Count Hannibal Part 43

La Tribe nodded, and moved softly to one of the lattices which lighted the room. It might be possible to escape that way, by the parapet and the tiles. But he found that the cas.e.m.e.nt was set high in the roof, which sloped steeply from its sill to the eaves. He pa.s.sed to the other window, in which a little wicket in the lattice stood open. He looked through it. In the giddy void white pigeons were wheeling in the dazzling sunshine, and, gazing down, he saw far below him, in the hot square, a row of booths, and troops of people moving to and fro like pigmies; and--and a strange thing, in the middle of all! Involuntarily, as if the persons below could have seen his face at the tiny dormer, he drew back.

He beckoned to M. Tignonville to come to him; and when the young man complied, he bade him in a whisper look down. "See!" he muttered.

"There!"

The younger man saw and drew in his breath. Even under the coating of dust his face turned a shade greyer.

"You had no need to fear that he would let us go!" the minister muttered, with half-conscious irony.

"No."

"Nor I! There are two ropes." And La Tribe breathed a few words of prayer. The object which had fixed his gaze was a gibbet: the only one of the three which could be seen from their eyrie.

Tignonville, on the other hand, turned sharply away, and with haggard eyes stared about the room. "We might defend the staircase," he muttered. "Two men might hold it for a time."

"We have no food."

"No." Suddenly he gripped La Tribe's arm. "I have it!" he cried. "And it may do! It must do!" he continued, his face working. "See!" And lifting from the floor one of the ragged pallets, from which the straw protruded in a dozen places, he set it flat on his head.

It drooped at each corner--it had seen much wear--and, while it almost hid his face, it revealed his grimy chin and mortar-stained shoulders. He turned to his companion.

La Tribe's face glowed as he looked. "It may do!" he cried. "It's a chance! But you are right! It may do!"

Tignonville dropped the ragged mattress, and tore off his coat; then he rent his breeches at the knee, so that they hung loose about his calves.

"Do you the same!" he cried. "And quick, man, quick! Leave your boots!

Once outside we must pa.s.s through the streets under these"--he took up his burden again and set it on his head--"until we reach a quiet part, and there we--"

"Can hide! Or swim the river!" the minister said. He had followed his companion's example, and now stood under a similar burden. With breeches rent and whitened, and his upper garments in no better case, he looked a sorry figure.

Tignonville eyed him with satisfaction, and turned to the staircase.

"Come," he cried, "there is not a moment to be lost. At any minute they may enter our room and find it empty! You are ready? Then, not too softly, or it may rouse suspicion! And mumble something at the door."

He began himself to scold, and, muttering incoherently, stumbled down the staircase, the pallet on his head rustling against the wall on each side.

Arrived at the door, he fumbled clumsily with the latch, and, when the door gave way, plumped out with an oath--as if the awkward burden he bore were the only thing on his mind. Badelon--he was on duty--stared at the apparition; but the next moment he sniffed the pallet, which was none of the freshest, and, turning up his nose, he retreated a pace. He had no suspicion; the men did not come from the part of the house where the prisoners lay, and he stood aside to let them pa.s.s. In a moment, staggering, and going a little unsteadily, as if they scarcely saw their way, they had pa.s.sed by him, and were descending the staircase.

So far well! Unfortunately, when they reached the foot of that flight they came on the main pa.s.sage of the first-floor. It ran right and left, and Tignonville did not know which way he must turn to reach the lower staircase. Yet he dared not hesitate; in the pa.s.sage, waiting about the doors, were four or five servants, and in the distance he caught sight of three men belonging to Tavannes' company. At any moment, too, an upper servant might meet them, ask what they were doing, and detect the fraud.

He turned at random, therefore--to the left as it chanced--and marched along bravely, until the very thing happened which he had feared. A man came from a room plump upon them, saw them, and held up his hands in horror.

"What are you doing?" he cried in a rage and with an oath. "Who set you on this?"

Tignonville's tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. La Tribe from behind muttered something about the stable.

"And time too!" the man said. "Faugh! But how come you this way? Are you drunk? Here!" He opened the door of a musty closet beside him, "Pitch them in here, do you hear? And take them down when it is dark.

Faugh. I wonder you did not carry the things though her ladyship's room at once! If my lord had been in and met you! Now then, do as I tell you! Are you drunk?"

With a sullen air Tignonville threw in his mattress. La Tribe did the same. Fortunately the pa.s.sage was ill-lighted, and there were many helpers and strange servants in the inn. The butler only thought them ill-looking fellows who knew no better.

"Now be off!" he continued irascibly. "This is no place for your sort.

Be off!" And, as they moved, "Coming! Coming!" he cried in answer to a distant summons; and he hurried away on the errand which their appearance had interrupted.

Tignonville would have gone to work to recover the pallets, for the man had left the key in the door. But as he went to do so the butler looked back, and the two were obliged to make a pretence of following him. A moment, however, and he was gone; and Tignonville turned anew to regain them. A second time fortune was adverse; a door within a pace of him opened, a woman came out. She recoiled from the strange figure; her eyes met his. Unluckily the light from the room behind her fell on his face, and with a shrill cry she named him.

One second and all had been lost, for the crowd of idlers at the other end of the pa.s.sage had caught her cry, and were looking that way. With presence of mind Tignonville clapped his hand on her mouth, and, huddling her by force into the room, followed her, with La Tribe at his heels.

It was a large room, in which seven or eight people, who had been at prayers when the cry startled them, were rising from their knees. The first thing they saw was Javette on the threshold, struggling in the grasp of a wild man, ragged and begrimed; they deemed the city risen and the ma.s.sacre upon them. Carlat threw himself before his mistress, the Countess in her turn sheltered a young girl, who stood beside her and from whose face the last trace of colour had fled. Madame Carlat and a waiting-woman ran shrieking to the window; another instant and the alarm would have gone abroad.

Tignonville's voice stopped it. "Don't you know me?" he cried, "Madame!

you at least! Carlat! Are you all mad?"

The words stayed them where they stood in an astonishment scarce less than their alarm. The Countess tried twice to speak; the third time--

"Have you escaped?" she muttered.

Tignonville nodded, his eyes bright with triumph. "So far," he said.

"But they may be on our heels at any moment! Where can we hide?"

The Countess, her hand pressed to her side, looked at Javette.

"The door, girl!" she whispered. "Lock it!"

"Ay, lock it! And they can go by the back-stairs," Madame Carlat answered, awaking suddenly to the situation. "Through my closet! Once in the yard they may pa.s.s out through the stables."

"Which way?" Tignonville asked impatiently. "Don't stand looking at me, but--"

"Through this door!" Madame Carlat answered, hurrying to it.

He was following when the Countess stepped forward and interposed between him and the door.

"Stay!" she cried; and there was not one who did not notice a new decision in her voice, a new dignity in her bearing. "Stay, Monsieur, we may be going too fast. To go out now and in that guise--may it not be to incur greater peril than you incur here? I feel sure that you are in no danger of your life at present. Therefore, why run the risk--"

"In no danger, Madame!" he cried, interrupting her in astonishment. "Have you seen the gibbet in the Square? Do you call that no danger?"

"It is not erected for you."

"No?"

"No, Monsieur," she answered firmly, "I swear it is not. And I know of reasons, urgent reasons, why you should not go. M. de Tavannes"--she named her husband nervously, as conscious of the weak spot--"before he rode abroad laid strict orders on all to keep within, since the smallest matter might kindle the city. Therefore, M. de Tignonville, I request, nay I entreat," she continued with greater urgency, as she saw his gesture of denial, "you to stay here until he returns."

"And you, Madame, will answer for my life?"

She faltered. For a moment, a moment only, her colour ebbed. What if she deceived herself? What if she surrendered her old lover to death?

What if--but the doubt was of a moment only. Her duty was plain.

"I will answer for it," she said, with pale lips, "if you remain here.

And I beg, I implore you--by the love you once had for me, M. de Tignonville," she added desperately, seeing that he was about to refuse, "to remain here."

"Once!" he retorted, lashing himself into ign.o.ble rage. "By the love I once had! Say, rather, the love I have, Madame--for I am no woman-weatherc.o.c.k to wed the winner, and hold or not hold, stay or go, as he commands! You, it seems," he continued with a sneer, "have learned the wife's lesson well! You would practise on me now, as you practised on me the other night when you stood between him and me! I yielded then, I spared him. And what did I get by it? Bonds and a prison! And what shall I get now? The same! No, Madame," he continued bitterly, addressing himself as much to the Carlats and the others as to his old mistress. "I do not change! I loved! I love! I was going and I go! If death lay beyond that door"--and he pointed to it--"and life at his will were certain here, I would pa.s.s the threshold rather than take my life of him!" And, dragging La Tribe with him, with a pa.s.sionate gesture he rushed by her, opened the door, and disappeared in the next room.