He had not read a line of the contents, before his countenance changed. The letter was from Basterga, and cunningly contrived. It gave him the directions he needed, yet it was so worded that even after the event it might pass for a trifling communication from a physician. The place and the hour were specified — the latter so near that for a moment his cheek grew pale. On that ensued the part which interested him most; but as the whole was brief, the whole may be given.
“Sir” (here followed a cabalistic sign such as physicians were in the habit of using to impose on the vulgar). “After paying a visit in the Corraterie, where I have an appointment on Saturday evening next between late and early, I will be with you. But the mixture with the necessary directions shall be sent to you twelve hours in advance, so that before my visit you may experience its good effects. As surely as the wrong potion in the case you wot of deprived of reason, so surely (as I hope for salvation) will this potion have the desired effect.
“The Physician of Aleppo.”
“Saturday next, between late and early!” Blondel muttered, gazing at the words with fascinated eyes. “It is for the day after to-morrow! The day after to-morrow!” And in his thoughts he passed again over the road he had travelled since his first visit to Basterga’s room, since the hour when the scholar had unrolled before him the map of the town he called “Aurelia,” and had told him the story of Ibn Jasher and the Physician of Aleppo.
“No, I am not well,” he answered. He sat, warmly wrapped up, in the high chair in his parlour, his face so drawn with want of sleep that Captain Blandano of the city guard, who had come to take his orders, had no difficulty in believing him. “I am not well,” he repeated peevishly. “It is the weather.” He had some soup before him. Beside it stood a tiny phial of medicine; a phial strangely shaped and strange looking, containing something not unlike the green cordial of the Carthusians.
“It troubles me a good deal, too,” Blandano said. “There are seven men absent in the fourth ward. And two men, whose wives are urgent with me that they should have leave.”
“Leave?” the Syndic cried. “Do they think naught” — leaning forward in a passion— “of the safety of the city? If I were not ill, I would take service on the wall myself to set an example!”
“There is no need of that,” the Captain answered respectfully, “if I might have permission to withdraw a few men from the west side so as to fill the places on the east — —”
“Ay, ay!”
“From the Rhone side of the town — —”
“From the Corraterie? That is least open to assault.”
“Yes, from that part perhaps would be best,” Blandano assented, nodding. “Yes, I think so. If I might do that, I think I could manage.”
“Well, then do it,” Blondel answered. “And make a note that I assented to your suggestion to take them from the Corraterie and put them on the lower part of the wall. After all, the nights are very bitter now, and there are limits. Do the men grumble much?”
“It is as much as I can do to make them go the rounds,” Blandano answered. “Some plead the weather; and some argue that, with President Rochette, whose word is as good as his bond, on the point of coming to an agreement with us, the rounds are a farce!”
The Syndic shrugged his shoulders. “Well!” he muttered, rubbing his chin and looking thoughtfully before him, “we must not wear the men out. There is no moon now, is there?”
“No.”
“And the enemy can attempt nothing without light,” Blondel continued, thinking aloud. “See here, Blandano, we must not put too heavy a burden on our people. I see that. As it is so cold, I think you may pass the word to pretermit the rounds to-night — save two. At what hours would you suggest?”
Blandano considered his own comfort — as the other expected he would — and answered, “Early and late, say an hour before midnight and an hour before dawn”.
“Then let be it as you suggest. But see” — with returning asperity— “that those rounds go, and at their hours. Let there be no remissness. I will make a note,” he continued, “of the hours fixed. An hour before midnight and an hour before dawn”.
He extended his arm and drew the ink-horn towards him. Midway in the act, whether it was that his hand shook by reason of his illness, or that he was in a hurry to close an interview which tried him more severely than appeared, his sleeve caught the little phial of green water that stood beside the soup on the table. It reeled an instant on its edge, toppled on its side, and rolling, in one-tenth of the time it takes to tell the tale, to the verge of the table — fell over.
Messer Blondel made a strange noise in his throat.
But the Captain had seen what was happening. Dexterously he caught the bottle in his huge palm, and with an air of modest achievement was going to set it on the table, when he saw that the Syndic had fallen back in his chair, his face ghastly. Blandano was more used to death in the field than in the house; and in a panic he took two steps towards the door to call for help. Before he could take a third, Blondel gasped, and made an uncertain movement with his hand, as if he would reassure him.
Blandano returned and leant over him. “You are ill, Messer Syndic,” he said anxiously. “Let me call some one.”
The Syndic could not speak, but he pointed to the table. And when Blandano, unable to make out what he wanted, and suspecting a stroke of a mortal disease, turned again to the door, persisting in his intention of getting aid, the Syndic found strength to seize his sleeve, and almost instantly regained his speech. “There!” he gasped, “there! The phial! Put it down!”
Captain Blandano placed it on the table, wondering much. “I was afraid you were ill, Messer Blondel,” he said.
“I was ill,” the Syndic answered; and he pushed his chair back so that no part of him was in contact with the table. He looked at the little bottle with fascinated eyes, and slowly, as he looked, the colour returned to his face. “I — was ill,” he repeated, with a sigh that seemed to relieve his breast. “I had a fright!”
“You thought it was broken?” Blandano said, wondering much, and looking in his turn at the phial.
“Yes, I thought that it was broken. I am much obliged to you. Much, very much obliged to you,” the Syndic repeated, with a deep sigh, his hands still moving nervously about his dress. Then, after a moment’s pause, “Will you ring the bell?” he said.
The Captain, marvelling much, rang the hand-bell which lay on a neighbouring table. He marvelled still more when he heard Messer Blondel order the servant to place six bottles of his best wine in a basket and take them to the Captain’s lodging.
Blandano stared. He knew the wine to be choice and valuable; and he eyed the tiny phial respectfully. “It is something rare, I expect?” he said.
The Syndic nodded.
“And costly too, I doubt not?” with an admiring glance.
“Costly?” Messer Blondel repeated the word, and when he had done so turned on the other a look that led the Captain to think that he was going to be ill again. Then, “It cost me — it will cost me” — again a spasm contorted the Syndic’s face— “I don’t know what it will not have cost me before it is paid for, Messer Blandano!”
CHAPTER XXII.
TWO NAILS IN THE WALL.
The long day during which the lovers had drained a cup at once so sweet and so bitter, and one of the two had felt alike the throb of pain and the thrill of kisses, came to an end at last; and without further incident. Encouraged by the respite — for who that is mortal does not hope against hope — they ventured on the following morning to lower the shutters, and this to a great extent restored the house to its normal aspect. Anne would have gone so far as to attend the morning preaching at St. Pierre, for it was Friday; but her mother awoke low and nervous, the girl dared not quit her side, and Claude had no field for the urgent dissuasions which he had prepared himself to use.
The greater part of the day she remained above stairs, busied in the petty offices, and moving to and fr
o — he could hear her tread — upon the errands of love, to see her in the midst of which might well have confuted the slanders that crept abroad. But there were times in the day when Madame Royaume slept; and then, who can blame Anne, if she stole down and sat hand in hand with Claude on the settle, whispering sometimes of those things of which lovers whisper, and will whisper to the world’s end; but more often of the direr things before these two lovers, and so of faith and hope and the love that does not die. For the most part it was she who talked. She had so much to tell him of the long nightmare, the nightmare of months, that had oppressed her; of her prayers, and fears and fits of terror; of Basterga’s discovery of the secret and the cruel use he had made of it; of the slow-growing resignation, the steadfast resolve, the onward look to something, beyond that which the world could do to her, that had come to be hers. With her face hidden on his breast she told him of her thoughts upon her knees, of the pain and obloquy through which, if the worst came, she knew she must pass, and of her trust that she would be able to bear them; speaking in such terms, so simply, so bravely, and with so lofty a contemplation, that he who listened, and had been but a week before a young man as other young men, grew as he listened to another stature, and thought for himself thoughts that no man can have and remain as he was, before the tongues of fire touched his heart.
And then again, once — but that was in the darkening of the Friday evening when the wound in her cheek burned and smarted and recalled the wretched moment of infliction — she showed him another side; as if she would have him know that she was not all heroic. Without warning, she broke down; overcome by the prospect of death, she clung to him, weeping and shuddering, and begging him and imploring him to save her. To save her! Only to save her! At that sight and at those sounds, under the despairing grasp of her arms about his neck, the young man’s heart was red-hot; his eyes burned. Vainly he held her closer and closer to him; vainly he tried to comfort her. Vainly he shed tears of blood. He felt her writhe and shudder in his arms.
And what could he do? He strove to argue with her. He strove to show her that accusation of her mother, condemnation of her mother, dreadful as they must be to her, so dreadful that he scarcely dared speak of them, need not involve her own condemnation. She was young, of blameless life, and without enemies. What could any cast up against her, what adduce in proof of a charge so dark, so improbable, so abnormal?
For answer she touched the pulsing wound in her cheek.
“And this?” she said. “And the child that I killed?” — with a bitter laugh unlike her own. “If they say so much already, if they say that to-day, what will they say to-morrow? What will they say when they have heard her ravings? Will it not be, the old and the young, the witch and her brood — to the fire? To the fire?”
The spasm that shook her as she spoke defied his efforts to soothe her. And how could he comfort her? He knew the thing to be too likely, the argument too reasonable, as men reasoned then; strange and foolish as their reasoning seems to us now. But what could he do. What? He who sat there alone with her, a prisoner with her, witness to her agony, scalded by her tears, tortured by her anguish, burning with pity, sorrow, indignation — what could he do to help her or save her?
He had wild thoughts, but none of them effectual; the old thoughts of defending the house, or of escaping by night over the town wall; and some new ones. He weighed the possibility of Madame Royaume’s death before the arrest; surely, then, he could save the girl, and they two, young, active and of ordinary aspect, might escape some whither? Again, he thought of appealing to Beza, the aged divine, whom Geneva revered and Calvinism placed second only to Calvin. He was a Frenchman, a man of culture and of noble birth; he might stand above the common superstition, he might listen, discern, defend. But, alas, he was so old as to be bed-ridden and almost childish. It was improbable, nay, it was most unlikely, that he could be induced to interfere.
All these thoughts Anne drove out of his head by begging him, in moving terms of self-reproach, to forgive her her weakness. She had regained her composure as abruptly, if not as completely, as she had lost it; and would have had him believe that the passion he had witnessed was less deep than it seemed, and rather a womanish need of tears than a proof of suffering. A minute later she was quietly preparing the evening meal, while he, with a sick heart, raised the shutters and lighted the lamp. As he looked up from the latter task, he found her eyes fixed upon him, with a peculiar intentness: and for a while afterwards he remarked that she wore an absent air. But she said nothing, and by-and-by, promising to return before bed-time, she went upstairs to her mother.
The nights were at their longest, and the two had closed and lighted before five. Outside the cold stillness of a winter night and a freezing sky settled down on Geneva; within, Claude sat with sad eyes fixed on the smouldering fire. What could he do? What could he do? Wait and see her innocence outraged, her tenderness racked, her gentle body given up to unspeakable torments? The collapse which he had witnessed gave him as it were a foretaste, a bitter savour of the trials to come. It did not seem to him that he could bear even the anticipation of them. He rose, he sat down, he rose again, unable to endure the intolerable thought. He flung out his arms; his eyes, cast upwards, called God to witness that it was too much! It was too much!
Some way of escape there must be. Heaven could not look down on, could not suffer such deeds in a Christian land. But men and women, girls and young children had suffered these things; had appealed and called Heaven to witness, and gone to death, and Heaven had not moved, nor the angels descended! But it could not be in her case. Some way of escape there must be. There must be.
Why should she not leave her mother to her fate? A fate that could not be evaded? Why need she, whose capacity for suffering was so great, who had so much of life and love and all good things before her, remain to share the pains of one whose span in any case was nearing its end? Of one who had no longer power — or so it seemed — to meet the smallest shock, and must succumb before she knew more of suffering than the name. One whom a rude word might almost extinguish, and a rough push thrust out of life? Why remain, when to remain was to sacrifice two lives in lieu of one, to give and get nothing, to die for a prejudice? Why remain, when by remaining she could not save her mother, but, on the contrary, must inflict the sharpest pang of all, since she destroyed the being who was dearest to her mother, the being whom her mother would die to save?
He grew heated as he dwelt on it. Of what use to any, the feeble flickering light upstairs, that must go out were it left for a moment untended? The light that would have gone out this long time back had she not fostered it and cherished it and sheltered it in her bosom? Of what avail that weak existence? Or, if it were of avail, why, for its sake, waste this other and more precious life that still could not redeem it?
Why?
He must speak to her. He must persuade her, press her, convince her; carry her off by force were it necessary. It was his duty, his clear call. He rose and walked the room in excitement, as he thought of it. He had pity for the old, abandoned and left to suffer alone; and an enlightening glimpse of the weight that the girl must carry through life by reason of this desertion. But no doubt, no hesitation — he told himself — no scruple. To die that her mother might live was one thing. To die — and so to die — merely that her mother’s last hours might be sheltered and comforted, was another, and a thing unreasonable.
He must speak to her. He would not hesitate to tell her what he thought.
But he did hesitate. When she descended half an hour later, and paused at the foot of the stairs to assure herself that her passage downstairs had not roused her mother from sleep, the light fell on her listening face and tender eyes; and he read that in them which checked the words on his lips; that which, whether it were folly or wisdom — a wisdom higher than the serpent’s, more perfect than the most accurate calculation of values and chances — drove for ever from his mind the thought that she would desert her charge. He said no
t a word of what he had thought; the indignant reasoning, the hot, conclusive arguments fell from him and left him bare. With her hands in his, seeking no more to move her or convince her, he sat silent; and by mute looks and dumb love — more potent than eloquence or oratory — strove to support and console her.
She, too, was silent. Stillness had fallen on both of them. But her hands clung to his, and now and again pressed them convulsively; and now and again, too, she would lift her eyes to his, and gaze at him with a pathetic intentness, as if she would stamp his likeness on her brain. But when he returned the look, and tried to read her meaning in her eyes, she smiled. “You are afraid of me?” she whispered. “No, I shall not be weak again.”
But even as she reassured him he detected a flicker of pain in her eyes, he felt that her hands were cold; and but that he feared to shake her composure he would not have rested content with her answer.
This sudden silence, this new way of looking at him, were the only things that perplexed him. In all else, silent as they sat, their communion was perfect. It was in the mind of each that the women might be arrested on the morrow; in the mind of each that this was their last evening together, the last of few, yet not so few that they did not seem to the man and the girl to bulk large in their lives. On that hearth they had met, there she had proved to him what she was, there he had spoken, there spent the clouded never-to-be-forgotten days of their troubled courtship. No wonder that as they sat hand in hand, their hair almost mingling, their eyes on the red glow of the smouldering log, and, not daring to look forward, looked back — no wonder that their love grew to be something other than the common love of man and maid, something higher and more beautiful, touched — as the hills are touched at sunset — by the evening glow of parting and self-sacrifice.
Silent amid the silence of the house; living moments never to be forgotten; welcoming together the twin companions, love and death.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 427