Under the Red Robe
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Stanley Weyman >> Under the Red Robe
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'Ten to one, a cave!' the Captain muttered. 'It is a likely
place.'
'And an ugly one!' I replied with a sneer. 'Which one against
ten might hold for hours!'
'If the ten had no pistols--yes!' he answered viciously. 'But
you see we have. Is he going that way?'
He was. As soon as this was clear, Larolle turned to his
comrade,
'Lieutenant,' he said, speaking in a low voice, though the
chafing of the stream below us covered ordinary sounds; 'what say
you? Shall we light the lanthorns, or press on while there is
still a glimmering of day?'
'On, I should say, M. le Capitaine,' the Lieutenant answered.
'Prick him in the back if he falters. I will warrant,' the brute
added with a chuckle, 'he has a tender place or two.'
The Captain gave the word and we moved forward. It was evident
now that the cliff-path was our destination. It was possible for
the eye to follow the track all the way to it, through rough
stones and brushwood; and though Clon climbed feebly, and with
many groans, two minutes saw us step on to it. It did not prove
to be, in fact, the perilous place it looked at a distance. The
ledge, grassy and terrace-like, sloped slightly downwards and
outwards, and in parts was slippery; but it was as wide as a
highway, and the fall to the water did not exceed thirty feet.
Even in such a dim light as now displayed it to us, and by
increasing the depth and unseen dangers of the gorge gave a kind
of impressiveness to our movements, a nervous woman need not have
feared to tread it, I wondered how often Mademoiselle had passed
along it with her milk-pitcher.
'I think that we have him now,' Captain Larolle muttered,
twisting his moustachios, and looking about to make his last
dispositions. 'Paul and Lebrun, see that your man makes no
noise. Sergeant, come forward with your carbine, but do not fire
without orders. Now, silence all, and close up, Lieutenant.
Forward!'
We advanced about a hundred paces, keeping the cliff on our left,
turned a shoulder, and saw, a few paces in front of us, a slight
hollow, a black blotch in the grey duskiness of the cliff-side.
The prisoner stopped, and, raising his bound hands, pointed to
it.
'There?' the Captain whispered, pressing forward. 'Is it the
place?'
Clon nodded. The Captain's voice shook with excitement.
'Paul and Lebrun remain here with the prisoner,' he said, in a
low tone. 'Sergeant, come forward with me. Now, are you ready?
Forward!'
At the word he and the sergeant passed quickly, one on either
side of Clon and his guards. The path grew narrow here, and the
Captain passed outside. The eyes of all but one were on the
black blotch, the hollow in the cliff-side, expecting we knew not
what--a sudden shot or the rush or a desperate man; and no one
saw exactly what happened. But somehow, as the Captain passed
abreast of him, the prisoner thrust back his guards, and leaping
sideways, flung his unbound arms round Larolle's body, and in an
instant swept him, shouting, to the verge of the precipice.
It was done in a moment. By the time our startled wits and eyes
were back with them, the two were already tottering on the edge,
looking in the gloom like one dark form. The sergeant, who was
the first to find his head, levelled his carbine, but, as the
wrestlers twirled and twisted, the Captain, shrieking out oaths
and threats, the mute silent as death, it was impossible to see
which was which, and the sergeant lowered his gun again, while
the men held back nervously. The ledge sloped steeply there, the
edge was vague, already the two seemed to be wrestling in mid
air; and the mute was desperate.
That moment of hesitation was fatal. Clon's long arms were round
the other's arms, crushing them into his ribs; Clon's skull-like
face grinned hate into the other's eyes; his bony limbs curled
round him like the folds of a snake. Larolle's strength gave
way.
'Damn you all! Why don't you come up?' he cried. And then,
'Ah! Mercy! mercy!' came in one last scream from his lips. As
the Lieutenant, taken aback before, sprang forward to his aid,
the two toppled over the edge, and in a second hurtled out of
sight.
'MON DIEU!' the Lieutenant cried; the answer was a dull splash
in the depths below. He flung up his arms. 'Water!' he said.
'Quick, men, get down. We may save him yet.'
But there was no path, and night was come, and the men's nerves
were shaken. The lanthorns had to be lit, and the way to be
retraced; by the time we reached the dark pool which lay below,
the last bubbles were gone from the surface, the last ripples had
beaten themselves out against the banks. The pool still rocked
sullenly, and the yellow light showed a man's hat floating, and
near it a glove three parts submerged. But that was all. The
mute's dying grip had known no loosening, nor his hate any fear.
I heard afterwards that when they dragged the two out next day,
his fingers were in the other's eye-sockets, his teeth in his
throat. If ever man found death sweet, it was he!
As we turned slowly from the black water, some shuddering, some
crossing themselves, the Lieutenant looked at me.
'Curse you!' he said passionately. 'I believe that you are
glad.'
He deserved his fate,' I answered coldly. 'Why should I pretend
to be sorry? It was now or in three months. And for the other
poor devil's sake I am glad.'
He glared at me for a moment in speechless anger.
At last, 'I should like to have you tied up!' he said between
his teeth.
'I should think that you had had enough of tying up for one day!'
I retorted. 'But there,' I went on contemptuously, 'it comes of
making officers out of the canaille. Dogs love blood. The
teamster must lash something if he can no longer lash his
horses.'
We were back, a sombre little procession, at the wooden bridge
when I said this. He stopped.
'Very well,' he replied, nodding viciously. 'That decides me.
Sergeant, light me this way with a lanthorn. The rest of you to
the village. Now, Master Spy,' he continued, glancing at me with
gloomy spite, 'Your road is my road. I think I know how to spoil
your game.'
I shrugged my shoulders in disdain, and together, the sergeant
leading the way with the light, we crossed the dim meadow, and
passed through the gate where Mademoiselle had kissed my hand,
and up the ghostly walk between the rose bushes. I wondered
uneasily what the Lieutenant would be at, and what he intended;
but the lanthorn-light which now fell on the ground at our feet,
and now showed one of us to the other, high-lit in a frame of
blackness, discovered nothing in his grizzled face but settled
hostility. He wheeled at the end of the walk to go to the main
door, but as he did so I saw the flutter of a white skirt by the
stone seat against the house, and I stepped that way.
'Mademoiselle?' I said softly. 'Is it you?'
'Clon?' she muttered, her voice quivering. 'What of him?'
'He is past pain,' I answered gently. 'He is dead--yes, dead,
Mademoiselle, but in his own way. Take comfort.'
She stifled a sob; then before I could say more, the Lieutenant,
with his sergeant and light, were at my elbow. He saluted
Mademoiselle roughly. She looked at him with shuddering
abhorrence.
'Are you come to flog me too, sir?' she said passionately. 'Is
it not enough that you have murdered my servant?'
'On the contrary, it was he who killed my Captain,' the
Lieutenant answered, in another tone than I had expected. 'If
your servant is dead so is my comrade.'
'Captain Larolle?' she murmured, gazing with startled eyes, not
at him but at me.
I nodded.
'How?' she asked.
'Clon flung the Captain and himself--into the river pool above
the bridge,' I said.
She uttered a low cry of awe and stood silent; but her lips moved
and I think that she prayed for Clon, though she was a Huguenot.
Meanwhile, I had a fright. The lanthorn, swinging in the
sergeant's hand, and throwing its smoky light now on the stone
seat, now on the rough wall above it, showed me something else.
On the seat, doubtless where Mademoiselle's hand had lain as she
sat in the dark, listening and watching and shivering, stood a
pitcher of food. Beside her, in that place, it was damning
evidence, and I trembled least the Lieutenant's eye should fall
upon it, lest the sergeant should see it; and then, in a moment,
I forgot all about it. The Lieutenant was speaking and his voice
was doom. My throat grew dry as I listened; my tongue stuck to
my mouth I tried to look at Mademoiselle, but I could not.
'It is true that the Captain is gone,' he said stiffly, 'but
others are alive, and about one of them a word with you, by your
leave, Mademoiselle. I have listened to a good deal of talk from
this fine gentleman friend of yours. He has spent the last
twenty-four hours saying "You shall!" and "You shall not!" He
came from you and took a very high tone because we laid a little
whip-lash about that dumb devil of yours. He called us brutes
and beasts, and but for him I am not sure that my friend would
not now be alive. But when he said a few minutes ago that he was
glad--glad of it, d--him!--then I fixed it in my mind that I
would be even with him. And I am going to be!'
'What do you mean?' Mademoiselle asked, wearily interrupting
him. 'If you think that you can prejudice me against this
gentleman--'
'That is precisely what I am going to do! And a little more than
that!' he answered.
'You will be only wasting your breath!' she retorted.
'Wait! Wait, Mademoiselle---until you have heard,' he said.
'For I swear to you that if ever a black-hearted scoundrel, a
dastardly sneaking spy trod the earth, it is this fellow! And I
am going to expose him. Your own eyes and your own ears shall
persuade you. I am not particular, but I would not eat, I would
not drink, I would not sit down with him! I would rather be
beholden to the meanest trooper in my squadron than to him! Ay,
I would, so help me Heaven!'
And the Lieutenant, turning squarely on his heel, spat on the
ground.
CHAPTER XI
THE ARREST
It had come, and I saw no way of escape. The sergeant was
between us and I could not strike him. And I found no words. A
score of times I had thought with shrinking how I should reveal
my secret to Mademoiselle--what I should say, and how she would
take it; but in my mind it had been always a voluntary act, this
disclosure, it had been always I who unmasked myself and she who
listened--alone; and in this voluntariness and this privacy there
had been something which took from the shame of anticipation.
But here--here was no voluntary act on my part, no privacy,
nothing but shame. And I stood mute, convicted, speechless,
under her eyes--like the thing I was.
Yet if anything could have braced me it was Mademoiselle's voice
when she answered him.
'Go on, Monsieur,' she said calmly, 'you will have done the
sooner.'
'You do not believe me?' he replied. 'Then, I say, look at him!
Look at him! If ever shame--'
'Monsieur,' she said abruptly--she did not look at me, 'I am
ashamed of myself.'
'But you don't hear me,' the Lieutenant rejoined hotly. 'His
very name is not his own! He is not Barthe at all. He is
Berault, the gambler, the duellist, the bully; whom if you--'
Again she interrupted him.
'I know it,' she said coldly. 'I know it all; and if you have
nothing more to tell me, go, Monsieur. Go!' she continued in a
tone of infinite scorn. 'Be satisfied, that you have earned my
contempt as well as my abhorrence.'
He looked for a moment taken aback. Then,--
'Ay, but I have more,' he cried, his voice stubbornly triumphant.
'I forgot that you would think little of that. I forgot that a
swordsman has always the ladies' hearts---but I have more. Do
you know, too, that he is in the Cardinal's pay? Do you know
that he is here on the same errand which brings us here--to
arrest M. de Cocheforet? Do you know that while we go about the
business openly and in soldier fashion, it is his part to worm
himself into your confidence, to sneak into Madame's intimacy, to
listen at your door, to follow your footsteps, to hang on your
lips, to track you--track you until you betray yourselves and the
man? Do you know this, and that all his sympathy is a lie,
Mademoiselle? His help, so much bait to catch the secret? His
aim blood-money--blood-money? Why, MORBLEU!' the Lieutenant
continued, pointing his finger at me, and so carried away by
passion, so lifted out of himself by wrath and indignation, that
I shrank before him--'you talk, lady, of contempt and abhorrence
in the same breath with me, but what have you for him--what have
you for him--the spy, the informer, the hired traitor? And if
you doubt me, if you want evidence, look at him. Only look at
him, I say.'
And he might say it; for I stood silent still, cowering and
despairing, white with rage and hate. But Mademoiselle did not
look. She gazed straight at the Lieutenant.
'Have you done?' she said.
'Done?' he stammered; her words, her air, bringing him to earth
again. 'Done? Yes, if you believe me.'
'I do not,' she answered proudly. 'If that be all, be satisfied,
Monsieur. I do not believe you.'
'Then tell me this,' he retorted, after a moment of stunned
surprise. 'Answer me this! Why, if he was not on our side, do
you think that we let him remain here? Why did we suffer him to
stay in a suspected house, bullying us, annoying us, thwarting
us, taking your part from hour to hour?'
'He has a sword, Monsieur,' she answered with fine contempt,
'MILLE DIABLES!' he cried, snapping his fingers in a rage.
'That for his sword! It was because he held the Cardinal's
commission, I tell you, because he had equal authority with us.
Because we had no choice.'
'And that being so, Monsieur, why are you now betraying him?'
she asked. He swore at that, feeling the stroke go home.
'You must be mad!' he said, glaring at her. 'Cannot you see
that the man is what I tell you? Look at him! Look at him, I
say! Listen to him! Has he a word to say for himself?'
Still she did not look.
'It is late,' she replied coldly. 'And I am not very well. If
you have done, quite done--perhaps, you will leave me, Monsieur.'
'MON DIEU! he exclaimed, shrugging his shoulders, and grinding
his teeth in impotent rage. You are mad! I have told you the
truth, and you will not believe it. Well--on your head be it
then, Mademoiselle. I have no more to say! You will see.'
And with that, without more, fairly conquered by her staunchness,
he saluted her, gave the word to the sergeant, turned and went
down the path.
The sergeant went after him, the lanthorn swaying in his hand.
And we two were left alone. The frogs were croaking in the pool,
a bat flew round in circles; the house, the garden, all lay quiet
under the darkness, as on the night which I first came to it.
And would to Heaven I had never come that was the cry in my
heart. Would to Heaven I had never seen this woman, whose
nobleness and faith were a continual shame to me; a reproach
branding me every hour I stood in her presence with all vile and
hateful names. The man just gone, coarse, low-bred, brutal
soldier as he was, manflogger and drilling-block, had yet found
heart to feel my baseness, and words in which to denounce it.
What, then, would she say, when the truth came home to her? What
shape should I take in her eyes then? How should I be remembered
through all the years then?
Then? But now? What was she thinking now, at this moment as she
stood silent and absorbed near the stone seat, a shadowy figure
with face turned from me? Was she recalling the man's words,
fitting them to the facts and the past, adding this and that
circumstance? Was she, though she had rebuffed him in the body,
collating, now he was gone, all that he had said, and out of
these scraps piecing together the damning truth? Was she, for
all that she had said, beginning to see me as I was? The thought
tortured me. I could brook uncertainty no longer. I went nearer
to her and touched her sleeve.
'Mademoiselle,' I said in a voice which sounded hoarse and
unnatural even in my own ears, 'do you believe this of me?'
She started violently, and turned.
'Pardon, Monsieur!' she murmured, passing her hand over her
brow; 'I had forgotten that you were here. Do I believe what?'
'What that man said of me,' I muttered.
'That!' she exclaimed. And then she stood a moment gazing at me
in a strange fashion. 'Do I believe that, Monsieur? But come,
come!' she continued impetuously. 'Come, and I will show you if
I believe it. But not here.'
She turned as she spoke, and led the way on the instant into the
house through the parlour door, which stood half open. The room
inside was pitch dark, but she took me fearlessly by the hand and
led me quickly through it, and along the passage, until we came
to the cheerful lighted hall, where a great fire burned on the
hearth. All traces of the soldiers' occupation had been swept
away. But the room was empty.
She led me to the fire, and there in the full light, no longer a
shadowy creature, but red-lipped, brilliant, throbbing with life
and beauty, she stood opposite me--her eyes shining, her colour
high, her breast heaving.
'Do I believe it?' she said in a thrilling voice. 'I will tell
you. M. de Cocheforet's hiding-place is in the hut behind the
fern-stack, two furlongs beyond the village on the road to Auch.
You know now what no one else knows, he and I and Madame
excepted. You hold in your hands his life and my honour; and you
know also, M. de Berault, whether I believe that tale.'
'My God!' I cried. And I stood looking at her until something
of the horror in my eyes crept into hers, and she shuddered and
stepped back from me.
'What is it? What is it?' she whispered, clasping her hands.
And with all the colour gone suddenly from her cheeks she peered
trembling into the corners and towards the door. 'There is no
one here.'
I forced myself to speak, though I was trembling all over like a
man in an ague. 'No, Mademoiselle, there is no one here,' I
muttered. 'There is no one here.' And then I let my head fall
on my breast, and I stood before her, the statue of despair. Had
she felt a grain of suspicion, a grain of doubt, my bearing must
have opened her eyes; but her mind was cast in so noble a mould
that, having once thought ill of me and been converted, she could
feel no doubt again. She must trust all in all. A little
recovered from her fright, she stood looking at me in great
wonder; and at last she had a thought--
'You are not well?' she said suddenly. 'It is your old wound,
Monsieur. Now I have it?'
'Yes, Mademoiselle,' I muttered faintly, 'it is.'
'I will call Clon!' she cried impetuously. And then, with a
sob: 'Ah! poor Clon! He is gone. But there is still Louis. I
will call him and he will get you something.'
She was gone from the room before I could stop her, and I stood
leaning against the table possessor at last of the secret which I
had come so far to win; able in a moment to open the door and go
out into the night, and make use of it--and yet the most unhappy
of men. The sweat stood on my brow; my eyes wandered round the
room; I turned towards the door, with some mad thought of flight
--of flight from her, from the house, from everything; and I had
actually taken a step towards this, when on the door, the outer
door, there came a sudden hurried knocking which jarred every
nerve in my body. I started, and stopped. I stood a moment in
the middle of the floor gazing at the door, as at a ghost. Then,
glad of action, glad of anything that might relieve the tension
of my feelings, I strode to it and pulled it sharply open.
On the threshold, his flushed face lit up by the light behind me,
stood one of the knaves whom I had brought with me to Auch. He
had been running, and panted heavily; but he had kept his wits,
and the instant I, appeared he grasped my sleeve.
'Ah! Monsieur, the very man!' he cried. 'Quick! come this
instant, lose not a moment, and you may yet be first. They have
the secret! The soldiers have found Monsieur!'
'Found him?' I echoed. 'M. de Cocheforet?'
'No; but they know the place where he lies. It was found by
accident. The Lieutenant was gathering his men when I came away.
If we are quick, we may yet be first.'
'But the place?' I said.
'I could not hear,' he answered bluntly. 'We must hang on their
skirts, and at the last moment strike in. It is the only way,
Monsieur.'
The pair of pistols I had taken from the shock-headed man lay on
a chest by the door. Without waiting for more I snatched them up
and my hat, and joined him, and in a moment we were running down
the garden. I looked back once before we passed the gate, and I
saw the light streaming out through the door which. I had left
open; and I fancied that for an instant a figure darkened the
gap. But the fancy only strengthened the one single purpose, the
iron resolve, which had taken possession of me and all my
thoughts. I must be first; I must anticipate the Lieutenant; I
must make the arrest myself. I must be first. And I ran on only
the faster.
We were across the meadow and in the wood in a moment. There,
instead of keeping along the common path, I boldly singled out--
my senses seemed to be preternaturally keen--the smaller trail by
which Clon had brought us. Along this I ran unfalteringly,
avoiding logs and pitfalls as by instinct, and following all its
turns and twists, until we came to the back of the inn, and could
hear the murmur of subdued voices in the village street, the
sharp low word of command, and the clink of weapons; and could
see over and between the houses the dull glare of lanthorns and
torches.
I grasped my man's arm, and crouched down listening. When I had
heard enough, 'Where is your mate?' I said in his ear.
'With them,' he muttered.
'Then come,' I whispered rising. 'I have seen what I want. Let
us go.'
But he caught me by the arm and detained me.
'You don't know the way,' he said. 'Steady, steady, Monsieur.
You go too fast. They are just moving. Let us join them, and
strike in when the time comes. We must let them guide us.'
'Fool!' I said, shaking off his hand. 'I tell you, I know where
he is! I know where they are going. Come, and we will pluck the
fruit while they are on the road to it.'
His only answer was an exclamation of surprise. At that moment
the lights began to move. The Lieutenant was starting. The moon
was not yet up, the sky was grey and cloudy; to advance where we
were was to step into a wall of blackness. But we had lost too
much already, and I did not hesitate. Bidding my companion
follow me and use his legs, I sprang through a low fence which
rose before us; then stumbling blindly over some broken ground in
the rear of the houses, I came with a fall or two to a little
watercourse with steep sides. Through this I plunged recklessly
and up the farther side, and, breathless and panting, gained the
road, beyond the village, and fifty yards in advance of the
Lieutenant's troop.
They had only two lanthorns burning, and we were beyond the
circle of light cast by these; while the steady tramp of so many
footsteps covered the noise we made. We were in no danger of
being noticed, and in a twinkling we turned our backs, and as
fast as we could we ran down the road. Fortunately, they were
thinking more of secrecy than speed, and in a minute we had
doubled the distance between them and us. In two minutes their
lights were mere sparks shining in the gloom behind us. We lost
even the tramp of their feet. Then I began to look out and go
more slowly, peering into the shadows on either side for the
fernstack.
On one hand the hill rose steeply, on the other it fell away to
the stream. On neither side was close wood, or my difficulties
had been immensely increased; but scattered oak trees stood here
and there among the bracken. This helped me, and presently, on
the upper side, I came upon the dense substance of the stack
looming black against the lighter hill.
My heart beat fast, but it was no time for thought. Bidding the
man in a whisper to follow me and be ready to back me up, I
climbed the bank softly, and, with a pistol in my hand, felt my
way to the rear of the stack, thinking to find a hut there, set
against the fern, and M. Cocheforet in it. But I found no hut.
There was none; and, moreover, it was so dark now we were off the
road, that it came upon me suddenly, as I stood between the hill
and the stack, that I had undertaken a very difficult thing. The
hut behind the fern stack. But how far behind? how far from it?
The dark slope stretched above us, infinite, immeasurable
shrouded in night. To begin to climb it in search of a tiny hut,
possibly well hidden and hard to find in daylight, seemed an
endeavour as hopeless as to meet with the needle in the hay! And
now while I stood, chilled and doubting, almost despairing, the
steps of the troop in the road began to grow audible, began to
come nearer.
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