we were not held for sorcery, we should be delivered to the +Inquisition." + +"We might gain friends?" + +"With what? No," she continued, her hands cleaving more tightly to him; +"you must go, dear love! Dear love! You must go! It is all you can do +for me, and it is much! Oh, indeed, it is much! It is very much!" + +He drew her to him as near as the settle would permit, until she was +kneeling on it, and in spite of her faint resistance he could look into +her eyes. "Were you in my place, would you leave me?" he asked. + +"Yes," she lied bravely, "I would." + +But the flash of resentment in her eyes gave her voice the lie, and he +laughed joyfully. "You would not!" he said. "You would not leave me on +this side of death!" + +She tried to protest. + +"Nor will I you," he continued, stopping her mouth with fresh kisses. +"Nor will I you till death! Did you think me a coward?" He held her from +him and looked into her reproachful eyes. "Or a Tissot? Tissot left you. +Or Louis Gentilis?" + +But she made him know that he was none of these in a way that satisfied +him; and a moment later her mother's voice called her from the room. He +thought, having no experience of a woman's will, that he had done with +that; and in her absence he betook himself to examining the defences of +the house. He replaced the bar which he had wrested from the window; +wedging it into its socket with a morsel or two of molten lead. The +windows of the bedrooms, his own and Louis', looked into a narrow lane, +the Rue de la Cite, that ran at the back of the Corraterie in a line +with the ramparts; but not only were they almost too small to permit the +passage of a full-grown man, they were strongly barred. Against such a +rabble, as had assaulted Anne, or even a more formidable mob, the house +was secure. But if the law intervened neither bar nor bolt could save +them. + +He fell to thinking of this, and stood, arrested in the middle of the +darkened room that, as the hours went by, was beginning to take on a +familiar look. The day was passing, all without remained quiet, nothing +had happened. Was it possible that nothing would happen? Was it possible +that the girl through long brooding exaggerated the peril? And that the +worst to be feared was such an outbreak as had occurred that morning? +Such an outbreak as might not take place again, since mobs were fickle +things. + +He dwelt a while on this more hopeful view of things. Then he recalled +Basterga's threats, the Syndic's face, the departure of Louis and Grio; +and his heart sank as lead sinks. The rumour so quickly spread--by what +hints, what innuendoes, what cunning inquiries, what references to the +old, invisible, bedridden woman, he could but guess--that rumour bore +witness to a malice and a thirst for revenge which were not likely to +stop at words. And Louis' flight? And Grio's? And Basterga's?--for he +did not return. To believe that all these, taken together, these and the +outrage of the morning, portended anything but danger, anything but the +worst, demanded a hopefulness that even his youth and his love could not +compass. + +Yet when she descended he met her with brave looks. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE _REMEDIUM_. + + +Blondel's thin lips were warrant--to such of the world as had eyes to +see--that in the ordinary things of life he would have been one of the +last to put faith in a man of Basterga's stamp: and one of the first, +had the case been other than his own, to laugh at the credulity he was +displaying. He would have seen--no one more clearly--that, in making the +bargain he had made, he was in the position of a drowning man who +clutches at a straw; not because he believes that the straw will support +him, but because he has no other hope, and is loth to sink. + +He would have seen, too, another thing, which indeed he did see dimly. +This was that, talk as he might, make terms as he might, repeat as +firmly as he pleased, "The _remedium_ first and then Geneva," he would +be forced when the time came to take the word for the deed. If he dared +not trust Basterga, neither dared the scholar trust him. Once safe, once +snatched from the dark fate that scared him, he would laugh at the +notion of betraying the city. He would snap his fingers in the Paduan's +face; and Basterga knew it. The scholar, therefore, dared not trust him; +and either there was an end of the matter or he must trust Basterga, +must eat his own words, and, content with the possession of something, +must wait for proof of its efficacy until the die was cast! + +In his heart he knew this. He knew that on the brink of the extremity +to which circumstances and Basterga were slowly pushing him it might not +be in his power to check himself: that he must trust, whether he would +or no, and where instinct bade him place no trust. And this doubt, this +suspicion that when all was done he might find himself tricked, and +learn that for nothing he had given all, added immeasurably to the +torment of his mind; to the misery of his reflections when he awoke in +the small hours and saw things coldly and clearly, and to the fever and +suspense in which he passed his days. + +He clung to one thought and got what consolation he could from it; a +bitter and saturnine comfort it was. The thought was this: if it turned +out that, after all, he had been tricked, he could but die; and die he +must if he made no bargain. And to a dead man what matter was it what +price he had paid that he might live! What matter who won or who lost +Geneva, who lived, who died, who were slaves, who free! + +And again, the very easiness of the thing he was asked to do tempted +him. It was a thing that to one in his position presented no difficulty +and scarcely any danger. He had but to withdraw the guards, or the +greater part of them, from a portion of the wall, and to stop on one +pretext or another--the bitter cold of the wintry weather would +avail--the rounds that at stated intervals visited the various posts. +That was all; as a man of tried loyalty, intrusted with the safeguarding +of the city, and to whom the officer of the watch was answerable, he +might make the necessary arrangements without incurring, even after the +catastrophe, more than a passing odium, a breath of suspicion. + +And Baudichon and Petitot? He tasted, when he thought of them, the only +moments of comfort, of pleasure, of ease, that fell to his lot +throughout these days. They would thwart him no more. Petty worms, +whose vision went no farther than the walls of the city, he would have +done with them when the flag of Savoy fluttered above St. Pierre; and +when for the confines of a petty canton was substituted, for those who +had eyes to see and courage to adapt themselves, the wide horizon of the +Italian Kingdom. When he thought of them--and then only--he warmed to +the task before him; then only he could think of it without a shiver and +without distaste. And not the less because on that side, in their +suspicion, in their grudging jealousy, in their unwinking integrity, lay +the one difficulty. + +A difficulty exasperated by the insult that, in a moment of bitter +disappointment, he had flung in Baudichon's face. That hasty word had +revealed to the speaker a lack of self-control that terrified him, even +as it had revealed to Baudichon a glimpse of something underneath the +Fourth Syndic's dry exterior that might well set a man thinking as well +as talking. This matter Blondel saw plainly he must deal with at once, +or it might do harm. To absent himself from the next day's council might +rouse a storm beyond his power to weather, or short of that might give +rise at a later period to a dangerous amount of gossip and conjecture. + +He was early at the meeting, therefore, but to his surprise found it in +session before the hour. This, and the fact that the hubbub of voices +and discussion died down at his entrance--died down and was succeeded by +a chilling silence--put him on his guard. He had not come unprepared for +opposition; to meet it he had wound himself to a pitch, telling himself +that after this all would be easy; that he had this one peril to face, +this one obstacle to surmount, and having succeeded might rest. +Nevertheless, as he passed up the Great Council Chamber amid that +silence, and met strange looks on faces which were wont to smile, his +courage for one moment, even in that familiar scene--conscience makes +cowards of all--wavered. His smile grew sickly, his nerves seemed +suddenly unstrung, his knees shook under him. It was a dreadful instant +of physical weakness, of mental terror, under the eyes of all. To +himself, he seemed to stand still; to be self-betrayed, self-convicted! + +Then--and so brief was the moment of weakness no eye detected it--he +moved on to his place, and with his usual coolness took his seat. He +looked round. + +"You are early," he said, ignoring the glances, hostile or doubtful, +that met his gaze. "The hour has barely struck, I believe?" + +"We were of opinion," Fabri answered, with a dry cough, "that minutes +were of value." + +"Ah!" + +"That not even one must be lost, Messer Blondel!" + +"In doing?" Blondel asked in a negligent tone, well calculated to annoy +those who were eager in the matter. "In doing what, if I may ask?" + +"In doing, Messer Syndic," Petitot answered sharply, "that which should +have been done a week ago; and better still a fortnight ago. In issuing +a warrant for the arrest of the person whose name has been several times +in question here." + +"Messer Basterga?" + +"The same." + +"You may save yourselves the trouble," the Syndic replied, with a little +contempt. "The warrant has been issued. It was issued yesterday, and +would have been executed in the afternoon, if he had not got wind of it, +and left the town. And on this let me say one more word," Blondel +continued, leaning forward and speaking in sudden heat, before any one +could take up the question. "That word is this. If it had not been for +the importunity of some who are here, the warrant had _not_ been issued, +the man had still been within the walls, and we had been able still to +trace his plans! We had not been as we now are, and as I foretold we +should be, in the dark, ignorant from which quarter the blow may fall, +and not a whit the wiser for the hint given us." + +"You have let him escape!" The words were Petitot's. + +"I? No! I have not let him escape, but those who forced my hand!" +Blondel retorted in passion, so real, or so well simulated, that it +swept away the majority of his listeners. "They have let him escape! +Those who had no patience or craft! Those whose only notion of +statesmanship, whose only method of making use of the document we had +under our hand was to tear it up. Only yesterday morning I was with +him----" + +"Ay?" Baudichon cried, his eyes glowing with dull passion. "You were +with him! And he went in the afternoon! Mark that!" He turned quickly to +his fellows. "He went in the afternoon! Now, I would like to know----" + +Blondel stood up. "Whether I am a traitor?" he said, in a tone of fury; +and he extended his arms in protest. "Whether I am in league with this +Italian, I, Philibert Blondel of Geneva? That is what you ask, what you +wish to know! Whether I sought him yesterday in the hope of worming his +secrets from him, and doing what I could for the benefit of the State in +a matter too delicate to be left to underlings? Or went there, one with +him, to betray my country? To sell the Free City? That--that is what you +ask?" + +His passion was full, overpowering, convincing; so convincing--it almost +stopped his speech--that he believed in it himself, so convincing that +it swept away all but his steady and professed opponents. "No, no!" +cried a dozen voices, in tones that reflected his indignation. "No, no! +Shame!" + +"No?" Blondel took up the word, his eyes sparkling, his adust complexion +heated and full of fire. "But it is--yes, they say! Yes, they say whom +you have to thank if we have lost our clue, they who met me going to him +but yesterday and threatened me! Threatened me!" he repeated, in a voice +of astonishment. "Me, who desired only, sought only, was going only to +do my duty! I used, I admit the fault," he allowed his voice to drop to +a tone more like his own, "words on that occasion that I now regret. But +is blood water? Does no man besides Councillor Baudichon love his +country? Is the suspicion, the open suspicion of such an one, no insult, +that he must cavil if he be repaid in insult? I have given my proofs. If +any man can be trusted to sound the enemy, it is I! But I have done! Had +Messer Baudichon not pressed me to issue the warrant, not driven me +beyond my patience, it had not been issued yesterday. It had been in the +office, and the man within the walls! Ay, and not only within the walls, +but fresh from a conference with the Sieur d'Albigny, primed with all we +need to know, and in doubt by which side he could most profit!" + +"It was about that you saw him?" Petitot said slowly, his eyes fixed +like gimlets to the other's face. + +"It was about that I saw him," Blondel answered. "And I think in a few +hours more I had won him. But in the street he had some secret word or +warning; for when I handed the warrant--against my better sense--to the +officers, they, who had never lost sight of him between gate and gate, +answered that he had crossed the bridge and left the town an hour +before. Mon Dieu!"--he struck his two hands together and snapped his +teeth--"when I think how foolish I was to be over-ridden, I could--I +could say more, Messer Baudichon"--with a saturnine look--"than I said +yesterday!" + +"At any rate the bird is flown!" Baudichon replied, with sullen temper. +"That is certain! And it was you who were set to catch him!" + +"But it was not I who scared him," Blondel rejoined. + +"I don't know what you would have had of him!" + +"Oh, I see that plainly enough," said Fabri. He was an honest man, +without prejudice, and long the peace-maker between the two parties. + +"I thank you," Blondel replied dryly. "But, by your leave, I will make +it clear to Messer Baudichon also, who will doubtless like to know. I +would have had of him the time and place and circumstance of the attack, +if such be in preparation. And then, when I knew all, I would have made +dispositions, not only to safeguard the city, but to give the enemy such +a reception that Italy should ring with it! Ay, and such as should put +an end for the rest of our lives to these treacherous attacks!" + +The picture which he drew thus briefly of a millennium of safety, +charmed not only his own adherents, but all who were neutral, all who +wavered. They saw how easily the thing might have been done, how +completely the treacherous blow might have been parried and returned. +Veering about they eyed Baudichon, on whom the odium of the lost +opportunity seemed to rest, with resentment--as an honest man, but a +simpleton, a dullard, a block! And when Blondel added, after a pause, +"But there, I have done! The office of Fourth Syndic I leave to you to +fill," they barely allowed him to finish. + +"No! No!" came from almost all mouths, and from every part of the +council table. + +"No," Fabri said, when silence was made. "There is no provision for a +change, unless a definite accusation be laid." + +"But Messer Baudichon may have one to make," Blondel said proudly. "In +that case, let him speak." + +Baudichon breathed hard, and seemed to be on the point of pouring forth +a torrent of words. But he said nothing. Instinct told him that his +enemy was not to be trusted, but he had the wit to discern that Blondel +had forestalled him, and had drawn the sting from his charges. He could +have wept in dull, honest indignation; but for accusations, he saw that +the other held the game, and he was silent. "Fat hog!" the man had +called him. "Fat hog!" A tear gathered slowly in his eye as he recalled +it. + +Fabri gave him time to speak; and then with evident relief, "He has none +to make, I am sure," he said. + +"Let him understand, then," Blondel replied firmly, "let all understand, +that while I will do my duty I am no longer in the position to guard +against sudden strokes, in which I should have been, had I been allowed +to go my own way. If a misfortune happen, it is not on me the blame must +rest." He spoke solemnly, laughing in his sleeve at the cleverness with +which he was turning his enemy's petard against him. "All that man can +do in the dark shall be done," he continued. "And I do not--I am free to +confess that--anticipate anything while the negotiations with the +President Rochette are in progress." + +"No, it is when they are broken off, they will fall back on the other +plan," one of the councillors said with an air of much wisdom. + +"I think that is so. Nor do I think that anything will be done during +the present severe weather." + +"They like it no better than we do!" + +"But the roads are good in this frost," Fabri said. "If it be a question +of moving guns or wagons----" + +"But it is not, by your leave, Messer Fabri, as I am informed," the man +who had spoken before objected; supporting his opinion simply because he +had voiced it, a thing seen every day in such assemblies. Fabri replied +on him in the other sense: and presently Blondel had the satisfaction of +listening to a discussion in which the one party said a dozen things +that he saw would be of use to him--some day. + +One only said not a word, and that was Petitot. He listened to all with +a puzzled look. He resented the insult which Blondel had flung at his +friend Baudichon, but he saw all going against them, and no chance of +redress; nay, capital was being made out of that which should have been +a disadvantage. Worst of all, he was uneasy, fancying--he was very +shrewd--that he caught a glimpse, under the Fourth Syndic's manner, of +another man: that he detected signs of emotion, a feverishness and +imperiousness not quite explained by the circumstances. + +He got the notion from this that the Fourth Syndic had learned more from +Basterga than he had disclosed. His notion, even so, went no further +than the suspicion that Blondel was hiding knowledge out of a desire to +reap all the glory. But he did not like it. "He was always for risking, +for risking!" he thought. "This is another case of it. God grant it go +well!" His wife, his children, his daughters, rose in a picture before +him, and he hated Blondel, who had none of these. He would have put him +to death for running the tithe of a risk. + +When the council broke up, Fabri drew Blondel aside. "The bird is flown, +but what of the nest?" he asked. "Has he left nothing?" + +"Between you and me," Blondel replied under his breath, as his eyes +sought the other's, "I hope to make him speak yet. But not a word!" + +"Ah!" + +"Not a word! But there is just a chance. And it will be everything to us +if I can induce him to speak." + +"I see that. But the house? Could you not search it?" + +"That would be to scare him finally." + +"You have made no perquisition there?" + +"None. I have heard," Blondel continued, hesitating as if he had not +quite made up his mind to speak, "some things--strange things in respect +to the house. But I will tell you more of that when I know more." + +He was too clever to state that he held the house in suspicion for +sorcery and kindred things. Charges such as that spread, he knew, +upwards from the lower classes, not downwards to them. The poison, +disseminated as he had known how to disseminate it, by hints and +innuendoes dropped among his officers and ushers, was already in the +air, and would do its work. Fabri, a man of sense, might laugh to-day, +and to-morrow; but the third day, when the report came to him from a +dozen quarters, mainly by women's mouths, he would not laugh. And +presently he would shrug his shoulders and stand aside, and leave the +matter in more earnest hands. + +Blondel dropped no more than that hint, therefore, and as he passed +homeward applauded his discretion. He was proud of the turn things had +taken at the Council; elated by the part he had played, and the proof he +had given of his mastery, he felt able to carry anything through. His +mind, leaping over the immediate future, pictured a wider theatre, in +which his powers would have full scope, and a larger stage on which he +might aspire to play the first part. He saw himself not only wealthy, +but ennobled, the fount of honour, the favourite, and, in time, the +master of princes. Such as he was to-day the Medicis had been, and many +another whom the world held noble. He had but to live and to dare; only +to live and to dare! Only in order to do the one he must--it was no +choice of his--do the other! + +Before he was five minutes older he was reminded of the necessity. At +the door of his house the pains of the disease from which he +suffered--aggravated, perhaps, by the excitement through which he had +just passed, or by the cold of the weather--seized him with unusual +violence. He leant, pale and almost fainting, against the door-jamb, +unable at the moment to do so much as raise the latch. The golden dreams +in which he had lost himself by the way, the visions of power and fame, +vanished as he had so many times seen the after-glow vanish from the +snow-peaks; leaving only cold images of death and desolation. Presently, +with an effort, he staggered within doors, poured out such medicine as +he had, and, bent double and almost without breath, swallowed it; and +so, by-and-by, a wan and wild-eyed image of himself came out of the fit. + +He told himself in after days that it was that decided him; that but for +that sharp fit of pain and the prospect of others like it, he would not +have yielded to the temptation, no, not to be the Grand Duke's +favourite, not to be Minister of Savoy! He ignored, in his looking +backward, the visions of glory and ambition in which he had revelled. He +saw himself on the rack, with life and immunity from pain drawing him +one way, the prospect of a miserable death the other; and he pleaded +that no man would have decided otherwise. After that experience the +straw did not float, so thin that he was not ready to grasp it rather +than die, rather than suffer again. Nor did the fact that the straw at +that moment lay on the table beside him go for much. + +It did lie there. When he felt a little stronger and began to look about +him, he found a note at his elbow. It was a small, common-looking +letter, sealed with a B, that might signify Blondel or Basterga, or, for +the matter of that, Baudichon. He did not know the handwriting, and he +opened it idly, in the scorn of small things that pain induced. + +He had not read a line of the contents, before his countenance changed. +The letter was from Basterga, and cunningly contrived. It gave him the +directions he needed, yet it was so worded that even after the event it +might pass for a trifling communication from a physician. The place and +the hour were specified--the latter so near that for a moment his cheek +grew pale. On that ensued the part which interested him most; but as the +whole was brief, the whole may be given. + + "Sir" (here followed a cabalistic sign such as physicians were in the + habit of using to impose on the vulgar). "After paying a visit in the + Corraterie, where I have an appointment on Saturday evening next + between late and early, I will be with you. But the mixture with the + necessary directions shall be sent to you twelve hours in advance, so + that before my visit you may experience its good effects. As surely as + the wrong potion in the case you wot of deprived of reason, so surely + (as I hope for salvation) will this potion have the desired effect. + + "The Physician of Aleppo." + +"Saturday next, between late and early!" Blondel muttered, gazing at the +words with fascinated eyes. "It is for the day after to-morrow! The day +after to-morrow!" And in his thoughts he passed again over the road he +had travelled since his first visit to Basterga's room, since the hour +when the scholar had unrolled before him the map of the town he called +"Aurelia," and had told him the story of Ibn Jasher and the Physician of +Aleppo. + +"No, I am not well," he answered. He sat, warmly wrapped up, in the high +chair in his parlour, his face so drawn with want of sleep that Captain +Blandano of the city guard, who had come to take his orders, had no +difficulty in believing him. "I am not well," he repeated peevishly. "It +is the weather." He had some soup before him. Beside it stood a tiny +phial of medicine; a phial strangely shaped and strange looking, +containing something not unlike the green cordial of the Carthusians. + +"It troubles me a good deal, too," Blandano said. "There are seven men +absent in the fourth ward. And two men, whose wives are urgent with me +that they should have leave." + +"Leave?" the Syndic cried. "Do they think naught"--leaning forward in a +passion--"of the safety of the city? If I were not ill, I would take +service on the wall myself to set an example!" + +"There is no need of that," the Captain answered respectfully, "if I +might have permission to withdraw a few men from the west side so as to +fill the places on the east----" + +"Ay, ay!" + +"From the Rhone side of the town----" + +"From the Corraterie? That is least open to assault." + +"Yes, from that part perhaps would be best," Blandano assented, nodding. +"Yes, I think so. If I might do that, I think I could manage." + +"Well, then do it," Blondel answered. "And make a note that I assented +to your suggestion to take them from the Corraterie and put them on the +lower part of the wall. After all, the nights are very bitter now, and +there are limits. Do the men grumble much?" + +"It is as much as I can do to make them go the rounds," Blandano +answered. "Some plead the weather; and some argue that, with President +Rochette, whose word is as good as his bond, on the point of coming to +an agreement with us, the rounds are a farce!" + +The Syndic shrugged his shoulders. "Well!" he muttered, rubbing his chin +and looking thoughtfully before him, "we must not wear the men out. +There is no moon now, is there?" + +"No." + +"And the enemy can attempt nothing without light," Blondel continued, +thinking aloud. "See here, Blandano, we must not put too heavy a burden +on our people. I see that. As it is so cold, I think you may pass the +word to pretermit the rounds to-night--save two. At what hours would you +suggest?" + +Blandano considered his own comfort--as the other expected he would--and +answered, "Early and late, say an hour before midnight and an hour +before dawn". + +"Then let be it as you suggest. But see"--with returning asperity--"that +those rounds go, and at their hours. Let there be no remissness. I will +make a note," he continued, "of the hours fixed. An hour before midnight +and an hour before dawn". + +He extended his arm and drew the ink-horn towards him. Midway in the +act, whether it was that his hand shook by reason of his illness, or +that he was in a hurry to close an interview which tried him more +severely than appeared, his sleeve caught the little phial of green +water that stood beside the soup on the table. It reeled an instant on +its edge, toppled on its side, and rolling, in one-tenth of the time it +takes to tell the tale, to the verge of the table--fell over. + +Messer Blondel made a strange noise in his throat. + +But the Captain had seen what was happening. Dexterously he caught the +bottle in his huge palm, and with an air of modest achievement was going +to set it on the table, when he saw that the Syndic had fallen back in +his chair, his face ghastly. Blandano was more used to death in the +field than in the house; and in a panic he took two steps towards the +door to call for help. Before he could take a third, Blondel gasped, and +made an uncertain movement with his hand, as if he would reassure him. + +Blandano returned and leant over him. "You are ill, Messer Syndic," he +said anxiously. "Let me call some one." + +The Syndic could not speak, but he pointed to the table. And when +Blandano, unable to make out what he wanted, and suspecting a stroke of +a mortal disease, turned again to the door, persisting in his intention +of getting aid, the Syndic found strength to seize his sleeve, and +almost instantly regained his speech. "There!" he gasped, "there! The +phial! Put it down!" + +Captain Blandano placed it on the table, wondering much. "I was afraid +you were ill, Messer Blondel," he said. + +"I was ill," the Syndic answered; and he pushed his chair back so that +no part of him was in contact with the table. He looked at the little +bottle with fascinated eyes, and slowly, as he looked, the colour +returned to his face. "I--was ill," he repeated, with a sigh that seemed +to relieve his breast. "I had a fright!" + +"You thought it was broken?" Blandano said, wondering much, and looking +in his turn at the phial. + +"Yes, I thought that it was broken. I am much obliged to you. Much, very +much obliged to you," the Syndic repeated, with a deep sigh, his hands +still moving nervously about his dress. Then, after a moment's pause, +"Will you ring the bell?" he said. + +The Captain, marvelling much, rang the hand-bell which lay on a +neighbouring table. He marvelled still more when he heard Messer +Blondel order the servant to place six bottles of his best wine in a +basket and take them to the Captain's lodging. + +Blandano stared. He knew the wine to be choice and valuable; and he eyed +the tiny phial respectfully. "It is something rare, I expect?" he said. + +The Syndic nodded. + +"And costly too, I doubt not?" with an admiring glance. + +"Costly?" Messer Blondel repeated the word, and when he had done so +turned on the other a look that led the Captain to think that he was +going to be ill again. Then, "It cost me--it will cost me"--again a +spasm contorted the Syndic's face--"I don't know what it will not have +cost me before it is paid for, Messer Blandano!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +TWO NAILS IN THE WALL. + + +The long day during which the lovers had drained a cup at once so sweet +and so bitter, and one of the two had felt alike the throb of pain and +the thrill of kisses, came to an end at last; and without further +incident. Encouraged by the respite--for who that is mortal does not +hope against hope--they ventured on the following morning to lower the +shutters, and this to a great extent restored the house to its normal +aspect. Anne would have gone so far as to attend the morning preaching +at St. Pierre, for it was Friday; but her mother awoke low and nervous, +the girl dared not quit her side, and Claude had no field for the urgent +dissuasions which he had prepared himself to use. + +The greater part of the day she remained above stairs, busied in the +petty offices, and moving to and fro--he could hear her tread--upon the +errands of love, to see her in the midst of which might well have +confuted the slanders that crept abroad. But there were times in the day +when Madame Royaume slept; and then, who can blame Anne, if she stole +down and sat hand in hand with Claude on the settle, whispering +sometimes of those things of which lovers whisper, and will whisper to +the world's end; but more often of the direr things before these two +lovers, and so of faith and hope and the love that does not die. For the +most part it was she who talked. She had so much to tell him of the long +nightmare, the nightmare of months, that had oppressed her; of her +prayers, and fears and fits of terror; of Basterga's discovery of the +secret and the cruel use he had made of it; of the slow-growing +resignation, the steadfast resolve, the onward look to something, beyond +that which the world could do to her, that had come to be hers. With her +face hidden on his breast she told him of her thoughts upon her knees, +of the pain and obloquy through which, if the worst came, she knew she +must pass, and of her trust that she would be able to bear them; +speaking in such terms, so simply, so bravely, and with so lofty a +contemplation, that he who listened, and had been but a week before a +young man as other young men, grew as he listened to another stature, +and thought for himself thoughts that no man can have and remain as he +was, before the tongues of fire touched his heart. + +And then again, once--but that was in the darkening of the Friday +evening when the wound in her cheek burned and smarted and recalled the +wretched moment of infliction--she showed him another side; as if she +would have him know that she was not all heroic. Without warning, she +broke down; overcome by the prospect of death, she clung to him, weeping +and shuddering, and begging him and imploring him to save her. To save +her! Only to save her! At that sight and at those sounds, under the +despairing grasp of her arms about his neck, the young man's heart was +red-hot; his eyes burned. Vainly he held her closer and closer to him; +vainly he tried to comfort her. Vainly he shed tears of blood. He felt +her writhe and shudder in his arms. + +And what could he do? He strove to argue with her. He strove to show her +that accusation of her mother, condemnation of her mother, dreadful as +they must be to her, so dreadful that he scarcely dared speak of them, +need not involve her own condemnation. She was young, of blameless life, +and without enemies. What could any cast up against her, what adduce in +proof of a charge so dark, so improbable, so abnormal? + +For answer she touched the pulsing wound in her cheek. + +"And this?" she said. "And the child that I killed?"--with a bitter +laugh unlike her own. "If they say so much already, if they say that +to-day, what will they say to-morrow? What will they say when they have +heard her ravings? Will it not be, the old and the young, the witch and +her brood--to the fire? To the fire?" + +The spasm that shook her as she spoke defied his efforts to soothe her. +And how could he comfort her? He knew the thing to be too likely, the +argument too reasonable, as men reasoned then; strange and foolish as +their reasoning seems to us now. But what could he do. What? He who sat +there alone with her, a prisoner with her, witness to her agony, scalded +by her tears, tortured by her anguish, burning with pity, sorrow, +indignation--what could he do to help her or save her? + +He had wild thoughts, but none of them effectual; the old thoughts of +defending the house, or of escaping by night over the town wall; and +some new ones. He weighed the possibility of Madame Royaume's death +before the arrest; surely, then, he could save the girl, and they two, +young, active and of ordinary aspect, might escape some whither? Again, +he thought of appealing to Beza, the aged divine, whom Geneva revered +and Calvinism placed second only to Calvin. He was a Frenchman, a man of +culture and of noble birth; he might stand above the common +superstition, he might listen, discern, defend. But, alas, he was so old +as to be bed-ridden and almost childish. It was improbable, nay, it was +most unlikely, that he could be induced to interfere. + +All these thoughts Anne drove out of his head by begging him, in moving +terms of self-reproach, to forgive her her weakness. She had regained +her composure as abruptly, if not as completely, as she had lost it; and +would have had him believe that the passion he had witnessed was less +deep than it seemed, and rather a womanish need of tears than a proof of +suffering. A minute later she was quietly preparing the evening meal, +while he, with a sick heart, raised the shutters and lighted the lamp. +As he looked up from the latter task, he found her eyes fixed upon him, +with a peculiar intentness: and for a while afterwards he remarked that +she wore an absent air. But she said nothing, and by-and-by, promising +to return before bed-time, she went upstairs to her mother. + +The nights were at their longest, and the two had closed and lighted +before five. Outside the cold stillness of a winter night and a freezing +sky settled down on Geneva; within, Claude sat with sad eyes fixed on +the smouldering fire. What could he do? What could he do? Wait and see +her innocence outraged, her tenderness racked, her gentle body given up +to unspeakable torments? The collapse which he had witnessed gave him as +it were a foretaste, a bitter savour of the trials to come. It did not +seem to him that he could bear even the anticipation of them. He rose, +he sat down, he rose again, unable to endure the intolerable thought. He +flung out his arms; his eyes, cast upwards, called God to witness that +it was too much! It was too much! + +Some way of escape there must be. Heaven could not look down on, could +not suffer such deeds in a Christian land. But men and women, girls and +young children had suffered these things; had appealed and called Heaven +to witness, and gone to death, and Heaven had not moved, nor the angels +descended! But it could not be in her case. Some way of escape there +must be. There must be. + +Why should she not leave her mother to her fate? A fate that could not +be evaded? Why need she, whose capacity for suffering was so great, who +had so much of life and love and all good things before her, remain to +share the pains of one whose span in any case was nearing its end? Of +one who had no longer power--or so it seemed--to meet the smallest +shock, and must succumb before she knew more of suffering than the name. +One whom a rude word might almost extinguish, and a rough push thrust +out of life? Why remain, when to remain was to sacrifice two lives in +lieu of one, to give and get nothing, to die for a prejudice? Why +remain, when by remaining she could not save her mother, but, on the +contrary, must inflict the sharpest pang of all, since she destroyed the +being who was dearest to her mother, the being whom her mother would die +to save? + +He grew heated as he dwelt on it. Of what use to any, the feeble +flickering light upstairs, that must go out were it left for a moment +untended? The light that would have gone out this long time back had she +not fostered it and cherished it and sheltered it in her bosom? Of what +avail that weak existence? Or, if it were of avail, why, for its sake, +waste this other and more precious life that still could not redeem it? + +Why? + +He must speak to her. He must persuade her, press her, convince her; +carry her off by force were it necessary. It was his duty, his clear +call. He rose and walked the room in excitement, as he thought of it. He +had pity for the old, abandoned and left to suffer alone; and an +enlightening glimpse of the weight that the girl must carry through life +by reason of this desertion. But no doubt, no hesitation--he told +himself--no scruple. To die that her mother might live was one thing. +To die--and so to die--merely that her mother's last hours might be +sheltered and comforted, was another, and a thing unreasonable. + +He must speak to her. He would not hesitate to tell her what he thought. + +But he did hesitate. When she descended half an hour later, and paused +at the foot of the stairs to assure herself that her passage downstairs +had not roused her mother from sleep, the light fell on her listening +face and tender eyes; and he read that in them which checked the words +on his lips; that which, whether it were folly or wisdom--a wisdom +higher than the serpent's, more perfect than the most accurate +calculation of values and chances--drove for ever from his mind the +thought that she would desert her charge. He said not a word of what he +had thought; the indignant reasoning, the hot, conclusive arguments fell +from him and left him bare. With her hands in his, seeking no more to +move her or convince her, he sat silent; and by mute looks and dumb +love--more potent than eloquence or oratory--strove to support and +console her. + +She, too, was silent. Stillness had fallen on both of them. But her +hands clung to his, and now and again pressed them convulsively; and now +and again, too, she would lift her eyes to his, and gaze at him with a +pathetic intentness, as if she would stamp his likeness on her brain. +But when he returned the look, and tried to read her meaning in her +eyes, she smiled. "You are afraid of me?" she whispered. "No, I shall +not be weak again." + +But even as she reassured him he detected a flicker of pain in her eyes, +he felt that her hands were cold; and but that he feared to shake her +composure he would not have rested content with her answer. + +This sudden silence, this new way of looking at him, were the only +things that perplexed him. In all else, silent as they sat, their +communion was perfect. It was in the mind of each that the women might +be arrested on the morrow; in the mind of each that this was their last +evening together, the last of few, yet not so few that they did not seem +to the man and the girl to bulk large in their lives. On that hearth +they had met, there she had proved to him what she was, there he had +spoken, there spent the clouded never-to-be-forgotten days of their +troubled courtship. No wonder that as they sat hand in hand, their hair +almost mingling, their eyes on the red glow of the smouldering log, and, +not daring to look forward, looked back--no wonder that their love grew +to be something other than the common love of man and maid, something +higher and more beautiful, touched--as the hills are touched at +sunset--by the evening glow of parting and self-sacrifice. + +Silent amid the silence of the house; living moments never to be +forgotten; welcoming together the twin companions, love and death. + +But from the darkest outlook of the mind, as of the eye, morning dispels +some shadows; into the most depressing atmosphere daylight brings hope, +brings actuality, brings at least the need to be doing. Claude's heart, +as he slipped from his couch on the settle next morning, and admitted +the light and turned the log and stirred the embers, was sad and full of +foreboding. But as the room, its disorder abated, took on a more +pleasant aspect, as the fire crackled and blazed on the hearth, and the +flush of sunrise spread over the east, he grew--he could not but grow, +for he was young--more cheerful also. He swept the floor and filled the +kettle and let in the air; and had done almost all he knew how to do, +before he heard Anne's foot upon the stairs. + +She had slept little and looked pale and haggard; almost more pale and +wan than he had ever seen her look. And this must have sunk his heart to +zero, if a certain item in her aspect had not at the same time diverted +his attention. "You are not going out?" he cried in astonishment. She +wore her hood. + +"I am not going to defend myself again," she answered, smiling sadly. +"Have no fear. I shall not repeat that mistake. I am only going----" + +"You are not going anywhere!" he answered firmly. + +She shook her head with the same wan smile. "We must live," she said. + +"Well?" + +"And to live must have water." + +"I have filled the kettle." + +"And emptied the water-pot," she retorted. + +"True," he said. "But surely it will be time to refill it when we want +it." + +"I shall attract less attention now," she answered quietly, "than later +in the day. There are few abroad. I will draw my hood about my face, and +no one will heed me." + +He laughed in tender derision. "You will not go!" he said. "Did you +think that I would let you run a risk rather than fetch the water from +the conduit." + +"You will go?" + +"Where is the pot?" + +He fetched the jar from its place under the stairs, snatched up his cap, +and turning the key in the lock was in the act of passing out when she +seized his arm. "Kiss me," she murmured. She lifted her face to his, her +eyes half closed. + +He drew her to him, but her lips were cold; and as he released her she +sank passively from his embrace, and was near falling. He hesitated. +"You are not afraid to be left?" he said. "You are sure?" + +"I am afraid of nothing if I know you safe," she answered faintly. "Go! +go quickly, and God be with you!" + +"Tut! I run no danger," he rejoined. "I have a strong arm and they will +leave me alone." He thought that she was overwrought, that the strain +was telling on her; his thoughts did not go beyond that. "I shall be +back in five minutes," he continued cheerfully. And he went, bidding her +lock the door behind him and open only at his knock. + +He made the more haste for her fears, passed into the town through the +Porte Tertasse, and hastened to the conduit. The open space in front of +the fountain, which a little later in the day would be the favourite +resort of gossips and idlers, was a desert; the bitter morning wind saw +to that. But about the fountain itself three or four women closely +muffled were waiting their turns to draw. One looked up, and, as he +fancied, recognised him, for she nudged her neighbour. And then first +the one woman and then the other, looking askance, muttered something; +it might have been a prayer, or a charm, or a mere word of gossip. But +he liked neither the glance nor the action, nor the furtive, curious +looks of the women; and as quickly as he could he filled his pot and +carried it away. + +He had splashed his fingers, and the cold wind quickly numbed them. At +the Tertasse Gate, where the view commanding the river valley opened +before him, he was glad to set down the vessel and change hands. On his +left, the watch at the Porte Neuve, the gate in the ramparts which +admitted from the country to the Corraterie--as the Tertasse admitted +from the Corraterie to the town proper--was being changed, and he paused +an instant, gazing on the scene. Then remembering himself, and the need +of haste, he snatched up his jar and, turning to the right, hurried to +the steps before the Royaumes' door, swung up them and, with his eyes +on the windows, set down his burden. + +He knocked gently, sure that she would not keep him waiting. But she did +not come at once; and by-and-by, seeing that a woman at an open door a +little farther down the Corraterie was watching him with scowling +eyes--and that strange look, half fear, half loathing, which he was +growing to know--he knocked more loudly, and stamped to warm his feet. + +Still, to his astonishment, she did not come; he waited, and waited, and +she did not come. He would have begun to feel alarmed for her, but, what +with the cold and the early hour, the place was deserted; no idle gazers +such as a commotion leaves behind it were to be seen. The wind, however, +began to pierce his clothes; he had not brought his cloak, and he +shivered. He knocked more loudly. + +Perhaps she had been called to her mother? That must be it. She had gone +upstairs and could not on the instant leave her charge. He clothed +himself in reproaches; but they did not warm him, and he was beginning +to stamp his feet again when, happening to look down, he saw beside the +water-can and partly hidden by its bulge, a packet about the size of a +letter, but a little thicker. If he had not mounted the steps with his +eyes on the windows, searching for her face, he would have seen it at +once, and spared himself these minutes of waiting. He took it up in +bewilderment, and turned it in his numbed hands; it was heavy, and from +it, leaving only a piece of paper in his grasp, his purse fell to the +ground. More and more astonished, he picked up the purse, and put it in +his pocket. He looked at the window, but no one showed; then at the +paper in his hand. Inside the letter were three lines of writing. + +His face fell as he read them. "_I shall not admit you_," they ran. +"_If you try to enter, you will attract notice and destroy me. Go, and +God bless and reward you. You cannot save me, and to see you perish were +a worse pang than the worst._" + +The words swam before his eyes. "I will beat down the door," he +muttered, tears in his voice, tears welling up in his heart and choking +him. And he raised his hand. "I will----" + +But he did nothing. "_You will attract notice and destroy me._" Ah, she +had thought it out too well. Too well, out of the wisdom of great love, +she had known how to bridle him. He dared not do anything that would +direct notice to the house. + +But desert her? Never; and after a moment's thought he drew off, his +plans formed. As he retired, when he had gone some yards from the door, +he heard the window closed sharply behind him. He looked back and saw +his cloak lying on the ground. Tears rose again to his eyes, as he +returned, took it up, donned it, and with a last lingering look at the +window, turned away. She would think that he had taken her at her word; +but no matter! + +He walked along the Corraterie, and passing the four square watch-towers +with pointed roofs that stood at intervals along the wall, he came to +the two projecting demilunes, or bastions, that marked the angle where +the ramparts met the Rhone; a point from which the wall descended to the +bridge. In one of these bastions he ensconced himself; and selecting a +place whence he could, without being seen, command the length of the +Corraterie, he set himself to watch the Royaumes' house. By-and-by he +would go into the town and procure food, and, returning, keep guard +until nightfall. After dark, if the day passed without event, he would +find his way into the house by force or fraud. In a rapture of +anticipation he pictured his entrance, her reluctant joy, her tears and +smiles, and fond reproaches. As he loved her, as he must love her the +more for the trick she had played him, she must love him the more for +his return in her teeth. And the next day was Sunday, when it was +unlikely that any steps would be taken. That whole day he would have +with her, through it he would sit with her! A whole day without fear? It +seemed an age. He did not, he would not look beyond it! + +He had not broken his fast, and hunger presently drove him into the +town. But within half an hour he was at his post again. A glance at the +Royaumes' house showed him that nothing had happened, and, resuming his +seat in the deserted bastion, he began a watch that as long as he lived +stood clear in his memory of the past. The day was cold and bright, and +frosty with a nipping wind. Mont Blanc and the long range of snow-clad +summits that flanked it rose dazzlingly bright against the blue sky. The +most distant object seemed near; the wavelets on the unfrozen water of +the lake gave to the surface, usually so blue, a rough, grey aspect. The +breeze which produced this appearance kept the ramparts clear of +loiterers; and even those who were abroad preferred the more sheltered +streets, or went hurriedly about their business. The guards were content +to shiver in the guardrooms of the gate-towers, and if Claude blessed +once the kind afterthought which had dropped his cloak from the window, +he blessed it a dozen times. Wrapt in its thick folds, it was all he +could do to hold his ground against the cold. Without it he must have +withdrawn or succumbed. + +Through the morning he watched the house jealously, trembling at every +movement which took place at the Tertasse Gate; lest it herald the +approach of the officers to arrest the women. But nothing happened, and +as the day wore on he grew more hopeful. He might, indeed, have begun +to think Anne over-timid and his fears unwarranted, if he had not seen, +a little before sunset, a thing which opened his eyes. + +Two women and some children came out of a house not far from the +bastion. They passed towards the Tertasse Gate, and he watched them. +Before they came to the Royaumes' house, the children paused, flung +their cloaks over their heads, and, thus protected, ran past the house. +The women followed, more slowly, but gave the house a wide berth, and +each passed with a flap of her hood held between her face and the +windows; when they had gone by they exchanged signals of abhorrence. The +sight was no more than of a piece with the outrage on Anne; but, coming +when it did, coming when he was beginning to think that he had been +mistaken, when he was beginning to hope, it depressed Claude dismally. + +For comfort he looked forward to the hour when it would be dark. "By +hook or by crook," he muttered, "I shall enter then." + +He had barely finished the sentence, when he observed moving along the +ramparts towards him a figure he knew. It was Grio. There was nothing +strange in the man's presence in that place, for he was an idler and a +sot; but Claude did not wish to meet him, and debated in his mind +whether he should retreat before the other came up. Pride said one +thing, discretion another. He wanted no fracas, and he was still hanging +doubtful, measuring the distance between them, when--away went his +thoughts. What was Grio doing? + +The Spaniard had come to a stand, and was leaning on the wall, looking +idly into the fosse. The posture would have been the most natural in the +world on a warm day. On that day it caught Claude's attention; and--was +he mistaken, or were the hands that, under cover of Grio's cloak, +rested on the wall busy about something? + +In any case he must make up his mind whether he moved or stayed. For +Grio was coming on again. Claude hesitated a moment. Then he determined +to stay. The next he was glad he had so determined, for Grio after +strolling on in seeming carelessness to a point not twenty yards from +him, and well commanded from his seat, leant again on the wall, and +seemed to be enjoying the view. This time Claude was sure, from the +movement of his shoulders, that his hands were employed. + +"In what?" The young man asked himself the question; and noted that +beside Grio's left heel lay a piece of broken tile of a peculiar colour. +The next moment he had an inspiration. He drew up his feet on the seat, +drew his cloak over his head and affected to be asleep. What Grio, when +he came upon him, thought of a man who chose to sleep in the open in +such weather he did not learn, for after standing a while--as Claude's +ears told him--opposite the sleeper, the Spaniard turned and walked back +the way he had come. This time, and though he now had the wind at his +back, he walked briskly; as a man would walk in such weather, or as a +man might walk who had done his business. + +Claude waited until his coarse, heavy figure had disappeared through the +Porte Tertasse; nay, he waited until the light began to fail. Then, +while he could still pick out the red potsherd, he approached the wall, +leant over it, and, failing to detect anything with his eyes, passed his +fingers down the stones. + +They alighted on a nail; a nail thrust lightly into the mortar below the +coping stone. For what purpose? His blood beginning to move more quickly +Claude asked himself the question. To support a rope? And so to enable +some one to leave the town? The nail, barely pushed into the mortar, +would hardly support the weight of a dozen yards of twine. + +Perhaps the nail was there by chance, and Grio had naught to do with it. +He could settle that doubt. In a few moments he had settled it. Under +cover of the growing darkness, he walked to the place at which he had +seen Grio pause for the first time. A short search discovered a second +nail as lightly secured as the other. Had he not been careful it would +have fallen beneath his touch. + +What did the nails there? Claude was not stupid, yet he was long in +hitting on an explanation. It was a fanciful, extravagant notion when he +got it, but one that set his chilled blood running, and his hands +tingling, one that might mean much to himself and to others. It was +unlikely, it was improbable, it was out of the common; but it was an +explanation. It was a mighty thing to hang upon two weak nails; but such +as it was--and he turned it over and over in his mind before he dared +entertain it--he could find no other. And presently, his eyes alight, +his pulses riotous, his foot dancing, he walked down the +Corraterie--with scarce a look at the house which had held his thoughts +all day--and passed into the town. As he passed through the gateway he +hung an instant and cast an inquisitive eye into the guard-room of the +Tertasse. It was nearly empty. Two men sat drowsing before the fire, +their boot-heels among the embers, a black jack between them. + +The fact weighed something in the balance of probabilities: and in +growing excitement, Claude hurried on, sought the cookshop at which he +had broken his fast--a humble place, licensed for the scholars--and ate +his supper, not knowing what he ate, nor with whom he ate it. It was +only by chance that his ear caught, at a certain moment, a new tone in +the goodwife's voice; and that he looked up, and saw her greet her +husband. + +"Ay!" the man said, putting off his bandoleer, and answering the +exclamation of surprise which his entrance had evoked. "It's bed for me +to-night. It's so cold they will send but half the rounds." + +"Whose order is that?" asked a scholar at Claude's table. + +"Messer Blondel's." + +"Shows his sense!" the goodwife cried roundly. "A good man, and knows +when to watch and when to ha' done!" + +Claude said nothing, but he rose with burning cheeks, paid his share--it +was seven o'clock--and, passing out, made his way back. It should be +said that in addition to the Tertasse Gate, two lesser gates, the +Treille on the one hand and the Monnaye on the other, led from the town +proper to the Corraterie; and this time he chose to go out by the +Treille. Having ascertained that the guard-room there also was almost +denuded of men, he passed along the Corraterie to his bastion, hugging +the houses on his right, and giving the wall a wide berth. Although the +cold wind blew in his face he paused several times to listen, nor did he +enter his bastion until he had patiently made certain that it was +untenanted. + +The night was very dark: it was the night of December the 12th, old +style, the longest and deadest of the year. Far below him in the black +abyss on which the wall looked down, a few oil lamps marked the island +and the town beyond the Rhone. Behind him, on his left, a glimmer +escaping here and there from the upper windows marked the line of the +Corraterie, of which the width is greatest at the end farthest from the +river. Near the far extremity of the rampart a bright light marked the +Porte Neuve, distant about two hundred yards from his post, and about +seventy or eighty from the Porte Tertasse, the inner gate which +corresponded with it. Straight from him to the Porte Neuve ran the +rampart a few feet high on the inner side, some thirty feet high on the +outer, but shrouded for the present in a black gloom that defied his +keenest vision. + +He waited more than an hour, his ears on the alert. At the end of that +time, he drew a deep breath of relief. A step that might have been the +step of a sentry pacing the rampart, and now pausing, now moving on, +began to approach him. It came on, paused, came on, paused--this time +close at hand. Two or three dull sounds followed, then the sharper noise +of a falling stone. Immediately the foot of the sentry, if sentry it +was, began to retreat. + +Claude drove his nails into the palms of his hands and waited, waited +through an eternity, waited until the retreating foot had almost +reached, as he judged, the Porte Tertasse. Then he stole out, groped his +way to the wall, and passed his hand along the outer side until he came +to the nail. He found it. It had been made secure, and from it depended +a thin string. + +He set to work at once to draw up the string. There was a small weight +attached to it, which rose slowly until it reached his hand. It was a +stone about as large as the fist, and of a whitish colour. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +IN TWO CHARACTERS. + + +After the wave, the trough of the wave; after action, passion. Not to +sink a little after rising to the pitch of self-sacrifice, not to shed, +when the deed is done, some bitter tears of regret and self-pity, were +to be cast in a mould above the human. + +When the cloak--dear garment!--had slipped from her hands and the head +bent that its owner might raise the cloak had passed from sight--when +Anne had fled to the farther side of the room, to the farther side of +the settle, and had heard his step die away, she would have given the +world to see him again, to feel his arm about her, to hear the sound of +his voice. The tears streamed down her face; in vain she tried to stay +them with her hands, in vain she chid herself for her weakness. "It is +for him! for him!" she moaned, and hid her face in her hands. But words +stay no tears; and on the hearth which his coming had changed for her, +standing where she had first seen him, where she had heard his first +words of love, where she had tried him, she wept bitter tears for him. + +The storm died away at last--for after every storm falls a calm--but it +left the empty house, the empty heart, silence. Her mother? She had +still her mother, and with lagging footsteps she went upstairs to her. +But she found her in a deep sleep, and she descended again, and going to +his room began to put together his few belongings, the clothes he had +worn, the books he had read; that if the house were entered they might +not be lost to him. She buried her face in his garments and kissed them, +fondly, tenderly, passionately, lingering over the task, and at last +putting the things from her with reluctance. A knot of ribbon which she +had seen him wear in the neck of his shirt on holidays she took and hid +in her bosom, and fetching a length of her own ribbon she put it in +place of the other. This she thought she could do without fear of +bringing suspicion on him, for he alone would discern the exchange. +Would he notice it? Would he weep when he found the ribbon as she wept +now? And fondle it tenderly? At the thought her tears gushed forth. + +The day wore on. Supported by the knowledge that even a slight shock +might cast her mother into one of her fits, Anne hid her fears from her, +though the effort was as the lifting of a great weight. On the pretext +that the light hurt the invalid's sight, she shaded the window, and so +hid the hollows under her eyes and the wan looks that must have betrayed +the forced nature of her cheerfulness. As a rule Madame Royaume's eyes, +quickened by love, were keen; but this day she slept much, and the night +was fairly advanced when Anne, in the act of preparing to lie down, +turned and saw her mother sitting erect in the bed. + +The old woman's eyes were strangely bright. Her face wore an intent +expression which arrested her daughter where she stood. + +"Mother, what is it?" she cried. + +"Listen!" Madame Royaume answered. "What is that?" + +"I hear nothing," Anne said, hoping to soothe her. And she approached +the bed. + +"I hear much," her mother retorted. "Go! Go and see, child, what it +is!" She pointed to the door, but, before Anne could reach it, she +raised her hand for silence. "They are crossing the ditch," she +muttered, her eyes dilated. "One, two, many, many of them! Many of them! +They are throwing down hurdles, and wattles, and crossing on them! And +there is a priest with them----" + +"Mother!" + +"A priest!" Her voice dropped a little. "The ladders are black," she +whispered. "Black ladders! Ay, swathed in black cloth; and now they set +them against the wall. The priest absolves them, and they begin to +mount. They are mounting! They are mounting now." + +"Mother!" There was sharp pain in Anne's voice. Who does not know the +heartache with which it is seen that the mind of a loved one is +wandering from us? And yet she was puzzled. She dreaded one of those +scenes in which her young strength was barely sufficient to control and +soothe the frail form before her. But they did not begin as a rule in +this fashion; here, though the mind wandered, was an absence of the +wildness to which she had become inured. Here--and yet as she listened, +as she looked, now at her mother, now into the dimly lighted corners of +the room, where those dilated eyes seemed to see things unseen by her, +black things, she found this phase no less disquieting than the other. + +"Hush!" Madame Royaume continued, heeding her daughter's interruption no +farther than by that word and an impatient movement of the hand. "A +stone has fallen and struck one down. They raise him, he is lifeless! +No, he moves, he rises. They set other ladders against the wall. They +mount now by tens and twenties--and--it is growing dark--dark, child. +Dark!" She seemed to try to put away a curtain with her hands. + +"Mother!" Anne cried, bending over the bed and taking her mother's +hand. "Don't, dear! Don't! You frighten me." + +The old woman raised her hand for silence, and continued to gaze before +her. Anne's arm was round her; the girl marked with astonishment, almost +with awe, how strongly and stiffly she sat up. She marvelled still more +when her mother murmured in the same tone, "I can see no more," sighed, +and sank gently back. Anne bent over her. "I can--see no more," Madame +Royaume repeated; "I can----" She was asleep! + +Anne bent over her, and after listening a while to her easy breathing, +heaved a deep sigh of relief. Her mother had been talking in her sleep; +and she, Anne had alarmed herself for nothing. Nevertheless, as she +turned from the bed she looked nervously over her shoulder. The other's +wandering or dream, or what it was, had left a vague disquiet in her +mind, and presently she took the lamp and, opening the door, passed out, +and, with her hands still on the latch, listened. + +Suddenly her heart bounded, her startled eyes leapt upward to the +ceiling. Close to her, above her, she heard a sound. + +It came from a trap-door that led to the tiles; a trap that even as her +eyes reached it, lifted itself with a rending sound. Save for the +bedridden woman, Anne was alone in the house; and for one instant it was +a question whether she held her ground or fled shrieking into the room +she had left. For an instant; then the instinct to shield her mother won +the day, and with fascinated eyes she watched the legs of a man drop +through the aperture, watched a body follow, and--and at last a face! + +Claude's face! But changed. Even while she sank gasping against the +wall--for the surprise was too much for her--even while he took the lamp +from her shaking hand and supported her, and relief and joy began to +run like wine through her veins, she knew it. The forceful look, the +tightened lips, the eyes gleaming with determination--all were new to +her. They gave him an aspect so old, so strange, that when he had kissed +her once she put him from her. + +"What is it?" she said. "Oh, Claude! What is it? What has happened?" + +Letting a smile appear--but such a smile as did not reassure her--he +signed to her to go before him downstairs. She complied; but at the foot +of the first flight she stopped, unable to bear the suspense longer. She +turned to him again. "What is it?" she cried. "Something has happened?" + +"Something is happening," he answered. His eyes shone, exultant. "But it +is a matter for others! We may be easy!" + +"What is it?" + +"The Savoyards are in Geneva." + +She started incredulously. "In Geneva? Here?" she exclaimed. "The +enemy?" + +He nodded. + +"Here? In Geneva?" she repeated. She could not have heard aright. + +"Yes." + +But she still looked at him; she could not reconcile his words with his +manner. This, the greatest calamity that could happen, this which she +had been brought up to fear as the worst and most awful of +catastrophes--could he talk of it, could he announce it after this +fashion? With a smile, in a tone of pleasantry? He must be playing with +her. She passed her hand over her eyes, and tried to be calm. "But all +is quiet?" she said. + +"All is quiet now," he answered. "After midnight the trouble will +begin." + +Still she could not understand him. His face said one thing, his voice +another. Besides, the town was quiet: no sound of riot or disturbance, +no clash of steel, no tramp of feet penetrated the walls. And the house +stood on the ramparts where the first alarm must be given. "Do you +mean," she asked at last, her eyes fixed steadfastly on him, "that they +are going to attack the town after midnight?" + +"They are here now," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "They scaled +the wall after the guard had gone round at eleven, and they are lying by +tens and twenties along the outer side of the Corraterie, waiting for +the hour and the signal." + +She passed her hand across her closed eyes, and looked again, +perplexedly. "And you," she said, "you? I do not understand. If this be +so, what are you doing here?" + +"Here?" + +"Ay, here! Why have you not given the alarm in the town?" + +"Why should I give the alarm?" he retorted coolly. "To save those who +hounded you through the streets two days ago? To save those who +to-morrow may put you to the torture and burn you like the vilest of +creatures? Save them?" with a grim smile. "No, let them save +themselves!" + +"But----" + +"I would save you! not them! I would save your mother! not them! And it +is done. Let the Grand Duke triumph to-night, let Savoy take Geneva, and +our good townsfolk will have other matters to occupy their thoughts +to-morrow! Ay, and through many and many a morrow to come! Save them?" +with a grim note in his voice; "no, I save you. Let them save +themselves! It is God's mercy on us, and His judgment on them! Or why +happens it to-night? To-night of all nights in the year?" + +She was very pale, and for a moment remained silent: whether she felt +the temptation to which he had succumbed, or was seeking what she should +say to move him, is uncertain. At last, "It is impossible," she +murmured, in a low voice. "You have not thought of the women and +children, of the fathers and mothers who will suffer." + +"And your mother!" + +"Is one. God forbid that I should save her at the expense of all! God +forbid!" she wailed, as if she feared her own strength, as if the +temptation almost overcame her. And then laying her hand on his arm and +looking up to him--his face was set so hard--"You will not do this!" she +said. "You will not do this! Could we be happy after? Could we be happy +with blood on our heads, and on our hands, and on our hearts! Happy, oh +no! Claude, dear heart, dear husband, we cannot buy happiness so, or +life so, or love so! We cannot save ourselves--so! We cannot play God's +part--so!" + +"It is not we who do it," he answered stubbornly. + +"It is we who may prevent it!" she answered, leaning more heavily on his +arm, looking up to him more earnestly; with pleading eyes which it was +hard to refuse. "Would you, to save us, have betrayed Geneva?" + +He groaned--she had moved him. "God knows!" he answered. "To save you--I +think I would!" + +"You would not! You would not!" she repeated. "Neither must you do this! +Honour, faith, duty, all forbid it!" + +"And love?" he cried. + +"And love!" she answered. "For who would love dishonoured? Who would +love in shame? No; go as you have come, and give the alarm! And do, and +help! Go, as you have come! But how"--with a startled look as she +thought of the trap-door--"did you come?" + +"By the Tertasse Gate," he explained. "There were but two men on guard, +and they were asleep. I passed them unseen, climbed the stairs to the +leads--I have been up twice before--and crossed the roofs. I knew I +could come this way unseen, and if I had come by the door----" + +She understood and cut him short. "Then go as you came and rouse the +watch in the gate!" she cried feverishly. "Rouse them and all, and +Heaven grant you be not too late! Go, Claude, for the love of me, for +the love of God, go quickly!" Her hands on his arm shook with eagerness. +"So that, if there be treachery here----" + +"There is treachery!" he said darkly. "Grio----" + +"We at least shall have no part in it! You will go? You will go?" she +repeated, clinging to his arm, trembling against him, looking up to him +with eyes which he could not resist. Love wrestled here, on the higher, +the nobler, the unselfish side, and came the stronger out of the +contest. There were tears in his eyes as he answered. + +"I will go. You are right, Anne. But you will be alone." + +"I run no greater risk than others," she answered. He held her to him, +and their lips met once. And in that instant, her heart beating against +his, she comprehended to what she was sending him, into what peril of +life, into what a dark hell of force and fire and blood; and her arms +clung to him as if she could not let him go. Then, "Go, and God keep +you!" she murmured in a choked voice. And she thrust him from her. + +A moment later he was on the roof, and she was kneeling where he had +left her, bowed down, with her face on the bare stairs in an agony of +prayer for him. But not for long; she had her part to do. She hurried +down to the living-room and made sure that the strong shutters were +secured; then up to Basterga's room and to Grio's, and as far as her +strength went she piled the furniture against the iron-barred casements +that looked on to the ramparts. While she worked her ears listened for +the alarm, but, until she had finished and was ascending with the light +to her mother's room she heard nothing. Then a distant cry, a faint +challenge, the drum-drum of running feet, a second cry--and silence. It +might be his death-cry she had heard; and she stood with a white face, +shivering, waiting, bearing the woman's burden of suspense. To lie down +by her mother was impossible; rapine, murder, fire, all the horrors, all +the perils of a city taken by surprise, crowded into her mind. Yet they +moved her not so much as the dangers he ran, whom she had sent forth to +confront them, whom she had plucked from her own breast that he might +face them! + +Meanwhile, Claude, after gaining the tiles, paused a moment to consider +his next step. Far below him, on the narrow, black triangle of the +Corraterie, lay the Savoyards, some three hundred in number, who had +scaled the wall. Out of the darkness of the plain, beyond and below +them, rose the faint, distant quacking of alarmed ducks, proving that +others of the enemy moved there. Even as he listened, the whirr of a +wild goose winging its flight over the city came to his ear. On his +left, with a dim oil lamp marking, here or there, the meeting of four +ways, the town slept unsuspicious, recking nothing of the fate prepared +for it. + +It was a solemn moment, and Claude on the roof under the night sky, felt +it to be so. Restored to his higher self, he breathed a prayer for +guidance and for her, and was as eager now as he had before been cold. +But not the less for that did he ply the wits that, working freely in +this hour of peril, proved him one of those whom battle owns for master. +He had gathered enough, lying on his face in the bastion, to feel sure +that the forlorn hope which had gained a footing on the wall would not +move until the arrival of the main body whom it was its plan to admit by +the Porte Neuve. To carry the alarm to the Porte Neuve, therefore, and +secure that gate, seemed to be the first and most urgent step; since to +secure the Tertasse and the other inner gates would be of little avail, +if the main body of the enemy were once in possession of the ramparts. +The course that at first sight seemed the most obvious--to enter the +town, give the alarm at the town hall, and set the tocsin ringing--he +rejected; for while the town was arming, the three hundred who had +entered might seize the Porte Neuve, and so secure the entrance of the +main body. + +These calculations occupied no more than a few seconds: then, his mind +made up to the course he must pursue, he crawled as quickly, but also as +quietly, as he could along the dark parapets until he gained the leads +of the Tertasse. Safe so far, he proceeded, with equal or greater +caution, to descend the narrow cork-screw staircase, that led to the +guard-room on the ground floor. + +He forgot that it is more easy to ascend without noise than to descend. +With all his care he stumbled when he was within three steps of the +bottom. He tried to save himself, but fell against the half-open door, +flung it wide, and, barely keeping his feet, found himself face to face +with the two watchmen, who, startled by the noise, had sprung to their +feet, thinking the devil was upon them. One, with an oath upon his lips, +reached for his half-pike; his fellow, less sober, steadied himself by +resting a hand on the table. + +If they gave the alarm, his plan was gone. The enemy, finding themselves +discovered, would seize the Porte Neuve. "One minute!" he cried +breathlessly. "Let me explain!" + +"You!" the more sober retorted, glaring fiercely at him. "Who the devil +are you? And where have you been?" + +"Quiet, man, quiet!" + +"What is it?" + +"Treason!" Claude answered, imploring silence by a gesture. "Treason! +That is what it is! But for God's sake, no noise! No noise, man, or our +throats are as good as cut! Savoy has the wall!" + +The man stared, and no wonder. "You are mad," he said, "or drunk! +Savoy----" + +"Fool, it is so!" Claude cried, beside himself with impatience. + +"Savoy?" + +"They are under the trees on the ramparts within a few yards of us now! +Three hundred of them! A word and you will feel their pikes in your +breast! Listen to me!" + +But with a laugh of derision the drunken man cut him short. "Savoy +here--on the wall!" he hiccoughed. "And we on guard!" + +"It is so!" Claude urged. "Believe me, it is so! And we must be wary." + +"You lie, young man! And I'll--hic--I'll prove it! See here! Savoy on +the wall, indeed! Savoy? And we on guard?" + +He lurched in two strides to the outer door, seized it, and supported +himself by it. Claude leant forward to stop him, but could not reach, +being on the other side of the table. He called to the other to do so. +"Stop him!" he said. "Stop him!" + +The man might have done so, but he did not stir; and "Stop him?" the sot +answered, his hand on the door. "Not--two of you--will stop him! Now, +then! Savoy, indeed! On the wall? I'll show you!" + +He let the door go, and reeled three paces into the darkness outside, +waving his hands as if he drove chickens. "Savoy! Savoy!" he cried; but +whether in drunken bravado, in derision, or in pure disbelief, God only +knows! For the word had barely passed his lips the second time before a +gurgling scream followed, freezing the hearts of the two listeners; and, +before the second guard could close the door or move from his place on +the hearth, four men sprang in out of the darkness, and bore him back. +Before he had struck a blow they had pinned him against the wall. + +Claude owed his escape to his position behind the door. They did not see +him as they sprang in, intent on the one they did see. He knew +resistance to be futile, and a bound carried him into the darkness of +the cork-screw staircase. Once there, he dared not move. Thence he saw +and heard what followed. + +The man pinned against the wall, with the point of a knife flickering +before his eyes, begged piteously for his life. + +"Then silence!" Basterga answered--for the foremost who had entered was +he. "A word and you die!" + +"Better let me finish him at once!" Grio growled. The prisoner's face +was ashen, his eyes were starting from his head. "Dead men give no +alarms." + +"Mercy! Mercy!" the man gasped. + +"Ay, ay, let him live," Basterga said good-naturedly. "But he must be +gagged. Turn your face to the wall, my man!" + +The poor wretch complied with gratitude. In a twinkling the Paduan's +huge fingers closed round his neck, and over his wind-pipe. "Now +strike," the big man hissed. "He will make no noise!" + +With a sickening thud Grio's knife sank between the shoulders, a moment +the body writhed in Basterga's herculean grip, then it sank lifeless to +the floor. "Had you struck him, fool," Basterga muttered wrathfully, +wiping a little blood from his sleeve, "as you wanted to strike him, he +had squealed like a pig! Now 'tis the same, and no noise. Ha! Seize +him!" + +He spoke too late. Claude had seen his opportunity, and as the +treacherous blow was struck had crept forth. At the moment the other saw +him he bounded over the threshold. Even as his feet touched the ground a +man who stood outside lunged at him with a pike but missed him--a +chance, for Claude had not seen the striker. The next moment the young +man had launched himself into the darkness and was running for his life +across the Corraterie in the direction of the Porte Neuve. + +He knew that his foes were lying on every side of him, and the cry of +"Seize him! Seize him!" went with him, making every step a separate +peril. He could not see a yard, but he was young and fleet and active; +and the darkness covering him, the men were confused. Over more than one +black object he bounded like a deer. Once a man rising in front of him +brought him heavily to the ground, but by good fortune it was his foot +struck the man, and on the head, and the fellow lay still and let him +rise. A moment later another gripped him, but Claude and he fell +together, and the younger man, rolling nimbly sideways, got clear and to +his feet again, made for the wall on his right, turned left again, and +already thought himself over the threshold of the Porte Neuve. The cry +"Aux Armes! Aux Armes!" was already on his lips, he thought he had +succeeded, when between his eyes and the faintly lighted gateway a +dozen forms rose as by magic and poured in before him--so near to him +that, unable to check himself, he jostled the hindmost. + +He might have entered with them, so near was he. But he saw that he was +too late; he guessed that the outcry behind him had precipitated the +attack, and, arresting himself outside the ring of light, but within a +few paces of the gateway, he threw himself on the ground and awaited the +event. It was not long in declaring itself. For a few seconds a dull +roar of shots and shouts and curses filled the gate. Then out again, +helter-skelter, with a flash of exploding powder and a whirl of steel +and blows, came defenders and assailants in a crowd, the former bent on +escaping, the latter on cutting them off from the Porte Tertasse and the +town. For an instant after they had poured out the gate seemed quiet, +and with his eyes upon it, Claude rose, first to his knees and then to +his feet, paused a moment in doubt, then darted in and entered the +guard-room. + +The firelight--the other lights in the small, dingy chamber had been +trampled under foot--showed him two wounded men groaning on the floor, +and the body of a third who lay apparently dead. Claude bent over one, +found what he wanted--a half-pike--and glided to the door of the stairs +that led to the roof. It was in the same position as in the Tertasse. He +opened it, passed through it, mounted two steps, and in the darkness +came plump against some one who seized him by the throat. + +The man had no weapon--at any rate he did not strike; and Claude, taken +by surprise, could not level his pike in the narrow stairway. For a +moment they wrestled, Claude striving to bring his weapon to bear on his +foe, the latter trying to strangle him. But the advantage of the stairs +lay with the first comer, who was the uppermost, and gradually he bore +Claude back and back. The young man, however, would not let go such hold +as he had, and both were on the point of falling out on the floor of the +guard-room when the light disclosed Claude's face. + +"You are of us!" his opponent panted. And abruptly he released his grip. + +"Geneva!" + +"I know you!" The man was one of the guard who, in the alarm, had +escaped into the stairway. "I know you! You live in the Corraterie!" + +Claude wasted not a second. "Up!" he cried. "We can hold the roof! Up, +man, for your life! For your life! It is our only chance!" + +With the fear of death upon him, the other needed no second telling. He +turned, and groped upwards in haste; and Claude followed, treading on +his heels; nor a moment too soon. While they were still within the +staircase, which their elbows rubbed on either side, they heard the +enemy swarm into the room below. Cries of triumph, of "Savoy! Savoy!" of +"Ville gagnee! gagnee!" hummed dully up to them, and proclaimed the +narrowness of their escape. Then the night air met their faces, they +bent their heads and passed out upon the leads; they had above them the +stars, and below them all the world of night, with its tramp of hidden +feet, its swaying lights so tiny and distant, and here and there its cry +of "Savoy! Savoy!" that showed that the enemy, relying on their capture +of the Porte Neuve, were casting off disguise. + +Claude heard and saw all, but lost not a moment. He had not made this +haste for his life only: before he had risen to his knees or set foot in +the gate, he had formed his plan. "The Portcullis!" he cried. "The +Portcullis! Where are the chains? On this side?" Less than a week +before he had stood and watched the guard as they released it and raised +it again for practice. + +The soldier, familiar with the tower, should have been able to go to the +chains at once. But though he had struggled for his life and was ready +to struggle for it again, he had not recovered his nerve, and he shrank +from leaving the stairs, in holding which their one chance consisted. He +muttered, however, that the winch was on such and such a side, and, with +his head in the stairway, indicated the direction with his hand. Claude +groped his way to the spot, his breath coming fast; fortunately he laid +his hand almost at once on the chains and felt for the spike, which he +knew he must draw or knock out. That done, the winch would fly round, +and the huge machine fall by its own weight. + +On a sudden, "They are coming!" the soldier cried in a terrified +whisper. "My God, they are coming! Come back! Come back!" For Claude had +their only weapon, and the guard was defenceless. Defenceless by the +side of the stairs up which the foe was climbing! + +The hair rose on Claude's head, but he set his teeth; though the man +died, though he died, the portcullis must fall! More than his own life, +more than the lives of both of them, more than lives a hundred or a +thousand hung on that bolt; the fate of millions yet unborn, the freedom +and the future of a country hung on that bolt which would not give +way--though now he had found it and was hammering it. Grinding his +teeth, the sweat on his brow, he beat on it with the pike, struck the +iron with the strength of despair, stooped to see what was amiss--still +with the frenzied prayers of the other in his ears--saw it, and struck +again and again--and again! + +Whirr! The winch flew round, barely missing his head. With a harsh, +grinding sound that rose with incredible swiftness to a scream, piercing +the night, the ponderous grating slid down, crashed home and barred all +entrance--closed the Porte Neuve. It did more, though Claude did not +know it. It cut off the engineer from the outer gate, of which the keys +were at the Town Hall, and against which in another minute, another +sixty seconds, he had set his petard. That set and exploded, Geneva had +lain open to its enemies. As it was, so small was the margin, so fatally +accurate the closing, that when the day rose, it disclosed a portent. +When the victors came to examine the spot they found beneath the +portcullis the mangled form of one of the engineers, and beside him lay +his petard. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +ARMES! ARMES! + + +Claude did not know all that he had done, or the narrow margin of time +by which he had succeeded. But he did know that he had saved the gate; +that gate on the outer side of which four thousand of the picked troops +of Savoy were waiting the word to enter. He knew that he had done it +with death at his elbow and with the cries of his panic-stricken comrade +in his ears. And in the moment of success he rose above the common +level. He felt himself master of fear, lord of death; in the exultation +of his triumph he thought nothing too hard or too dangerous for him. + +It was well perhaps that he had this feeling, for he had not a moment to +waste if he would save himself. As the portcullis struck the ground with +a thunderous crash and rebounded, and he turned from the winch to the +stairhead, a last warning, cut short in the utterance, reached him, and +he saw through the gloom that his companion was already in the grip of a +figure which had succeeded in passing out of the staircase. Claude did +not hesitate. With a roar of rage he ran like a bull at the enemy, +struck him full under the arm with his pike, and drove him doubled up +into the stairhead, with such force that the Genevese had much ado to +free himself. + +The man was struck helpless--dead for aught that appeared at the moment. +But the pike coming in contact with the edge of his corselet had not +penetrated, and Claude recovered it quickly, and levelled it in waiting +for the next comer. At the same time he adjured his comrade to secure +the fallen man's weapon. The guard seized it, and the two waited, with +suspended breath, for the sally which they were sure must come. + +But the stairs were narrow, the fallen body blocked the outlet, and +possibly the assailants had expected no resistance. Finding it, they +thought better of it. A moment and they could be heard beating a +retreat. + +"Pardieu! they are going!" the guard exclaimed; and he began to shake. + +"Ay, but they will return!" Claude answered grimly. "Have no fear of +that! The portcullis is down, and the only way to raise it, is up these +stairs. But it will be hard if, armed as we are now, we cannot baffle +them! Has he no pistol?" + +Marcadel--that was the soldier's name--felt about the prostrate man, but +found none; and bidding him listen and not move for his life--but there +was little need of the injunction--Claude passed over to the inner edge +of the roof, facing the Corraterie. Here he raised his voice and shouted +the alarm with all the force of his lungs, hoping thus to supplement the +cries which here and there had been raised by the Savoyards. + +"Aux Armes! Armes!" he cried. "The enemy is at the gate! To arms! To +arms!" + +A man ran out of the gateway at the sound of his shouting, levelled a +musket and fired at him. The slugs flew wide, and Claude, lifted above +himself, yelled defiance, knowing that the more shots were fired the +more quickly and widely would the alarm be spread. + +That it was spreading, that it was being taken up, his position on the +gateway enabled him to discern, distant as the Porte Neuve lay from the +heart of the town. A flare of light at the rear of the Tertasse, and a +confused hub-bub in that quarter, seemed to show that, though the +Savoyards had seized the gate, they had not penetrated beyond it. Away +on his extreme left, where the Porte de la Monnaye, hard by his old +bastion, overlooked the Rhone and the island, were lights again, and a +sound of a commotion as though there too the enemy held the gate, but +found farther progress closed against them. On the Treille to his right, +the most westerly of the three inner gates, and the nearest to the Town +Hall, the enemy seemed to be preparing an attack, for as he ceased to +shout, muskets exploded in that direction; and as far as he could judge +the shots were aimed outwards. + +With such alarms at three inner points--to say nothing of the noise at +the more distant Porte Neuve--it seemed impossible that any part of the +city could remain in ignorance of the attack. In truth, as he stood +peering down into the dark Corraterie, and listening to the heavy tramp +of unseen feet, now here, now there, and the orders that rose from +unseen throats--even as he prepared to turn, summoned by a warning cry +from Marcadel, the first note of the alarm-bell smote his ear. + +One moment and the air hummed with its heavy challenge, and all of +Geneva that still slept awoke and stood upright. Men ran half naked from +their houses. Boys in their teens snatched arms and sallied forth. White +faces looked into the night from barred windows or lofty dormers; and +across narrow wynds and under dark Gothic entries men dragged huge +chains and hooked them, and hurried on to where the alarm seemed loudest +and the risk most pressing. In an instant in pitch-dark alleys lights +gleamed and steel jarred on stone; out of the darkness deep voices +shouted questions, or answered or gave orders, and from a thousand +houses, alike in the wealthy Bourg du Four with its three-storied piles +and in the sordid lanes about the water and the bridges, went up one +wail of horror and despair. Men who had dreamed of this night for years, +and feared it as they feared God's day, awoke to find their dream a +fact, and never while they lived forgot that awakening. While women left +alone in their homes bolted and barred and fell to prayers; or clasped +to their breasts babes who prattled, not understanding the turmoil, or +why their mothers looked strangely on them. + +Something of this, something of the horror of that sudden awakening, and +of the confusion in the narrow streets, where voices cried that the +enemy were here or there or in a third place, and the bravest knew not +which way to turn, penetrated to Claude on the roof of the tower; and at +the thought of Anne and the perils that encircled her--for about the +house in the Corraterie the uproar rose loudest--his heart melted. But +he had not long to dwell on her peril; not long to dwell on anything. +Before the great bell had hurled its warning abroad three times he had +to go. Marcadel's voice, urgent, insistent, summoned him to the +stairhead. + +"They are mustering at the bottom!" the man whispered over his shoulder. +He was on his knees, his head in the hood of the staircase. The wounded +man, breathing stertorously, still cumbered the upper steps. Marcadel +rested one hand on him. + +Claude thrust in his head and listened. He could hear, above the thick +breathing of the Savoyard, the stir of men muttering and moving in the +darkness below; and now the stealthy shuffle of feet, and again the +faint clang of a weapon against the wall. Doubtless it had dawned on +some one in command below, that here on this tower lay the keys of +Geneva: that by themselves three hundred men could not take, nor hold if +they took, a town manned by five or six thousand; consequently that if +Savoy would succeed in the enterprise so boldly begun, she must by hook +or crook raise this portcullis and open this gate. As a fact, +Brunaulieu, the captain of the forlorn hope, had passed the word that +the tower must be taken at any cost; and had come himself from the Porte +Tertasse, where a brisk conflict was beginning, to see the thing done. + +Claude did not know this, but had he known it, it would not have reduced +his courage. + +"Yes, I hear them," he whispered in answer to the soldier's words. "But +they have not mounted far yet. And when they come, if two pikes cannot +hold this doorway which they can pass but one at a time, there is no +truth in Thermopylae!" + +"I know naught of that," the other answered, rising nervously to his +feet. "I don't favour heights. Give me the lee of a wall and fair +odds----" + +"Odds?" Claude echoed vain-gloriously--but only the stars attended to +him--"I would not have another man!" + +Marcadel seized him by the sleeve. His voice rose almost to a scream. +"But, by Heaven, there is another man!" he cried. "There!" He pointed +with a shaking hand to the outer corner of the leads, in the +neighbourhood of the place where the winch of the portcullis stood. "We +are betrayed! We are dead men!" he babbled. + +Claude made out a dim figure, crouching against the battlement; and the +thought, which was also in Marcadel's mind, that the enemy had set a +ladder against the wall and outflanked them, rendered him desperate. At +any rate there was but one on the roof as yet: and quick as thought the +young man lowered his pike and charged the figure. + +With a shrill scream the man fell on his knees before him. "Mercy!" +cried a voice he knew. "Mercy! Don't kill me! Don't kill me!" + +It was Louis Gentilis. Claude halted, looked at him in amazement, +spurned him with his foot. "Up, coward, and fight for your life then!" +he said. "Or others will kill you. How come you here?" + +The lad still grovelled. "I was in the guard-room," he whimpered. "I had +come with a message--from the Syndic." + +"The Syndic Blondel?" + +"Yes! To remind the Captain that he was to go the rounds at eleven +exactly. It was late when I got there and they--oh, this dreadful +night--they broke in, and I, hid on the stairs." + +"Well, you can hide no longer. You have got to fight now!" Claude +answered grimly, "There are no more stairs for any of us except to +heaven! I advise you to find something, and do your worst. Take the +winch-bar if you can find nothing else! And----" + +He broke off. Marcadel, who had remained at the stairhead, was calling +to him in a voice that could no longer be resisted--a voice of despair. +Claude ran to him. He found him with his head in the stairway, but with +his pike shortened to strike. "They are coming!" he muttered over his +shoulder. "They are more than half-way up now. Be ready and keep your +eyes open. Be ready!" he continued after a pause. "They are nearly--here +now!" His breath began to come quickly; at last stepping back a pace and +bringing his point to the charge. "They are here!" he shouted. "On +guard!" + +Claude stooped an inch lower, and with gleaming eyes, and feet set +warily apart, waited the onset; waited with suspended breath for the +charge that must come. He could hear the gasps of the wounded man who +lay on the uppermost step; and once close to him he caught a sound of +shuffling, moving feet, that sent his heart into his mouth. But seconds +passed, and more seconds, and glare as he might into the black mouth of +the staircase, from which the hood averted even the light of the stars, +he could make out nothing, no movement, no sign of life! + +The suspense was growing intolerable. And all the time behind him the +alarm-bell was flinging "Doom! Doom!" down on the city, and a thousand +sounds of fear and strife clutched at his mind and strove to draw it +from the dark gap at which he waited, as a dog waits for a rat at the +mouth of its hole. His breath began to come quickly, his knees shook. He +heard his companion gasp--human nerves could stand it no longer. And +then, just as he felt that, come what might, he must plunge his pike +into the darkness, and settle the question, the shuffling sound came +anew and steadied him, and he set his teeth and waited--waited still. + +But nothing happened, nothing moved. Again the seconds, almost the +minutes passed, and the deep note of the alarm-bell swelled louder and +heavier, filling all the air, all the night, all the world, with its +iron tongue--setting the tower reeling, the head swimming. In spite of +himself, in spite of the fact that he knew his life hung on his +vigilance, his thoughts wandered; wandered to Anne, alone and +defenceless in that hell below him, from which such wild sounds were +beginning to rise; to his own fate if he and Marcadel got the worst; to +the advantage a light properly shaded would have given them, had they +had it. But, alas, they had no light. + +And then, while he thought of that, the world was all light. A sheet of +flame burst from the hood, dazzled, blinded, scorched him; a crashing +report filled his ears; he recoiled. The ball had missed him, had gone +between him and Marcadel and struck neither. But for a moment in pure +amazement, he stood gaping. + +That moment had been his last had the defence lain with him only, or +even with him and Marcadel. It was the senseless form that cumbered the +uppermost step which saved them. The man who had fired tripped over it +as he sprang out. He fell his length on the roof. The next man, less +hasty or less brave, sank down on the obstacle, and blocked the way for +others. + +Before either could rise all was over. Claude brought down his pike on +the head of the first to issue, and laid him lifeless on the leads. The +guard, who was a better man at a pinch than in the anticipation of it, +drove the other back--as he tried to rise--with a wound in the face. +Then with a yell, assured that in the narrow stairhead the enemy could +not use their weapons, the two charged their pikes into the obscurity, +and thrust and thrust, and thrust again, in the cruelty of rage and +fear. + +What they struck, or where they struck, they could not see; but their +ears told them that they did not strike in vain. A shrill scream and the +gurgling cry of a dying man proved it, and the wild struggle that ensued +on the stairs; where the uppermost, weighed down by the fallen men, +turned in a panic on those below and fought with them to force them to +descend. + +Claude shuddered as he listened, as he waited, his pike still levelled; +shuddered at the pitiful groaning that issued from the blackness, +shuddered at the blows he had struck, and the scream that still echoed +in his ears. He had not trembled when he fought, but he trembled at the +thought of it. + +"They are beaten," he muttered huskily. + +"Ay, they are beaten!" Marcadel--he who had trembled before the +fight--answered with exultation. "You were right. We wanted no more men! +But it was near. If this rogue had not tripped our throats would have +suffered." + +"He was a brave man," Claude answered, leaning heavily on his pike. He +needed its support. + +Marcadel knelt down and felt the man over. "Ay," he said, "he was, to +give the devil his due! And that reminds me. We've a skulker here who +has escaped so far. He shall play his part now. We must have their arms, +but it is dirty work groping in the dark for them; and maybe life enough +in one of them to drive a dagger between one's ribs. He shall do it. +Where is he?" + +Claude was feeling the reaction which ensues upon intense excitement. He +did not answer. Nor did he interfere when Marcadel, pouncing on Louis, +where he crouched in the darkest corner, forced him forward to the head +of the staircase. There the lad fell on his knees weeping futilely, +wailing prayers. But the guard kicked him forward. + +"In!" he said. "You know what you have to do! In, and strip them! Do you +hear? And if you leave as much as a knife----" + +"I won't! I daren't!" Louis screamed. And grovelling on his face on the +leads he clung to whatever offered itself. + +But men who have just passed through a life and death struggle, are +hard. "You won't?" Marcadel answered, applying his boot brutally, but +without effect. "You will! Or you will feel my pike between your ribs! +In! In, my lad!" + +A scream answered each repetition of the word, and proved that the +threat was no empty one. Claude might have intervened, but he remembered +Anne and the humiliations she had suffered in this craven's presence. + +"In!" Marcadel repeated a third time. "And if you leave so much as a +knife upon them I will throw you off the tower. You understand, do you? +Then in, and strip them!" + +And driven by sheer torture--for the pike had thrice drawn blood from +his writhing body--Louis crept, weeping and quaking, into the staircase; +and on one of her tormentors Anne was avenged. But Claude was thinking +more of her present peril than of this; he had moved from the stairhead. +A swell in the volume of sound which rose from the Corraterie had drawn +him to that side of the tower, where shaking off the exhaustion which +for a time had overcome him, he was straining his eyes to learn what was +passing in the babel below. + +The sight was a singular one. The Monnaye Gate far to the left, the +Tertasse immediately before him, and the Treille on his right, were the +centres of separate conflagrations. In one place a house, fired by the +petard employed to force the door, was actually alight. In other places +so great was the conflux of torches, the flash and gleam of weapons, and +the babel of sounds that it wrought on the mind the impression of a fire +blazing up in the night. Behind the Porte Tertasse, in the narrow +streets of the Tertasse and the Cite--immediately, therefore, behind the +Royaumes' house--the conflict seemed to rage most hotly, the shots to be +most frequent, the uproar greatest, even the light strongest; for the +reflection of the combat below bathed the Tertasse tower in a lurid +glow. Claude could distinguish the roof of the Royaumes' house; and to +see so much yet to be cut off as completely as if he stood a hundred +miles away, to be so near yet so hopelessly divided, stung him to a new +impatience and a greater daring. + +He returned to Marcadel. "Are we going to stay on this tower?" he cried. +"Shut up here, while this goes forward and we may be of use?" + +"I think we have done our part," the other answered soberly. "If any man +has saved Geneva, it is you! There, man, I give you the credit," he +continued, in a burst of generosity, "and it is no small thing! For it +might make my fortune. But I have done some little too!" + +"Ay! But cannot we----" + +"What would you have us do more?" the man continued, and with reason. +"Leave the roof to them? 'Tis all they want! Leave them to raise the old +iron grate, and let in--what I hear yonder?" He indicated the darker +outer plain below the wall, whence rose the murmur of halted battalions, +waiting baffled, and uncertain, the opening of the gate. + +"Ay, but if we descend?" + +"May we not win the gate from a score?" Marcadel answered, between +contempt and admiration. "Is that what you mean? And when we have won +it, hold it? No, not if each of us were Gaston of Foix, Bayard, and M. +de Crillon rolled into one! But what is this? We are winning or we are +losing! Which is it?" + +From the Treille Gate had burst a rabble of men; a struggling crowd +illumined by the glare of three or four lights. Pikes and halberds +flashed in the heart of the mob as it swirled and struggled down the +Corraterie in the direction of the gate from which the two men viewed +it. Half-way thither, in the open, its progress seemed to be checked; it +hung and paused, swaying this way and that; it recoiled. But at length, +with a roar of triumph, it rolled on anew over half a dozen prostrate +forms, and in a trice burst about the base of the Porte Neuve, swept, as +it seemed to those above, into the gateway, and--in a twinkling broke +back, repelled by a crashing volley that shook the tower. + +"They are our people!" cried Claude. + +"Ay!" + +"And now is our time!" The lad waved his weapon. "A diversion in the +rear--and 'tis done!" + +"In Heaven's name stop!" cried Marcadel, and he gripped Claude's sleeve. +"A diversion, ay!" he continued. "But a moment too soon or a moment too +late--and where will we be?" + +He spoke in vain. His words were wasted on the air. Claude, not to be +restrained, had entered the staircase. Pike in hand he felt his way over +the bodies that choked it; by this time he was half-way down the stairs. +Marcadel hesitated, waited a moment, listened; then, partly because +success begets success, and courage courage, partly because he would not +have the triumph taken from him, he too risked all. He snatched from +Gentilis' feeble hands a long pistol, part of the spoils of the +staircase; and, staying only to assure himself that a portion of the +priming still lay in the pan, he hurried after his leader. + +By this time Claude was within four stairs of the guard-room. The low +door that admitted to it stood open; and towards it a man, hearing the +hasty tread of feet, had that moment turned a startled face. There was +no room for anything but audacity, and Claude did not flinch. In two +bounds, he hurled himself through the door on to the man, missed him +with his pike--but was himself missed. In a flash the two were rolling +together on the floor. + +In their fall they brought down a third man, who, swearing horribly, +made repeated stabs at Claude with a dagger. But the only light in the +room came from the fire, the three were interlaced, and Claude was young +and agile as an eel: he evaded the first thrust, and the second. The +third went home in his shoulder, but desperate with pain he seized the +hand that held the poniard, and clung to it; and before the man who had +been the first to fall could regain his pike, or a third man who was +present, but who was wounded, could drag himself, swearing horribly, to +the spot, Marcadel fired from the stairs, and killed the wounded man. +The next instant with a yell of "Geneva!" he sprang on the others under +cover of the smoke that filled the room. + +The combat was still but of two to two; and without the guard-room but +almost within arm's length, were a dozen Savoyards, headed by Picot the +engineer; any one of whom might, by entering, turn the scale. But the +pistol-shot had come to the ears of the attacking party: that instant, +guessing that they had allies within, they rallied and with loud cries +returned to the attack. Even while Marcadel having disposed of one more, +stood over the struggling pair on the floor, doubting where to strike, +the burghers burst a second time into the gateway--on which the +guard-room opened--struck down Picot, and, hacking and hewing, with +cries of "Porte Gagnee! Porte Gagnee!" bore the Savoyards back. + +For the half of a minute the low-groined archway was a whirl of arms and +steel and flame. Half a dozen single combats were in progress at once; +amid yells and groans, and the jar and clash of a score of weapons. But +the burghers, fighting bareheaded for their wives and hearths, were not +to be denied; by-and-by the Savoyards gave back, broke, and saved +themselves. One fierce group cut its way out and fled into the darkness +of the Corraterie. Of the others four men remained on the ground, while +two turned and tried to retreat into the guard-room. + +But on the threshold they met Claude, vicious and wounded, his eyes in a +flame; and he struck and killed the foremost. The other fell under the +blows of the pursuing burghers, and across the two bodies Claude and +Marcadel met their allies, the leaders of the assault. Strange to say, +the foremost and the midmost of these was a bandy-legged tailor, with a +great two-handed sword, red to the hilt; to such a place can valour on +such a night raise a man. On his right stood Blandano, Captain of the +Guard, bareheaded and black with powder; on his left Baudichon the +councillor, panting, breathless, his fat face running with sweat and +blood--for he bore an ugly wound--but with unquenchable courage in his +eyes. A man may be fat and yet a lion. + +It was a moment in the lives of the five men who thus met which none of +them ever forgot. "Was it one of you two who lowered the portcullis?" +Blandano gasped, as he leaned an instant on his sword. + +"He did," Marcadel answered, laying his hand on Claude's shoulder. "And +I helped him." + +"Then he has saved Geneva, and you have helped him!" Blandano rejoined +bluntly. "Your name, young man." + +Claude told him. + +"Good!" Blandano answered. "If I live to see the morning light, it shall +not be forgotten!" + +Baudichon leant across the dead, and shook Claude's hand. "For the women +and children!" he said, his fat face shaking like a jelly; though no man +had fought that night with a more desperate valour. "If I live to see +the morning inquire for Baudichon of the council." + +Jehan Brosse, the bandy-legged tailor with the huge sword--he was but +five feet high and no one up to that night had known him for a +hero--squared his shoulders and looked at Claude, as one who takes +another under his protection. "Baudichon the councillor, whom all men +know in Geneva," he said with an affectionate look at the great man--he +was proud of the company to which his prowess had raised him. "You will +not forget the name! no fear of that! And now on!" + +"Ay, on!" Blandano answered, looking round on his panting followers, of +whom some were staunching their wounds and some, with dark faces and +gleaming eyeballs, were loading and priming their arms. "But I think +the worst is over and we shall win through now. We have this gate safe, +and it is the key, as I told you. If all be well elsewhere, and the main +guards be held----" + +"Ay, but are they?" Baudichon muttered nervously: he reeled a little, +for the loss of blood was beginning to tell upon him. "That is the +question!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +BASTERGA AT ARGOS. + + +The fear that Blandano might postpone the night-round, to a time which +would involve discovery, haunted Blondel; and late on this eventful +evening he despatched Louis, as we have seen, to the Porte Neuve to +remind the Captain of his orders. That done--it was all he could do--the +Syndic sat down in his great chair, and prepared himself to wait. He +knew that he had before him some hours of uncertainty almost +intolerable; and a peril, a hundred times more hard to face, because in +the pinch of it he must play two parts; he must run with the hare and +hunt with the hounds, and, a traitor standing forward for the city he +had betrayed, he must have an eye to his reputation as well as his life. + +He had no doubt of the success of Savoy, the walls once passed. +Moreover, the genius of Basterga had imposed itself upon him as that of +a man unlikely to fail. But some resistance there must be, some +bloodshed--for the town held many devoted men; one hour at least of +butchery, and that followed, he shuddered to think it, by more than one +hour of excess, of cruelty, of rapine. From such things the captured +cities of that day rarely escaped. In all that happened, the resistance +and the peril, he must, he knew, show himself; he must take his part and +run his risk if he would not be known for what he was, if he would not +leave a name that men would spit on! + +Strangely enough it was the moment of discovery and his conduct in that +moment--it was the anticipation of this, that weighed most heavily on +his guilty mind as he sat in his parlour, his hour of retiring long +past, his household in bed. The city slept round him; how long would it +sleep? And when it awoke, how long dared he, how long would it be +natural for him to ignore the first murmur, the succeeding outcry, the +rising alarm? It was not his cue to do overmuch, to precipitate +discovery, or to assume at once the truth to be the truth. But on the +other hand he must not be too backward. + +Try as he would he could not divert his thoughts from this. He saw +himself skulking in his house, listening with a white face to the rush +of armed men along the street. He heard the tumult rising on all sides, +and saw himself stand, guilty and irresolute, between hearth and door, +uncertain if the time had come to go forth. Finally, and before he had +made up his mind to go out, he fancied himself confronted by an entering +face, and in an instant detected. And this it was, this initial +difficulty, oddly enough--and not the subsequent hours of horror, +confusion and danger, of dying men and wailing women--that rode his +mind, dwelt on him and shook his nerves as the crisis approached. + +One consolation he had, and one only; but a measureless one. Basterga +had kept his word. He was cured. Six hours earlier he had taken the +_remedium_ according to the directions, and with every hour that had +elapsed since he had felt new life course through his veins. He had had +no return of pain, no paroxysm; but a singular lightness of body, +eloquent of the change wrought in him and the youth and strength that +were to come, had done what could be done to combat the terrors of the +soul, natural in his situation. Pale he was, despite the potion; in +spite of it he trembled and sweated. But he knew himself changed, and +sick at heart as he was, he could only guess at the depths of nervous +despair to which he must have fallen had he not taken the wondrous +draught. + +There was that to the good. That to the good. He would live. And life +was the great thing after all; life and health, and strength. If he had +sold his soul, his country, his friends, at least he would live--if +naught happened to him to-night. If naught--but ah, the thought pierced +him to the heart. He who had proved himself in old days no mean soldier +in the field, who had won honour in more than one fight, felt his brow +grow damp, his knees grow flaccid, knew himself a coward. For the life +which he must risk was not the old life, but the new one which he had +bought so dearly; the new one for which he had given his soul, his +country, and his friends. And he dared not risk that! He dared not let +the winds of heaven blow too roughly on that! If aught befel him this +night, the irony of it! The mockery of it! The deadly, deadly folly of +it! + +He sweated at the thought. He cursed, cursed frantically his folly in +omitting to give himself out for worse than he was; in omitting to take +to his bed early in the day! Then he might have kept it through the +night, through the fight; then he might have avoided risks. Now he felt +that every ball discharged at a venture must strike him; that if he +showed so much as his face at a window death must find its opportunity. +He would not have dared to pass through a street on a windy day now--for +if a tile fell it must fall on him. And he must fight! He must fight! + +His manhood shrivelled within him at the thought. He shuddered. He was +still shuddering, when on the shutter which masked the casement came a +knock, thrice repeated. A cautious knock of which the mere sound implied +an understanding. + +The Syndic remained motionless, glaring at the window. Everything on a +night like this, and to an uneasy conscience, menaced danger. At length +it occurred to him that the applicant might be Louis, whom he had sent +with the message to the Porte Neuve: and he took the lamp and went to +admit him, albeit reluctantly, for what did the booby mean by returning? +It was late, and only to open at this hour might, in the light cast by +after events, raise suspicions. + +But it was not Louis. The lamp flickering in the draught of the doorway +disclosed a huge dusky form, glimmering metallic here and there, that in +a trice pushed him back, passed by him, entered. It was Basterga. The +Syndic shut the door, and staggered rather than walked after him to the +parlour. There the Syndic set down the lamp, and turned to the scholar, +his face a picture of guilty terror. "What is it?" he muttered. "What +has happened? Is--the thing put off?" + +The other's aspect answered his question. A black corselet with shoulder +pieces, and a feathered steel cap raised Basterga's huge stature almost +to the gigantic. Nor did it need this to render him singular; to draw +the eye to him a second time and a third. The man himself in this hour +of his success, this moment of conscious daring, of reliance on his star +and his strength, towered in the room like a demi-god. "No," he +answered, with a ponderous, exultant smile, slow to come, slow to go. +"No, Messer Blondel. Far from it. It has not been put off." + +"Something has been discovered?" + +"No. We are here. That is all." + +The Syndic supported himself by a hand pressed hard against the table +behind him. "Here?" he gasped. "You are here? You have the town already? +It is impossible." + +"We have three hundred men in the Corraterie," Basterga answered. "We +hold the Tertasse Gate, and the Monnaye. The Porte Neuve is cut off, and +at our mercy; it will be taken when we give the signal. Beyond it four +thousand men are waiting to enter. We hold Geneva in our grip at +last--at last!" And in an accent half tragic, half ironic, he +declaimed:-- + + "Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus + Dardaniae! Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium et ingens + Gloria Teucrorum! Ferus omnia Jupiter Argos + Transtulit!" + +And then more lightly, "If you doubt me, how am I here?" he asked. And +he extended his huge arms in the pride of his strength. "Exercise your +warrant now--if you can, Messer Syndic. Syndic," he continued in a tone +of mockery, "where is your warrant now? I have but this moment," he +pointed to wet stains on his corselet, "slain one of your guards. Do +justice, Syndic! I have seized one of your gates by force. Avenge it, +Syndic! Syndic? ha! ha! Here is an end of Syndics." + +The Syndic gasped. He was a hard man, not to say an arrogant one, little +used to opposition; one who, times and again, had ridden rough-shod over +the views of his fellows. To be jeered at, after this fashion, to be +scorned and mocked by this man who in the beginning had talked so +silkily, moved so humbly, evinced so much respect, played the poor +scholar so well, was a bitter pill. He asked himself if it was for this +he had betrayed his city; if it was for this he had sold his friends. +And then--then he remembered that it was not for this--not for this, but +for life, dear life, warm life, that he had done this thing. And, +swallowing the rage that was rising within him, he calmed himself. + +"It is better to cease to be Syndic than cease to live," he said +coldly. + +But the other had no mind to return to their former relations. "True, O +sage!" he answered contemptuously. "But why not both? Because--shall I +tell you?" + +"I hear----" + +"Yes, and I hear too! The city is rising!" Basterga listened a moment. +"Presently they will ring the alarm-bell, and----" + +"If you stay here some one may find you!" + +"And find me with you?" Basterga rejoined. He knew that he ought to go, +for his own sake as well as the Syndic's. He knew that nothing was to be +made and much might be lost by the disclosure that was on his tongue. +But he was intoxicated with the success which he had gained; with the +clang of arms, and the glitter of his armed presence. The true spirit of +the man, as happens in intoxication of another kind, rose to the +surface, cruel, waggish, insolent--of an insolence long restrained, the +insolence of the scholar, who always in secret, now in the light, panted +to repay the slights he had suffered, the patronage of leaders, the +scoffs of power. "Ay," he continued, "they may find me with you! But if +you do not mind, I need not. And I was just asking you--why not both? +Life and power, my friend?" + +"You know," Blondel answered, breathing quickly. How he hated the man! +How gladly would he have laid him dead at his feet! For if the fool +stayed here prating, if he were found here by those who within a few +moments would come with the alarm, he was himself a lost man. All would +be known. + +That was the fear in Blondel's mind; the alarm was growing louder each +moment, and drawing nearer. And then in a twinkling, in two or three +sentences, Basterga put that fear into the second place, and set in its +seat emotions that brooked no rival. + +"Why not both?" he said, jeering. "Live and be Syndic, both? Because you +had the scholar's ill, eh, Messer Blondel? Or because your physician +_said_ you had it--to whom I paid a good price--for the advice?" The +devil seemed to look out of the man's eyes, as he spoke in short +sentences, each pointed, each conveying a heart-stab to its hearer. + +"To whom--you gave?" Blondel muttered, his eyes dilated. + +"A good price--for the advice! A good price to tell you, you had it." + +The magistrate's face swelled till it was almost purple, his hands +gripped the front of his coat, and pressed hard against his breast. +"But--the pains?" he muttered. "Did you--but no," with a frightful +grimace, "you lie! you lie!" + +"Did I bribe him--to give you those too?" the other answered, with a +ruthless laugh. "You have alighted on it, most grave and reverend sage. +You have alighted on the exact fact, so clever are you! That was +precisely what I did some months back, after I heard that you, being +fearful as rich men are, had been to him for some fancied ill. You had +two medicines? You remember? The one gave, the other soothed your +trouble. And now that you understand, now that your mind is free from +care, and you can sleep without fear of the scholar's ill--will you not +thank me for your cure, Messer Blondel?" + +"Thank you?" the magistrate panted. "Thank you?" He stepped back two +paces, groping with his hands, as if he sought to support himself by the +table from which he had advanced. + +"Ay, thank me!" + +"No, but I will pay you!" and with the word Blondel snatched from the +table a pistol which he had laid within his reach an hour earlier. +Before the giant, confident in his size, discovered his danger, the +muzzle was at his breast. It was too late to move then--three paces +divided the men; but, in his haste to raise the pistol, Blondel had not +shaken from it the handkerchief under which he had hidden it, and the +lock fell on a morsel of the stuff. The next moment Basterga's huge hand +struck aside the useless weapon, and flung Blondel gasping against the +wall. + +"Fool!" the scholar cried, towering above the baffled, shrinking man +whose attempt had placed him at his mercy. "Think you that Caesar +Basterga was born to perish by your hand? That the gods made me what I +am, I who carry to-night the fortunes of a nation and the fate of a +king, that I might fall by so pitiful a creature as you! Ay, 'tis the +alarm-bell, you are right. And by-and-by your friends will be here. It +is a wonder," he continued, with a cruel look, "that they are not here +already; but perhaps they have enough to fill their hands! And come or +stay--if they be like you, poor fool, weak in body as in wit--I care +not! I, Caesar Basterga, this night lord of Geneva, and in the time to +come, and thanks to you----" + +"Curse you!" Blondel gasped. + +"That which I dare be sworn you have dreamt of being!"--the scholar +continued with a subtle smile. "The Grand Duke's _alter ego_, Mayor of +the Palace, Adviser to his Highness! Yes, I hit you there? I touch you +there! Oh, vanity of little men, I thought so! "He broke off and +listened, as sharp on one another two gun-shots rang out at no great +distance from the house. A third followed as he hearkened: and on it a +swelling wave of sound that rose with each second louder and nearer. +"Ay, 'tis known now!" Basterga resumed, in a tone more quiet, but not +less confident. "And I must go, my dear friend--who thought a minute +ago to speed me for ever. Know that it lies not in hands mean as yours +to harm Caesar Basterga of Padua! And that to-night, of all nights, I +bear a charmed life! I carry, Syndic, a kingdom and its fortunes!" + +He seemed to swell with the thought, and in comparison of the sickly man +scowling darkly on him from the wall, he did indeed look a king, as he +turned to the door, flung it wide and passed into the passage. With only +the street door between him and the hub-bub that was beginning to fill +the night, he could measure the situation. He had stayed late. The beat +of many feet hastening one way--towards the Porte Tertasse--the clatter +of weapons as here and there a man trailed his pike on the stones, the +roar of rising voices, the rattle of metal as some one hauled a chain +across the end of the Bourg du Four and hooked it--sounds such as these +might have alarmed an ordinary man who knew himself cut off from his +party, and isolated among foes. + +But Basterga did not quail. His belief in his star was genuine; he was +intoxicated with the success which he fancied lay within his grasp. He +carried Caesar and his fortunes! was it in mean men to harm him? Nay, so +confident was he, that when he had opened the door he stood an instant +on the threshold viewing the strange scene, and quoted with an +appreciation as strange-- + + "At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu + Miscetur, penitusque cavae plangoribus aedes + Femineis ululant; ferit aurea sidera clamor"-- + +from his favourite poet. After which without hesitation but also without +hurry he turned and plunged into the stream of passers that was hurrying +towards the Porte Tertasse. + +He had been right not to quail. In the medley of light and shadow which +filled the Bourg du Four and the streets about the Town Hall, in the +confusion, in the rush of all in one direction and with one intent, no +one paid heed to him, or supposed him to belong to the enemy. Some cried +"To the Treille! They are there! To the Treille!" And these wheeled that +way. But more, guided by the sounds of conflict, held on to the point +where the short, narrow street of the Tertasse turned left-handed out of +the equally narrow Rue de la Cite--the latter leading onwards to the +Porte de la Monnaye, and the bridges. Here, at the meeting of the two +confined lanes, overhung by timbered houses, and old gables of strange +shapes, a desperate conflict was being fought. The Savoyards, masters of +the gate, had undertaken to push their way into the town by the Rue +Tertasse; not doubting that they would be supported by-and-by, upon the +entrance of their main body through the Porte Neuve. They had proceeded +no farther, however, than the junction with the Rue de la Cite--a point +where darkness was made visible by two dim oil lamps--before, the alarm +being given, they found themselves confronted by a dozen half-clad +townsfolk, fresh from their beds; of whom five or six were at once laid +low. The survivors, however, fought with desperation, giving back, foot +by foot; and as the alarm flew abroad and the city rose, every moment +brought the defenders a reinforcement--some father just roused from +sleep, armed with the chance weapon that came to hand, or some youth +panting for his first fight. The assailants, therefore, found themselves +stayed; slowly they were driven back into the narrow gullet of the +Tertasse. Even there they were put to it to hold their ground against an +ever-increasing swarm of citizens, whom despair and the knowledge that +they were fighting on their hearths, for their wives, and for their +children, brought up in renewed strength. + +In the Tertasse, however, where it was not possible to outflank them, +and no dark side-alley, vomiting now and again a desperate man, gave one +to death, a score could hold out against a hundred. Here then, with the +gateway at their backs--whence three or four could fire over their +heads--the Savoyards stood stubbornly at bay, awaiting the +reinforcements which they were sure would come from the Porte Neuve. +They were picked troops not easily discouraged; and they had no fear +that aught serious had happened. But they asked impatiently why +D'Albigny with the main body did not come; why Brunaulieu with the +Monnaye in his hands did not see that the time was opportune. They +chafed at the delay. Give the city time to array itself, let it recover +from its first surprise, and all their forces might scarcely avail to +crush opposition. + +It was at this moment, when the burghers had drawn back a little that +they might deliver a decisive attack, that Basterga came up. Fabri the +Syndic had taken the command, and had shouted to all who had windows +looking on the lane to light them. He had arrayed his men in some sort +of order and was on the point of giving the word to charge, when he +heard the steps of Basterga and some others coming up; he waited to +allow them to join him. The instant they arrived he gave the word, and +followed by some thirty burghers armed with half-pikes, halberds, +anything the men had been able to snatch up, he charged the Savoyards +bravely. + +In the narrow lane but four or five could fight abreast, and the Grand +Duke's men were clad in steel and well armed. Nevertheless Fabri bore +back the first line, pressed on them stoutly, and amid a wild _melee_ of +struggling men and waving weapons, began to drive the troop, in spite of +a fierce resistance, into the gate. If he could do this and enter with +them, even though he lost half his men, he might save the city. + +But the Savoyards, though they gave back, gave back slowly. Within +twenty paces of the gate the advance wavered, stopped, hung an instant. +Of that instant Basterga took advantage. He had moved on undetected, +with the rearmost burghers: now he saw his opportunity and seized it. He +flung to either side the man to right and left of him. He struck down, +almost with the same movement, the man in front. He rushed on Fabri, who +in the middle of the first line was supporting, though far from young, a +single combat with one of the Savoyard leaders. On him Basterga's coward +weapon alighted without warning, and laid him low. To strike down +another, and turning, range himself in the van of the foreigners with a +mighty "Savoy! Savoy!" was Basterga's next action; and it sufficed. The +panic-stricken burghers, apprised of treason in their ranks, gave back +every way. The Savoyards saw their advantage, rallied, and pressed them. +Speedily the Italians regained the ground they had lost, and with the +tall form of their champion fighting in the van, began to sweep the +towns-folk back into the Rue de la Cite. + +But arrived at the meeting of the ways, Basterga's followers paused, +hesitating to expose their flank by entering this second street. The +Genevese saw this, rallied in their turn, and for a moment seemed to be +holding their own. But three or four of their doughtiest fighters lay +stark in the kennel, they had no longer a leader, they were poorly armed +and hastily collected; and devoted as they were, it needed little to +renew the panic and start them in utter rout. Basterga saw this, and +when his men still hung back, neglecting the golden opportunity, he +rushed forward, almost alone, until he stood conspicuous between the two +bands--the one hesitating to come on, the other hesitating to fly. + +"Savoy!" he thundered, "Ville gagnee! The city is ours! Cowards, come +on!" And waving his halberd above his head, he beckoned to his followers +to advance. + +Had they done so, had they charged on the instant, they had changed all +for him, and perhaps all for Geneva. But they hung a moment, and the +next, as in shame they drew themselves together for the charge, their +champion stooped forward with a shrill scream. The next instant he +received full on his nape a heavy iron pot, that descending with +tremendous force from a window above him, rolled from him broken into +three pieces. + +He went down under the blow as if a sledge-hammer had struck him; and so +sudden, so dramatic was the fall--his armour clanging about him--that +for an instant the two bands held their hands and stood staring, as +indifferent crowds stand and gaze in the street. A dozen on the +patriots' side knew the house from which the _marmite_ fell, and marked +it; and half as many saw at the small window whence it came the grey +locks and stern wrinkled face of an aged woman. The effect on the +burghers was magical. As if the act symbolised not only the loved ones +for whom they fought, but the dire distress to which they were come, +they rushed on the foreign men-at-arms with a spirit and a fury hitherto +unknown. With a ringing shout of "Mere Royaume! Mere Royaume!"--raised +by those who knew the old woman, and taken up by many who did not--they +swept the foe, shaken by the fall of their leader, along the narrow +Tertasse, pressed on them, and, still shouting the new war-cry, entered +the gateway along with them. + +"Mere Royaume! Mere Royaume!" The name rang savagely in the groining of +the arch, echoed dully in the obscurity in which the fierce struggle +went on. And men struck to its rhythm, and men died to it. And men who +heard it thus and lived never forgot it, nor ever went back in their +minds to that night without recalling it. + +To one man, flurried already, and a coward at heart, the name carried a +paralysing assurance of doom. He had seen Basterga fall--by this woman's +hand of all hands in the world--and he had been the first to flee. But +in the lane he tripped over Fabri, he fell headlong, and only raised +himself in time to gain the gateway a few feet in front of the avenging +pikes. Still, he might escape, he hoped to escape, through the gate and +into the open Corraterie. But the first to reach the gates had taken in +hand to shut them, and so to prevent the townsfolk reaching the +Corraterie. One of the great doors, half-closed, blocked his way, and +instinctively--ignorant how far behind him the pike-points were--he +sprang aside into the guard-room. + +His one chance now--for he was cut off, and knew it--lay in reaching the +staircase and mounting to the roof. A bound carried him to the door, he +grasped the handle. But a fugitive who had only a second before saved +himself that way, took him for a pursuer, dragged the door close and +held it--held it in spite of his efforts and his imprecations. + +Five seconds, ten, perhaps, Grio--for he it was--wasted in struggling +vainly with the door. The man on the other side clung to it with a +despair equal to his own. Five seconds, ten, perhaps; but in that space +of time, short as it was, the man paid smartly for the sins of his life. +When the time of grace had elapsed, with a pike-point a few inches from +his back and the gleaming eyes of an avenging burgher behind it, he fled +shrieking round the table. He might even yet have escaped by a chance; +for all was confusion, and though there was a glare there was no light. +But he stumbled over the body of the man whom he had slain without pity +a few hours before. He fell writhing, and died on the floor, under a +dozen blows, as beasts die in the shambles. + +"Mere Royaume! Mere Royaume!" The cry--the last cry he heard--swelled +louder and louder. It swept through the gate, it passed through to the +open, and bore far along the Corraterie, far along the ramparts, ay, to +the open country, the earnest of victory, the earnest of vengeance. + +Geneva was saved. He who would have betrayed it, slain like Pyrrhus the +Epirote by a woman's hand, lay dead in the dark lane behind the house in +which he had lived. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE DAWN. + + +Anne was but one of some thousands of women who passed through the trial +of that night; who heard the vague sounds of disquiet that roused them +at midnight grow to sharp alarms, and these again--to the dull, pulsing +music of the tocsin--swell to the uproar of a deadly conflict waged by +desperate men in narrow streets. She was but one of thousands who that +night heard fate knocking at their hearts; who praying, sick with fear, +for the return of their men, showed white faces at barred windows, and +by every tossing light that passed along the lane viewed long years of +loneliness or widowhood. + +But Anne had this burden also; that she had of herself sent her man into +danger; her man, who, but for her pleading, but for her bidding, might +not have gone. And that thought, though she had done her duty, laid a +cold grip upon her heart. Her work it was if he lay at this moment stark +in some dark alley, the first victim of the assault; or, sorely wounded, +cried for water; or waited in pain where none but the stricken heard +him. The thought bowed her to the ground, sent her to her prayers, took +from her alike all memory of the danger that had menaced her this +morning, and all consciousness of that which now threatened her, a +helpless woman, if the town were taken. + +The house, having its back on the Rue de la Cite, at the point where +that street joined the Tertasse, stood in the heart of the conflict; and +almost from the moment of the first attack on the Porte Neuve, which +Claude was in time to witness, was a centre of fierce and deadly +fighting. Anne dared not leave her mother, who, strange to say, slept +through the early alarms; and it was bowed on the edge of her mother's +bed--that bed beside which she had tasted so much of happiness and so +much of grief--that she passed, not knowing what the turning page might +show, the first hour of anxiety and suspense. + +The report of a shot shook her frame. A scream stabbed her like a knife. +Lower and lower she thrust her face amid the bed-clothes, striving to +shut out sound and knowledge; or, woman-like, she raised her pale, +beseeching face that she might listen, that she might hope. If he fell +would they tell her? And how he fell, and where? Or would they hold her +strange to him? Would she never hear? + +Suddenly her mother opened her eyes, lay a while listening, then slowly +sat up and looked at her. Anne saw the awakening alarm in the dear face, +that in some mysterious way recalled its youth; and she fancied that to +her other troubles, the misery of one of the old paroxysms was going to +be added. At such an hour, with such sounds of terror filling the night, +with such a glare dancing on the ceiling the first attack had come on, +years before. Then the alarm had been fictitious; to-night the calamity +which the poor woman had imagined, was happening with every circumstance +of peril and alarm. + +But Madame Royaume's face, though anxious and serious, retained to an +astonishing extent its sanity. Whether the strange dream which she had +had earlier in the night had prepared her for the state of things to +which she awoke, or the weeks and months which had elapsed since that +old alarm of fire dropped in some inexplicable way from her--and as one +shock had upset, another restored the balance of her mind--certain it is +that Anne, watching her with a painful interest, found her sane. Nor did +Madame Royaume's first words dispel the impression. + +"They hold out?" she asked, grasping her daughter's hand and pressing +it. "They hold out?" + +"Yes, yes, they hold out," Anne answered, hoping to soothe her. And she +patted the hand that clasped hers. "Have no fear, dear, all will go +well." + +"If they have faith and hold out," the aged woman replied, listening to +the strange medley of sounds that rose to them. + +"They will, they will," Anne faltered. + +"But there is need of every one!" + +"They are gone, dear," the girl answered, repressing a sob with +difficulty. "We are alone in the house." + +"So it should be," Madame Royaume replied, with sternness. "The man to +the wall, the maid to the pall! It was ever so!" + +A low cry burst from Anne's lips. "God forbid!" she wailed. "God forbid! +God have mercy!" + +The next moment she could have bitten out her tongue; she knew that such +words and such a cry were of all others the most likely to excite her +patient. But after some obscure fashion their positions seemed this +night to be reversed. It was the mother who in her turn patted her +daughter's hand and sought to soothe her. + +"Ay, God forbid," she said softly. "But man must do his part. I mind +when----" She paused. Her eyes travelling round the room, fixed their +gaze on the fireplace. She seemed to be perplexed by something she saw +there, and Anne, still fearing a recurrence of her illness, asked her +hurriedly what it was. "What is it; mother?" she said, leaning over her, +and following the direction of her eyes. "Is it the great pot you are +looking at?" + +"Ay," Madame Royaume answered slowly. "How comes it here?" + +"There was no one below," Anne explained. "I brought it up this morning. +Don't you remember? There is no fire below." + +"No?" + +"That is all, mother. You saw me bring it up." + +"Ay?" And then after a pause: "Let it down a hook." + +"But----" + +"Let it down, child!" And when Anne, to soothe her, had obeyed and let +the great pot down until the fire licked its sides, "Is it full?" Madame +asked. + +"Half-full, mother." + +"It will do." And for a time the woman in the bed was silent. + +Outside there was noise enough. The windows in the room looked into the +Corraterie, from which side no more than passing sounds of conflict rose +to them; the pounding of running feet, sharp orders, a shot, and then +another. But the landing without the bedroom door looked down by a +high-set window into the narrow Tertasse; and from this, though the door +was shut, rose an inferno of noise, the clash of steel, the cries of the +wounded, the shouts of the fighters. The townsfolk, rallying from their +first alarm, were driving the enemy out of the Rue de la Cite, penning +him into the Tertasse, and preparing to carry that street. + +On a sudden there came, not a cessation of the uproar, but a change in +its character. It was as if the current of a river were momentarily +stayed and pent up; and then with a mighty crashing of timbers and +shifting of pebbles, and a din as of the world's end, began to run the +other way. Anne's face turned a shade paler; so appalling was the noise, +she would fain have stopped her ears. But her mother sat up. + +"What is it?" she asked eagerly. "What is it?" + +"Dear mother, do not fret! It must be----" + +"Go and see, child! Go to the window in the passage, and see!" Madame +Royaume persisted. + +Anne had no wish to go, no wish to see. She pictured her lover in the +_melee_ whence rose those appalling cries; and gladly would she have +hidden her head in the bedclothes and poured out her heart in prayer for +him. But Madame persisted, and she yielded, went into the passage and +opened the small window. With the cold air entered a fresh volume of +sound. On the walls and timbered gables opposite her--and so near that +she could well-nigh touch them with her extended arm--strange lights +played luridly; and here and there, at dormers on a level with her, pale +faces showed and vanished by turns. + +She looked down. For a moment, in the confusion, in the medley of moving +forms, she could discern little or nothing. Then, as her eyes became +more accustomed to the sight, she made out that the tide of conflict was +running inward into the town, a sign that the invaders were gaining the +mastery. + +"Well?" Madame Royaume asked, her voice querulous. + +Anne strove to say something that would soothe her mother. But a sob +choked her, and when she regained her speech she felt herself impelled, +she knew not why, to tell the truth. "I fear our people are falling +back," she murmured, trembling so violently that she could barely stand. + +"How far? Where are they, child?" Her mother's voice was eager. "Where +are they?" + +"They are almost under the window!" And then withdrawing her head with a +shudder, while she clung for support to the frame of the window: "They +are fighting underneath me now," she said. "God pity them!" + +"And who is--are we still getting the worst of it?" + +Forced by a kind of fascination, Anne looked out again. "Yes, there is +one man, a big man, leads them on," she said, in the voice of one who, +painfully absorbed in a sight, reports it involuntarily. "He is driving +our people before him. Ah! he has struck one down this moment. He is +almost underneath us now. But his people will not follow him! They are +standing. He--he waves them on!" + +"He is beneath us?" Madame's voice sounded strangely near, strangely +insistent. But Anne, wrapt in what she saw, did not heed it. + +"Yes! He is a dozen paces in front of his men. He is underneath us now. +He urges them to follow him! He towers above them! He is----" + +She broke off; close to her sounded a heavy breathing, that even above +the babel of the street caught her ear. She drew in her head, looked, +and, overwrought by that which she had been witnessing, she shrieked +aloud. + +Beside her, bending under the weight of the great steaming pot, stood +her mother! Her mother, who had scarcely left her bedroom twice in a +twelvemonth, nor crossed it as many times in a week. But it was her +mother; endowed at this pass, and for the instant, with supernatural +strength. For even as Anne recoiled thunderstruck, the old woman lifted +the huge _marmite_, half-full and steaming as it was, to the ledge of +the window, steadied it there an instant, and then, with the gleaming +eyes and set pale face of an avenging prophetess, thrust it forth. + +A second they gazed at one another with suspended breath. Then from the +street below rose a wild shriek, a crash, and lo, the huge pot lay +shattered in the kennel beside the man whom, Heaven directed, it had +slain. As if the shock of its fall stayed for an instant even the +movement of the world, a silence fell on all: then, as the roar of +conflict rose again, louder, more vengeful, with a new note in it, she +caught her mother in her arms. + +"Mother! Mother!" she cried. "Mother!" + +The elder woman was white to the lips. "Get me to bed!" she muttered. +"Get me to bed!" She had lost the power even to stand. That she had ever +borne, even for a yard, the great pot which it taxed Anne's utmost +strength to carry upstairs was a miracle. But a miracle were all the +circumstances connected with the act. + +Anne carried her back and laid her on the bed, greatly fearing for her. +And thenceforth for a while the girl's horizon, so wide and stormy an +instant before, was narrowed to the bed beside which she stood, narrowed +to the dear face on which the lamplight fell, disclosing its death-like +pallor. For the time Anne forgot even her lover, was deaf to the +struggle outside, was unmindful of the flight of the hours. For her, +Geneva might have lain at peace, the night been as other nights, the +house below been heavy with the breathing of tired sleepers. She looked +neither to the right nor the left, until under her loving hands Madame +Royaume revived, opened her eyes and smiled--the smile she had for one +face only in the world. + +By that time Anne had lost count of the time. It might be hard on +morning, it might be a little after midnight. One thing only was clear, +the lamp required oil, and to get it she must descend to the ground +floor. She opened the door and listened, wondering dully how the +conflict had gone. She had lost count of that also. + +The small window at the head of the stairs remained open as they had +left it; and through it a ceaseless hum, as of a hive of bees swarming, +poured in from the night, and told of multitudes astir. The alarm-bell +had ceased to ring, the wilder sounds of conflict had died down; in the +parts about the Tertasse the combat appeared to be at an end. But this +might be either because resistance had ceased, or because the battle had +rolled away to other quarters, or--which she scarcely dared to +hope--because the foe had been driven out. + +As she stood listening, she shivered in the cold air that came from the +window. She felt as if she had been beaten, and knew that this came of +the shocks she had suffered and the long strain. She feared for her +nerves, and hated to go down into the dark parts of the house as if some +danger lurked there. She longed for morning, for the light; and thought +of Claude and his fate, and wondered why the thought of his danger did +not move her to weeping, as it had moved her a few hours earlier. + +In truth she was worn out. The effort to revive her mother had cost her +the last remains of strength. Her feet as she descended the stairs were +of lead, the brazen notes of the alarm-bell hummed in her ears. When she +reached the living-room she set the lamp on one of the tables and sat +down wearily, with her eyes on the cold, empty hearth and on the settle +where she had sat with his arms about her. And now, if ever, she must +weep; but she could not. + +The lamp burned low, and cast smoky shadows on the ceiling and the +walls. The shuttered windows showed their dead faces. The cheerful soul +of the room had passed from it with the fire, leaving the shell gloomy, +lifeless, repellent. Anne drowsed a moment in sheer exhaustion, and +would have slept, if the lamp on the point of expiring had not emitted +a sound and roused her. She rose reluctantly, dragged herself to the +great cupboard under the stairs, and, having lighted a rushlight at the +dying flame, put out the lamp and refilled it. + +She was about to re-light it, and had taken the rushlight in her hand +for the purpose, when she heard through the shuttered windows and the +barred door a growing clamour; the tramp of heavy feet, the hum of many +voices, the buzz of a crowd that, almost as soon as she awoke to its +near presence, came to a stand before the house. The tumult of voices +raised all at once in different keys did not entirely drown the clash of +arms; and while she stood, sullenly regarding the door, and resigned to +the inevitable, whatever it might be, thin shafts of light pierced the +shutters and stabbed the gloom about her. + +With that a hail-storm of knocks fell on the door and on the shutters. A +dozen voices cried, "Open! Open!" The jangle of a halberd as its bearer +let the butt drop heavily on the stone steps added force to the summons. + +Anne's first impulse was to retreat upstairs, and leave them to do their +worst. Her next--she was in a state of collapse in which resistance +seemed useless--was to open. She moved to the door, and with cold hands +removed the huge bars and let down the chain. It was only when she had +done so much, when it remained only to unlock, that she wavered; that +she trembled to think on what the crowd might be bent, and what might be +her fate at their hands. She paused then, with her fingers on the key; +but not for long. She remembered that, before she descended, she had +heard neither shot nor cry. Resistance therefore had ceased, and that of +a single house, held by two helpless women, could avail nothing, could +but excite to fury and reprisals. + +She turned the key and opened. The lights dazzled her. The doorway, as +she stood faltering, almost fainting, before it, seemed to be full of +grotesque dancing faces, some swathed in bandages, others +powder-blackened, some hot with excitement, others pallid with fatigue. +They were such faces, piled one above the other, as are seen in bad +dreams. + +On the intruders' side, those who pressed in first saw a girl strangely +quiet, who held the door wide for them. "My mother is ill," she said in +a voice that strove for composure; if they were the enemy, her only +hope, her only safety, lay in courage. "And she is old," she continued. +"Do not harm her." + +"We come to do harm neither to you nor to her," a voice replied. And the +foremost of the troop, a thick dwarfish man with a huge two-handed +sword, stood aside. "Messer Baudichon," he said to one behind him, "this +is the daughter." + +She knew the fat, sturdy councillor--who in Geneva did not?--and through +her stupor she recognised him, although a great bandage swathed half his +head, and he was pale. And, beginning to have an inkling that things +were well, she began also to tremble. By his side stood Messer +Petitot--she knew him, too, he had been Syndic the year before--and a +man in hacked and blood-stained armour with his arm in a sling and his +face black with powder. These three, and behind them a dozen others--men +whom she had seen on high days robed in velvet, but who now wore, one +and all, the ugly marks of that night's work--looked on her with a +strange benevolence. And Baudichon took her hand. + +"We do not come to harm you," he said. "On the contrary we come to thank +you and yours. In the name of the city of Geneva, and of all those here +with me----" + +"Ay! Ay!" shouted Jehan Brosse, the tailor. And he rang his sword on the +doorstep. "Ay! Ay!" + +"We come to thank you for the blow struck this night from this house! +That it rid us of one of our worst foes was a small thing, girl. But +that it put heart into our burghers and strength into their arms at a +critical moment was another and a greater thing. Which shall not, if +Geneva stand--as stand by God's pleasure she shall, the stronger for +this night's work--be forgotten! The name of Mere Royaume will at the +next meeting of the Greater Council be inscribed among the names of +those whom the Free City thanks for their services this night!" + +A murmur of stern approval that began with those in the house rolled +through the doorway and was echoed by the waiting throng that filled the +street. + +She was weeping. All it meant, all it might mean, what warranty of +powerful friends, what fame beyond the reach of dark stories, or a +woman's spite, she could not yet understand, she could not yet +appreciate. But something, the city's safety, the city's gratitude, the +countenance of these men who came to her door blood-stained, dark with +smoke, reeling with fatigue--came that they might thank her mother and +do her honour--something of this she did grasp as she wept before them. + +She had but one thing to ask, to desire; and in a moment it was given +her. + +"Nor is that all!" The voice that broke in was harsher and blunter than +Baudichon's. "If it be true, as I am told, that a young man of the name +of Mercier lives here? He does, does he? Ay, he lives, my girl. He is +safe, have no fear. For the matter of that he has nine lives, +and"--Captain Blandano continued with an oath--"he has had need of all +this night, God forgive me for the word! But, as I said, that is not +all. For if there is any one man who has saved Geneva, it is he, the man +who let down the portcullis. And if the city does not dower you, my +girl----" + +"The city shall dower her!" The speaker's voice came from somewhere in +the neighbourhood of the doorway, and was something tremulous and +uncertain. But what it lacked in strength it made up in haste and +eagerness. "The city shall dower her! If not, I will!" + +"Good, Messer Blondel, and spoken like you!" Blandano answered heartily. +And though one or two of the foremost, on hearing Blondel's voice, +looked askance at one another, and here and there a whisper passed of +"The Syndic of the guard? How came----" the majority drowned such +murmurings under a chorus of applause. + +"We are of one mind, I think!" Baudichon said. And with that he turned +to the door. "Now, good friends," he continued, "it wants but little of +daylight, and some of us were best in our beds. Let us go. That we lie +down in peace and honour"--he went on, solemnly raising his hand over +the happy weeping girl beside him, as if he blessed her--"that our wives +and children lie safe within our walls is due, under God, to this roof. +And I call all here to witness that while I live the city of Geneva +shall never forget the debt that is due to this house and to the name of +Royaume!" + +"Ay, ay!" cried the bandy-legged tailor. "I too! The small with the +great, the rich with the poor, as we have fought this night!" + +"Ay! Ay!" + +Some shook her by the hand, and some called Heaven to bless her, and +some with tears running down their faces--for no man there was his +common everyday self--did naught but look on her with kindness. And so, +each having done after his fashion, they trooped out again into the +street. A moment later, as the winter sun began to colour the distant +snows, and the second Sunday in December of the year 1602 broke on +Geneva, the voices of the multitude rose in the one hundred and +twenty-fourth psalm; to the solemn thunder of which, poured from +thankful hearts, the assembly accompanied Baudichon to his home a little +farther down the Corraterie. + +Anne was about to close the door and secure it after them--with feelings +how different from those with which she had opened that door!--when it +resisted her shaking hands. She did not on the instant understand the +reason or what was the matter. She pushed more strongly, still it came +back on her, it opened widely and more widely. And then one who had +heard all, yet had not shown himself, one who had entered with +Baudichon's company, but had held himself hidden in the background, +pushed in, uninvited. + +Uninvited? The rushlight still burned low and smokily, and she had not +relighted the lamp. The corners were dark with shadows, the hearth was +cold and empty and ugly, the shutters still blinded the windows. But the +coming of this uninvited one--love comes ever unexpected and +uninvited--how strangely, how marvellously, how beautifully did it +change all for her, light all, fill all. + +As she felt his arms about her, as she clung to him, and sobbed on his +shoulder, as she strove for words and could not utter them for the +happiness of her heart, as she felt his kisses rain on her face in joy +and safety, who had not left her in sorrow, no, nor in the shadow of +death, nor for any fears of what man could do to him--let it be said +that her reward was as her trial. + +Madame Royaume lived four years after that famous attack on the Free +City of Geneva which is called the Escalade; and during that time she +experienced no return of the mysterious malady that came with one shock, +and passed from her with another. Nor, so far as can be ascertained at +the distant time at which I write, did the suspicions which the night of +the Escalade found in the bud survive it. Probably the Corraterie and +the neighbouring quarter, ay, and the whole city of Geneva, had for many +a week to come matter for gossip and to spare. It is certain, at any +rate, that whatever whispers were current in this house or that, no +tongue wagged openly against the favourites of the council, who were +also the favourites of the crowd. For Mere Royaume's act hit +marvellously the public fancy, and, passing from mouth to mouth, and +from generation to generation, is still the first, the best loved, and +the most picturesque of the legends of Geneva. + +And Messer Blondel? Did he evade the penalty of his act? Ask any man in +the streets of Geneva, even to-day, and he will tell you the fate of +Philibert Blondel, Fourth Syndic. He will tell you how the magistrate +triumphed for a time, as he had triumphed in the council before, how he +closed the mouths of his accusers, how not once, but twice and thrice, +by the sheer force and skill of a man working in a medium which he +understood, he won his acquittal from his compeers. But though +punishment be slow to overtake, it does overtake at last; nor has the +world witnessed many instances more pertinent or more famous than that +of Messer Blondel. Strive as he might, tongues would wag within the +council, and without. Silence as he might Baudichon and Petitot, smaller +men would talk; and their talk persisted and grew, and was vigorous when +months and even years had passed. What the great did not know the small +knew or guessed, and fixed greedy eyes on the head of the man who had +dared to sell Geneva. The end came four years after the Escalade. To +conceal the old negotiation he committed a further crime, and being +betrayed by the tool he employed was seized and convicted. On the 1st +September, 1606, he lost his head on a scaffold erected before his own +house in the Bourg du Four. + +The Merciers had at least one son--probably he was the eldest, for he +bore his father's name--who lived into middle life, and proved himself +their worthy descendant. For precisely fifty years after the date of +these events a poor woman of the name of Michee Chauderon was put to +death in Geneva, on a charge of sorcery; and among those--and they were +not few--who strove most manfully and most obstinately to save her, we +find the name of a physician of great note in the Canton at that +time--one Claude Mercier. He did not prevail, though he struggled +bravely; the long night of superstition, though nearing its close, still +reigned; that woman suffered. But he carried it so far and so boldly +that from that day to this--and the city may be proud of the fact--no +person has suffered death in Geneva on that dreadful charge. + + +THE END. + + +THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Long Night, by Stanley Weyman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONG NIGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 19485.txt or 19485.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/4/8/19485/ + +Produced by Stacy Brown, Dave Morgan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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