CHAPTER XXIII.
A MIND, AND NOT A MIND.
La Tribe tore through the thicket, imagining Carlat and Count Hannibalhot on his heels. He dared not pause even to listen. The underwoodtripped him, the lissom branches of the alders whipped his face andblinded him; once he fell headlong over a moss-grown stone, and pickedhimself up groaning. But the hare hard-pushed takes no account of thebriars, nor does the fox heed the mud through which it draws itselfinto covert. And for the time he was naught but a hunted beast. Withelbows pinned to his sides, or with hands extended to ward off theboughs, with bursting lungs and crimson face, he plunged through thetangle, now slipping downwards, now leaping upwards, now all butprostrate, now breasting a mass of thorns. On and on he ran, until hecame to the verge of the wood, saw before him an open meadow devoid ofshelter or hiding-place, and with a groan of despair cast himselfflat. He listened. How far were they behind him?
He heard nothing. Nothing, save the common noises of the wood, theangry chatter of a disturbed blackbird as it flew low into hiding, orthe harsh notes of a flock of starlings as they rose from the meadow.The hum of bees filled the air, and the August flies buzzed about hissweating brow, for he had lost his cap. But behind him--nothing.Already the stillness of the wood had closed upon his track.
He was not the less panic-stricken. He supposed that Tavannes' peoplewere getting to horse, and calculated that if they surrounded and beatthe wood, he must be taken. At the thought, though he had barely gothis breath, he rose, and keeping within the coppice crawled down theslope towards the river. Gently, when he reached it, he slipped intothe water, and stooping below the level of the bank, his head andshoulders hidden by the bushes, he waded down stream until he had putanother hundred and fifty yards between himself and pursuit. Then hepaused and listened. Still he heard nothing, and he waded on again,until the water grew deep. At this point he marked a little belowhim a clump of trees on the farther side; and reflecting that thatside--if he could reach it unseen--would be less suspect, he swamacross, aiming for a thorn bush which grew low to the water. Under itsshelter he crawled out, and, worming himself like a snake across thefew yards of grass which intervened, he stood at length within theshadow of the trees. A moment he paused to shake himself, and then,remembering that he was still within a mile of the camp, he set off,now walking, and now running in the direction of the hills which hisparty had crossed that morning.
For a time he hurried on, thinking only of escape. But when he hadcovered a mile or two, and escape seemed probable, there began tomingle with his thankfulness a bitter--a something which grew morebitter with each moment. Why had he fled and left the work undone? Whyhad he given way to unworthy fear, when the letters were within hisgrasp? True, if he had lingered a few seconds longer, he would havefailed to make good his escape; but what of that if in those secondshe had destroyed the letters, he had saved Angers, he had saved hisbrethren? Alas! he had played the coward. The terror of Tavannes'voice had unmanned him. He had saved himself and left the flock toperish; he, whom God had set apart by many and great signs for thiswork!
He had commonly courage enough. He could have died at the stake forhis convictions. But he had not the presence of mind which is proofagainst a shock, nor the cool judgment which, in the face of death,sees to the end of two roads. He was no coward, but now he deemedhimself one, and in an agony of remorse he flung himself on his facein the long grass. He had known trials and temptations, but hithertohe had held himself erect; now, like Peter, he had betrayed his Lord.
He lay an hour groaning in the misery of his heart, and then he fellon the text "Thou art Peter, and on this rock----" and he sat up. Peterhad betrayed his trust through cowardice--as he had. But Peter had notbeen held unworthy. Might it not be so with him? He rose to his feet,a new light in his eyes. He would return! He would return, and at allcosts, even at the cost of surrendering himself, he would obtainaccess to the letters. And then--not the fear of Count Hannibal, notthe fear of instant death, should turn him from his duty.
He had cast himself down in a woodland glade which lay near the pathalong which he had ridden that morning. But the mental conflict fromwhich he rose had shaken him so violently that he could not recall theside on which he had entered the clearing, and he turned himselfabout, endeavouring to remember. At that moment the light jingle of abridle struck his ear; he caught through the green bushes the flashand sparkle of harness. They had tracked him then, they were here! Sohad he clear proof that this second chance was to be his. In a happyfervour he stood forward where the pursuers could not fail to see him.
Or so he thought. Yet the first horseman, riding carelessly with hisface averted and his feet dangling, would have gone by and seennothing if his horse, more watchful, had not shied. The man turnedthen; and for a moment the two stared at one another between thepricked ears of the horse. At last,
"M. de Tignonville!" the minister ejaculated.
"La Tribe!"
"It is truly you?"
"Well--I think so," the young man answered.
The minister lifted up his eyes and seemed to call the trees and theclouds and the birds to witness. "Now," he cried, "I know that I amchosen! And that we were instruments to do this thing from the daywhen the hen saved us in the hay-cart in Paris! Now I know that all isforgiven and all is ordained, and that the faithful of Angers shallto-morrow live and not die!" And with a face radiant, yet solemn, hewalked to the young man's stirrup.
An instant Tignonville looked sharply before him. "How far ahead arethey?" he asked. His tone, hard and matter-of-fact, was little inharmony with the other's enthusiasm.
"They are resting a league before you, at the ferry. You are inpursuit of them?"
"Yes."
"Not alone?"
"No." The young man's look as he spoke was grim. "I have five behindme--of your kidney, M. La Tribe. They are from the Arsenal. They havelost one his wife, and one his son. The three others----"
"Yes?"
"Sweethearts," Tignonville answered drily. And he cast a singular lookat the minister.
But La Tribe's mind was so full of one matter, he could think only ofthat. "How did you hear of the letters?" he asked.
"The letters?"
"Yes."
"I do not know what you mean."
La Tribe stared. "Then why are you following him?" he asked.
"Why?" Tignonville echoed, a look of hate darkening his face. "Do youask why we follow----" But on the name he seemed to choke and wassilent.
By this time his men had come up, and one answered for him. "Why arewe following Hannibal de Tavannes?" he said sternly. "To do to him ashe has done to us! To rob him as he has robbed us--of more than gold!To kill him as he has killed ours, foully and by surprise! In his bedif we can! In the arms of his wife if God wills it!"
The speaker's face was haggard from brooding and lack of sleep, buthis eyes glowed and burned, as his fellows growled assent.
"'Tis simple why we follow," a second put in. "Is there a man of ourfaith who will not, when he hears the tale, rise up and stab thenearest of this black brood--though it be his brother? If so, God'scurse on him!"
"Amen! Amen!"
"So, and so only," cried the first, "shall there be faith in our land!And our children, our little maids, shall lie safe in their beds!"
"Amen! Amen!"
The speaker's chin sank on his breast, and with his last word thelight died out of his eyes. La Tribe looked at him curiously, then atthe others. Last of all at Tignonville, on whose face he fancied thathe surprised a faint smile. Yet Tignonville's tone when he spoke wasgrave enough. "You have heard," he said. "Do you blame us?"
"I cannot," the minister answered, shivering. "I can not." He had beenfor a while beyond the range of these feelings; and in the greenwood,under God's heaven, with the sunshine about him, they jarred on him.Yet he could not blame men who had suffered as these had suffered; whowere maddened, as these were maddened, by the gravest
wrongs which itis possible for one man to inflict on another. "I dare not," hecontinued sorrowfully. "But in God's name I offer you a higher and anobler errand."
"We need none," Tignonville muttered impatiently.
"Yet may others need you," La Tribe answered in a tone of rebuke. "Youare not aware that the man you follow bears a packet from the King forthe hands of the magistrates of Angers?"
"Ha! Does he?"
"Bidding them do at Angers as his Majesty has done in Paris?"
The men broke into cries of execration. "But he shall not see Angers!"they swore. "The blood that he has shed shall choke him by the way!And as he would do to others it shall be done to him."
La Tribe shuddered as he listened, as he looked. Try as he would, thethirst of these men for vengeance appalled him. "How?" he said. "Hehas a score and more with him: and you are only six."
"Seven now," Tignonville answered with a smile.
"True, but----"
"And he lies to-night at La Fleche? That is so!"
"It was his intention this morning."
"At the old King's Inn at the meeting of the great roads?"
"It was mentioned," La Tribe admitted, with a reluctance he did notcomprehend. "But if the night be fair he is as like as not to lie inthe fields."
One of the men pointed to the sky. A dark bank of cloud fresh risenfrom the ocean, and big with tempest, hung low in the west. "See! Godwill deliver him into our hands!" he cried.
Tignonville nodded. "If he lie there," he said, "He will." And then toone of his followers, as he dismounted, "Do you ride on," he said,"and stand guard that we be not surprised. And do you, Perrot, tellmonsieur. Perrot here, as God wills it," he added with a faint smilewhich did not escape the minister's eye, "married his wife from thegreat inn at La Fleche, and he knows the place."
"None better," the man growled. He was a sullen, brooding knave, whoseeyes when he looked up surprised by their savage fire.
La Tribe shook his head. "I know it, too," he said. "'Tis strong as afortress, with a walled court, and all the windows look inwards. Thegates are closed an hour after sunset, no matter who is without. Ifyou think, M. de Tignonville, to take him there----"
"Patience, monsieur, you have not heard me," Perrot interposed. "Iknow it after another fashion. Do you remember a rill of water whichruns through the great yard and the stables?"
La Tribe nodded.
"Grated with iron at either end, and no passage for so much as a dog?You do? Well, monsieur, I have hunted rats there, and where the waterpasses under the wall is a culvert, a man's height in length. In it isa stone, one of those which frame the grating at the entrance, which astrong man can remove--and the man is in!"
"Ay, in! But where!" La Tribe asked, his eyebrows drawn together.
"Well said, monsieur, where?" Perrot rejoined in a tone of triumph."There lies the point. In the stables, where will be sleeping men, anda snorer on every truss? No, but in a fairway between two stableswhere the water at its entrance runs clear in a stone channel; achannel deepened in one place that they may draw for the chambersabove with a rope and a bucket. The rooms above are the best in thehouse, four in one row, opening all on the gallery; which wasuncovered, in the common fashion, until Queen-Mother Jezebel, passingthat way to Nantes, two years back, found the chambers draughty; andthat end of the gallery was closed in against her return. Now,monsieur, he and his madame will lie there; and he will feel safe, forthere is but one way to those four rooms---through the door whichshuts off the covered gallery from the open part. But----" he glancedup an instant and La Tribe caught the smouldering fire in hiseyes--"we shall not go in by the door."
"The bucket rises through a trap?"
"In the gallery? To be sure, monsieur. In the corner beyond the fourthdoor. There shall he fall into the pit which he dug for others, andthe evil that he planned rebound on his own head!"
La Tribe was silent. "What think you of it?" Tignonville asked.
"That it is cleverly planned," the minister answered.
"No more than that!"
"No more until I have eaten."
"Get him something!" Tignonville replied in a surly tone. "And we mayas well eat, ourselves. Lead the horses into the wood. And do you,Perrot, call Tuez-les-Moines, who is forward. Two hours' riding shouldbring us to La Fleche. We need not leave here, therefore, until thesun is low. To dinner! To dinner!"
Probably he did not feel the indifference he affected, for his face ashe ate grew darker, and from time to time he shot a glance, barbedwith suspicion, at the minister. La Tribe on his side remained silent,although the men ate apart. He was in doubt, indeed, as to his ownfeelings. His instinct and his reason were at odds. Through all,however, a single purpose, the rescue of Angers, held good, andgradually other things fell into their places. When the meal was at anend, and Tignonville challenged him, he was ready.
"Your enthusiasm seems to have waned," the younger man said with asneer, "since we met, monsieur! May I ask now if you find any faultwith the plan?"
"With the plan, none."
"If it was Providence brought us together, was it not Providencefurnished me with Perrot who knows La Fleche? If it was Providencebrought the danger of the faithful in Angers to your knowledge, was itnot Providence set us on the road--without whom you had beenpowerless?"
"I believe it!"
"Then, in His name, what is the matter?" Tignonville rejoined with apassion of which the other's manner seemed an inadequate cause. "Whatwill you? What is it?"
"I would take your place," La Tribe answered quietly.
"My place?"
"Yes."
"What, are we too many?"
"We are enough without you, M. Tignonville," the minister answered."These men, who have wrongs to avenge, God will justify them."
Tignonville's eyes sparkled with anger. "And have I no wrongs toavenge?" he cried. "Is it nothing to lose my mistress, to be robbed ofmy wife, to see the woman I love dragged off to be a slave and a toy?Are these no wrongs?"
"He spared your life, if he did not save it," the minister saidsolemnly. "And hers. And her servants."
"To suit himself."
La Tribe spread out his hands.
"To suit himself! And for that you wish him to go free?" Tignonvillecried in a voice half-choked with rage. "Do you know that this man,and this man alone, stood forth in the great Hall of the Louvre, andwhen even the King flinched, justified the murder of our people? Afterthat is he to go free?"
"At your hands," La Tribe answered quietly. "You alone of our peoplemust not pursue him." He would have added more, but Tignonville wouldnot listen.
Brooding on his wrongs behind the wall of the Arsenal, he had lethatred eat away his more generous instincts. Vain and conceited, hefancied that the world laughed at the poor figure he had cut; and thewound in his vanity festered until nothing would serve but to see thedownfall of his enemy. Instant pursuit, instant vengeance--only these,he fancied, could restore him in his fellows' eyes.
In his heart he knew what would become him better. But vanity is apotent motive: and his conscience, even when supported by La Tribe,struggled but weakly. From neither would he hear more. "You havetravelled with him, until you side with him!" he cried violently."Have a care, monsieur, have a care lest we think you papist!" Andwalking over to the men he bade them saddle; adding a sour word whichturned their eyes, in no friendly gaze, on the minister.
After that La Tribe said no more. Of what use would it have been?
But as darkness came on and cloaked the little troop, and the stormwhich the men had foreseen began to rumble in the west, his distastefor the business waxed. The summer lightning which presently began toplay across the sky revealed not only the broad gleaming stream,between which and a wooded hill their road ran, but the faces of hiscompanions; and these in their turn shed a grisly light on the bloodyenterprise towards which they were set. Nervous and ill at ease, theminister's mind dwelt on the stages of that enterprise; the stealthyentrance through the
waterway, the ascent through the trap, thesurprise, the slaughter in the sleeping-chamber. And either because hehad lived for days in the victim's company, or was swayed by thearguments he had addressed to another, the prospect shook his soul.
In vain he told himself that this was the oppressor; he saw only theman, fresh roused from sleep, with the horror of impending dissolutionin his eyes. And when the rider, behind whom he sat, pointed to afaint spark of light, at no great distance before them, and whisperedthat it was St. Agnes 's Chapel, hard by the inn, he could have criedwith the best Catholic of them all, "Inter pontem et fontem, Domine!"Nay, some such words did pass his lips.
For the man before him turned half-way in his saddle. "What?" heasked.
But the Huguenot did not explain.
Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Page 38