Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  He led the way out between two houses close to the inn, and struck a narrow track, scarcely discernible, which ran behind other houses, and then plunged into the thickest part of the wood. A single person, traversing the covert, might have made such a track; or pigs, or children. But it was the first idea that occurred to us, and put us all on the alert. The Captain carried a cocked pistol, I held my sword drawn, and kept a watchful eye on HIM; and the deeper the dusk fell in the wood, the more cautiously we went, until at last we came out with a sort of jump into a wider and lighter path.

  I looked up and down, and saw behind me a vista of tree-trunks, before me a wooden bridge and an open meadow, lying cold and grey in the twilight; and I stood in astonishment. We were in the old path to the Chateau! I shivered at the thought that he was going to take us there, to the house, to Mademoiselle!

  The Captain also recognised the place, and swore aloud. But the dumb man went on unheeding until he reached the wooden bridge. There he stopped short, and looked towards the dark outline of the house, which was just visible, one faint light twinkling sadly in the west wing. As the Captain and I pressed up behind him, he raised his hands and seemed to wring them towards the house.

  ‘Have a care!’ the Captain growled. ‘Play me no tricks, or—’

  He did not finish the sentence, for Clon, as if he well understood his impatience, turned back from the bridge, and, entering the wood to the left, began to ascend the bank of the stream. We had not gone a hundred yards before the ground grew rough, and the undergrowth thick; and yet through all ran a kind of path which enabled us to advance, dark as it was now growing. Very soon the bank on which we moved began to rise above the water, and grew steep and rugged. We turned a shoulder, where the stream swept round a curve, and saw we were in the mouth of a small ravine, dark and sheer-sided. The water brawled along the bottom, over boulders and through chasms. In front, the slope on which we stood shaped itself into a low cliff; but halfway between its summit and the water a ledge, or narrow terrace, running along the face, was dimly visible.

  ‘Ten to one, a cave!’ the Captain muttered. ‘It is a likely place.’

  ‘And an ugly one!’ I replied with a sneer. ‘Which one against ten might hold for hours!’

  ‘If the ten had no pistols — yes!’ he answered viciously. ‘But you see we have. Is he going that way?’

  He was. As soon as this was clear, Larolle turned to his comrade.

  ‘Lieutenant,’ he said, speaking in a low voice, though the chafing of the stream below us covered ordinary sounds; ‘what say you? Shall we light the lanthorns, or press on while there is still a glimmering of day?’

  ‘On, I should say, M. le Capitaine,’ the Lieutenant answered. ‘Prick him in the back if he falters. I will warrant,’ the brute added with a chuckle, ‘he has a tender place or two.’

  The Captain gave the word and we moved forward. It was evident now that the cliff-path was our destination. It was possible for the eye to follow the track all the way to it, through rough stones and brushwood; and though Clon climbed feebly, and with many groans, two minutes saw us step on to it. It did not prove to be, in fact, the perilous place it looked at a distance. The ledge, grassy and terrace-like, sloped slightly downwards and outwards, and in parts was slippery; but it was as wide as a highway, and the fall to the water did not exceed thirty feet. Even in such a dim light as now displayed it to us, and by increasing the depth and unseen dangers of the gorge gave a kind of impressiveness to our movements, a nervous woman need not have feared to tread it, I wondered how often Mademoiselle had passed along it with her milk-pitcher.

  ‘I think that we have him now,’ Captain Larolle muttered, twisting his moustachios, and looking about to make his last dispositions. ‘Paul and Lebrun, see that your man makes no noise. Sergeant, come forward with your carbine, but do not fire without orders. Now, silence all, and close up, Lieutenant. Forward!’

  We advanced about a hundred paces, keeping the cliff on our left, turned a shoulder, and saw, a few paces in front of us, a slight hollow, a black blotch in the grey duskiness of the cliff-side. The prisoner stopped, and, raising his bound hands, pointed to it.

  ‘There?’ the Captain whispered, pressing forward. ‘Is it the place?’

  Clon nodded. The Captain’s voice shook with excitement.

  ‘Paul and Lebrun remain here with the prisoner,’ he said, in a low tone. ‘Sergeant, come forward with me. Now, are you ready? Forward!’

  At the word he and the sergeant passed quickly, one on either side of Clon and his guards. The path grew narrow here, and the Captain passed outside. The eyes of all but one were on the black blotch, the hollow in the cliff-side, expecting we knew not what — a sudden shot or the rush or a desperate man; and no one saw exactly what happened. But somehow, as the Captain passed abreast of him, the prisoner thrust back his guards, and leaping sideways, flung his unbound arms round Larolle’s body, and in an instant swept him, shouting, to the verge of the precipice.

  It was done in a moment. By the time our startled wits and eyes were back with them, the two were already tottering on the edge, looking in the gloom like one dark form. The sergeant, who was the first to find his head, levelled his carbine, but, as the wrestlers twirled and twisted, the Captain, shrieking out oaths and threats, the mute silent as death, it was impossible to see which was which, and the sergeant lowered his gun again, while the men held back nervously. The ledge sloped steeply there, the edge was vague, already the two seemed to be wrestling in mid air; and the mute was desperate.

  That moment of hesitation was fatal. Clon’s long arms were round the other’s arms, crushing them into his ribs; Clon’s skull-like face grinned hate into the other’s eyes; his bony limbs curled round him like the folds of a snake. Larolle’s strength gave way.

  ‘Damn you all! Why don’t you come up?’ he cried. And then, ‘Ah! Mercy! mercy!’ came in one last scream from his lips. As the Lieutenant, taken aback before, sprang forward to his aid, the two toppled over the edge, and in a second hurtled out of sight.

  ‘MON DIEU!’ the Lieutenant cried; the answer was a dull splash in the depths below. He flung up his arms. ‘Water!’ he said. ‘Quick, men, get down. We may save him yet.’

  But there was no path, and night was come, and the men’s nerves were shaken. The lanthorns had to be lit, and the way to be retraced; by the time we reached the dark pool which lay below, the last bubbles were gone from the surface, the last ripples had beaten themselves out against the banks. The pool still rocked sullenly, and the yellow light showed a man’s hat floating, and near it a glove three parts submerged. But that was all. The mute’s dying grip had known no loosening, nor his hate any fear. I heard afterwards that when they dragged the two out next day, his fingers were in the other’s eye-sockets, his teeth in his throat. If ever man found death sweet, it was he!

  As we turned slowly from the black water, some shuddering, some crossing themselves, the Lieutenant looked at me.

  ‘Curse you!’ he said passionately. ‘I believe that you are glad.’

  He deserved his fate,’ I answered coldly. ‘Why should I pretend to be sorry? It was now or in three months. And for the other poor devil’s sake I am glad.’

  He glared at me for a moment in speechless anger.

  At last, ‘I should like to have you tied up!’ he said between his teeth.

  ‘I should think that you had had enough of tying up for one day!’ I retorted. ‘But there,’ I went on contemptuously, ‘it comes of making officers out of the canaille. Dogs love blood. The teamster must lash something if he can no longer lash his horses.’

  We were back, a sombre little procession, at the wooden bridge when I said this. He stopped.

  ‘Very well,’ he replied, nodding viciously. ‘That decides me. Sergeant, light me this way with a lanthorn. The rest of you to the village. Now, Master Spy,’ he continued, glancing at me with gloomy spite, ‘Your road is my road. I think I know how to spoil your game.’

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nbsp; I shrugged my shoulders in disdain, and together, the sergeant leading the way with the light, we crossed the dim meadow, and passed through the gate where Mademoiselle had kissed my hand, and up the ghostly walk between the rose bushes. I wondered uneasily what the Lieutenant would be at, and what he intended; but the lanthorn-light which now fell on the ground at our feet, and now showed one of us to the other, high-lit in a frame of blackness, discovered nothing in his grizzled face but settled hostility. He wheeled at the end of the walk to go to the main door, but as he did so I saw the flutter of a white skirt by the stone seat against the house, and I stepped that way.

  ‘Mademoiselle?’ I said softly. ‘Is it you?’

  ‘Clon?’ she muttered, her voice quivering. ‘What of him?’

  ‘He is past pain,’ I answered gently. ‘He is dead — yes, dead, Mademoiselle, but in his own way. Take comfort.’

  She stifled a sob; then before I could say more, the Lieutenant, with his sergeant and light, were at my elbow. He saluted Mademoiselle roughly. She looked at him with shuddering abhorrence.

  ‘Are you come to flog me too, sir?’ she said passionately. ‘Is it not enough that you have murdered my servant?’

  ‘On the contrary, it was he who killed my Captain,’ the Lieutenant answered, in another tone than I had expected. ‘If your servant is dead so is my comrade.’

  ‘Captain Larolle?’ she murmured, gazing with startled eyes, not at him but at me.

  I nodded.

  ‘How?’ she asked.

  ‘Clon flung the Captain and himself — into the river pool above the bridge,’ I said.

  She uttered a low cry of awe and stood silent; but her lips moved and I think that she prayed for Clon, though she was a Huguenot. Meanwhile, I had a fright. The lanthorn, swinging in the sergeant’s hand, and throwing its smoky light now on the stone seat, now on the rough wall above it, showed me something else. On the seat, doubtless where Mademoiselle’s hand had lain as she sat in the dark, listening and watching and shivering, stood a pitcher of food. Beside her, in that place, it was damning evidence, and I trembled least the Lieutenant’s eye should fall upon it, lest the sergeant should see it; and then, in a moment, I forgot all about it. The Lieutenant was speaking and his voice was doom. My throat grew dry as I listened; my tongue stuck to my mouth I tried to look at Mademoiselle, but I could not.

  ‘It is true that the Captain is gone,’ he said stiffly, ‘but others are alive, and about one of them a word with you, by your leave, Mademoiselle. I have listened to a good deal of talk from this fine gentleman friend of yours. He has spent the last twenty-four hours saying “You shall!” and “You shall not!” He came from you and took a very high tone because we laid a little whip-lash about that dumb devil of yours. He called us brutes and beasts, and but for him I am not sure that my friend would not now be alive. But when he said a few minutes ago that he was glad — glad of it, d — him! — then I fixed it in my mind that I would be even with him. And I am going to be!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mademoiselle asked, wearily interrupting him. ‘If you think that you can prejudice me against this gentleman—’

  ‘That is precisely what I am going to do! And a little more than that!’ he answered.

  ‘You will be only wasting your breath!’ she retorted.

  ‘Wait! Wait, Mademoiselle — until you have heard,’ he said. ‘For I swear to you that if ever a black-hearted scoundrel, a dastardly sneaking spy trod the earth, it is this fellow! And I am going to expose him. Your own eyes and your own ears shall persuade you. I am not particular, but I would not eat, I would not drink, I would not sit down with him! I would rather be beholden to the meanest trooper in my squadron than to him! Ay, I would, so help me Heaven!’

  And the Lieutenant, turning squarely on his heel, spat on the ground.

  CHAPTER XI. THE ARREST

  It had come, and I saw no way of escape. The sergeant was between us and I could not strike him. And I found no words. A score of times I had thought with shrinking how I should reveal my secret to Mademoiselle — what I should say, and how she would take it; but in my mind it had been always a voluntary act, this disclosure, it had been always I who unmasked myself and she who listened — alone; and in this voluntariness and this privacy there had been something which took from the shame of anticipation. But here — here was no voluntary act on my part, no privacy, nothing but shame. And I stood mute, convicted, speechless, under her eyes — like the thing I was.

  Yet if anything could have braced me it was Mademoiselle’s voice when she answered him.

  ‘Go on, Monsieur,’ she said calmly, ‘you will have done the sooner.’

  ‘You do not believe me?’ he replied. ‘Then, I say, look at him! Look at him! If ever shame—’

  ‘Monsieur,’ she said abruptly — she did not look at me, ‘I am ashamed of myself.’

  ‘But you don’t hear me,’ the Lieutenant rejoined hotly. ‘His very name is not his own! He is not Barthe at all. He is Berault, the gambler, the duellist, the bully; whom if you—’

  Again she interrupted him.

  ‘I know it,’ she said coldly. ‘I know it all; and if you have nothing more to tell me, go, Monsieur. Go!’ she continued in a tone of infinite scorn. ‘Be satisfied, that you have earned my contempt as well as my abhorrence.’

  He looked for a moment taken aback. Then, —

  ‘Ay, but I have more,’ he cried, his voice stubbornly triumphant.

  ‘I forgot that you would think little of that. I forgot that a swordsman has always the ladies’ hearts — but I have more. Do you know, too, that he is in the Cardinal’s pay? Do you know that he is here on the same errand which brings us here — to arrest M. de Cocheforet? Do you know that while we go about the business openly and in soldier fashion, it is his part to worm himself into your confidence, to sneak into Madame’s intimacy, to listen at your door, to follow your footsteps, to hang on your lips, to track you — track you until you betray yourselves and the man? Do you know this, and that all his sympathy is a lie, Mademoiselle? His help, so much bait to catch the secret? His aim blood-money — blood-money? Why, MORBLEU!’ the Lieutenant continued, pointing his finger at me, and so carried away by passion, so lifted out of himself by wrath and indignation, that I shrank before him— ‘you talk, lady, of contempt and abhorrence in the same breath with me, but what have you for him — what have you for him — the spy, the informer, the hired traitor? And if you doubt me, if you want evidence, look at him. Only look at him, I say.’

  And he might say it; for I stood silent still, cowering and despairing, white with rage and hate. But Mademoiselle did not look. She gazed straight at the Lieutenant.

  ‘Have you done?’ she said.

  ‘Done?’ he stammered; her words, her air, bringing him to earth again. ‘Done? Yes, if you believe me.’

  ‘I do not,’ she answered proudly. ‘If that be all, be satisfied, Monsieur. I do not believe you.’

  ‘Then tell me this,’ he retorted, after a moment of stunned surprise. ‘Answer me this! Why, if he was not on our side, do you think that we let him remain here? Why did we suffer him to stay in a suspected house, bullying us, annoying us, thwarting us, taking your part from hour to hour?’

  ‘He has a sword, Monsieur,’ she answered with fine contempt.

  ‘MILLE DIABLES!’ he cried, snapping his fingers in a rage. ‘That for his sword! It was because he held the Cardinal’s commission, I tell you, because he had equal authority with us. Because we had no choice.’

  ‘And that being so, Monsieur, why are you now betraying him?’ she asked. He swore at that, feeling the stroke go home.

  ‘You must be mad!’ he said, glaring at her. ‘Cannot you see that the man is what I tell you? Look at him! Look at him, I say! Listen to him! Has he a word to say for himself?’

  Still she did not look.

  ‘It is late,’ she replied coldly. ‘And I am not very well. If you have done, quite done — perhaps, you will leave me, Mons
ieur.’

  ‘MON DIEU! he exclaimed, shrugging his shoulders, and grinding his teeth in impotent rage. You are mad! I have told you the truth, and you will not believe it. Well — on your head be it then, Mademoiselle. I have no more to say! You will see.’

  And with that, without more, fairly conquered by her staunchness, he saluted her, gave the word to the sergeant, turned and went down the path.

  The sergeant went after him, the lanthorn swaying in his hand. And we two were left alone. The frogs were croaking in the pool, a bat flew round in circles; the house, the garden, all lay quiet under the darkness, as on the night which I first came to it.

  And would to Heaven I had never come that was the cry in my heart. Would to Heaven I had never seen this woman, whose nobleness and faith were a continual shame to me; a reproach branding me every hour I stood in her presence with all vile and hateful names. The man just gone, coarse, low-bred, brutal soldier as he was, manflogger and drilling-block, had yet found heart to feel my baseness, and words in which to denounce it. What, then, would she say, when the truth came home to her? What shape should I take in her eyes then? How should I be remembered through all the years then?

  Then? But now? What was she thinking now, at this moment as she stood silent and absorbed near the stone seat, a shadowy figure with face turned from me? Was she recalling the man’s words, fitting them to the facts and the past, adding this and that circumstance? Was she, though she had rebuffed him in the body, collating, now he was gone, all that he had said, and out of these scraps piecing together the damning truth? Was she, for all that she had said, beginning to see me as I was? The thought tortured me. I could brook uncertainty no longer. I went nearer to her and touched her sleeve.