From the Memoirs of a Minister of France

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I confess that, at sight and thought of these things--of this
country so devoured, the King's authority so contemned, all evils
laid at his door, all his profits diverted--my anger burned
within me, and I said more to Parabere than was perhaps prudent,
telling him, in particular, what I designed against Bareilles, of
whose double-dealing I needed no further proof; by what means I
proposed to lull his suspicions for the moment, since we must lie
at Gueret, and how I would afterwards, on the first occasion,
have him seized and punished.

I forgot, while I avowed these things, that one weakness of
Parabere's character which rendered him unable to believe evil of
anyone. Even of Bareilles, though the two were the merest
acquaintances, he could only think indulgently, because,
forsooth, he too was a Protestant. He began to defend him
therefore, and, seeing how the ground lay, after a time I let the
matter drop.

Still I did not think that he bad been serious in his plea, and
that which happened on the following morning took me completely
by surprise. We had left Crozant an hour, and I was considering
whether, the road being bad, we should even now reach Gueret
before night, when Parabere, who had made some excuse to ride
forward, returned, to me with signs of embarrassment in his
manner.

"My friend," he said, "here is a message from Bareilles."

"How?" I exclaimed. "A message? For whom?"

"For you," he said; "the man is here."

"But how did Bareilles know that I was coming?" I asked.

Parabere's confusion furnished me with the answer before he
spoke. "Do not be angry, my friend," he said. "I wanted to do
Bareilles a good turn. I saw that you were enraged with him, and
I thought that I could not help him better than by suggesting to
him to come and meet you in a proper spirit, and make the
explanations which I am sure that he has it in his power to make.
Yesterday morning, therefore, I sent to him."

"And he is here?" I said drily.

Parabere admitted with a blush that he was not. His messenger
had found Bareilles on the point of starting against a band of
plunderers who had ravaged the country for a twelvemonth. He had
sent me the most; civil messages therefore--but he had not come.
"However, he will be at Gueret to-morrow," Parabere added
cheerfully.

"Will he?" I said.

"I will answer for it," he answered. "In the meantime, he has
done what he can for our comfort."

"How?" I said,

"He bids us not to attempt the last three leagues to Gueret to-
night; the road is too bad. But to stay at Saury, where there is
a good inn, and to-morrow morning he will meet us there."

"If the brigands have not proved too much for him," I said.

"Yes," Parabere answered, with a simplicity almost supernatural.
"To be sure."

After this, it was no use to say anything to him, though his
officiousness would have justified the keenest reproaches. I
swallowed my resentment, therefore, and we went on amicably
enough, though the valley of the Creuse, in its upper and wilder
part, through which our road now wound, offered no objects of a
kind to soften my anger against the governor. I saw enough of
ruins, of blocked defiles, and overgrown roads; but of returning
prosperity and growing crops, and the King's peace, I saw no
sign--not so much as one dead robber.

About noon we alighted to eat a little at a wretched tavern by
one of the innumerable fords. A solitary traveller who was here
before us, and for a time kept aloof, wearing a grand and
mysterious manner with a shabby coat, presently moved; edging
himself up to me where I sat a little apart, eating with Parabere
and my gentlemen.

"Sir," he said, on a sudden and without preface, "I see that you
are the leader of this party."

As I was more plainly dressed than Parabere, and had been giving
no orders, I wondered how he knew; but I answered, without any
remark, "Well, sir; and what of that?"

"You are in great danger," he replied.

"I?" I said.

"Yes, sir; you!" he answered.

"You know me?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Not I," he said, "but those who
speak by me. Enough that you are in danger."

"From what?" I asked sceptically; while my companions stared,
and the troopers and servants, who were just within hearing,
listened open-mouthed.

"A one-eyed woman and a one-eyed house," he answered darkly.
Then, before I could frame a question, he turned from me as
abruptly as he had come, and, mounting a sorry mare that stood
near, stumbled away through the ford.

It required little wit to see that the man was an astrologer, and
one whose predictions, if they had not profited his clients more
than himself, had been ominous indeed. I was inclined,
therefore, to make sport of him, knowing that the pretenders to
that art are to the true men as ten to one. But his words, and
particularly the fact that he had asked for nothing, had
impressed my followers differently; so that they talked of
nothing else while we ate, and could still be heard discussing
him in the saddle. The wildness of the road and the gloomy
aspect of the valley had doubtless some effect on their minds;
which a thunderstorm that shortly afterwards overtook us and
drenched us to the skin did not tend to lighten. I was glad to
see the roofs of Saury before us; though, on a nearer approach,
we found all the houses except the inn ruined and tenantless; and
even, that scorched and scarred, with the great gate that had
once closed its courtyard prostrate in the road before it.

However, in view of the country we had come through, and the
general desolation, we were thankful to find things no worse.
The village stood at the entrance to a gorge, with the Creuse--
here a fast-rushing stream--running at the back of the inn. The
latter was of good size, stone-built and tiled, and, at first,
seemed to be empty; but the servants presently unearthed a man
and then a boy. Fires were lit, and the horses stabled; and a
second room with a chimney being found, Parabere and I, with
Colet and my gentlemen, took possession of it, leaving the
kitchen to my following.

I had had my boots removed, and was drying my clothes and
expecting supper, when Boisrueil, who was beside me, uttered an
exclamation of amazement.

"What is it?" I said.

He did not answer, and I followed his eyes. A woman had just
entered the room with a bundle of sticks. She had one eye!

I confess that, for an instant, this staggered me; but a moment's
thought reminded me that the astrologer had come from this inn to
us, and I smiled at the credulity which would have built on a
coincidence that was no coincidence. When the woman had retired
again, therefore, I rallied Boisrueil on his timidity; but,
though he admitted the correctness of my reasoning, I saw that he
was not entirely convinced. He started whenever a shutter
flapped, or the draughts, which searched the grim old building
through and through, threatened to extinguish our lights. He
hung cloaks over the windows to obviate the latter inconvenience
he said--and was continually going out and coming back with
gloomy looks. Parabere joined me in rallying him, which we did
without mercy; but when I had occasion, after a while, to pass
through the outer room I found that he was not alone in his
fears. The troopers sat moodily listening, or muttered together;
while the cup passed round in silence. When I bade a man go on
an errand to the stable, four went; and when I dropped a word to
the woman who was attending to her pot, a dozen heads were
stretched out to catch the answer.

Such a feeling--to which, in this instance, the murmur of the
stream and the steady downpour of rain doubtless added something
--is so contagious that I was not surprised to find Colet and La
Font sinking under it. Only Parabere, in fact, rose quite
superior to the notion, laughed at their fears, and drank to
their better spirits; and, making the best of the situation, as
became an old soldier, presently engaged me in tales of the war--
fought again the siege of Laon, and buried men whose bodies bad
lain for ten years under the oaks at Fontaine Francoise.

Talk of this kind, which we still maintained after we had
despatched our supper, was sufficiently engrossing to erase
Boisrueil's fancies entirely from my mind. They were recalled by
his sudden entrance, with Colet at his elbow, the faces of both
full of importance. I saw that they had something to say, and
asked what it was.

"We have been examining the back gate, M. le Marquis," Colet
said.

"Well, man?"

"It is barricaded, and cannot be opened," he answered.

"Well," I said again, "there is nothing wonderful in that.
Anyone can see that there has been rough work here. The front
gate was stormed, I suppose, and the back one left standing."

"But if is so barricaded that it is not possible to open it," he
objected. "And the men have an idea--"

"Well?" I said, seeing that he hesitated.

"That this is a one-eyed house."

Parabere laughed loudly. "Of course it is!" he said. "That
strolling rogue saw the gate as well as the woman, and made his
profit of them."

"Pardon, sir!" Boisrueil answered bluntly, "That is just what he
did not do!"

"Well," I said, silencing him by a gesture, "is that all?"

"No," he replied; "I have tasted the men's wine."

"And it is drugged?"

"No," he said. "On the contrary, it is a great deal too good for
the price--or the house. And you ordered a litre apiece. Some
have had two, and not asked twice for it!"

"Ho, ho!" I said, staring at him. "Are you sure of that?"

"Quite!" he said.

I was genuinely startled at last; but Parabere still made light
of it. "What!" he said. "Are we a pack of nervous women, or
one poor traveller in a solitary inn, that we see shadows and
shake at them?"

"The inn is solitary enough," Boisrueil grumbled.

"But we are twenty swords!" Parabere retorted, opening his eyes
wide. "Why, I have ridden all day in an enemy's country with
less!"

"And been beaten with more at Craon."

"But, man alive, that was in a battle, and by an army!"

"Well, and there may be a battle and an army here," Boisrueil
answered sulkily,

I was inclined to laugh at this as extravagance; but seeing that
La Font and Colet sided with Boisrueil, I remembered that the
latter was no coward though a great gossip; and I thought better
of it. Accordingly, resolving to look into the thing myself, I
bade La Font fetch a couple of lanthorns, and, when he had done
so, went out with him and Boisrueil as if I had a mind to go
round the horses before I retired. Parabere declined to
accompany me on the ground that he would not be at the pains of
it; and Colet I left in the kitchen to keep an eye on the man and
woman.

There was no moon, rain was still falling, and the yard, crowded
with steaming, shivering horses, was dreary enough where the
lanthorns displayed it; but, accustomed to such a sight, I made,
without regarding it, for the gate, which a moment's examination
showed to be barricaded, as they had described, with great beams
and stones. In this there was nothing beyond the ordinary, one
entrance to a house being in troublous times better than two; but
Boisrueil, bidding me kneel and look lower, I found, when I did
so, that the soil under the beams--which did not touch the ground
by some inches--was wet, and I began to understand. When he
asked me at what hour rain had begun to fall, I answered two in
the afternoon, and drew at once the inference at which he aimed--
that the beams had been put there, and the gate barricaded, at
some later hour.

"We reached here at six," he said; "it was done some time between
two and six, my lord; therefore to-day. To-day," he repeated in
a low voice; "and by a dozen men at least, Fewer could not move
those beams."

"And the object?"

"To prevent our escape."

"But who are they?" I said, looking at him.

"The woman knows," he answered. "We must ask her, my lord."

I assented; and we went back into the house, where it would not
have surprised me if we had found the wretches flown and the nest
empty. But Colet had done his work too well. They were both
there, and, in a moment, at a signal from Boisrueil, were secured
and pinioned. Parabere, hearing the scuffle, came out and would
have remonstrated, but I silenced him with a sharp word; and,
despatching La Font with a couple of discreet men to keep watch
in the court that we might not be surprised, I bade one of the
servants throw some fir-cones on the fire. These, blazing up,
filled the squalid room in a moment with a glare of light, which
revealed alike the livid faces of the two prisoners and the
excited looks and dark countenances of my escort.

I bade them put the woman forward first, and addressed her
sternly, telling her that I knew all, and that she would do well
to confess; inasmuch as if she made a clean breast of the matter,
I would grant her her life, and if she did not, she would be the
first to die, since I would hang her were a single shot fired
against the house.

The promise found her unmoved, but the threat, uttered in a tone
which showed that I was in earnest, proved more effectual. With
an ugly look, under which my men shrank as if her eye had power
to scorch them, the hag said that she would confess, and, with
impotent rage, admitted the truth of Boisrueil's surmises. The
rearward gate had been barricaded that afternoon by the Great
Band, who had had notice of our coming, and intended to attack us
at midnight. I asked her how many they mustered.

"A hundred," she answered sullenly.

"Very well," I said. "And, supposing that we do not wait for
them, how shall we escape? By the road to Gueret?"

"Fifty lie in ambush on it."

"By the road by which we came?"

"The other fifty lie there."

"Across the river?"

"There is no ford."

"Then in the village? If we seize some other building?"

"The village is watched, and this house," she answered, with a
sparkle of joy in her eye.

At that the position began to assume so serious an aspect that I
turned to Parabere to take his advice. We numbered twenty in
all, and were well armed; but five to one are large odds, and we
had little ammunition, while, for all we knew, the house might be
fired with ease from the outside. The roads north and south
being occupied, and the river enclosing us on the west, there
remained only one direction in which escape seemed possible; but,
as we knew nothing of the country, and the brigands everything,
the desperate idea of plunging into it blindly, at night, and
with pursuers at our heels, was dismissed as soon as formed.

Parabere interrupted these calculations by drawing me aside into
the room in which we had supped, where, after rallying me on the
whimsical notion of the Grand Master of the Ordnance and Governor
of the Bastile being besieged in a paltry inn, he confessed that
he had been wrong, and that the adventure was likely to prove
serious. "Ten to one this is the very band that Bareilles is
pursuing," he said.

"Very likely," I answered bluntly; "but the question is how are
we to evade them. Are we to fight or fly?"

"Well, for lighting," he replied coolly; "the front gate lies in
the road, there are no shutters to half the windows, the door is
crazy, and there is a thatched pent-house against one wall."

"And no help-nearer than Gueret."

"Three leagues," he assented. "And from that we are cut off.
Fifty men in the gorge might hold it against five hundred.
Better man the courtyard here than that, tether the horses in the
gateway, and fight it out." "Perhaps so," I said; and we looked
at one another, hearing through the open door the men muttering
and whispering in the kitchen, and above their voices the dull
murmur of the stream, which seemed of a piece with the bleak
night outside, the ruined hamlet, and the danger that lurked
round us. Bitterly repenting the hardihood that had led me to
expose myself to such risks in breach of the King's commandment,
I found it difficult to direct my mind to the immediate question.
So many reflections connected with my mission at Chatelherault
and other affairs of state would intrude that I seemed to be
occupied rather with the results of my death at this juncture,
and particularly the injury which it must inflict on the King's
service, than with the question how I could escape.

However, Parabere soon recalled me to the point. "It is now ten
o'clock," he said in a placid tone; "we have two hours."

"Yes," I answered; then, as if my mind had all the time been
running in an under-current to the desired goal, I continued,
"And we must make the most of them. We must remove the
barricade, in the dark and quietly, from the rear to the front
gate. Do you see? Then the moment they sound the attack in
front we must slip out at the back, make a dash for the road, and
through the gorge to Gueret."

"Good," Parabere assented, with the utmost coolness. "Why not?
Let us do it."

We went in, and in a moment the orders were given, and, the men
being charged to be silent and to make as little noise as
possible over the work, we had every hope of accomplishing it
undetected. To go out into the road and raise and replace the
shattered gate would have been too bold a step. We contented
ourselves, therefore, with removing four great baulks of timber
from the one gate to the other, and placing them across the gap
in such a manner that, being supported by large stones, they
formed a pretty high barrier. To these, at Boisrueil's
suggestion, were added three doors which we forced from their
hinges in the house, and behind the whole, to cover our retreat
the better, we tethered six sumpter horses in two lines.

It remained only to unbar the rear gate and see that it opened
easily. This being done, as we had done all the rest, stealthily
and in darkness, and by men who dared not speak above a whisper,
I gave the word to hang the male prisoner and gag and bind the
woman. Colet undertook these duties, and with a grim humour of
his own hung the rascally host on the threshold where the
brigands must run against him when they entered. Then I directed
every man to saddle and bridle his nag and stand by it, and so we
waited with what patience we might for the DENOUEMENT.

It seemed very long in coming, yet when it did, what with the
restless movements of the horses and the melancholy murmur of the
stream, it well-nigh took us by surprise. It was Boisrueil who
touched my sleeve and made me aware of a low trampling on the
road outside, a sound that had scarcely become clearly audible
before it ceased. I judged that the moment was come, and passed
the word in a whisper to open the gates. Unfortunately, they
creaked, and I feared for a moment that I had been premature; but
before they were more than ajar a harsh whistle startled the
silence, a flare blazed up on the road, and a voice cried to
charge.

On the instant the ground shook under the assailants' rush, but
the barricade, which doubtless took the rogues by surprise,
brought them to a sudden stop, and gave us time to file out. The
heavy rain which was failing served to cover our movements almost
as well as the baggage horses which we had posted for the
purpose; while we ran the less risk, inasmuch as the flare they
had kindled lit up the upper part of the house but left the
courtyard in perfect darkness.

Naturally, once outside, we did not linger to see what happened,
but, filing in a line and like ghosts up the bank of the stream,
were glad to hit on the road a hundred and fifty paces away,
where it entered the gorge. Here, where it was as dark as pitch,
we whipped our horses into a canter and made a good pace for half
a league, then, drawing rein, let our horses trot until the
league was out. By that time we were through the gorge, and I
gave the word to pull up, that we might listen and learn whether
we were pursued. Before the order had quite brought us to a
standstill, however, two figures on a sudden rose out of the
darkness before us and barred the way. I was riding in the front
rank, abreast of Parabere and La Font, and I had just time to lay
my hand on a pistol when one of the figures spoke.

"Well, M. le Capitaine, what luck?" he cried, advancing, and
drawing rein to turn with us.

I saw his mistake, and, raising my hand to check those behind,
muttered in my beard that all had gone well.

"You got the man?"

"Yes," I said, peering at him through the darkness.

"Good!" he answered. "Then now for Bareilles, supper, and a
full purse; and afterwards, for me, the quietest corner of
France! The King will make a fine outcry, and I do not trust one
gov--"

In a flash Parabere had him by the throat, and dragged him in a
grip of iron on to the withers of his horse. Still he managed to
utter a cry, and the other rascal, taking the alarm, whipped his
horse round, and in a second got a start of twenty paces. Colet,
a light man and well mounted, was after him in a trice, and we
heard them go ding-dong, ding-dong, through the darkness for a
mile or more as it seemed to us. Then a sharp scream came
faintly down the wind.

"Good!" Parabere said cheerfully. "Let us be jogging." He had
tied his prisoner neck and knees over the saddle before him.

"You heard what he said?" I muttered, as we moved on.

"Perfectly," he answered in the same tone.

"And you think?"

"I think, Grand Master," he replied drily, "that the sooner you
are out of La Marche and Bareilles' government the longer you are
likely to live."

I was quite of that opinion myself, having drawn the same
inferences from the words the prisoner had uttered. But for the
moment I had no alternative save to go on, and put a bold face on
the matter; and accordingly I led the way forward at as fast a
pace as the darkness and the jaded state of our horses permitted.
Colet presently joined us, and half an hour later a bunch of
lights which appeared on the side of a hill in front proclaimed
that we were nearing Gueret. From this point half a league
across a rushy bottom and through a ford brought us to the gate,
which opened before we summoned it. I had taken care to call to
the van one of my men who knew the town; and he guided us
quickly, no one challenging us, through a number of foul, narrow
streets and under dark archways, among which a stranger must have
gone astray. We reached at last a good-sized square, on one side
of which--though the rest of the town lay buried in darkness--a
large building, which I judged to be Bareilles' residence,
exposed a dozen lighted windows to the street. Two or three
figures lounged half-seen on the wide stone steps which led up to
the entrance, and the rattle of dice, with a murmur of voices,
came from the windows. Without a moment's hesitation I
dismounted at the foot of the steps, and, bidding La Font and
Boisrueil attend me, with three of the servants, I directed Colet
to withdraw with the rest and the horses to the farther end of
the square.

Dreading nothing so much as that I might lose the advantage of
surprise, I put aside two of the men on the steps who would have
questioned me, and strode boldly across the stone landing at the
head of the flight. Here I found two doors facing me, and
foresaw the possibility of error; but I was relieved from the
burden of choosing by the sudden appearance at one of them of
Bareilles himself. The place was lit only by an oil lamp, and,
for a reason best known to himself, he did not look directly at
me, but stood with his head half-turned as he said,

"Well, Martin, is it done?"

I heard the dicers hold their hands to catch the answer, and in
the silence a bottle in some unsteady hand clinked against a
glass. Through the half-open door behind him it was possible to
see a long table, laid and glittering with steel and plate; and
all seemed to wait.

Parabere broke the spell. "We are late!" he said in a ringing
voice, which startled the governor as if it had been the voice of
doom. "But we could not have found you better prepared, it
seems. Do you always sup as late as this?"

For a moment the villain could not speak, but leaned against the
doorpost, with his cheeks gone white and his jaw fallen, the most
pitiable spectacle to be conceived. I affected to see nothing,
however, but went by him easily, and into the room, drawing off
my gauntlets as entered. The dicers, from their seats beside a
table on the hearth, gazed at me, turned to stone. I took up a
glass, filled it, and drank it off. "Now I am better!" I said.
"But this is not the warmest of welcomes, M. de Bareilles."

He muttered something, looking fearfully from one to another of
us; and, his hand shaking, filled a glass and pledged me. The
wine gave him courage and impudence: he began to speak; and
though his hurried sentences and excited manner must have
betrayed him to the least suspicious, we pretended to see
nothing, but rather to congratulate ourselves on his late hours
and timely preparations. And certainly nothing could have seemed
more cheerful in comparison with the squalid inn and miry road
from which we came than this smiling feast; if death had not
seemed to my eyes to lurk behind it.

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