Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER XIV.

  TOO SHORT A SPOON.

  Count Hannibal remained seated, his chin sunk on his breast, until hisear assured him that the three men had descended the stairs to thefloor below. Then he rose, and, taking the lantern from the table, onwhich Peridol had placed it, he went softly to the door, which, likethe window, stood in a recess--in this case the prolongation of thepassage. A brief scrutiny satisfied him that escape that way wasimpossible, and he turned, after a cursory glance at the floor andceiling, to the dark, windy aperture which yawned at the end of theapartment. Placing the lantern on the table, and covering it with hiscloak, he mounted the window recess, and, stepping to the unguardededge, looked out.

  He knew, rather than saw, that Peridol had told the truth. The smellof the aguish flats which fringed that part of Paris rose strong inhis nostrils. He guessed that the sluggish arm of the Seine whichdivided the Arsenal from the Ile des Louviers crawled below; but thenight was dark, and it was impossible to discern land from water. Hefancied that he could trace the outline of the island--an uninhabitedplace, given up to wood piles; but the lights of the college quarterbeyond it, which rose feebly twinkling, to the crown of St. Genevieve,confused his sight and rendered the nearer gloom more opaque. Fromthat direction and from the Cite to his right came sounds which toldof a city still heaving in its blood-stained sleep, and even in itsdreams planning further excesses. Now a distant shot, and now a faintmurmur on one of the bridges, or a far-off cry, raucous, sudden,curdled the blood. But even of what was passing under cover of thedarkness, he could learn little; and after standing awhile with a handon either side of the window he found the night air chill. He steppedback, and, descending to the floor, uncovered the lantern and set iton the table. His thoughts travelled back to the preparations he hadmade the night before with a view to securing Mademoiselle's person,and he considered, with a grim smile, how little he had foreseen thatwithin twenty-four hours he would himself be a prisoner. Presently,finding his mask oppressive, he removed it, and, laying it on thetable before him, sat scowling at the light.

  Biron had jockeyed him cleverly. Well, the worse for Armand de Gontautde Biron if after this adventure the luck went against him! But in themeantime? In the meantime his fate was sealed if harm befell Biron.And what the King's real mind in Biron's case was, and what theQueen-Mother's, he could not say; just as it was impossible to predicthow far, when they had the Grand Master at their mercy, they wouldresist the temptation to add him to the victims. If Biron placedhimself at once in Marshal Tavannes' hands, all might be well. But ifhe ventured within the long arm of the Guises, or went directly to theLouvre, the fact that with the Grand Master's fate Count Hannibal'swas bound up, would not weigh a straw. In such crises the greatsacrificed the less great, the less great the small, without ascruple. And the Guises did not love Count Hannibal; he was not lovedby many. Even the strength of his brother the Marshal stood rather inthe favour of the King's heir, for whom he had won the battle ofJarnac, than intrinsically; and, durable in ordinary times, might snapin the clash of forces and interests which the desperate madness ofthis day had let loose on Paris.

  It was not the peril in which he stood, however--though, with the coldclear eye of the man who had often faced peril, he appreciated it to anicety--that Count Hannibal found least bearable, but his enforcedinactivity. He had thought to ride the whirlwind and direct the storm,and out of the danger of others to compact his own success. Instead helay here, not only powerless to guide his destiny, which hung on thediscretion of another, but unable to stretch forth a finger to furtherhis plans.

  As he sat looking darkly at the lantern, his mind followed Biron andhis riders through the midnight streets: along St. Antoine and LaVerrerie, through the gloomy narrows of the Rue la Ferronerie, and sopast the house in the Rue St. Honore where Mademoiselle sat awaitingthe morrow--sat awaiting Tignonville, the minister, the marriage!Doubtless there were still bands of plunderers roaming to and fro; atthe barriers troops of archers stopping the suspected; at the windowspale faces gazing down; at the gates of the Temple, and of the walledenclosures which largely made up the city, strong guards set toprevent invasion. Biron would go with sufficient to secure himself;and unless he encountered with the bodyguard of Guise his passagewould quiet the town. But was it so certain that _she_ was safe? Heknew his men, and while he had been free he had not hesitated to leaveher in their care. But now that he could not go, now that he could notraise a hand to help, the confidence which had not failed him instraits more dangerous grew weak. He pictured the things which mighthappen, at which, in his normal frame of mind, he would have laughed.Now they troubled him so that he started at a shadow, so that hequailed at a thought. He, who last night, when free to act, had timedhis coming and her rescue to a minute! Who had rejoiced in the peril,since with the glamour of such things foolish women were taken! Whohad not flinched when the crowd roared most fiercely for her blood!

  Why had he suffered himself to be trapped! Why indeed? And thrice inpassion he paced the room. Long ago the famous Nostradamus had toldhim that he would live to be a king, but of the smallest kingdom inthe world. "Every man is a king in his coffin," he had answered. "Thegrave is cold and your kingdom shall be warm," the wizard hadrejoined. On which the courtiers had laughed, promising him a Moorishisland and a black queen. And he had gibed with the rest, but secretlyhad taken note of the sovereign counties of France, their rulers andtheir heirs. Now he held the thought in horror, foreseeing no county,but the cage under the stifling tiles at Loches, in which CardinalBalue and many another had worn out their hearts.

  He came to that thought not by way of his own peril, but ofMademoiselle's; which affected him in so novel a fashion that hewondered at his folly. At last, tired of watching the shadows whichthe draught set dancing on the wall, he drew his cloak about him andlay down on the straw. He had kept vigil the previous night, and in afew minutes, with a campaigner's ease, he was asleep.

  Midnight had struck. About two the light in the lantern burned low inthe socket, and with a soft sputtering went out. For an hour afterthat the room lay still, silent, dark; then slowly the grey dawn, thegreyer for the river mist which wrapped the neighbourhood in a clammyshroud, began to creep into the room and discover the vague shapes ofthings. Again an hour passed, and the sun was rising above Montreuil,and here and there the river began to shimmer through the fog. But inthe room it was barely daylight when the sleeper awoke, and sat up,his face expectant. Something had roused him. He listened.

  His ear, and the habit of vigilance which a life of danger instils,had not deceived him. There were men moving in the passage; men whoshuffled their feet impatiently. Had Biron returned! Or had aughthappened to him, and were these men come to avenge him? Count Hannibalrose and stole across the boards to the door, and, setting his ear toit, listened.

  He listened while a man might count a hundred and fifty, countingslowly. Then, for the third part of a second, he turned his head, andhis eyes travelled the room. He stooped again and listened moreclosely, scarcely breathing. There were voices as well as feet to beheard now; one voice--he thought it was Peridol's--which held on long,now low, now rising into violence. Others were audible at intervals,but only in a growl or a bitter exclamation, that told of minds madeup and hands which would not be restrained. He caught his own name,Tavannes--the mask was useless then! And once a noisy movement whichcame to nothing, foiled, he fancied, by Peridol.

  He knew enough. He rose to his full height, and his eyes seemed alittle closer together; an ugly smile curved his lips. His gazetravelled over the objects in the room, the bare stools and table, thelantern, the wine pitcher; beyond these, in a corner, the cloak andstraw on the low bed. The light, cold and grey, fell cheerlessly onthe dull chamber, and showed it in harmony with the ominous whisperwhich grew in the gallery; with the stern-faced listener who stood,his one hand on the door. He looked, but he found nothing to hispurpose, nothing to serve his end, whatever
his end was; and with aquick light step he left the door, mounted the window recess, and,poised on the very edge, looked down.

  If he thought to escape that way his hope was desperate. The depth tothe water-level was not, he judged, twelve feet. But Peridol had toldthe truth. Below lay not water, but a smooth surface of viscid slime,here luminous with the florescence of rottenness, there furrowed by atiny runnel of moisture which sluggishly crept across it to the slowstream beyond. This quicksand, vile and treacherous, lapped the wallbelow the window, and more than accounted for the absence of bars orfastenings. But, leaning far out, he saw that it ended at the angle ofthe building, at a point twenty feet or so to the right of hisposition.

  He sprang to the floor again, and listened an instant; then, withguarded movements--for there was fear in the air, fear in the silentroom, and at any moment the rush might be made, the door burst in--heset the lantern and wine pitcher on the floor, and took up the tablein his arms. He began to carry it to the window, but, halfway thither,his eye told him that it would not pass through the opening, and heset it down again and glided to the bed. Again he was thwarted; thebed was screwed to the floor. Another might have despaired at that,but he rose with no sign of dismay, and listening, always listening,he spread his cloak on the floor, and deftly, with as little noise andrustling as might be, he piled the straw in it, compressed the bundle,and, cutting the bed-cords with his dagger, bound all together withthem. In three steps he was in the embrasure of the window, and, evenas the men in the passage thrust the lieutenant aside and with asudden uproar came down to the door, he flung the bundle lightly andcarefully to the right--so lightly and carefully, and with so nice anddeliberate a calculation, that it seemed odd it fell beyond the reachof an ordinary leap.

  An instant and he was on the floor again. The men had to unlock, todraw back the bolts, to draw back the door which opened outwards;their numbers, as well as their savage haste, impeded them. When theyburst in at last, with a roar of "To the river! To the river!"--burstin a rush of struggling shoulders and lowered pikes, they found himstanding, a solitary figure, on the further side of the table, hisarms folded. And the sight of the passive figure for a moment stayedthem.

  "Say your prayers, child of Satan!" cried the leader, waving hisweapon. "We give you one minute!"

  "Ay, one minute!" his followers chimed in. "Be ready!"

  "You would murder me?" he said with dignity. And when they shoutedassent, "Good!" he answered. "It is between you and M. de Biron, whoseguest I am. But"--with a glance which passed round the ring of glaringeyes and working features--"I would leave a last word for some one. Isthere any one here who values a safe-conduct from the King? 'Tis fortwo men coming and going for a fortnight." And he held up a slip ofpaper.

  The leader cried "To hell with his safe-conduct! Say your prayers!"

  But all were not of his mind; on one or two of the crimson savagefaces--the faces, for the most part, of honest men maddened by theirwrongs--flashed an avaricious gleam. A safe-conduct? To avenge, toslay, to kill--and to go safe! For some minds such a thing has aninvincible fascination. A man thrust himself forward. "Ay, I'll haveit!" he cried. "Give it here!"

  "It is yours," Count Hannibal answered, "if you will carry ten wordsto Marshal Tavannes--when I am gone."

  The man's neighbour laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. "AndMarshal Tavannes will pay you finely," he said.

  But Maudron, the man who had offered, shook off the hand. "If I takethe message!" he muttered in a grim aside. "Do you think me mad?" Andthen aloud he cried, "Ay, I'll take your message! Give me the paper."

  "You swear you will take it?"

  The man had no intention of taking it, but he perjured himself andwent forward. The others would have pressed round too, half in envy,half in scorn; but Tavannes by a gesture stayed them. "Gentlemen, Iask a minute only," he said. "A minute for a dying man is not much.Your friends had as much." And the fellows, acknowledging the claimand assured that their victim could not escape, let Maudron go roundthe table to him.

  The man was in haste and ill at ease, conscious of his evil intentionsand the fraud he was practising; and at once greedy to have, yetashamed of the bargain he was making. His attention was dividedbetween the slip of paper, on which his eyes fixed themselves, and theattitude of his comrades; he paid little heed to Count Hannibal, whomhe knew to be unarmed. Only when Tavannes seemed to ponder on hismessage, and to be fain to delay, "Go on," he muttered with brutalfrankness; "your time is up!"

  Tavannes started, the paper slipped from his fingers. Maudron saw achance of getting it without committing himself, and quick as thethought leapt up in his mind he stooped, and grasped the paper, andwould have leapt back with it! But quick as he, and quicker, Tavannestoo stooped, gripped him by the waist, and with a prodigious effort,and a yell in which all the man's stormy nature, restrained to a partduring the last few minutes, broke forth, he flung the ill-fatedwretch head first through the window.

  The movement carried Tavannes himself--even while his victim's screamrang through the chamber--into the embrasure. An instant he hung onthe verge; then, as the men, a moment thunderstruck, sprang forward toavenge their comrade, he leapt out, jumping for the struggling bodythat had struck the mud, and now lay in it face downwards.

  He alighted on it, and drove it deep into the quaking slime; but hehimself bounded off right-handed. The peril was appalling, thepossibility untried, the chance one which only a doomed man would havetaken. But he reached the straw-bale, and it gave him a momentary, aprecarious footing. He could not regain his balance, he could not evenfor an instant stand upright on it. But from its support he leapt onconvulsively, and as a pike, flung from above, wounded him in theshoulder, he fell his length in the slough--but forward, with hisoutstretched hands resting on soil of a harder nature. They sank, itis true, to the elbow, but he dragged his body forward on them, andforward, and freeing one by a last effort of strength--he could notfree both, and, as it was, half his face was submerged--he reached outanother yard, and gripped a balk of wood, which projected from thecorner of the building for the purpose of fending off the stream inflood-time.

  The men at the window shrieked with rage as he slowly drew himselffrom the slough, and stood from head to foot a pillar of mud. Shout asthey might, they had no firearms, and, crowded together in the narrowembrasure, they could take no aim with their pikes. They could onlylook on in furious impotence, flinging curses at him until he passedfrom their view, behind the angle of the building.

  Here for a score of yards a strip of hard foreshore ran between mudand wall. He struggled along it until he reached the end of the wall;then with a shuddering glance at the black heaving pit from which hehad escaped, and which yet gurgled above the body of the haplessMaudron--a tribute to horror which even his fierce nature could notwithhold--he turned and painfully climbed the river-bank. Thepike-wound in his shoulder was slight, but the effort had beensupreme; the sweat poured from his brow, his visage was grey anddrawn. Nevertheless, when he had put fifty paces between himself andthe buildings of the Arsenal he paused, and turned. He saw that themen had run to other windows which looked that way; and his facelightened and his form dilated with triumph.

  He shook his fist at them. "Ho, fools!" he cried, "you kill notTavannes so! Till our next meeting at Montfaucon, fare you well!"