Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Part 77

He blenched and cringed before her, muttering incoherently.

"I know," she said, "I read you! And now the keys. Go, bring them to me! And if by chance I find the wicket unlocked when I come down, pray, Carlat, pray! For you will have need of prayers."

He slunk away, the men with him; and she fell to pacing the roof feverishly. Now and then she extended her arms, and low cries broke from her, as from a dumb creature in pain. Wherever she looked, old memories rose up to torment her and redouble her misery. A thing she could have borne in the outer world, a thing which might have seemed tolerable in the reeking air of Paris or in the gloomy streets of Angers, wore here its most appalling aspect. Henceforth, whatever choice she made, this home, where even in those troublous times she had known naught but peace, must bear a d.a.m.ning stain! Henceforth this day and this hour must come between her and happiness, must brand her brow, and fix her with a deed of which men and women would tell while she lived! Oh, G.o.d--pray? Who said, pray?

"I!" And La Tribe with tears in his eyes held out the keys to her. "I, madame," he continued solemnly, his voice broken with emotion. "For in man is no help. The strongest man, he who rode yesterday a master of men, a very man of war in his pride and his valour--see him now, and----"

"Don't!" she cried, sharp pain in her voice. "Don't!" And she stopped him with her hand, her face averted. After an interval, "You come from him?" she muttered faintly.

"Yes."

"Is he--hurt to death, think you?" She spoke low, and kept her face hidden from him.

"Alas, no!" he answered, speaking the thought in his heart. "The men who are with him seem confident of his recovery."

"Do they know?"

"Badelon has had experience."

"No, no. Do they know of this?" she cried. "Of this!" And she pointed with a gesture of loathing to the black gibbet on the farther strand.

He shook his head. "I think not," he muttered. And after a moment, "G.o.d help you!" he added fervently. "G.o.d help and guide you, madame!"

She turned on him suddenly, fiercely. "Is that all you can do?" she cried. "Is that all the help you can give! You are a man. Go down, lead them out; drive off these cowards who drain our life's blood, who trade on a woman's heart! On them! Do something, anything, rather than lie in safety here--here!"

The minister shook his head sadly. "Alas, madame!" he said, "to sally were to waste life. They outnumber us three to one. If Count Hannibal could do no more than break through last night, with scarce a man unwounded----"

"He had the women!"

"And we have not him!"

"He would not have left us!" she cried hysterically.

"I believe it."

"Had they taken me, do you think he would have lain behind walls? Or skulked in safety here, while--while----" Her voice failed her.

He shook his head despondently.

"And that is all you can do?" she cried, and turned from him, and to him again, extending her arms, in bitter scorn. "All you will do? Do you forget that twice he spared your life? That in Paris once, and once in Angers, he held his hand? That always, whether he stood or whether he fled, he held himself between us and harm? Ay, always? And who will now raise a hand for him? Who?"

"Madame!"

"Who? Who? Had he died in the field," she continued, her voice shaking with grief, her hands beating the parapet--for she had turned from him--"had he fallen where he rode last night, in the front, with his face to the foe, I had viewed him tearless, I had deemed him happy! I had prayed dry-eyed for him who--who spared me all these days and weeks! Whom I robbed and he forgave me! Whom I tempted, and he forbore me! Ay, and who spared not once or twice him for whom he must now--he must now----" And unable to finish the sentence she beat her hands again and pa.s.sionately on the stones.

"Heaven knows, madame," the minister cried vehemently, "Heaven knows, I would advise you if I could."

"Why did he wear his corselet?" she wailed, as if she had not heard him. "Was there no spear could reach his breast, that he must come to this? No foe so gentle he would spare him this? Or why did he not die with me in Paris when we waited? In another minute death might have come and saved us this."

With the tears running down his face he tried to comfort her. "Man that is a shadow," he said, "pa.s.seth away--what matter how? A little while, a very little while, and we shall pa.s.s!"

"With his curse upon us!" she cried. And, shuddering, she pressed her hands to her eyes to shut out the sight her fancy pictured.

He left her for a while, hoping that in solitude she might regain control of herself. When he returned he found her seated, and outwardly more composed, her arms resting on the parapet-wall, her eyes bent steadily on the long stretch of hard sand which ran northward from the village. By that route her lover had many a time come to her; there she had ridden with him in the early days; and that way they had started for Paris on such a morning and at such an hour as this, with sunshine about them, and larks singing hope above the sand-dunes, and warm wavelets creaming to the horses' hoofs!

Of all which, La Tribe, a stranger, knew nothing. The rapt gaze, the unchanging att.i.tude only confirmed his opinion of the course she would adopt. He was thankful to find her more composed; and in fear of such a scene as had already pa.s.sed between them he stole away again. He returned by-and-by, but with the greatest reluctance, and only because Carlat's urgency would take no refusal.

He came this time to crave the key of the wicket, explaining that--rather to satisfy his own conscience and the men than with any hope of success--he proposed to go half-way along the causeway, and thence by signs invite a conference. "It is just possible," he added, hesitating--he feared nothing so much as to raise hopes in her--"that by the offer of a money ransom, Madame----"

"Go," she said, without turning her head. "Offer what you please.

But"--bitterly--"have a care of them! Montsoreau is very like Montereau! Beware of the bridge!"

He went and came again in half-an-hour. Then, indeed, though she had spoken as if hope was dead in her, she was on her feet at the first sound of his tread on the stairs; her parted lips and her white face questioned him. He shook his head.

"There is a priest," he said in broken tones, "with them, whom G.o.d will judge. It is his plan, and he is without mercy or pity."

"You bring nothing from--him?"

"They will not suffer him to write again."

"You did not see him?"

"No."

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

AGAINST THE WALL.

In a room beside the gateway, into which, as the nearest and most convenient place, Count Hannibal had been carried from his saddle, a man sat sideways in the narrow embrasure of a loophole, to which his eyes seemed glued. The room, which formed part of the oldest block of the chateau, and was ordinarily the quarters of the Carlats, possessed two other windows, deep-set indeed, yet superior to that through which Bigot--for he it was--peered so persistently. But the larger windows looked southwards, across the bay--at this moment the noon-high sun was pouring his radiance through them; while the object which held Bigot's gaze and fixed him to his irksome seat, lay elsewhere. The loophole commanded the causeway leading sh.o.r.ewards; through it the Norman could see who came and went, and even the crossbeam of the ugly object which rose where the causeway touched the land.

On a flat truckle-bed behind the door lay Count Hannibal, his injured leg protected from the coverlid by a kind of cage. His eyes were bright with fever, and his untended beard and straggling hair heightened the wildness of his aspect. But he was in possession of his senses; and as his gaze pa.s.sed from Bigot at the window to the old Free Companion, who sat on a stool beside him, engaged in shaping a piece of wood into a splint, an expression almost soft crept into his harsh face.

"Old fool!" he said. And his voice, though changed, had not lost all its strength and harshness. "Did the Constable need a splint when you laid him under the tower at Gaeta?"

The old man lifted his eyes from his task, and glanced through the nearest window. "It is long from noon to night," he said quietly, "and far from cup to lip, my lord!"

"It would be if I had two legs," Tavannes answered, with a grimace, half-snarl, half-smile. "As it is--where is that dagger? It leaves me every minute."

It had slipped from the coverlid to the ground. Badelon took it up, and set it on the bed within reach of his master's hand.

Bigot swore fiercely. "It would be farther still," he growled, "if you would be guided by me, my lord. Give me leave to bar the door, and 'twill be long before these fisher clowns force it. Badelon and I----"

"Being in your full strength," Count Hannibal murmured cynically.