Marguerite De Roberval Part 18

But De Roberval, unheeding the interruption, went on:

"To save my niece's honour I took her with me to the New World, and bade her lover venture not on board my vessel. But scarcely were we a day at sea when he stood by her side, having found his way on board among a gang of criminals. He disgraced the name of De Roberval before the whole world. I put him in chains for his disobedience; and still he seduced my niece to his side. Could I, as a just ruler, spare my own? I put her on an island in the northern seas, with the two jades who had abetted her crime; and her wretched paramour leaped into the ocean, and doubtless perished ere he reached the sh.o.r.e."

Charles stood pale and trembling with the effort to restrain himself, as he listened to this recital, and De Roberval exulted in the thought that in another moment he would see the man whom he now no longer dreaded lying dead at his feet. At last La Pommeraye found his tongue.

"Take back that lie!" he thundered, "or, by the holy cross, I will pluck the tongue that uttered it from your false throat! Claude a deceiver!

Marguerite a----" but he could get no further. He was about to draw his sword, when he saw De Roberval's weapon flash upwards. The action recalled him to his senses. He remembered that this was to be the signal for the a.s.sa.s.sins. He reached out a sudden hand, seized De Roberval by the throat, and dashed him headlong against the wall. The shock stunned him for a moment, and his sword fell ringing on the floor. Charles picked it up, snapped it across his knee, and flung the pieces at the n.o.bleman.

"A wretched weapon," said he, "fit for a coward."

De Roberval raised himself, and sat glaring at the wrathful giant.

"You are surprised," said La Pommeraye, "that I have not killed you. It is not mercy; I but respect the hospitality of your roof. I will let you live for a time, tortured by your coward's conscience, and then I will strike you down. a.s.sa.s.sin, your plot was discovered. You thought to have murdered me in your own house--you, who were once n.o.ble enough to strike at your own breast when you thought yourself defeated. Your peasants have more n.o.bility. Etienne, whom you entrusted with the carrying out of your plan, told me the whole story, and I have sent him safely on his way on your best horse. Follow not his steps, or the Duke of Guise will make you feel his iron hand. You have still a few months to live. I pa.s.sed the Isle of Demons, and saw your niece's watchfire beckoning me ash.o.r.e. I return thither at once. If they are still alive I will come back and crave the King to mete out to you the punishment you deserve; if they have perished I will hack you limb from limb. Attempt not to follow me, or to send your dogs after me, or your days will suddenly be shortened."

Leaving the n.o.bleman still half-stunned by the stinging blow he had received, and speechless at the threats he had listened to, especially at the mention of the Duke of Guise, Charles strode from the castle, mounted his horse, which awaited him at the gate, and rode away with a fury which put all chance of pursuit out of the question.

As he rode on with white face and set teeth, no one seeing him would have thought that the fierce eye and stern expression could have belonged to the dashing dare-devil, the prince of cavaliers and duellists, of a year before.

CHAPTER XVI

Autumn came once more to the lonely dwellers on the Isle of Demons.

The dreary time was settling down threateningly; and as they faced the inevitable months, their hearts sank within them.

The bleak, late September winds again compelled them to spend most of their time within their hut. Daily through the summer they had watched for a pa.s.sing sail, but with the return of autumn they gave up hope, and made ready as best they could to pa.s.s another winter on their island prison. Their supply of food, although they had husbanded it with the utmost care, was almost exhausted, and they had now scarcely anything save fish and fowl.

Yet their wretched surroundings, their hopeless future, only drew them closer together. They had each other, and that meant everything. They could scarcely have been said to be actually unhappy, but for one ever-gnawing anxiety--the state of Claude's health. All summer he had remained strong and hopeful, but with the first cold weather his cough returned, and he himself realised that he could never live through the winter, whose icy breath they could even now feel from the north. He was to give up the fight sooner than either of them expected; but before the struggle ended still another sorrow--or joy, they scarce knew which--was to be added to their lives.

Early in October Marguerite's child was born. Almost she had prayed that it might not live; almost she had hoped that she might die with it, and end the awful suffering which was all they could look forward to. But when she came slowly back to strength again, and held the tiny, helpless creature in her arms, and knew that it drew its life from her veins, the desire to live returned to her; she had now a double incentive to courage and hope.

For a time Claude forgot the future, his own sufferings, everything except his son. All the tenderness in his nature showed itself now. His hands, which in France had known no service but war, were now as apt as any woman's. Night and day he waited on Marguerite and her child, and with great joy saw them both grow strong. Meanwhile, a kind Providence seemed to be mindful of him, for his strength never failed him; and Marguerite, as each morning she met his bright smile and cheery words, began to hope that the miracle for which she had prayed had been worked, and that Claude would yet be spared to her.

The cold of September had been followed by an unusually late and mild autumn, and in the mellow, hazy days Marguerite would walk up and down the cliff with her child in her arms, followed by the cub, which they had humorously christened Francois, and which had now grown quite domesticated, and would shuffle after his mistress wherever she went, like a faithful dog. In these peaceful days Marguerite found herself crooning to her baby the old Normandy lullabies, which she had not heard since her own infancy, but which came back instinctively to her lips.

But her happiness was to be of short duration. The blow she had dreaded fell upon her when she least expected it. Claude's strength had been but false fire. With the return of the cold weather heaviness seized his limbs, a dull weight oppressed his lungs, and his cough grew rapidly worse. At last, one night, there came a haemorrhage which would not be checked, and in the morning Marguerite found herself alone with her dead.

How she lived through that night and the days which followed it she never knew. Nature was merciful to her, and blotted out all memory of details from her brain. The constant necessity of caring for her child was all that saved her reason, and kept her from taking her life.

With her own hands she dug a third grave beside the two others on the cliff, and after incredible labour and exertion, she laid Claude's body to rest, and heaped the earth above it. When she had finished her task, which she had performed with wild and feverish energy, she threw herself upon the mound, and gave way to utter despair. How long she lay there she did not know; but she was recalled to herself by the crying of her child from the hut. Not for herself, but for the sake of the little life which depended upon her, she must continue to live and be strong. She pressed her baby to her breast, and with amazing fort.i.tude and heroism, set herself to face the task before her.

Then followed many weeks of agony. Through the long nights the wind howled about her hut, and she imagined she heard the voices of the demons of the island clamouring for her soul. With fiendish fury they yelled and shrieked round her frail little shelter, and often she fancied she could hear them trying to force an entrance. In the morning, with her child wrapped close and warm at her breast, she would go out and pace the cliff in all weathers, finding in the worst tumult of the elements a relief from the terrors of the night. Madness seemed settling down upon her, but the thought of her child bore her through it all, and the iron will of the De Robervals stood her in good stead.

Her vitality was marvellous. Something of the nature of her warrior ancestors seemed to have entered into her veins, and she was able to endure hardships such as had caused many a hardy soldier to succ.u.mb. The winter, which closed in upon her, bade fair to be no less severe than the preceding one, and now she had no one to help her in her daily tasks. With her own hands she had to break the bare branches, carry in fire-logs, and even cut down trees.

Her efforts to obtain fish were unsuccessful, although the ice, which occasionally formed about the sh.o.r.e, was soon broken up by the wind, and the birds, which still hovered about their island haunts, seemed to have no difficulty in procuring their food. Fortunately, the powder and shot, which they had carefully husbanded, still held out, and she had a sufficient supply to carry her through the winter. She was loth to destroy the only living creatures left upon the island. The hares, which leaped across her path, she had learned to love, and the warmly-clad northern birds had become very dear companions to her in her loneliness.

But the terrible necessity that stared her in the face knew naught of mercy, and the winter stillness often re-echoed to the sound of her arquebuse. So expert had she become that she rarely wasted a charge of powder.

December pa.s.sed, and January was nearly over, when the crowning sorrow which Fate had in store for this heroic woman fell upon her. She woke one morning to find her child cold and lifeless at her side. She seized him in her arms, pressed the little icy form close to her warm breast, but felt no answering warmth. Madly she kissed his lips and eyes and cheeks; she would not believe that he was dead. When at length she became convinced of the truth, she rushed wildly from the hut.

There had been a heavy snowfall during the night. She was in her bare feet, but she heeded not the cold. She rushed to the cliff, her child in her arms, her hair streaming about her shoulders. The end had at last come; there was nothing further to live for. Fate had conquered. She could but throw herself into the sea, and, with her baby in her arms, confront the good G.o.d who had seen fit to pursue her with such suffering. But as she stood upon the cliff, the rolling waves beating against the rocky hollows in the grey dawn seemed to her the hoa.r.s.e voices of the demons. Once more she heard them calling for her soul, and for the soul of her child. She turned, and retraced her steps to her empty hut.

Laying the baby's body on the bed, she sat down beside it on the floor, her hands clasped about her knees. Silent she sat there, beside the fire she had heaped up to try to revive the child, till night fell, and the stars shone out bright and clear in the frosty sky. Silent she sat till they faded again before the grey light of dawn, and the morning of a new day broke. The wind had risen during the night, and the waves had been bellowing up the beach; but she heard neither wind nor waves. Dry-eyed she sat beside her long-dead fire, and felt not cold nor fear. Her faculties were deadened, her brain numbed, and it was not till her faithful companion, Francois the bear, tired of waiting to be taken notice of, pressed his nose against her clasped hands, and breathed his warm breath into her face, that she awoke from her trance.

She rose mechanically, turned to her brush heap, selected some dry sticks for her fire, and was about to place them on the embers when she noticed that it had long been dead. Her hands were like ice; she was chilled to the very bone; but the physical pain she now began to feel saved her. It called forth her energies; quickly she went to work to renew the fire, and the exertion drew her out of herself. As the flames blazed up and crackled through the dry branches, the life began to come back to her frozen limbs, and she roused herself to face her situation.

Her baby must be buried, and she must perform the task. She fashioned a rough coffin out of some planks, and tenderly laid the tiny body in it.

As she fastened down the lid it seemed to her that every nail went through her own heart, but she did not weep. Her eyes had long since ceased to know the comfort of tears. Wearily she climbed the hillside with her little burden, wondering within herself how much longer it would be before she could lay her worn-out limbs beside those three rude graves, and be done with suffering for ever.

The baby must not lie alone; she would open Claude's grave, and lay him beside his father. The frozen ground was almost impenetrable, and it was long before she succeeded in digging a hole deep enough to admit the coffin. But patiently she toiled; slowly, with weak hands, hacking the soil, and sc.r.a.ping the lumps out of the grave. At last she had made a shallow opening which would hold the box, and when it was placed within she knelt beside it, holding the crucifix which had saved Claude from the waves, and prayed that their souls might rest in peace. A sudden impulse seized her. All that she had treasured, all that she had lived for, was in that grave. The crucifix was the last precious thing left to her, and she laid it upon the coffin of her child. Then, without trusting herself to kneel there longer, she rose hurriedly, cast back the frozen soil into the double grave, and piled large stones in a heap over the top, to prevent any animal scratching away the earth. Then she went back to her hut, and resumed the weary round of her hopeless, solitary life.

To a modern mind it may seem strange that reason did not utterly desert her; but the age in which she lived may help to account for the strength which sustained her. Though of n.o.ble blood, and tenderly nurtured, she had been accustomed to view scenes of death and hardship with a calm eye. Young as she was, she had beheld death in many forms; and the sieges which her uncle's castle had several times resisted had taught her something of a man's strength and endurance, which, coupled with a woman's tenacious vitality, made her doubly strong. Then, too, she had not been unfamiliar with loneliness. In her youthful days, before Marie de Vignan had come to live with her, she had often been left alone for weeks, with no one to relieve the monotony of her existence save old Bastienne and the other servants; and during these periods she had rarely spoken to any human being, save to issue some command. And now, though she was absolutely alone, the struggle for existence, and the presence of the young bear, her sole living companion, saved her reason.

Sometimes, however, the unwonted sound of her own voice made her start and wonder if she who had spoken could really be one with the desolate creature who trod this snow-clad island, hopelessly scanning the horizon for some sign that there was a world other than the narrow one within whose limits she was hemmed.

Night she dreaded. She kept her fire going through the long hours of darkness, but often the glowing embers and tongues of flame would take weird shapes before her eyes. Across the island the wind swept and moaned, and every sound seemed to her the voice of some of the fabled evil spirits of the north. Often she would wake from sleep feeling ghostly presences near her--at her very side. At such times she would creep close to her strange companion, Francois, and nestle against his s.h.a.ggy coat. The warmth of his body, and the thick, soft rug which they had made from the skin of the old she-bear, were all that saved her from perishing of the bitter cold of that terrible winter.

It was with unutterable relief that she saw the spring sun return, and felt the warm south wind breathe upon the island hollows. Daily she had watched with hopeless eyes for the sail that never came; but now, as the green shoots began to glisten here and there on the brown sod, she once more built her watchfire high on the cliff, and kept it blazing night and day.

Winter seemed suddenly to have given place to summer. All through April the warm sun streamed down upon the island, and for hours she sat looking out over the blue stretch of scarcely moving water. But fickle spring had a change in store. A chill, icy breath swept down from the north; the pines and birches moaned and sighed once more; and the great green waves crashed foaming on the beach. Her heart sank within her; but ever southward she gazed. An inward voice seemed still to a.s.sure her that help was on its way to her, and that her sufferings were nearly at an end.

At last, on the second day of the storm, her eye caught sight, on the broken horizon, of a sail. Steadily she watched it till there could no longer be any doubt of its reality; and then she heaped a huge pile of brushwood upon her fire. They had seen it! Nearer and nearer the vessel was drawing. At last she was to be rescued!

CHAPTER XVII

When Charles arrived at St Malo he found that his messenger, Etienne Brule, had reached the town in safety, and that De Roberval's horse was being well looked after in Cartier's stables. No pursuit was attempted, and it became evident that Etienne's master would make no effort to bring him back.

In fact, De Roberval, who knew that La Pommeraye was the soul of honour, and that no one would believe him capable of a falsehood, felt that his own wisest course would be silence. He knew that at the least move on his part La Pommeraye would be able to turn all tongues against him; and if the young man had, as he had hinted, any influence with the Duke of Guise, he would undoubtedly call down upon him the heavy hand of the great minister, who had already no love for the ambitious little n.o.bleman.

Charles, too, was kept silent by what he had learned. His old sunny smile had left him, and when he spoke, his once full, mellow voice had a hard, metallic ring. Cartier scarce recognised him, and his questions received but scant answers, which kept him from enquiring further.

"De Pontbriand may still live," said Charles. "Mdlle. de Roberval may still live, and I must restore them to France, or make sure that they are dead. If I find them not, G.o.d help De Roberval!"

"G.o.d help him in any case!" said Cartier to himself. "Your spirit will never rest till it has spilt the little tyrant's blood. But when," he added, "do you expect to start for the New World?"

"At once."

"Nay, that's impossible. You would have some difficulty in getting sailors to venture out on the Atlantic at this season."

"If I cannot get men to accompany me," said Charles, "Etienne and I will go alone;" and as he spoke, Etienne, who was standing by in Cartier's orchard, where the conversation took place, nodded a.s.sent, and muttered a determined "Ay, that we will!" He, too, was thinking of his fair young mistress, who had always seemed to him like one of the blessed saints; and when he pictured her pining for her home through the dreary autumn and torturing winter in Canada, he would gladly have risked the voyage single-handed.

It was no easy matter to get a vessel. Roberval had returned, and Charles had no longer his former excuse. It was rumoured at court that the lovers had been punished for flaunting immorality; and to tell why he wanted the ship would be to drag the names of Claude and Marguerite through the mire. This he would not do. He would not even let himself think of what De Roberval had told him. It was not--it could not be true! It was true that he had awakened from his dream; he knew that he could never win Marguerite. What he had learned from Etienne and from her uncle had banished that wild hope; and all the little circ.u.mstances in their lives, which had before pa.s.sed unnoticed, now rose before him to show him how blind and foolish he had been. But he loved her none the less--rather the more. And when he thought of what she and her lover must have endured on that desolate island, in the great northern ocean, his brain beat and his heart throbbed till he thought he must surely go mad. To save himself, he felt he must start on his journey as soon as possible.