Sir Geoffrey Carleon lived a long while after the death of his wife.When he passed away at last, ten days or so later, it was painlessly ofthe mortification of his broken limb, not of the pest, which went by himas though it knew that he was already doomed.
All this time Hugh, Grey Dick, and David Day nursed him without ceasing.Indeed with the exception of a woman so ancient and shrivelled thatnothing seemed able to harm her any more, no one else was left in thegreat _palazzo_, for all the rest of the household had perished or fledaway. This woman, who was the grandmother of one of the servants, nowdead of the plague, cooked their food. Of such provision fortunatelythere was much laid up in the storerooms for use in the winter, sinceLady Carleon had been a good and provident housewife.
So those three did not starve, although Sir Geoffrey would touch littleof the salted stuff. He existed on a few fruits when they could getthem, and after these were gone, on wine mingled with water.
At length came the end. For two days he had lain senseless. One night,however, David, who was watching in his chamber, crept into the roomwhere Hugh slept hard by and told them that Sir Geoffrey was awake andcalling them. They rose and went to him. By the light of the moon whichshone in at the open window, that same window through which Lady Carleonhad looked toward England ere she passed away, they saw him lyingquietly, a happy smile upon his face.
"Friends," he said in a weak voice, "by the mercy of God, I go out ofthis hell to heaven, or so I think. But, if indeed this be not the endof the world, I hope that you who have lived so long will continue tolive, and I have sent for you to bless you and to thank you both. Inyonder case are certain papers that have to do with the King's business.I pray you deliver them to his Grace if you can and with them my homageand my thanks for the trust that he has reposed in me. Tell him what Ihave not written in the letters"--and here he smiled faintly--"that Ithink that few of his creditors in Venice will trouble him at present,though afterward their heirs, if they have left any, may do so. Say,too, to the Doge, who, I believe, still lives, that I send him my goodwishes and respects. Also that I grieve that I have not been able tohand him my letters of recall in person, since the King who summons mesends none.
"So much for business, but there are two things more: I have norelatives living save my wife's sister. Therefore, Sir Hugh and CaptainRichard, I have made you my joint heirs with her; my testament dulysigned and witnessed is in that case with the other papers. My wealth isnot great. Still there are certain land and manors in England, a sum ofmoney placed with a merchant in London, whose name you will find writtenin the testament, my plate and gold coin here, though the former you maynot be able to move. Therefore I charge you to bury it and return for itlater on, if you can. It is of value, since all my life I have collectedsuch trinkets. I beg you to make provision also for this good lad,David, should he be spared."
He paused a while, for he was growing very weak, then added:
"Another thing is that I ask you, if it be possible, to row my body outto sea and there sink it in deep water, deep, clean water, far from thisplace of stench and pestilence, for I would not lie in the common pitat last. Now kneel down and pray for my passing soul, since there is nopriest to give me absolution, and I must seek it straight from God. Nay,thank me not. I have done with the world and its affairs. Kneel down andpray, as I pray for you, that you may be spared on earth and that we maymeet again in heaven, where my wife and others await me."
They obeyed, weeping, yes, even Grey Dick wept a little. Presently whenthey looked up they saw that Sir Geoffrey was dead, dead without pain orsorrow. Of the first he had suffered none for days, and the second wasfar from him who wished to die.
Leaving the ancient woman in charge of the house, which she barred andbolted, next morning they took a boat, and the three of them rowed thebody of the old knight a league out into the quiet sea. There, after abrief prayer, they cast him into the deep, weighted with stones, so thathe might never rise again.
Then they returned, not too soon, for they found thieves in the act ofbreaking into the house, probably in search of food. These miserable,half-starved men they spared, though they could have killed them easilyenough. They even gave them a pouch full of biscuit and dried meat erethey dismissed them. This they did quickly, since one of them, as theycould see, was already stricken by the plague and had not long to live.When they were gone, the old woman being out of the house, whence shehad fled on hearing the robbers, they collected all Sir Geoffrey's andhis lady's jewels and plate, of which there was much, for he lived instate in Venice, as became an ambassador. These they buried in threelarge iron boxes beneath the flagstones of the cellar, the safest placethat they could find. Having thrown the excavated earth into the canalunder cover of the dark, they replaced these stones and strewed dustover them.
Wondering whether it would ever be their lot to look upon these chestsand their contents again, they left the cellar, to find the old womanknocking at the back door of the house, whither she had returned,frightened by the sights and sounds in the city. They bade her bringthem food, which they needed much who had laboured so hard on thatsorrowful day, and after they had eaten took counsel together.
"Seeing that all three of us are still in health, as if there isanything in the promises of Murgh we should remain, is it not time,master," asked Grey Dick, "that we left this accursed Venice? Now thatSir Geoffrey is gone, there is naught to keep us here."
"One thing I have to do first," answered Hugh, "and it is to learnwhether Sir Edmund Acour, lord of Cattrina, is dead or living, and ifliving where he hides himself away. While Sir Geoffrey lay dying wecould not leave him to make search, but now it is otherwise."
"Ay, master, though I think you'll find the task hard in this hive ofpestilence and confusion."
"I have heard that the plague is at work in Cattrina's palace," brokein David, "but when I asked whether he were there or no, none could tellme. That is not a house where you'll be welcomed, Sir Hugh."
"Still I will make bold to knock at his doors to-morrow," answered Hugh."Now let us seek what we all need--sleep."
So on the following morning shortly after sunrise Hugh and Grey Dick,guided by David, took boat and rowed through most fearful scenes andsounds to the Palazzo Cattrina, a splendid but somewhat dilapidatedbuilding situated in a part of the city that, like itself, had seen moreprosperous times. The great doors of the place set in a marble archwaystood half open. Over them were cut the cognizance of the floating swan,and beneath, in letters of faded gold, the titles of Acour, de Noyon,and Cattrina. No wonder they were open, since the porter's lodge wasoccupied only by a grisly corpse that lay rotting on the floor, a heavykey in its hand. The courtyard beyond was empty and so, save for a deadhorse, were the stables to the right. Passing up the steps of the hallthat also stood open, they entered.
Here the place was in confusion, as though those who dwelt there hadleft in haste. The mouldering remains of a meal lay on the broad oaktable; a great dower-chest inlaid with ivory, but half filled with armsand armour, stood wide. A silver crucifix that had hung above was torndown and cast upon the floor, perchance by thieves who had found it tooheavy to bear away. The earthquake had thrown over a carved cabinet andsome bowls of glazed ware that stood upon it. These lay about shatteredamidst shields and swords thrown from the walls, where pictures ofsaints or perchance of dead Cattrinas hung all awry. In short, if anarmy had sacked it this stately hall could scarce have seemed moreruined.
Hugh and Dick crossed it to a stairway of chestnut wood whereof everynewel-post was surmounted by the crest of a swan, and searched thesaloons above, where also there was wreck and ruin. Then, still mountingthe stair, they came to the bed-chambers. From one of these theyretreated hastily, since on entering it hundreds of flies buzzing in acorner advised them that something lay there which they did not wish tosee.
"Let us be going. I grow sick," exclaimed Hugh.
But Dick, who had the ears of a fox, held up his hand and said:
"Hark! I hear a
voice."
Following the sound, he led his master down two long corridors thatended in a chapel. There, lying before the altar, they found a man cladin a filthy priest's robe, a dying man who still had the strength to cryfor help or mercy, although in truth he was wasted to a skeleton, sincethe plague which had taken him was of the most lingering sort. Indeed,little seemed to be left of him save his rolling eyes, prominent noseand high cheekbones covered with yellow parchment that had been skin,and a stubbly growth of unshaven hair.
Dick scanned him. Dick, who never forgot a face, then stepped forwardand said:
"So once more we meet in a chapel, Father Nicholas. Say, how has itfared with you since you fled through the chancel door of that atBlythburgh Manor? No, I forgot, that was not the last time we met. A manin a yellow cap ripped off your mask in a by-street near the Place ofArms one night and said something which it did not please you to hear."
"Water!" moaned Nicholas. "For Christ's sake give me water!"
"Why should I give you water in payment for your midnight steel yonderin the narrow street? What kind of water was it that you gave Red Evefar away at Blythburgh town?" asked Dick in his hissing voice whichsounded like that of an angry snake.
But Hugh, who could bear no more of it, ran down to the courtyard, wherehe had seen a pitcher standing by a well, and brought water.
"Thank God that you have come again," said the wretched priest, as hesnatched at it, "for I cannot bear to die with this white-faced devilglaring at me," and he pointed to Grey Dick, who leaned against thechancel wall, his arms folded on his breast, smiling coldly.
Then he drank greedily, Hugh holding the pitcher to his lips, for hiswasted arms could not bear its weight.
"Now," said Hugh, when his thirst was satisfied, "tell me, where is yourmaster, Cattrina?"
"God or the fiend can say alone. When he found that I was smitten withthe plague he left me to perish, as did the others."
"And as we shall do unless you tell me whither my enemy has gone," andHugh made as though to leave the place.
The priest clutched at him with his filthy, claw-like hand.
"For Christ's sake do not desert me," he moaned. "Let one Christian soulbe near me at the last ere the curse of that wizard with the yellow capis fulfilled on me. For the sake of Jesus, stay! I'll tell all I know."
"Speak then, and be swift. You have no time to spare, I think."
"When the darkness fell there in the Place of Arms," began Nicholas,"while you knights were waiting for the third blast of the trumpet,Cattrina fled under cover it."
"As I thought, the accursed coward!" exclaimed Hugh bitterly.
"Nay, to be just, it was not all cowardice. The wizard in the yellowcap, he who showed himself to the people afterward and called downthis Black Death on Venice, appeared to him in the darkness and saidsomething to him that turned his heart to water. I think it was that ifhe stayed, within five short minutes he'd be dead, who otherwise, if hefled, had yet a breathing space of life. So he went."
"Ay. But whither, man? Whither?"
"Here to his house, where he disguised himself and bade me prepare totravel with him. Only then the sickness took me and I could not. So hewent with some of his people, riding for Avignon."
"What to do at Avignon?"
"To obtain the confirmation of his marriage with the lady Eve Clavering.It has been promised to him by certain cardinals at Court who have theear of his Holiness the Pope."
"Ah, I thought it! What more?"
"Only this: tidings reached him that the lady Clavering, with the oldTemplar, Sir Andrew Arnold, journeys to Avignon from England, there toobtain the dissolution of their marriage with Sir Edmund Acour, Count deNoyon, Lord of Cattrina. In Avignon, however the cause may go, Cattrinapurposes to snare and make her his, which will be easy, for there he hasmany friends and she has none."
"Except God!" exclaimed Hugh, grinding his teeth.
"And Sir Andrew Arnold," broke in Dick, "who, like some others, is, Ithink, one of His ministers. Still, we had better be riding, master."
"Nay, nay," cried Nicholas in a hoarse scream. "Tarry a while and I'lltell you that which will force the Pope to void this marriage. Yes, itshall be set in writing and signed by me and witnessed ere I die. Thereis ink and parchment in yonder little room."
"That's a good thought," said Hugh. "Dick, fetch the tools, for if wetry to move this fellow he will go farther than we can follow him."
Dick went and returned presently with an ink-horn, a roll of parchment,pens and a little table. Then Hugh sat himself down on the altar rail,placing the table in front of him and said:
"Say on. I'll write, since you cannot."
Now Nicholas, having before his glazing eyes the vision of imminentjudgment, briefly but clearly told all the truth at last. He told how hehad drugged Red Eve, giving the name of the bane which he mixed in themilk she drank. He told how when her mind was sleeping, though her bodywas awake, none knowing the wickedness that had been wrought save he andAcour, and least of all her father, they had led her to the altar likea lamb to the slaughter, and there married her to the man she hated. Hetold how, although he had fled from England to save his life, Acour hadnever ceased to desire her and to plot to get her into his power, anymore than he had ceased to fear Hugh's vengeance. For this reason, hesaid, he had clad himself in the armour of another knight at Crecy, andin that guise accepted mercy at Hugh's hand, leaving de la Roche todie in his place beneath that same hand. For this reason also he hadcommanded him, Nicholas, to bring about the death of Hugh de Cressi andhis squire beneath the daggers of assassins in the streets of Venice,a fate from which they had been saved only by the wizard in the yellowcap, whom no steel could harm.
"The black-hearted villain!" hissed Dick. "Well, for your comfort, holypriest, I'll tell you who that wizard is. He is Death himself, Death theSword, Death the Fire, Death the Helper, and presently you'll meet himagain."
"I knew it, I knew it," groaned the wretched man. "Oh! such is the endof sin whereof we think so little in our day of strength."
"Nay," broke in Hugh, "you'll meet, not the minister, but Him whom heserves and in His hand are mercies. Be silent, Dick, for this wretchmakes confession and his time is short. Spare the tool and save yourwrath for him who wielded it. Go now and fetch David Day that he maywitness also."
So Dick went, and Nicholas continued his tale, throwing light into manya dark place, though there was little more that Hugh thought worthy ofrecord.
Presently David came and started back in horror at the sight of thatyellow tortured face set upon a living skeleton. Then the writing wasread and Nicholas, held up by Dick, set his signature with a tremblinghand to this his confession of the truth. This done they signed aswitnesses, all three of them.
Now Hugh, whose pity was stirred, wished to move Nicholas and lay him ona bed in some chamber, and if they could, find someone to watch him tillthe end. But the priest refused this charity.
"Let me die before the altar," he said, "where I may set my eyes uponHim whom I have betrayed afresh," and he pointed to the carved ivorycrucifix which hung above it. "Oh! be warned, be warned, my brethren,"he went on in a wailing voice. "You are all of you still young; you maybe led astray as I was by the desire for power, by the hope of wealth.You may sell yourselves to the wicked as I did, I who once was goodand strove toward the right. If Satan tempts you thus, then rememberNicholas the priest, and his dreadful death, and see how he pays hisservants. The plague has taken others, yet they have died at peace, butI, I die in hell before I see its fires."
"Not so," said Hugh, "you have repented, and I, against whom you havesinned perhaps more than all, forgive you, as I am sure my lady would,could she know."
"Then it is more than I do," muttered Grey Dick to himself. "Why shouldI forgive him because he rots alive, as many a better man has done, andgoes to reap what he has sown, who if he had won his way would have sentus before him at the dagger's point? Yet who knows? Each of us sins inhis own fashion, and
perchance sin is born of the blood and not of thewill. If ever I meet Murgh again I'll ask him. But perhaps he will notanswer."
Thus reflected Dick, half to David, who feared and did not understandhim, and half to himself. Ere ever he had finished with his thoughts,which were not such as Sir Andrew would have approved, Father Nicholasbegan to die.
It was not a pleasant sight this death of his, though of its physicalpart nothing shall be written. Let that be buried with other records ofthe great plague. Only in this case his mind triumphed for a while overthe dissolution of his body. When there was little left of him save boneand sinew, still he found strength to cry out to God for mercy. Yes, andto raise himself and cast what had been arms about the ivory rood andkiss its feet with what had been lips, and in his last death struggle todrag it down and pant out his ultimate breath beneath its weight.
So there they left him, a horrible, huddled heap upon which gleamed theivory crucifix, and went their way, gasping, into the air.
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