The Red Cockade Part 12

"Perhaps you will take his place," some one behind me said with a sneer.

I turned sharply. One of the two persons whom we had found with St. Alais was the speaker. I saluted him. "The surgeon?" I said.

"No," he answered angrily. "I am M. du Marc, and very much at your service."

"But not a second," I rejoined. "And, therefore, you have no right to be standing where you are, nor to be here. I must request you to withdraw."

"I have at least as much right as those," he answered, pointing to the roof of the Cathedral, over the battlements of which a number of heads could be seen peering down at us.

I stared.

"Our friends have at least as much right as yours," he continued, taunting me.

"But they do not interfere," I answered firmly. "Nor shall you. I request you to withdraw."

He still refused, and even tried to bl.u.s.ter; but this proved too much for Louis' stomach; he intervened sharply, and at a word from him the bully shrugged his shoulders and moved away. Then we four looked at one another.

"We had better proceed," the Captain said bluntly. "If the stroke was irregular, this gentleman was right to interfere. If not----"

"I am willing," M. de St. Alais said. And in a moment the two fell on guard, and to it again; but more fiercely now, and with less caution, the Captain more than once using a rough, sweeping parry, in greater favour with practical fighters than in the fencing school. This, though it left him exposed to a riposte, seemed to disconcert M. le Marquis, who fenced, I thought, less skilfully than before, and more than once seemed to be flurried by the Captain's attack. I began to feel doubtful of the result, my heart began to beat more quickly, the glitter of the blades as they slid up and down one another confused my sight. I looked for one moment across at Louis--and in that moment the end came. M. le Capitaine used again his sweeping parry, but this time the circle was too wide; St. Alais' blade darted serpent-like under his. The Captain staggered back. His sword dropped from his hand.

Before he could fall I caught him in my arms, but blood was gushing already from a wound in the side of his neck. He just turned his eyes to my face, and tried once to speak. I caught the words, "You will----" and then blood choked his voice, and his eyes slowly closed. He was dead, or as good as dead, before the surgeon could reach him, before I could lay him on the gra.s.s.

I knelt a moment beside him perfectly stunned by the suddenness of the catastrophe; watching in a kind of fascination the surgeon feeling pulse and heart, and striving with his thumb to stop the bleeding. For a moment or two my world was reduced to the sinking grey face, the quivering eyelids before me, and I saw nothing, heeded nothing, thought of nothing else. I could not believe that the valiant spirit had fled already; that the stout man who had so quickly yet insensibly won my liking was in this moment dead; dead and growing livid, while the pigeons still circled overhead, and the sparrows chirped, and the fountain tinkled in the sunshine.

I cried out in my agony. "Not dead?" I said. "Not dead so soon?"

"Yes, M. le Vicomte, it was bad luck," the surgeon answered, letting the pa.s.sive head fall on the stained gra.s.s. "With such a wound nothing can be done."

He rose as he spoke; but I remained on my knees, wrapt and absorbed; staring at the glazing eyes that a few minutes before had been full of life and keenness. Then with a shudder I turned my look on myself. His blood covered me; it was on my breast, my arm, my hands, soaking into my coat. From it my thoughts turned to St. Alais, and at the moment, as I looked instinctively round to see where he was, or if he had gone, I started. The deep boom of a heavy bell, tolled once, shook the air; while its solemn burden still hung mournfully on the ear, quick footsteps ran towards me, and I heard a harsh cry at my elbow. "But, mon Dieu! This is murder! They are murdering us!"

I looked behind me. The speaker was Du Marc, the bully who had vainly tried to provoke me. The two St. Alais and the surgeon were with him, and all four came from the direction of the door by which we had entered. They pa.s.sed me with averted eyes, and hurried towards a little postern which flanked the old tower, and opened on the ramparts. As they went out of sight behind a b.u.t.tress that intervened the bell boomed out again above my head, its dull note full of menace.

Then I awoke and understood; understood that the noise which filled my ears was not the burden of the bell carried on from one deep stroke to another, but the roar of angry voices in the square, the babel of an approaching crowd crying: "A la lanterne! A la lanterne!" From the battlements of the Cathedral, from the louvres of the domes, from every window of the great gloomy structure that frowned above me, men were making signs, and pointing with their hands, and brandishing their fists--at me, I thought at first, or at the body at my feet. But then I heard footsteps again, and I turned and found the other four behind me, close to me; the two St. Alais pale and stern, with bright eyes, the bully pale, too, but with a look which shot furtively here and there, and white lips.

"Curse them, they are at that door, too!" he cried shrilly. "We are beset. We shall be murdered. By G.o.d, we shall be murdered, and by these canaille! By these--I call all here to witness that it was a fair fight! I call you to witness, M. le Vicomte, that----"

"It will help us much," St. Alais said with a sneer, "if he does. If I were once at home----"

"Ay, but how are we to get there?" Du Marc cried. He could not hide his terror. "Do you understand," he continued querulously, addressing me, "that we shall be murdered? Is there no other door? Speak, some one. Speak!"

His fears appealed to me in vain. I would scarcely have stirred a finger to save him. But the sight of the two St. Alais standing there pale and irresolute, while that roar of voices grew each moment louder and nearer, moved me. A moment, and the mob would break in; perhaps finding us by Hugues' side, it might in its fury sacrifice all indifferently. It might; and then I heard, to give point to the thought, the crash of one of the doors of the garden as it gave way; and I cried out almost involuntarily that there was another door--another door, if it was open. I did not look to see if they followed, but, leaving the dead, I took the lead, and ran across the sward towards the wall of the Cathedral.

The crowd were already pouring into the garden, but a clump of shrubs hid us from them as we fled; and we gained unseen a little door, a low-browed postern in the wall of the apse, that led, I knew--for not long before I had conducted an English visitor over the Cathedral--to a sacristy connected with the crypt. My hope of finding the door open was slight; if I had stayed to weigh the chances I should have thought them desperate. But to my joy as I came up to it, closely followed by the others, it opened of itself, and a priest, showing his tonsured head in the aperture, beckoned to us to hasten. He had little need to do so; in a moment we had obeyed, were by his side, and panting, heard the bolts shoot home behind us. For the moment we were safe.

Then we breathed again. We stood in the twilight of a long narrow room with walls and roof of stone, and three loopholes for windows. Du Marc was the first to speak. "Mon Dieu, that was close," he said, wiping his brow, which in the cold light wore an ugly pallor. "We are----"

"Not out of the wood yet," the surgeon answered gravely, "though we have good grounds for thanking M. le Vicomte. They have discovered us! Yes, they are coming!"

Probably the people on the roof had watched us enter and denounced our place of refuge; for as he spoke, we heard a rush of feet, the door shook under a storm of blows, and a score of grimy savage faces showed at the slender arrow-slits, and glaring down, howled and spat curses upon us. Luckily the door was of oak, studded and plated with iron, fashioned in old, rough days for such an emergency, and we stood comparatively safe. Yet it was terrible to hear the cries of the mob, to feel them so close, to gauge their hatred, and know while they beat on the stone as though they would tear the walls with their naked hands, what it would be to fall into their power!

We looked at one another, and--but it may have been the dim light--I saw no face that was not pale. Fortunately the pause was short. The Cure who had admitted us, unlocked as quickly as he could an inner door. "This way," he said--but the snarling of the beasts outside almost drowned his voice--"if you will follow me, I will let you out by the south entrance. But, be quick, gentlemen, be quick," he continued, pushing us out before him, "or they may guess what we are about, and be there before us."

It may be imagined that after that we lost no time. We followed him as quickly as we could along a narrow subterranean pa.s.sage, very dimly lit, at the end of which a flight of six steps brought us into a second pa.s.sage. We almost ran along this, and though a locked door delayed us a moment--which seemed a minute, and a long one--the key was found and the door opened. We pa.s.sed through it, and found ourselves in a long narrow room, the counterpart of that we had first entered. The cure opened the farther door of this; I looked out. The alley outside, the same which led beside the Cathedral to the Chapter House, was empty.

"We are in time," I said, with a sigh of relief; it was pleasant to breathe the fresh air again. And I turned, still panting with the haste we had made, to thank the good Cure who had saved us.

M. de St. Alais, who followed me, and had kept silence throughout, thanked him also. Then M. le Marquis stood hesitating on the threshold, while I looked to see him hurry away. At last he turned to me. "M. de Saux," he said, speaking with less aplomb than was usual with him--but we were all agitated--"I should thank you also. But perhaps the situation in which we stand towards one another----"

"I think nothing of that," I answered harshly. "But that in which we have just stood----"

"Ah," he rejoined, shrugging his shoulders, "if you take it that way----"

"I do take it that way," I answered--the Captain's blood was not yet dry on the man's sword, and he spoke to me! "I do take it that way. And I warn you, M. le Marquis," I continued sternly, "that if you pursue your plan further, a plan that has already cost one brave man his life, it will recoil on yourselves, and that most terribly."

"At least I shall not ask you to shield me," he answered proudly. And he walked carelessly away, sheathing his sword as he went. The pa.s.sage was still empty. There was no one to stop him.

Louis followed him; Du Marc and the surgeon had already disappeared. I fancied that as Louis pa.s.sed me he hung a moment on his heel; and that he would have spoken to me, would have caught my eye, would have taken my hand, had I given him an opening. But I saw before me Hugues' dead face and sunken eyes, and I set my own face like a stone, and turned away.

CHAPTER XIII.

A LA LANTERNE.

For, of all the things that had happened since I left the Committee Room, the Captain's death remained the one most real and most deeply bitten into my mind. He had shared with me the walk from the inn to the garden, and the petty annoyances that had then filled my thoughts. He had faced them with me, and bravely; and this late a.s.sociation, and the picture of him as he walked beside me, full of life and coa.r.s.e wrath, rose up now and cried out against his death; cried out that it was impossible. So that it seemed horrible to me, and I shook with fear, and loathed the man whose hand had done it.

Nor was that all. I had known Hugues barely forty-eight hours, my liking for him was only an hour born; but I had his story. I could follow him going about to borrow the small sum of money he had possessed. I could trace the hopes he had built on it. I could see him coming here full of honest courage, believing that he had found an opening; a man strong, confident, looking forward, full of plans. And then of all, this was the end! He had hoped, he had purposed; and on the other side of the Cathedral, he lay stark--stark and dead on the gra.s.s.

It seemed so sad and pitiful, I had the man so vividly in my mind, that I scarcely gave a thought to the St. Alais' danger and escape; that, and our hasty flight, had pa.s.sed like a dream. I was content to listen a moment beside the church door; and then satisfied that the murmur of the crowd was dying in the distance, and that the city was quiet, I thanked the Vicar again, and warmly, and, taking leave of him, in my turn walked up the pa.s.sage.

It was so still that it echoed my footsteps; and presently I began to think the silence odd. I began to wonder why the mob, which a few minutes before had shown itself so vindictive, had not found its way round; why the neighbourhood had become on a sudden so quiet. A few paces would show, however; I hastened on, and in a moment stood in the market-place.

To my astonishment it lay sunny, tranquil, utterly deserted; a dog ran here and there with tail high, nosing among the garbage; a few old women were at the stalls on the farther side; about as many people were busy, putting up shutters and closing shops. But the crowd which had filled the place so short a time before, the queue about the corn measures, the white c.o.c.kades, all were gone; I stood astonished.

For a moment only, however. Then, in place of the silence which had prevailed between the high walls of the pa.s.sage, a dull sound, distant and heavy, began to speak to me; a sullen roar, as of breakers falling on the beach. I started and listened. A moment more, and I was across the Square, and at the door of the inn. I darted into the pa.s.sage, and up the stairs, my heart beating fast.

Here, too, I had left a crowd in the pa.s.sages, and on the stairs. Not a man remained. The house seemed to be dead; at noon-day with the sun shining outside. I saw no one, heard no one, until I reached the door of the room in which I had left the Committee and entered. Here, at last, I found life; but the same silence.

Round the table were seated some dozen of the members of the Committee. On seeing me they started, like men detected in an act of which they were ashamed, some continuing to sit, sullen and scowling, with their elbows on the table, others stooping to their neighbours' ears to whisper, or listen. I noticed that many were pale and all gloomy; and though the room was light, and hot noon poured in through three windows, a something grim in the silence, and the air of expectation which prevailed, struck a chill to my heart.

Father Benoit was not of them, but Baton was, and the lawyer, and the grocer, and the two gentlemen, and one of the Cures, and Doury--the last-named pale and cringing, with fear sitting heavily on him. I might have thought, at a first glance round, that nothing which had happened outside was known to them; that they were ignorant alike of the duel and the riot; but a second glance a.s.sured me that they knew all, and more than I did; so many of them, when they had once met my eyes, looked away.

"What has happened?" I asked, standing half-way between the door and the long table.

"Don't you know, Monsieur?"

"No," I muttered, staring at them. Even here that distant murmur filled the air.

"But you were at the duel, M. le Vicomte?" The speaker was Buton.

"Yes," I said nervously. "But what of that? I saw M. le Marquis safe on his way home, and I thought that the crowd had separated. Now--" and I paused, listening.

"You fancy that you still hear them?" he said, eying me closely and smiling.

"Yes; I fear that they are at mischief."

"We are afraid of that, too," the smith answered drily, setting his elbows on the table, and looking at me anew. "It is not impossible."

Then I understood. I caught Doury's eye--which would fain have escaped mine--and read it there. The hooting of the distant crowd rose more loudly on the summer stillness; as it did so, faces round the table grew graver, lips grew longer, some trembled and looked down; and I understood. "My G.o.d!" I cried in excitement, trembling myself. "Is no one going to do anything, then? Are you going to sit here, while these demons work their will? While houses are sacked and women and children----"

"Why not?" Buton said curtly.

"Why not?" I cried.

"Ay, why not?" he answered sternly--and I began to see that he dominated the others; that he would not and they dared not. "We went about to keep the peace, and see that others kept it. But your white c.o.c.kades, your gentlemen bullies, your soldierless officers, M. le Vicomte--I speak without offence--would not have it. They undertook to bully us; and unless they learn a lesson now, they will bully us again. No, Monsieur," he continued, looking round with a hard smile--already power had changed him wondrously--"let the people have their way for half an hour, and----"

"The people?" I cried. "Are the rascals and sweepings of the streets, the gaol-birds, the beggars and forcats of the town--are they the people?"

"No matter," he said frowning.

"But this is murder!"

Two or three shivered, and some looked sullenly from me, but the blacksmith only shrugged his shoulders. Still I did not despair, I was going to say more--to try threats, even prayers; but before I could speak, the man nearest to the windows raised his hand for silence, and we heard the distant riot sink, and in the momentary quiet which followed the sharp report of a gun ring out, succeeded by another and another. Then a roar of rage--distinct, articulate, full of menace.

"Oh, mon Dieu!" I cried, looking round, while I trembled with indignation, "I cannot stand this! Will no one act? Will no one do anything? There must be some authority. There must be some one to curb this canaille; or presently, I warn you, I warn you all, that they will cut your throats also; yours, M. l'Avoue, and yours, Doury!"

"There was some one; and he is dead," Buton answered. The rest of the Committee fidgeted gloomily.

"And was he the only one?"

"They've killed him," the smith said bluntly. "They must take the consequences."

"They?" I cried, in a pa.s.sion of wrath and pity. "Ay, and you! And you! I tell you that you are using this sc.u.m of the people to crush your enemies! But presently they will crush you too!"

Still no one spoke, no one answered me; no eyes met mine; then I saw how it was; that nothing I could say would move them; and I turned without another word, and I ran downstairs. I knew already, or could guess, whither the crowd had gone, and whence came the shouting and the shots; and the moment I reached the Square I turned in the direction of the St. Alais' house, and ran through the streets; through quiet streets under windows from which women looked down white and curious, past neat green blinds of modern houses, past a few staring groups; ran on, with all about me smiling, but always with that murmur in my ears, and at my heart grim fear.

They were sacking the St. Alais' house! And Mademoiselle! And Madame!

The thought of them came to me late; but having come it was not to be displaced. It gripped my heart and seemed to stop it. Had I saved Mademoiselle only for this? Had I risked all to save her from the frenzied peasants, only that she might fall into the more cruel hands of these maddened wretches, these sweepings of the city?

It was a dreadful thought; for I loved her, and knew, as I ran, that I loved her. Had I not known it I must have known it now, by the very measure of agony which the thought of that horror caused me. The distance from the Trois Rois to the house was barely four hundred yards, but it seemed infinite to me. It seemed an age before I stopped breathless and panting on the verge of the crowd, and strove to see, across the plain of heads, what was happening in front.

A moment, and I made out enough to relieve me; and I breathed more freely. The crowd had not yet won its will. It filled the street on either side of the St. Alais' house from wall to wall; but in front of the house itself, a s.p.a.ce was still kept clear by the fire of those within. Now and again, a man or a knot of men would spring out of the ranks of the mob, and darting across this open s.p.a.ce to the door, would strive to beat it in with axes and bars, and even with naked hands; but always there came a puff of smoke from the shuttered and loop-holed windows, and a second and a third, and the men fell back, or sank down on the stones, and lay bleeding in the sunshine.

It was a terrible sight. The wild beast rage of the mob, as they watched their leaders fall, yet dared not make the rush en ma.s.se which must carry the place, was enough, of itself, to appal the stoutest. But when to this and their fiendish cries were added other sounds as horrid--the screams of the wounded and the rattle of musketry--for some of the mob had arms, and were firing from neighbouring houses at the St. Alais' windows--the effect was appalling. I do not know why, but the sunshine, and the tall white houses which formed the street, and the very neatness of the surroundings, seemed to aggravate the bloodshed; so that for a while the whole, the writhing crowd, the open s.p.a.ce with its wounded, the ugly cries and curses and shots, seemed unreal. I, who had come hot-foot to risk all, hesitated; if this was Cahors, if this was the quiet town I had known all my life, things had come to a pa.s.s indeed. If not, I was dreaming.

But this last was a thought too wild to be entertained for more than a few seconds; and with a groan I thrust myself into the press, bent desperately on getting through and reaching the open s.p.a.ce; though what I should do when I got there, or how I could help, I had not considered. I had scarcely moved, however, when I felt my arm gripped, and some one clinging obstinately to me, held me back. I turned to resent the action with a blow,--I was beside myself; but the man was Father Benoit, and my hand fell. I caught hold of him with a cry of joy, and he drew me out of the press.

His face was pale and full of grief and consternation; yet by a wonderful chance I had found him, and I hoped. "You can do something!" I cried in his ear, gripping his hand hard. "The Committee will not act, and this is murder! Murder, man! Do you see?"

"What can I do?" he wailed; and he threw up his other hand with a gesture of despair.

"Speak to them."

"Speak to them?" he answered. "Will mad dogs stand when you speak to them? Or will mad dogs listen? How can you get to them? Where can you speak to them? It is impossible. It is impossible, Monsieur. They would kill their fathers to-day, if they stood between them and vengeance."

"Then, what will you do?" I cried pa.s.sionately. "What will you do?"

He shook his head; and I saw that he meant nothing, that he could do nothing. And then my soul revolted. "You must! You shall!" I cried fiercely. "You have raised this devil, and you must lay him! Are these the liberties about which you have talked to us? Are these the people for whom you have pleaded? Answer, answer me, what you will do!" I cried. And I shook him furiously.

He covered his face with his hand. "G.o.d forgive us!" he said. "G.o.d help us!"

I looked at him for the first and only time in my life with contempt--with rage. "G.o.d help you?" I cried--I was beside myself. "G.o.d helps those who help themselves! You have brought this about! You! You! You have preached this! Now mend it!"

He trembled, and was silent. Unsupported by the pa.s.sion which animated me, in face of the brute rage of the people, his courage sank.

"Now mend it!" I repeated furiously.

"I cannot get to them," he muttered.

"Then I will make a way for you!" I answered madly, recklessly. "Follow me! Do you hear that noise? Well, we will play a part in it!"

A dozen guns had gone off, almost in a volley. We could not see the result, nor what was pa.s.sing; but the hoa.r.s.e roar of the mob intoxicated me. I cried to him to follow, and rushed into the press.

Again he caught and stayed me, clinging to me with a stubbornness which would not be denied. "If you will go, go through the houses! Go through the opposite houses!" he muttered in my ear.

I had sense enough, when he had spoken twice, to understand him and comply. I let him lead me aside, and in a moment we were out of the press, and hurrying through an alley at the back of the houses that faced the St. Alais' mansion. We were not the first to go that way; some of the more active of the rioters had caught the idea before us, and gone by this path to the windows, whence they were firing. We found two or three of the doors open, therefore, and heard the excited cries and curses of the men who had taken possession. However, we did not go far. I chose the first door, and, pa.s.sing quickly by a huddled, panic-stricken group of women and children--probably the occupants of the house--who were cl.u.s.tered about it, I went straight through to the street door.

Two or three ruffianly men with smoke-grimed faces were firing through a window on the ground floor, and one of these, looking behind him as I pa.s.sed, saw me. He called to me to stop, adding with an oath that if I went into the street I should be shot by the aristocrats. But in my excitement I took no heed; in a second I had the door open, and was standing in the street--alone in the sunny, cleared s.p.a.ce. On either side of me, fifty paces distant, were the close ranks of the mob; in front of me rose the white blind face of the St. Alais' house, from which, even as I appeared, there came a little spit of smoke and the bang of a musket.

The crowd, astonished to see me there alone and standing still, fell silent, and I held up my hand. A gun went off above my head, and another; and a splinter flew from one of the green shutters opposite. Then a voice from the crowd cried out to cease firing; and for a moment all was still. I stood in the midst of a hot breathless hush, my hand raised. It was my opportunity--I had got it by a miracle; but for a moment I was silent, I could find no words.

At last, as a low murmur began to make itself heard, I spoke.

"Men of Cahors!" I cried. "In the name of the Tricolour, stand!" And trembling with agitation, acting on the impulse of the instant, I walked slowly across the street to the door of the besieged house, and under the eyes of all I took the Tricolour from my bosom, and hung it on the knocker of the door. Then I turned. "I take possession," I cried hoa.r.s.ely, at the top of my voice, that all might hear, "I take possession of this house and all that are in it in the name of the Tricolour, and the Nation, and the Committee of Cahors. Those within shall be tried, and justice done upon them. But for you, I call upon you to depart, and go to your homes in peace, and the Committee----"

I got no farther. With the word a shot whizzed by my ear, and struck the plaster from the wall; and then, as if the sound released all the pa.s.sions of the people, a roar of indignation shook the air. They hissed and swore at me, yelled "A la lanterne!" and "A bas le traitre!" and in an instant burst their bounds. As if invisible floodgates gave way, the mob on either side rushed suddenly forward, and, rolling towards the door in a solid ma.s.s, were in an instant upon me.

I expected that I should be torn to pieces, but instead I was only buffeted and flung aside and forgotten, and in a moment was lost in the struggling, writhing ma.s.s of men, who flung themselves pell-mell upon the door, and fell over one another, and wounded one another in the fury with which they attacked it. Men, injured earlier, were trodden under foot now; but no one stayed for their cries. Twice a gun was fired from the house, and each shot took effect; but the press was so great, and the fury of the a.s.sailants, as they swarmed about the door, so blind, that those who were hit sank down un.o.bserved, and perished under their comrades' feet.

Thrust against the iron railings that flanked the door, I clung to them, and protected from the pressure by a pillar of the porch, managed with some difficulty to keep my place. I could not move, however; I had to stand there while the crowd swayed round me, and I waited in dizzy, sickening horror for the crisis. It came at last. The panels of the door, riven and shattered, gave way; the foremost a.s.sailants sprang at the gap. Yet still the frame, held by one hinge, stood, and kept them out. As that yielded at length under their blows, and the door fell inward with a crash, I flung myself into the stream, and was carried into the house among the foremost, fortunately--for several fell--on my feet.