Love Among the Ruins Part 10

They knew him on the instant; their clamour told as much. Often had the shadow of that thin figure fallen athwart the parched highways of stricken cities. Often had those hands tended death, those lips smitten awe into the souls of the drunkard and the harlot.

"Prosper, Prosper the Preacher!"

There rang a rude, rough joy in the clamour that was spontaneous and eloquent. It was the heart's cry of the people, wild, trusting, and pa.s.sionate. Men and women broke through the circle of armed men, cast themselves upon the altar steps, kissed the friar's gown, and fawned on him. He put them back with a certain awkward dignity, and a hot colour upon his almost boyish face. The man had a fine humility, though the strenuous ideals of his soul ran in fire to the zenith.

Anon he signed a benediction, and a hush descended on the place.

"G.o.d's peace to you, people of Gilderoy!"

The clamour revived.

"Preach to us, preach to us!" came the cry.

The friar stretched forth his hands; his voice rang strong and strident over the packed upturned faces.

"Children, what need have we of words! To-night have we not seen enough to scourge the manhood in us, to bear forth the Holy Cross of war? The evil beast is with us even yet; Mammon the Mighty treads you under foot.

Ye saints, what cause more righteous since the martyrs fell? Look on these scars, these wrongs, these agonies. Preach! I am dumb beside such witnesses as these."

The crypt thundered to him when he lowered his hands. It was the cry of men bankrupt of liberty, thirsty for revenge. Fulviac grappled the climax, and stood forward with uplifted sword. His lion's roar sounded above the din.

"Go, people of Gilderoy," he cried, "go--but remember. When castles burn, and bolts scream, when spears splinter, and armies crash to the charge, remember your children and your wrongs. Strike home for G.o.d, and for your liberty."

VIII

The crowd had streamed from the cavern, swirling like black water under the tossing torches, the hollow galleries reverberating to the rush of many feet. Prosper had gone, borne away by the seditious captains of the Commune and the armed burghers who had guarded the entries. A great silence had fallen upon the crypt. Fulviac and the girl were left by the altar of black marble, their one lamp burning solitary in the gulf of gloom.

Fulviac had the air of a man whose favourite hawk had flown with fettle, and brought her quarry tumbling out of the clouds. He was warm with the zest of it, and his tawny eyes sparkled.

"May the Virgin smile on us!" he said. "Gilderoy will serve our ends."

The girl's eyes searched him gravely.

"You make holy war," she charged him.

"Ha, my sister, it is well to profess a strong conviction in the justice of one's cause. Tell men they are heroes, patriots, martyrs, and you will make good fighting stuff. Applaud fanaticism, make great parade of righteousness, hail the Deity as patron, a.s.semble all the saints under your banner. Ha, trust me, that is a way to topple a kingdom. Come, we must stir."

By many labyrinthine pa.s.sages, strange galleries of death, they pa.s.sed together from the dark deeps of the catacombs. At one point the roof shone silvered as with dew, and the air stood damp as in a marsh on a winter's eve. The river Tamar flowed above them in its rocky bed, so Fulviac told the girl. Anon they came out by a narrow stair that opened by a briar-grown throat into a thicket of old oaks in the Gilderoy meadows. The stairhead was covered by a species of stone trap that could be covered and concealed by sods. In the thicket a man awaited them with the bridles of three horses over his arm. Fulviac held Yeoland's stirrup, and they rode out, the three of them, from under the trees.

A full moon swam in a purple black sky amid a shower of shimmering stars. Gilderoy, with its climbing towers and turrets, stood out white under the moon. The city walls gleamed like alabaster in the magic glow. In the meadows the ringlets of the river glimmered. Far and distant rose the nebulous midnight of the woods.

Fulviac had bared his head to an inconstant and torpid breeze. They were riding for the west along a bridle track that curled grey and dim through the sombre meadows. The calm, soundless vault of the world rose now in contrast to the canopies of stone and the pa.s.sion-throes of the catacombs. Human moil and effort seemed infinitely little under the eternal scrutiny of the stars. So thought the man for the moment, as he rode with his chin sunk upon his breast, watching keenly the girl at his side.

Yeoland was young. All the roses of youth were budding about her soul; idealism, like the essence of crushed violets, hovered heavy over the world. Her soul as yet was no frayed and listless lute, thrummed into discords by the bony hand of care. She was built for love, a temple of white marble, lit by lamps of rubeous glory. Colours flashed through the red sanctuaries of the flesh. Yet pain and great woe had smitten her. The grim destinies of earth seemed bent on thrusting an innocent pilgrim into the turbulent contradictions of life.

The pageant in the catacombs that night had stirred her strangely beyond belief. The fantastic faces, the zeal, the hot words of gesturing enthusiasm, these were things new to her, therefore the more vivid and convincing. New worlds, new pa.s.sions, seemed to burst into being under the stars. She was utterly silent as she rode, looking forth into the night. Her hood had fallen back; her face shone white and clear; her eyes gleamed in the moonlight. Fulviac, like a chess-player who had evolved some subtle scheme, rode and watched her with a smile deep in his eyes. For the moment he was content to leave her to the magic of her own thoughts.

At certain rare seasons in life, virgin light floods down into the heart, as from some oriel opened in heaven. The world stands under a grander scheme of chiaroscuro; men comprehend where they once scoffed.

It was thus that Yeoland rose inspired, like a spiritual Venus from a sea of dreams. As molten gla.s.s is shaped speedily into fair and exquisite device, so the red wax of her heart had taken the impress of the hour. Gilderoy had stirred her like a blazoned page of romance.

Fulviac caught the girl's half glance at him; read in measure the meaning of her mood. Her lips were half parted as though she had words upon her tongue, but still hesitated from some scruple of pride. He straightened in the saddle, and waited for her to unbosom to him with a confident reserve.

"Well?" he said at length, since she still lingered in her silence.

"How much one may learn in a day," she answered, drawing her white palfrey nearer to his horse.

Fulviac agreed with her.

"The man on the end of the rope," he said, "learns in two minutes that which has puzzled philosophers since Adam loved Eve."

She turned to him with an eagerness that was almost pa.s.sionate even in its suppressed vigour.

"How long was it before you came to pity your fellows?"

"Some minutes, not more."

"And the conversion?"

"Shall satisfy you one day. For the present I will buckle up so unsavoury a fable in my bosom. Tell me what you have learnt at Gilderoy."

Yeoland looked at the moon. The man saw great sadness upon her face, but also an inspired radiance that made its very beauty the more remarkable. He foresaw in an instant that they were coming to deeper matters. Superficialities, the mannerisms of life, were falling away.

The girl's heart beat near to his; he felt a luminous sympathy of spirit rise round them like the gold of a Byzantine background.

"Come," he said, with a burst of beneficence, "you are beginning to understand me."

She jerked a swift glance at him, like the look of a half-tamed falcon.

"You are a man, for all your sneers and vapourings."

"I had a heart once. Call me an oak, broken, twisted, aged, but an oak still."

Yeoland drew quite close to him, so that her skirt almost brushed his horse's flank. Fulviac's shadow fell athwart her. Only her face shone clear in the moonlight.

"I have ceased," she said, "to look upon life as a stretch of blue, a laughing dawn."

"Good."

"I have learnt that woe is the crown of years."

"Good again."

"That life is full of violence and wrong."

"A plat.i.tude. Yes. Life consists in learning plat.i.tudes."

"I am only one woman among thousands."