The Long Night Part 49

"You know," Blondel answered, breathing quickly. How he hated the man!

How gladly would he have laid him dead at his feet! For if the fool stayed here prating, if he were found here by those who within a few moments would come with the alarm, he was himself a lost man. All would be known.

That was the fear in Blondel's mind; the alarm was growing louder each moment, and drawing nearer. And then in a twinkling, in two or three sentences, Basterga put that fear into the second place, and set in its seat emotions that brooked no rival.

"Why not both?" he said, jeering. "Live and be Syndic, both? Because you had the scholar's ill, eh, Messer Blondel? Or because your physician _said_ you had it--to whom I paid a good price--for the advice?" The devil seemed to look out of the man's eyes, as he spoke in short sentences, each pointed, each conveying a heart-stab to its hearer.

"To whom--you gave?" Blondel muttered, his eyes dilated.

"A good price--for the advice! A good price to tell you, you had it."

The magistrate's face swelled till it was almost purple, his hands gripped the front of his coat, and pressed hard against his breast.

"But--the pains?" he muttered. "Did you--but no," with a frightful grimace, "you lie! you lie!"

"Did I bribe him--to give you those too?" the other answered, with a ruthless laugh. "You have alighted on it, most grave and reverend sage.

You have alighted on the exact fact, so clever are you! That was precisely what I did some months back, after I heard that you, being fearful as rich men are, had been to him for some fancied ill. You had two medicines? You remember? The one gave, the other soothed your trouble. And now that you understand, now that your mind is free from care, and you can sleep without fear of the scholar's ill--will you not thank me for your cure, Messer Blondel?"

"Thank you?" the magistrate panted. "Thank you?" He stepped back two paces, groping with his hands, as if he sought to support himself by the table from which he had advanced.

"Ay, thank me!"

"No, but I will pay you!" and with the word Blondel s.n.a.t.c.hed from the table a pistol which he had laid within his reach an hour earlier.

Before the giant, confident in his size, discovered his danger, the muzzle was at his breast. It was too late to move then--three paces divided the men; but, in his haste to raise the pistol, Blondel had not shaken from it the handkerchief under which he had hidden it, and the lock fell on a morsel of the stuff. The next moment Basterga's huge hand struck aside the useless weapon, and flung Blondel gasping against the wall.

"Fool!" the scholar cried, towering above the baffled, shrinking man whose attempt had placed him at his mercy. "Think you that Caesar Basterga was born to perish by your hand? That the G.o.ds made me what I am, I who carry to-night the fortunes of a nation and the fate of a king, that I might fall by so pitiful a creature as you! Ay, 'tis the alarm-bell, you are right. And by-and-by your friends will be here. It is a wonder," he continued, with a cruel look, "that they are not here already; but perhaps they have enough to fill their hands! And come or stay--if they be like you, poor fool, weak in body as in wit--I care not! I, Caesar Basterga, this night lord of Geneva, and in the time to come, and thanks to you----"

"Curse you!" Blondel gasped.

"That which I dare be sworn you have dreamt of being!"--the scholar continued with a subtle smile. "The Grand Duke's _alter ego_, Mayor of the Palace, Adviser to his Highness! Yes, I hit you there? I touch you there! Oh, vanity of little men, I thought so! "He broke off and listened, as sharp on one another two gun-shots rang out at no great distance from the house. A third followed as he hearkened: and on it a swelling wave of sound that rose with each second louder and nearer.

"Ay, 'tis known now!" Basterga resumed, in a tone more quiet, but not less confident. "And I must go, my dear friend--who thought a minute ago to speed me for ever. Know that it lies not in hands mean as yours to harm Caesar Basterga of Padua! And that to-night, of all nights, I bear a charmed life! I carry, Syndic, a kingdom and its fortunes!"

He seemed to swell with the thought, and in comparison of the sickly man scowling darkly on him from the wall, he did indeed look a king, as he turned to the door, flung it wide and pa.s.sed into the pa.s.sage. With only the street door between him and the hub-bub that was beginning to fill the night, he could measure the situation. He had stayed late. The beat of many feet hastening one way--towards the Porte Terta.s.se--the clatter of weapons as here and there a man trailed his pike on the stones, the roar of rising voices, the rattle of metal as some one hauled a chain across the end of the Bourg du Four and hooked it--sounds such as these might have alarmed an ordinary man who knew himself cut off from his party, and isolated among foes.

But Basterga did not quail. His belief in his star was genuine; he was intoxicated with the success which he fancied lay within his grasp. He carried Caesar and his fortunes! was it in mean men to harm him? Nay, so confident was he, that when he had opened the door he stood an instant on the threshold viewing the strange scene, and quoted with an appreciation as strange--

"At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu Miscetur, penitusque cavae plangoribus aedes Femineis ululant; ferit aurea sidera clamor"--

from his favourite poet. After which without hesitation but also without hurry he turned and plunged into the stream of pa.s.sers that was hurrying towards the Porte Terta.s.se.

He had been right not to quail. In the medley of light and shadow which filled the Bourg du Four and the streets about the Town Hall, in the confusion, in the rush of all in one direction and with one intent, no one paid heed to him, or supposed him to belong to the enemy. Some cried "To the Treille! They are there! To the Treille!" And these wheeled that way. But more, guided by the sounds of conflict, held on to the point where the short, narrow street of the Terta.s.se turned left-handed out of the equally narrow Rue de la Cite--the latter leading onwards to the Porte de la Monnaye, and the bridges. Here, at the meeting of the two confined lanes, overhung by timbered houses, and old gables of strange shapes, a desperate conflict was being fought. The Savoyards, masters of the gate, had undertaken to push their way into the town by the Rue Terta.s.se; not doubting that they would be supported by-and-by, upon the entrance of their main body through the Porte Neuve. They had proceeded no farther, however, than the junction with the Rue de la Cite--a point where darkness was made visible by two dim oil lamps--before, the alarm being given, they found themselves confronted by a dozen half-clad townsfolk, fresh from their beds; of whom five or six were at once laid low. The survivors, however, fought with desperation, giving back, foot by foot; and as the alarm flew abroad and the city rose, every moment brought the defenders a reinforcement--some father just roused from sleep, armed with the chance weapon that came to hand, or some youth panting for his first fight. The a.s.sailants, therefore, found themselves stayed; slowly they were driven back into the narrow gullet of the Terta.s.se. Even there they were put to it to hold their ground against an ever-increasing swarm of citizens, whom despair and the knowledge that they were fighting on their hearths, for their wives, and for their children, brought up in renewed strength.

In the Terta.s.se, however, where it was not possible to outflank them, and no dark side-alley, vomiting now and again a desperate man, gave one to death, a score could hold out against a hundred. Here then, with the gateway at their backs--whence three or four could fire over their heads--the Savoyards stood stubbornly at bay, awaiting the reinforcements which they were sure would come from the Porte Neuve.

They were picked troops not easily discouraged; and they had no fear that aught serious had happened. But they asked impatiently why D'Albigny with the main body did not come; why Brunaulieu with the Monnaye in his hands did not see that the time was opportune. They chafed at the delay. Give the city time to array itself, let it recover from its first surprise, and all their forces might scarcely avail to crush opposition.

It was at this moment, when the burghers had drawn back a little that they might deliver a decisive attack, that Basterga came up. Fabri the Syndic had taken the command, and had shouted to all who had windows looking on the lane to light them. He had arrayed his men in some sort of order and was on the point of giving the word to charge, when he heard the steps of Basterga and some others coming up; he waited to allow them to join him. The instant they arrived he gave the word, and followed by some thirty burghers armed with half-pikes, halberds, anything the men had been able to s.n.a.t.c.h up, he charged the Savoyards bravely.

In the narrow lane but four or five could fight abreast, and the Grand Duke's men were clad in steel and well armed. Nevertheless Fabri bore back the first line, pressed on them stoutly, and amid a wild _melee_ of struggling men and waving weapons, began to drive the troop, in spite of a fierce resistance, into the gate. If he could do this and enter with them, even though he lost half his men, he might save the city.

But the Savoyards, though they gave back, gave back slowly. Within twenty paces of the gate the advance wavered, stopped, hung an instant.

Of that instant Basterga took advantage. He had moved on undetected, with the rearmost burghers: now he saw his opportunity and seized it. He flung to either side the man to right and left of him. He struck down, almost with the same movement, the man in front. He rushed on Fabri, who in the middle of the first line was supporting, though far from young, a single combat with one of the Savoyard leaders. On him Basterga's coward weapon alighted without warning, and laid him low. To strike down another, and turning, range himself in the van of the foreigners with a mighty "Savoy! Savoy!" was Basterga's next action; and it sufficed. The panic-stricken burghers, apprised of treason in their ranks, gave back every way. The Savoyards saw their advantage, rallied, and pressed them.

Speedily the Italians regained the ground they had lost, and with the tall form of their champion fighting in the van, began to sweep the towns-folk back into the Rue de la Cite.

But arrived at the meeting of the ways, Basterga's followers paused, hesitating to expose their flank by entering this second street. The Genevese saw this, rallied in their turn, and for a moment seemed to be holding their own. But three or four of their doughtiest fighters lay stark in the kennel, they had no longer a leader, they were poorly armed and hastily collected; and devoted as they were, it needed little to renew the panic and start them in utter rout. Basterga saw this, and when his men still hung back, neglecting the golden opportunity, he rushed forward, almost alone, until he stood conspicuous between the two bands--the one hesitating to come on, the other hesitating to fly.

"Savoy!" he thundered, "Ville gagnee! The city is ours! Cowards, come on!" And waving his halberd above his head, he beckoned to his followers to advance.

Had they done so, had they charged on the instant, they had changed all for him, and perhaps all for Geneva. But they hung a moment, and the next, as in shame they drew themselves together for the charge, their champion stooped forward with a shrill scream. The next instant he received full on his nape a heavy iron pot, that descending with tremendous force from a window above him, rolled from him broken into three pieces.

He went down under the blow as if a sledge-hammer had struck him; and so sudden, so dramatic was the fall--his armour clanging about him--that for an instant the two bands held their hands and stood staring, as indifferent crowds stand and gaze in the street. A dozen on the patriots' side knew the house from which the _marmite_ fell, and marked it; and half as many saw at the small window whence it came the grey locks and stern wrinkled face of an aged woman. The effect on the burghers was magical. As if the act symbolised not only the loved ones for whom they fought, but the dire distress to which they were come, they rushed on the foreign men-at-arms with a spirit and a fury hitherto unknown. With a ringing shout of "Mere Royaume! Mere Royaume!"--raised by those who knew the old woman, and taken up by many who did not--they swept the foe, shaken by the fall of their leader, along the narrow Terta.s.se, pressed on them, and, still shouting the new war-cry, entered the gateway along with them.

"Mere Royaume! Mere Royaume!" The name rang savagely in the groining of the arch, echoed dully in the obscurity in which the fierce struggle went on. And men struck to its rhythm, and men died to it. And men who heard it thus and lived never forgot it, nor ever went back in their minds to that night without recalling it.

To one man, flurried already, and a coward at heart, the name carried a paralysing a.s.surance of doom. He had seen Basterga fall--by this woman's hand of all hands in the world--and he had been the first to flee. But in the lane he tripped over Fabri, he fell headlong, and only raised himself in time to gain the gateway a few feet in front of the avenging pikes. Still, he might escape, he hoped to escape, through the gate and into the open Corraterie. But the first to reach the gates had taken in hand to shut them, and so to prevent the townsfolk reaching the Corraterie. One of the great doors, half-closed, blocked his way, and instinctively--ignorant how far behind him the pike-points were--he sprang aside into the guard-room.

His one chance now--for he was cut off, and knew it--lay in reaching the staircase and mounting to the roof. A bound carried him to the door, he grasped the handle. But a fugitive who had only a second before saved himself that way, took him for a pursuer, dragged the door close and held it--held it in spite of his efforts and his imprecations.

Five seconds, ten, perhaps, Grio--for he it was--wasted in struggling vainly with the door. The man on the other side clung to it with a despair equal to his own. Five seconds, ten, perhaps; but in that s.p.a.ce of time, short as it was, the man paid smartly for the sins of his life.

When the time of grace had elapsed, with a pike-point a few inches from his back and the gleaming eyes of an avenging burgher behind it, he fled shrieking round the table. He might even yet have escaped by a chance; for all was confusion, and though there was a glare there was no light.

But he stumbled over the body of the man whom he had slain without pity a few hours before. He fell writhing, and died on the floor, under a dozen blows, as beasts die in the shambles.

"Mere Royaume! Mere Royaume!" The cry--the last cry he heard--swelled louder and louder. It swept through the gate, it pa.s.sed through to the open, and bore far along the Corraterie, far along the ramparts, ay, to the open country, the earnest of victory, the earnest of vengeance.

Geneva was saved. He who would have betrayed it, slain like Pyrrhus the Epirote by a woman's hand, lay dead in the dark lane behind the house in which he had lived.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE DAWN.

Anne was but one of some thousands of women who pa.s.sed through the trial of that night; who heard the vague sounds of disquiet that roused them at midnight grow to sharp alarms, and these again--to the dull, pulsing music of the tocsin--swell to the uproar of a deadly conflict waged by desperate men in narrow streets. She was but one of thousands who that night heard fate knocking at their hearts; who praying, sick with fear, for the return of their men, showed white faces at barred windows, and by every tossing light that pa.s.sed along the lane viewed long years of loneliness or widowhood.

But Anne had this burden also; that she had of herself sent her man into danger; her man, who, but for her pleading, but for her bidding, might not have gone. And that thought, though she had done her duty, laid a cold grip upon her heart. Her work it was if he lay at this moment stark in some dark alley, the first victim of the a.s.sault; or, sorely wounded, cried for water; or waited in pain where none but the stricken heard him. The thought bowed her to the ground, sent her to her prayers, took from her alike all memory of the danger that had menaced her this morning, and all consciousness of that which now threatened her, a helpless woman, if the town were taken.

The house, having its back on the Rue de la Cite, at the point where that street joined the Terta.s.se, stood in the heart of the conflict; and almost from the moment of the first attack on the Porte Neuve, which Claude was in time to witness, was a centre of fierce and deadly fighting. Anne dared not leave her mother, who, strange to say, slept through the early alarms; and it was bowed on the edge of her mother's bed--that bed beside which she had tasted so much of happiness and so much of grief--that she pa.s.sed, not knowing what the turning page might show, the first hour of anxiety and suspense.

The report of a shot shook her frame. A scream stabbed her like a knife.

Lower and lower she thrust her face amid the bed-clothes, striving to shut out sound and knowledge; or, woman-like, she raised her pale, beseeching face that she might listen, that she might hope. If he fell would they tell her? And how he fell, and where? Or would they hold her strange to him? Would she never hear?

Suddenly her mother opened her eyes, lay a while listening, then slowly sat up and looked at her. Anne saw the awakening alarm in the dear face, that in some mysterious way recalled its youth; and she fancied that to her other troubles, the misery of one of the old paroxysms was going to be added. At such an hour, with such sounds of terror filling the night, with such a glare dancing on the ceiling the first attack had come on, years before. Then the alarm had been fict.i.tious; to-night the calamity which the poor woman had imagined, was happening with every circ.u.mstance of peril and alarm.

But Madame Royaume's face, though anxious and serious, retained to an astonishing extent its sanity. Whether the strange dream which she had had earlier in the night had prepared her for the state of things to which she awoke, or the weeks and months which had elapsed since that old alarm of fire dropped in some inexplicable way from her--and as one shock had upset, another restored the balance of her mind--certain it is that Anne, watching her with a painful interest, found her sane. Nor did Madame Royaume's first words dispel the impression.

"They hold out?" she asked, grasping her daughter's hand and pressing it. "They hold out?"

"Yes, yes, they hold out," Anne answered, hoping to soothe her. And she patted the hand that clasped hers. "Have no fear, dear, all will go well."

"If they have faith and hold out," the aged woman replied, listening to the strange medley of sounds that rose to them.