Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  “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?”