Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Part 63

He took it from her, too, as mechanically as she gave it--with the hand which held his bare blade. That done, silent as she, with his eyes set hard, he would have gone by her. The sight of her there, guarding the door of him who had stolen her from him, exasperated his worst pa.s.sions.

But she moved to hinder him, and barred the way. With her hand raised she pointed to the trapdoor. "Go now!" she whispered, her tone stern and low, "you have what you want! Go!"

"No!" And he tried to pa.s.s her.

"Go!" she repeated in the same tone. "You have what you need." And still she held her hand extended; still without faltering she faced the five men, while the thunder, growing more distant, rolled sullenly eastward, and the midnight rain, pouring from every spout and dripping eave about the house, wrapped the pa.s.sage in its sibilant hush.

Gradually her eyes dominated his, gradually her n.o.bler nature and n.o.bler aim subdued his weaker parts. For she understood now; and he saw that she did, and had he been alone he would have slunk away, and said no word in his defence.

But one of the men, savage and out of patience, thrust himself between them. "Where is he?" he muttered. "What is the use of this? Where is he?" And his bloodshot eyes--it was Tuez-les-Moines--questioned the doors, while his hand, trembling and shaking on the haft of his knife, bespoke his eagerness. "Where is he? Where is he, woman? Quick, or----"

"I shall not tell you," she answered.

"You lie," he cried, grinning like a dog. "You will tell us! Or we will kill you, too! Where is he? Where is he?"

"I shall not tell you," she repeated, standing before him in the fearlessness of scorn. "Another step and I rouse the house! M. de Tignonville, to you who know me, I swear that if this man does not retire----"

"He is in one of these rooms?" was Tignonville's answer. "In which? In which?"

"Search them!" she answered, her voice low, but biting in its contempt. "Try them. Rouse my women, alarm the house! And when you have his people at your throats--five as they will be to one of you--thank your own mad folly!"

Tuez-les-Moines' eyes glittered. "You will not tell us?" he cried.

"No!"

"Then----"

But as the fanatic sprang on her, La Tribe flung his arms round him and dragged him back. "It would be madness," he cried. "Are you mad, fool? Have done!" he panted, struggling with him. "If madame gives the alarm--and he may be in any one of these four rooms, you cannot be sure which--we are undone." He looked for support to Tignonville, whose movement to protect the girl he had antic.i.p.ated, and who had since listened sullenly. "We have obtained what we need. Will you requite madame, who has gained it for us at her own risk----"

"It is monsieur I would requite," Tignonville muttered grimly.

"By using violence to her?" the minister retorted pa.s.sionately. He and Tuez were still gripping one another. "I tell you, to go on is to risk what we have got! And I for one----"

"Am chicken-hearted!" the young man sneered. "Madame--" he seemed to choke on the word. "Will you swear that he is not here?"

"I swear that if you do not go I will raise the alarm!" she hissed--all their words were sunk to that stealthy note. "Go! if you have not stayed too long already. Go! Or see!" And she pointed to the trapdoor, from which the face and arms of a sixth man had that moment risen--the face dark with perturbation, so that her woman's wit told her at once that something was amiss. "See what has come of your delay already!"

"The water is rising," the man muttered earnestly. "In G.o.d's name come, whether you have done it or not, or we cannot pa.s.s out again. It is within a foot of the crown of the culvert now, and it is rising."

"Curse on the water!" Tuez-les-Moines answered in a frenzied whisper.

"And on this Jezebel. Let us kill her and him! What matter afterwards?" And he tried to shake off La Tribe's grasp.

But the minister held him desperately. "Are you mad? Are you mad?" he answered. "What can we do against thirty? Let us be gone while we can.

Let us be gone! Come."

"Ay, come," Perrot cried, a.s.senting reluctantly. He had taken no side hitherto. "The luck is against us! 'Tis no use to-night, man!" And he turned with an air of sullen resignation. Letting his legs drop through the trap he followed the bearer of the tidings out of sight.

Another made up his mind to go, and went. Then only Tignonville holding the lantern, and La Tribe, who feared to release Tuez-les-Moines, remained with the fanatic.

The Countess's eyes met her old lover's, and whether old memories overcame her, or, now that the danger was nearly past, she began to give way, she swayed a little on her feet. But he did not notice it.

He was sunk in black rage: rage against her, rage against himself.

"Take the light," she muttered unsteadily. "And--and he must follow!"

"And you?"

But she could bear it no longer. "Oh, go," she wailed. "Go! Will you never go? If you love me, if you ever loved me, I implore you to go."

He had betrayed little of a lover's feeling. But he could not resist that appeal, and he turned silently. Seizing Tuez-les-Moines by the other arm, he drew him by force to the trap. "Quiet, fool," he muttered savagely when the man would have resisted, "and go down! If we stay to kill him, we shall have no way of escape, and his life will be dearly bought. Down, man, down!" And between them, in a struggling silence, with now and then an audible rap, or a ring of metal, the two forced the desperado to descend.

La Tribe followed hastily. Tignonville was the last to go. In the act of disappearing he raised his lantern for a last glimpse of the Countess. To his astonishment the pa.s.sage was empty; she was gone.

Hard by him a door stood an inch or two ajar, and he guessed that it was hers, and swore under his breath, hating her at that moment. But he did not guess how nicely she had calculated her strength; how nearly exhaustion had overcome her; or that even while he paused--a fatal pause had he known it--eyeing the dark opening of the door, she lay as one dead, on the bed within. She had fallen in a swoon, from which she did not recover until the sun had risen, and marched across one quarter of the heavens.

Nor did he see another thing, or he might have hastened his steps.

Before the yellow light of his lantern faded from the ceiling of the pa.s.sage, the door of the room farthest from the trap slid open. A man, whose eyes, until darkness swallowed him, shone strangely in a face extraordinarily softened, came out on tip-toe. This man stood awhile, listening. At length, hearing those below utter a cry of dismay, he awoke to sudden activity. He opened with a turn of the key the door which stood at his elbow, the door which led to the other part of the house. He vanished through it. A second later a sharp whistle pierced the darkness of the courtyard and brought a dozen sleepers to their senses and their feet. A moment, and the courtyard hummed with voices, above which one voice rang clear and insistent. With a startled cry the inn awoke.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEART.

"But why," Madame. St. Lo asked, sticking her arms akimbo, "why stay in this forsaken place a day and a night, when six hours in the saddle would set us in Angers?"

"Because," Tavannes replied coldly--he and his cousin were walking before the gateway of the inn--"the Countess is not well, and will be the better, I think, for staying a day."

"She slept soundly enough! I'll answer for that!"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"She never raised her head this morning, though my women were shrieking 'Murder!' next door, and----Name of Heaven!" madame resumed, after breaking off abruptly, and shading her eyes with her hand, "what comes here? Is it a funeral? Or a pilgrimage? If all the priests about here are as black, no wonder M. Rabelais fell out with them!"

The inn stood without the walls for the convenience of those who wished to take the road early: a little also, perhaps, because food and forage were cheaper, and the wine paid no town-dues. Four great roads met before the house, along the most easterly of which the sombre company which had caught Madame St. Lo's attention could be seen approaching. At first Count Hannibal supposed with his companion that the travellers were conveying to the grave the corpse of some person of distinction; for the _cortege_ consisted mainly of priests and the like mounted on mules, and clothed for the most part in black.

Black also was the small banner which waved above them, and bore in place of arms the emblem of the Bleeding Heart. But a second glance failed to discover either litter or bier; and a nearer approach showed that the travellers, whether they wore the tonsure or not, bore weapons of one kind or another about them.

Suddenly Madame St. Lo clapped her hands, and proclaimed in great astonishment that she knew them. "Why, there is Father Boucher, the Cure of St.-Benoist!" she said, "and Father Pezelay of St. Magloire.

And there is another I know, though I cannot remember his name! They are preachers from Paris! That is who they are! But what can they be doing here? Is it a pilgrimage, think you?"

"Ay, a pilgrimage of Blood!" Count Hannibal answered between his teeth. And, turning to him to learn what moved him, she saw the look in his eyes which portended a storm. Before she could ask a question, however, the gloomy company, which had first appeared in the distance, moving, an inky blot, through the hot sunshine of the summer morning, had drawn near and was almost abreast of them. Stepping from her side, he raised his hand and arrested the march.

"Who is master here?" he asked haughtily.

"I am the leader," answered a stout pompous Churchman, whose small malevolent eyes belied the sallow fatuity of his face. "I, M. de Tavannes, by your leave."

"And you, by your leave," Tavannes sneered, "are----"

"Archdeacon and Vicar of the Bishop of Angers and Prior of the Lesser Brethren of St. Germain, M. le Comte. Visitor also of the Diocese of Angers," the dignitary continued, puffing out his cheeks, "and Chaplain to the Lieutenant-Governor of Saumur, whose unworthy brother I am."

"A handsome glove, and well embroidered!" Tavannes retorted in a tone of disdain. "The hand I see yonder!" He pointed to the lean parchment mask of Father Pezelay, who coloured ever so faintly, but held his peace under the sneer. "You are bound for Angers!" Count Hannibal continued. "For what purpose, Sir Prior!"