The House of the Wolf Part 14

For ourselves, though the orgy was at its height when we pa.s.sed, we were not molested. We were stopped indeed three times-once in each of the streets we traversed-by different bands of murderers. But as we wore the same badges as themselves, and cried "VIVE LA MESSE!" and gave our names, we were allowed to proceed. I can give no idea of the confusion and uproar, and I scarcely believe myself now that we saw some of the things we witnessed. Once a man gaily dressed, and splendidly mounted, dashed past us, waving his naked sword and crying in a frenzied way "Bleed them! Bleed them! Bleed in May, as good to-day!" and never ceased crying out the same words until he pa.s.sed beyond our hearing. Once we came upon the bodies of a father and two sons, which lay piled together in the kennel; partly stripped already. The youngest boy could not have been more than thirteen, I mention this group, not as surpa.s.sing others in pathos, but because it is well known now that this boy, Jacques Nompar de Caumont, was not dead, but lives to-day, my friend the Marshal de la Force.

This reminds me too of the single act of kindness we were able to perform. We found ourselves suddenly, on turning a corner, amid a gang of seven or eight soldiers, who had stopped and surrounded a handsome boy, apparently about fourteen. He wore a scholar's gown, and had some books under his arm, to which he clung firmly-though only perhaps by instinct-notwithstanding the furious air of the men who were threatening him with death. They were loudly demanding his name, as we paused opposite them. He either could not or would not give it, but said several times in his fright that he was going to the College of Burgundy. Was he a Catholic? they cried. He was silent. With an oath the man who had hold of his collar lifted up his pike, and naturally the lad raised the books to guard his face. A cry broke from Croisette. We rushed forward to stay the blow.

"See! see!" he exclaimed loudly, his voice arresting the man's arm in the very act of falling. "He has a Ma.s.s Book! He has a Ma.s.s Book! He is not a heretic! He is a Catholic!"

The fellow lowered his weapon, and sullenly s.n.a.t.c.hed the books. He looked at them stupidly with bloodshot wandering eyes, the red cross on the vellum bindings, the only thing he understood. But it was enough for him; he bid the boy begone, and released him with a cuff and an oath.

Croisette was not satisfied with this, though I did not understand his reason; only I saw him exchange a glance with the lad. "Come, come!" he said lightly. "Give him his books! You do not want them!"

But on that the men turned savagely upon us. They did not thank us for the part we had already taken; and this they thought was going too far. They were half drunk and quarrelsome, and being two to one, and two over, began to flourish their weapons in our faces. Mischief would certainly have been done, and very quickly, had not an unexpected ally appeared on our side.

"Put up! put up!" this gentleman cried in a boisterous voice-he was already in our midst. "What is all this about? What is the use of fighting amongst ourselves, when there is many a bonny throat to cut, and heaven to be gained by it! put up, I say!"

"Who are you?" they roared in chorus.

"The Duke of Guise!" he answered coolly. "Let the gentlemen go, and be hanged to you, you rascals!"

The man's bearing was a stronger argument than his words, for I am sure that a stouter or more reckless blade never swaggered in church or street. I knew him instantly, and even the crew of butchers seemed to see in him their master. They hung back a few curses at him, but having nothing to gain they yielded. They threw down the books with contempt-showing thereby their sense of true religion; and trooped off roaring, "TUES! TUES! Aux Huguenots!" at the top of their voices.

The newcomer thus left with us was Bure-Blaise Bure-the same who only yesterday, though it seemed months and months back, had lured us into Bezers' power. Since that moment we had not seen him. Now he had wiped off part of the debt, and we looked at him, uncertain whether to reproach him or no. He, however, was not one whit abashed, but returned our regards with a not unkindly leer.

"I bear no malice, young gentlemen," he said impudently.

"No, I should think not," I answered.

"And besides, we are quits now," the knave continued.

"You are very kind," I said.

"To be sure. You did me a good turn once," he answered, much to my surprise. He seemed to be in earnest now. "You do not remember it, young gentleman, but it was you and your brother here"-he pointed to Croisette-"did it! And by the Pope and the King of Spain I have not forgotten it!"

"I have," I said.

"What! You have forgotten spitting that fellow at Caylus ten days ago? CA! SA! You remember. And very cleanly done, too! A pretty stroke! Well, M. Anne, that was a clever fellow, a very clever fellow. He thought so and I thought so, and what was more to the purpose the most n.o.ble Raoul de Bezers thought so too. You understand!"

He leered at me and I did understand. I understood that unwittingly I had rid Blaise Bure of a rival. This accounted for the respectful, almost the kindly way in which he had-well, deceived us.

"That is all," he said. "If you want as much done for you, let me know. For the present, gentlemen, farewell!"

He c.o.c.ked his hat fiercely, and went off at speed the way we had ourselves been going; humming as he went,

"Ce pet.i.t homme tant joli, Qui toujours cause et toujours rit, Qui toujours baise sa mignonne Dieu gard' de mal ce pet.i.t homme!"

His reckless song came back to us on the summer breeze. We watched him make a playful pa.s.s at a corpse which some one had propped in ghastly fashion against a door-and miss it-and go on whistling the same air-and then a corner hid him from view.

We lingered only a moment ourselves; merely to speak to the boy we had befriended.

"Show the books if anyone challenges you," said Croisette to him shrewdly. Croisette was so much of a boy himself, with his fair hair like a halo about his white, excited face, that the picture of the two, one advising the other, seemed to me a strangely pretty one. "Show the books and point to the cross on them. And Heaven send you safe to your college."

"I would like to know your name, if you please," said the boy. His coolness and dignity struck me as admirable under the circ.u.mstances. "I am Maximilian de Bethune, son of the Baron de Rosny."

"Then," said Croisette briskly, "one good turn has deserved another. Your father, yesterday, at Etampes-no it was the day before, but we have not been in bed-warned us-"

He broke off suddenly; then cried, "Run! run!"

The boy needed no second warning indeed. He was off like the wind down the street, for we had seen and so had he, the stealthy approach of two or three prowling rascals on the look out for a victim. They caught sight of him and were strongly inclined to follow him; but we were their match in numbers. The street was otherwise empty at the moment: and we showed them three excellent reasons why they should give him a clear start.

His after adventures are well-known: for he, too, lives. He was stopped twice after he left us. In each case he escaped by showing his book of offices. On reaching the college the porter refused to admit him, and he remained for some time in the open street exposed to constant danger of losing his life, and knowing not what to do. At length he induced the gatekeeper, by the present of some small pieces of money, to call the princ.i.p.al of the college, and this man humanely concealed him for three days. The ma.s.sacre being then at an end, two armed men in his father's pay sought him out and restored him to his friends. So near was France to losing her greatest minister, the Duke de Sully.

To return to ourselves. The lad out of sight, we instantly resumed our purpose, and trying to shut our eyes and ears to the cruelty, and ribaldry, and uproar through which we had still to pa.s.s, we counted our turnings with a desperate exactness, intent only on one thing-to reach Louis de Pavannes, to reach the house opposite to the Head of Erasmus, as quickly as we could. We presently entered a long, narrow street. At the end of it the river was visible gleaming and sparkling in the sunlight. The street was quiet; quiet and empty. There was no living soul to be seen from end to end of it, only a prowling dog. The noise of the tumult raging in other parts was softened here by distance and the intervening houses. We seemed to be able to breathe more freely.

"This should be our street," said Croisette.

I nodded. At the same moment I espied, half-way down it, the sign we needed and pointed to it, But ah! were we in time? Or too late? That was the question. By a single impulse we broke into a run, and shot down the roadway at speed. A few yards short of the Head of Erasmus we came, one by one, Croisette first, to a full stop. A full stop!

The house opposite the bookseller's was sacked! gutted from top to bottom. It was a tall house, immediately fronting the street, and every window in it was broken. The door hung forlornly on one hinge, glaring cracks in its surface showing where the axe had splintered it. Fragments of gla.s.s and ware, hung out and shattered in sheer wantonness, strewed the steps: and down one corner of the latter a dark red stream trickled-to curdle by and by in the gutter. Whence came the stream? Alas! there was something more to be seen yet, something our eyes instinctively sought last of all. The body of a man.

It lay on the threshold, the head hanging back, the wide glazed eyes looking up to the summer sky whence the sweltering heat would soon pour down upon it. We looked shuddering at the face. It was that of a servant, a valet who had been with Louis at Caylus. We recognised him at once for we had known and liked him. He had carried our guns on the hills a dozen times, and told us stories of the war. The blood crawled slowly from him. He was dead.

Croisette began to shake all over. He clutched one of the pillars, which bore up the porch, and pressed his face against its cold surface, hiding his eyes from the sight. The worst had come. In our hearts I think we had always fancied some accident would save our friend, some stranger warn him.

"Oh, poor, poor Kit!" Croisette cried, bursting suddenly into violent sobs. "Oh, Kit! Kit!"

CHAPTER X.

HAU, HAU, HUGUENOTS!

His late Majesty, Henry the Fourth, I remember-than whom no braver man wore sword, who loved danger indeed for its own sake, and courted it as a mistress-could never sleep on the night before an action. I have heard him say himself that it was so before the fight at Arques. Croisette partook of this nature too, being high-strung and apt to be easily over-wrought, but never until the necessity for exertion had pa.s.sed away: while Marie and I, though not a whit stouter at a pinch, were slower to feel and less easy to move-more Germanic in fact.

I name this here partly lest it should be thought after what I have just told of Croisette that there was anything of the woman about him-save the tenderness; and partly to show that we acted at this crisis each after his manner. While Croisette turned pale and trembled, and hid his eyes, I stood dazed, looking from the desolate house to the face stiffening in the sunshine, and back again; wondering, though I had seen scores of dead faces since daybreak, and a plenitude of suffering in all dreadful shapes, how Providence could let this happen to us. To us! In his instincts man is as selfish as any animal that lives.

I saw nothing indeed of the dead face and dead house after the first convincing glance. I saw instead with hot, hot eyes the old castle at home, the green fields about the brook, and the grey hills rising from them; and the terrace, and Kit coming to meet us, Kit with white face and parted lips and avid eyes that questioned us! And we with no comfort to give her, no lover to bring back to her!

A faint noise behind as of a sign creaking in the wind, roused me from this most painful reverie. I turned round, not quickly or in surprise or fear. Rather in the same dull wonder. The upper part of the bookseller's door was ajar. It was that I had heard opened. An old woman was peering out at us.

As our eyes met, she made a slight movement to close the door again. But I did not stir, and seeming to be rea.s.sured by a second glance, she nodded to me in a stealthy fashion. I drew a step nearer, listlessly. "Pst! Pst!" she whispered. Her wrinkled old face, which was like a Normandy apple long kept, was soft with pity as she looked at Croisette. "Pst!"

"Well!" I said, mechanically.

"Is he taken?" she muttered.

"Who taken?" I asked stupidly.

She nodded towards the forsaken house, and answered, "The young lord who lodged there? Ah! sirs," she continued, "he looked gay and handsome, if you'll believe me, as he came from the king's court yester even! As bonny a sight in his satin coat, and his ribbons, as my eyes ever saw! And to think that they should be hunting him like a rat to-day!"

The woman's words were few and simple. But what a change they made in my world! How my heart awoke from its stupor, and leapt up with a new joy and a new-born hope! "Did he get away?" I cried eagerly. "Did he escape, mother, then?"