Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Part 11

"Why?" I asked mutinously, curiosity getting the better of me. For had I been wise I had taken no notice; every second his horse was coming up with mine. Its nose was level with my stirrup already.

"Hush, man!" he said again. This time there was no mistake about the panic in his voice. "They call this the Devil's Chapel. G.o.d send us safe by it! It is late to be here. Look at those!" he continued, pointing with a finger which visibly shook.

I looked. At the mouth of the gully, in a small s.p.a.ce partly cleared of stones stood three broken shafts, raised on rude pedestals. "Well?"

I said in a low voice. The sun which was near setting flushed the great peak above to the colour of blood; but the valley was growing grey and each moment more dreary. "Well, what of those?" I said. In spite of my peril and the excitement of the coming struggle I felt the chill of his fear. Never had I seen so grim, so desolate, so G.o.dforsaken a place! Involuntarily I shivered.

"They were crosses," he muttered, in a voice little above a whisper, while his eyes roved this way and that in terror. "The Cure of Gabas blessed the place, and set them up. But next morning they were as you see them now. Come on, Monsieur, come on!" he continued, plucking at my arm. "It is not safe here after sunset. Pray G.o.d, Satan be not at home!"

He had completely forgotten in his panic that he had anything to fear from me. His gun dropped loosely across his saddle, his leg rubbed mine. I saw this, and I changed my plan of action. As our horses reached the stones I stooped, as if to encourage mine, and by a sudden clutch s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun bodily from his hand; at the same time I backed my horse with all my strength. It was done in a moment! A second and I had him at the end of the gun, and my finger was on the trigger. Never was victory more easily gained.

He looked at me between rage and terror, his jaw fallen. "Are you mad?" he cried, his teeth chattering as he spoke. Even in this strait his eyes left me and wandered round in alarm.

"No, sane!" I retorted fiercely. "But I do not like this place any better than you do!" Which was true enough, if not quite true. "So, by your right, quick march!" I continued imperatively. "Turn your horse, my friend, or take the consequences."

He turned like a lamb, and headed down the valley again, without giving a thought to his pistols. I kept close to him, and in less than a minute we had left the Devil's Chapel well behind us, and were moving down again as we had come up. Only now I held the gun.

When we had gone half a mile or so--until then I did not feel comfortable myself, and though I thanked Heaven the place existed, thanked Heaven also that I was out of it--I bade him halt. "Take off your belt!" I said curtly, "and throw it down. But, mark me, if you turn, I fire!"

The spirit was quite gone out of him. He obeyed mechanically. I jumped down, still covering him with the gun, and picked up the belt, pistols and all. Then I remounted, and we went on. By-and-bye he asked me sullenly what I was going to do.

"Go back," I said, "and take the road to Auch when I come to it."

"It will be dark in an hour," he answered sulkily.

"I know that," I retorted. "We must camp and do the best we can."

And as I said, we did. The daylight held until we gained the skirts of the pine-wood at the head of the pa.s.s. Here I chose a corner a little off the track, and well-sheltered from the wind, and bade him light a fire. I tethered the horses near this and within sight. It remained only to sup. I had a piece of bread; he had another and an onion. We ate in silence, sitting on opposite sides of the fire.

But after supper I found myself in a dilemma; I did not see how I was to sleep. The ruddy light which gleamed on the knave's swart face and sinewy hands showed also his eyes, black, sullen, and watchful. I knew that the man was plotting revenge; that he would not hesitate to plant his knife between my ribs should I give him a chance. I could find only one alternative to remaining awake. Had I been b.l.o.o.d.y-minded, I should have chosen it and solved the question at once and in my favour by shooting him as he sat.

But I have never been a cruel man, and I could not find it in my heart to do this. The silence of the mountain and the sky--which seemed a thing apart from the roar of the torrent and not to be broken by it--awed me. The vastness of the solitude in which we sat, the dark void above through which the stars kept shooting, the black gulf below in which the unseen waters boiled and surged, the absence of other human company or other signs of human existence put such a face upon the deed that I gave up the thought of it with a shudder, and resigned myself, instead, to watch through the night--the long, cold, Pyrenean night. Presently he curled himself up like a dog and slept in the blaze, and then for a couple of hours I sat opposite him, thinking. It seemed years since I had seen Zaton's or thrown the dice. The old life, the old employments--should I ever go back to them?--seemed dim and distant. Would Cocheforet, the forest and the mountain, the grey Chateau and its mistresses, seem one day as dim! And if one bit of life could fade so quickly at the unrolling of another, and seem in a moment pale and colourless, would all life some day and somewhere, and all the things we--But faugh! I was growing foolish. I sprang up and kicked the wood together, and, taking up the gun, began to pace to and fro under the cliff. Strange that a little moonlight, a few stars, a breath of solitude should carry a man back to childhood and childish things!

It was three in the afternoon of the next day, and the sun lay hot on the oak groves, and the air was full of warmth as we began to climb the slope, on which the road to Auch shoots out of the track. The yellow bracken and the fallen leaves underfoot seemed to throw up light of themselves, and here and there a patch of ruddy beech lay like a bloodstain on the hillside. In front a herd of pigs routed among the mast, and grunted lazily; and high above us a boy lay watching them. "We part here," I said to my companion. It was my plan to ride a little way on the road to Auch so as to blind his eyes; then, leaving my horse in the forest, I would go on foot to the Chateau.

"The sooner the better!" he answered, with a snarl. "And I hope I may never see your face again, Monsieur!"

But when we came to the wooden cross at the fork of the roads, and were about to part, the boy we had seen leapt out of the fern and came to meet us. "Hollo!" he cried, in a sing-song tone.

"Well!" my companion answered, drawing rein impatiently. "What is it?"

"There are soldiers in the village."

"Soldiers?" Antoine cried incredulously.

"Ay, devils on horseback!" the lad answered, spitting on the ground.

"Three score of them! From Auch!"

Antoine turned to me, his face transformed with fury. "Curse you!" he cried. "This is some of your work! Now we are all undone! And my mistresses! _Sacre!_ if I had that gun I would shoot you like a rat!"

"Steady, fool!" I answered roughly. "I know no more of this than you do!"

This was so true that my surprise was as great as his. The Cardinal, who rarely made a change of front, had sent me hither that he might not be forced to send soldiers, and run the risk of all that might arise from such a movement. What of this invasion, then, than which nothing could be less consistent with his plans? I wondered. It was possible, of course, that the travelling merchants, before whom I had played at treason, had reported the facts; and that on this the Commandant at Auch had acted. But it seemed unlikely. He had had his orders, too; and, under the Cardinal's rule, there was small place for individual enterprise. I could not understand it.

One thing was clear, however. I might now enter the village as I pleased. "I am going on to look into this," I said to Antoine. "Come, my man."

He shrugged his shoulders, and stood still. "Not I!" he answered, with an oath. "No soldiers for me! I have lain out one night, and I can lie out another!"

I nodded indifferently, for I no longer wanted him; and we parted.

After this, twenty minutes' riding brought me to the entrance of the village; and here the change was great indeed. Not one of the ordinary dwellers in the place was to be seen: either they had shut themselves up in their hovels, or, like Antoine, they had fled to the woods.

Their doors were closed, their windows shuttered. But lounging about the street were a score of dragoons, in boots and breastplates, whose short-barrelled muskets, with pouches and bandoliers attached, were piled near the inn door. In an open s.p.a.ce where there was a gap in the street, a long row of horses, linked head to head, stood bending their muzzles over bundles of rough forage, and on all sides the cheerful jingle of chains and bridles and the sound of coa.r.s.e jokes and laughter filled the air.

As I rode up to the inn door an old sergeant, with squinting eyes and his tongue in his cheeks, eyed me inquisitively, and started to cross the street to challenge me. Fortunately, at that moment the two knaves whom I had brought from Paris with me, and whom I had left at Auch to await my orders, came up. I made them a sign not to speak to me, and they pa.s.sed on; but I suppose that they told the sergeant that I was not the man he wanted, for I saw no more of him.

After picketing my horse behind the inn--I could find no better stable, every place being full--I pushed my way through the group at the door, and entered. The old room, with the low grimy roof and the reeking floor, was half full of strange figures, and for a few minutes I stood unseen in the smoke and confusion. Then the landlord came my way, and as he pa.s.sed me I caught his eye. He uttered a low curse, dropped the pitcher he was carrying, and stood glaring at me, like a man possessed.

The soldier whose wine he was carrying flung a crust in his face, with, "Now, greasy fingers! What are you staring at?"

"The devil!" the landlord muttered, beginning to tremble.

"Then let me look at him!" the man retorted and he turned on his stool.

He started, finding me standing over him. "At your service!" I said grimly. "A little time and it will be the other way, my friend."

CHAPTER VII.

A MASTER STROKE.

I HAVE a way with me which commonly commands respect; and when the landlord's first terror was over and he would serve me, I managed to get my supper--the first good meal I had had in two days--pretty comfortably in spite of the soldiers' presence. The crowd, too, which filled the room, soon began to melt. The men strayed off in groups to water their horses, or went to hunt up their quarters, until only two or three were left. Dusk had fallen outside; the noise in the street grew less. The firelight began to glow and flicker on the walls, and the wretched room to look as homely as it was in its nature to look. I was pondering for the twentieth time what step I should take next--under these new circ.u.mstances--and why the soldiers were here, and whether I should let the night pa.s.s before I moved, when the door, which had been turning on its hinges almost without pause for an hour, opened again, and a woman came in.

She paused a moment on the threshold looking round, and I saw that she had a shawl on her head and a milk-pitcher in her hand, and that her feet and ankles were bare. There was a great rent in her coa.r.s.e stuff petticoat, and the hand which held the shawl together was brown and dirty. More I did not see; supposing her to be a neighbour stolen in now that the house was quiet to get some milk for her child or the like, I took no further heed of her. I turned to the fire again and plunged into my thoughts.

But to get to the hearth where the goodwife was fidgeting, the woman had to pa.s.s in front of me; and as she pa.s.sed I suppose she stole a look at me from under her shawl. For just when she came between me and the blaze she uttered a low cry and shrank aside--so quickly that she almost stepped on the hearth. The next moment she turned her back to me and was stooping, whispering in the housewife's ear. A stranger might have thought that she had merely trodden on a hot ember.

But another idea, and a very sharp one, came into my mind; and I stood up silently. The woman's back was towards me, but something in her height, her shape, the pose of her head, hidden as it was by her shawl, seemed familiar. I waited while she hung over the fire whispering, and while the goodwife slowly filled her pitcher out of the great black pot. But when she turned to go, I took a step forward so as to bar her way. And our eyes met.

I could not see her features; they were lost in the shadow of the hood. But I saw a shiver run through her from head to foot. And I knew then that I had made no mistake.

"That is too heavy for you, my girl," I said familiarly, as I might have spoken to a village wench. "I will carry it for you."

One of the men, who remained lolling at the table, laughed, and the other began to sing a low song. The woman trembled in rage or fear, but she kept silence and let me take the jug from her hands. And when I went to the door and opened it, she followed mechanically. An instant, and the door fell to behind us, shutting off the light and glow, and we two stood together in the growing dusk.