Under the Red Robe
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Stanley Weyman >> Under the Red Robe
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'Do you mean to kidnap me?' I replied, in a rage.
But behind the rage was something else--I will not call
it terror, for the brave feel no terror but it was near
akin to it. I had had to do with rough men all my life,
but there was a grimness and truculence in the aspect of
these three that shook me. When I thought of the dark
paths and narrow lanes and cliff sides we must traverse,
whichever road we took, I trembled.
'Kidnap you, Monsieur?' he answered, with an every-day
air. 'That is as you please to call it. One thing is
certain, however,' he continued, maliciously touching an
arquebuss which he had brought out, and set upright
against a chair while I was at the door; if you attempt
the slightest resistance, we shall know how to put an
end to it, either here or on the road.'
I drew a deep breath, the very imminence of the danger
restoring me to the use of my faculties. I changed my
tone and laughed aloud.
'So that is your plan, is it?' I said. 'The sooner we
start the better, then. And the sooner I see Auch and
your back turned, the more I shall be pleased.'
He rose. 'After you, Monsieur,' he said.
I could not restrain a slight shiver. His new-born
politeness alarmed me more than his threats. I knew the
man and his ways, and I was sure that it boded ill to
me.
But I had no pistols, and only my sword and knife, and I
knew that resistance at this point must be worse than
vain. I went out jauntily, therefore, the landlord
coming after me with my saddle and bags.
The street was empty, save for the two waiting horsemen
who sat in their saddles looking doggedly before them,
The sun had not yet risen, the air was raw. The sky was
grey, cloudy, and cold. My thoughts flew back to the
morning on which I had found the sachet--at that very
spot, almost at that very hour, and for a moment I grew
warm again at the thought of the little packet I carried
in my boot. But the landlord's dry manner, the sullen
silence of his two companions, whose eyes steadily
refused to meet mine, chilled me again. For an instant
the impulse to refuse to mount, to refuse to go, was
almost irresistible; then, knowing the madness of such a
course, which might, and probably would, give the men
the chance they desired, I crushed it down and went
slowly to my stirrup.
'I wonder you do not want my sword,' I said by way of
sarcasm, as I swung myself up.
'We are not afraid of it,' the innkeeper answered
gravely. 'You may keep it--for the present.'
I made no answer--what answer had I to make?--and we
rode at a footpace down the street; he and I leading,
Clon and the shock-headed man bringing up the rear. The
leisurely mode of our departure, the absence of hurry or
even haste, the men's indifference whether they were
seen, or what was thought, all served to sink my spirits
and deepen my sense of peril. I felt that they
suspected me, that they more than half guessed the
nature of my errand at Cocheforet, and that they were
not minded to be bound by Mademoiselle's orders. In
particular, I augured the worst from Clon's appearance.
His lean malevolent face and sunken eyes, his very
dumbness chilled me. Mercy had no place there.
We rode soberly, so that nearly half an hour elapsed
before we gained the brow from which I had taken my
first look at Cocheforet. Among the dwarf oaks whence I
had viewed the valley we paused to breathe our horses,
and the strange feelings with which I looked back on the
scene may be imagined. But I had short time for
indulging in sentiment or recollections. A curt word,
and we were moving again.
A quarter of a mile farther on, the road to Auch dipped
into the valley. When we were already half way down
this descent the innkeeper suddenly stretched out his
hand and caught my rein.
'This way!' he said.
I saw that he would have me turn into a by-path leading
south-westwards--a mere track, faint and little trodden
and encroached on by trees, which led I knew not
whither. I checked my horse.
'Why?' I said rebelliously. 'Do you think I do not
know the road? The road we are in is the way to Auch.'
'To Auch--yes,' he answered bluntly. 'But we are not
going to Auch,'
'Whither then?' I said angrily.
'You will see presently,' he replied with an ugly smile.
'Yes, but I will know now!' I retorted, passion getting
the better of me. 'I have come so far with you. You
will find it more easy to take me farther if you tell me
your plans.'
'You are a fool!' he cried with a snarl.
'Not so,' I answered. 'I ask only to know whither I am
going.'
'Into Spain,' he said. 'Will that satisfy you?'
'And what will you do with me there?' I asked, my heart
giving a great bound.
'Hand you over to some friends of ours,' he answered
curtly, 'if you behave yourself. If not, there is a
shorter way, and one that will save us some travelling.
Make up your mind, Monsieur. Which shall it be?'
CHAPTER VI
So that was their plan. Two or three hours to the southward, the
long, white, glittering wall stretched east and west above the
brown woods. Beyond that lay Spain. Once across the border, I
might be detained, if no worse happened to me, as a prisoner of
war; for we were then at war with Spain on the Italian side. Or
I might be handed over to one of the savage bands, half
smugglers, half brigands, that held the passes; or be delivered,
worse fate of all, into the power of the French exiles, of whom
some would be likely to recognise me and cut my throat.
'It is a long way into Spain,' I muttered, watching in a kind of
fascination Clon handling his pistols.
'I think you will find the other road longer still,' the landlord
answered grimly. 'But choose, and be quick about it.'
They were three to one, and they had firearms. In effect I had
no choice.
'Well, if I must I must?' I cried, making up my mind with
seeming recklessness. 'VOGUE LA GALERE! Spain be it. It will
not be the first time I have heard the dons talk.'
The men nodded, as much as to say that they had known what the
end would be; the landlord released my rein; and in a trice we
were riding down the narrow track, with our faces set towards the
mountains.
On one point my mind was now more easy. The men meant fairly by
me, and I had no longer to fear, as I had feared, a pistol-shot
in the back at the first convenient ravine. As far as that went,
I might ride in peace. On the other hand, if I let them carry me
across the border my fate was sealed. A man set down without
credentials or guards among the wild desperadoes who swarmed in
war-time in the Asturian passes might consider himself fortunate
if an easy death fell to his lot. In my case I could make a
shrewd guess what would happen. A single nod of meaning, one
muttered word, dropped among the savage men with whom I should be
left, and the diamonds hidden in my boot would go neither to the
Cardinal nor back to Mademoiselle--nor would it matter to me
whither they went.
So while the others talked in their taciturn fashion, or
sometimes grinned at my gloomy face, I looked out over the brown
woods with eyes that saw yet did not see. The red squirrel
swarming up the trunk, the startled pigs that rushed away
grunting from their feast of mast, the solitary rider who met us,
armed to the teeth, and passed northwards after whispering with
the landlord--all these I saw. But my mind was not with them.
It was groping and feeling about like a hunted mole for some way
of escape. For time pressed. The slope we were on was growing
steeper. By-and-by we fell into a southward valley, and began to
follow it steadily upwards, crossing and recrossing a swiftly
rushing stream. The snow peaks began to be hidden behind the
rising bulk of hills that overhung us, and sometimes we could see
nothing before or behind but the wooded walls of our valley
rising sheer and green a thousand paces high on either hand; with
grey rocks half masked by fern and ivy jutting here and there
through the firs and alders.
It was a wild and sombre scene even at that hour, with the mid-
day sun shining on the rushing water and drawing the scent out of
the pines; but I knew that there was worse to come, and sought
desperately for some ruse by which I might at least separate the
men. Three were too many; with one I might deal. At last, when
I had cudgelled my brain for an hour, and almost resigned myself
to a sudden charge on the men single-handed--a last desperate
resort --I thought of a plan: dangerous, too, and almost
desperate, but which still seemed to promise something. It came
of my fingers resting, as they lay in my pocket, on the fragments
of the orange sachet; which, without having any particular design
in my mind, I had taken care to bring with me. I had torn the
sachet into four pieces--four corners. As I played mechanically
with them, one of my fingers fitted into one, as into a glove; a
second finger into another. And the plan came.
Before I could move in it, however, I had to wait until we
stopped to bait the flagging horses, which we did about noon at
the head of the valley. Then, pretending to drink from the
stream, I managed to secure unseen a handful of pebbles, slipping
them into the same pocket with the morsels of stuff. On getting
to horse again, I carefully fitted a pebble, not too tightly,
into the largest scrap, and made ready for the attempt.
The landlord rode on my left, abreast of me; the other two knaves
behind. The road at this stage favoured me, for the valley,
which drained the bare uplands that lay between the lower hills
and the base of the real mountains, had become wide and shallow.
Here were no trees, and the path was a mere sheep-track covered
with short, crisp grass, and running sometimes on this bank of
the stream and sometimes on that.
I waited until the ruffian beside me turned to speak to the men
behind. The moment he did so, and his eyes were averted, I
slipped out the scrap of satin in which I had placed the pebble,
and balancing it carefully on my right thigh as I rode, I flipped
it forward with all the strength of my thumb and finger. I meant
it to fall a few paces before us in the path, where it could be
seen. But alas for my hopes! At the critical moment my horse
started, my finger struck the scrap aslant, the pebble flew out,
and the bit of stuff fluttered into a whin-bush close to my
stirrup--and was lost!
I was bitterly disappointed, for the same thing might happen
again, and I had now only three scraps left. But fortune
favoured me, by putting it into my neighbour's head to plunge
into a hot debate with the shock-headed man on the nature of some
animals seen on a distant brow; which he said were izards, while
the other maintained that they were common goats. He continued,
on this account, to ride with his face turned from me, and I had
time to fit another pebble into the second piece of stuff.
Sliding it on to my thigh, I poised it, and flipped it.
This time my finger struck the tiny missile fairly in the middle,
and shot it so far and so truly that it dropped exactly in the
path ten paces in front of us. The moment I saw it fall I kicked
my neighbour's nag in the ribs; it started, and he, turning in a
rage, hit it. The next instant he pulled it almost on to its
haunches.
'SAINT GRIS!' he cried; and sat glaring at the bit of yellow
satin, with his face turned purple and his jaw fallen.
'What is it!' I said, staring at him in turn, 'What is the
matter, fool?'
'Matter?' he blurted out. 'MON DIEU!'
But Clon's excitement surpassed even his. The dumb man no sooner
saw what had attracted his comrade's attention, than he uttered
an inarticulate and horrible noise, and tumbling off his horse,
more like a beast than a man threw himself bodily on the precious
morsel.
The innkeeper was not far behind him. An instant and he was
down, too, peering at the thing; and for an instant I thought
that they would fight over it. However, though their jealousy
was evident, their excitement cooled a little when they
discovered that the scrap of stuff was empty; for, fortunately,
the pebble had fallen out of it. Still, it threw them into such
a fever of eagerness as it was wonderful to witness. They nosed
the ground where it had lain, they plucked up the grass and turf,
and passed it through their fingers, they ran to and fro like
dogs on a trail; and, glancing askance at one another, came back
always together to the point of departure. Neither in his
jealousy would suffer the other to be there alone.
The shock-headed man and I sat our horses and looked on; he
marvelling, and I pretending to marvel. As the two searched up
and down the path, we moved a little out of it to give them
space; and presently, when all their heads were turned from me, I
let a second morsel drop under a gorse-bush. The shock-headed
man, by-and-by, found this, and gave it to Clon; and as from the
circumstances of the first discovery no suspicion attached to me,
I ventured to find the third and last scrap myself. I did not
pick it up, but I called the innkeeper, and he pounced upon it as
I have seen a hawk pounce on a chicken.
They hunted for the fourth morsel, but, of course, in vain, and
in the end they desisted, and fitted the three they had together;
but neither would let his own portion out of his hands, and each
looked at the other across the spoil with eyes of suspicion. It
was strange to see them in that wide-stretching valley, whence
grey boar-backs of hills swelled up into the silence of the snow
--it was strange, I say, in that vast solitude, to see these two,
mere dots on its bosom, circling round one another in fierce
forgetfulness of the outside world, glaring and shifting their
ground like cocks about to engage, and wholly engrossed--by three
scraps of orange-colour, invisible at fifty paces!
At last the innkeeper cried with an oath, 'I am going back. This
must be known down yonder. Give me your pieces, man, and do you
go on with Antoine. It will be all right.'
But Clon, waving a scrap of the stuff in either hand, and
thrusting his ghastly mask into the other's face, shook his head
in passionate denial. He could not speak, but he made it as
clear as daylight that if anyone went back with the news, he was
the man to go.
'Nonsense!' the landlord rejoined fiercely, 'We cannot leave
Antoine to go on alone with him. Give me the stuff.'
But Clon would not. He had no thought of resigning the credit of
the discovery; and I began to think that the two would really
come to blows. But there was an alternative--an alternative in
which I was concerned; and first one and then the other looked at
me. It was a moment of peril, and I knew it. My stratagem might
react on myself, and the two, to put an end to their difficulty,
agree to put an end to me. But I faced them so coolly, and
showed so bold a front, and the ground where we stood was so
open, that the idea took no root. They fell to wrangling again
more viciously than before. One tapped his gun and the other his
pistols. The landlord scolded, the dumb man gurgled. At last
their difference ended as I had hoped it would.
'Very well then, we will both go back!' the innkeeper cried in a
rage. 'And Antoine must see him on. But the blame be on your
head. Do you give the lad your pistols.'
Clon took one pistol, and gave it to the shock-headed man.
'The other!' the innkeeper said impatiently.
But Clon shook his head with a grim smile, and pointed to the
arquebuss.
By a sudden movement, the landlord snatched the pistol, and
averted Clon's vengeance by placing both it and the gun in the
shock-headed man's hands.
'There!' he said, addressing the latter, 'now can you do? If
Monsieur tries to escape or turn back, shoot him! But four
hours' riding should bring you to the Roca Blanca. You will find
the men there, and will have no more to do with it.'
Antoine did not see things quite in that light, however. He
looked at me, and then at the wild track in front of us; and he
muttered an oath and said he would die if he would.
But the landlord, who was in a frenzy of impatience, drew him
aside and talked to him, and in the end seemed to persuade him;
for in a few minutes the matter was settled.
Antoine came back, and said sullenly, 'Forward, Monsieur,' the
two others stood on one side, I shrugged my shoulders and kicked
up my horse, and in a twinkling we two were riding on together
--man to man. I turned once or twice to see what those we had
left behind were doing, and always found them standing in
apparent debate; but my guard showed so much jealousy of these
movements that I presently shrugged my shoulders again and
desisted.
I had racked my brains to bring about this state of things.
Strange to say, now I had succeeded, I found it less satisfactory
than I had hoped. I had reduced the odds and got rid of my most
dangerous antagonists; but Antoine, left to himself, proved to be
as full of suspicion as an egg of meat. He rode a little behind
me, with his gun across his saddlebow, and a pistol near his
hand; and at the slightest pause on my part, or if I turned to
look at him, he muttered his constant 'Forward, Monsieur!' in a
tone which warned me that his finger was on the trigger. At such
a distance he could not miss; and I saw nothing for it but to go
on meekly before him to the Roca Blanca--and my fate.
What was to be done? The road presently reached the end of the
valley and entered a narrow pine-clad defile, strewn with rocks
and boulders, over which the torrent plunged and eddied with a
deafening roar. In front the white gleam of waterfalls broke the
sombre ranks of climbing trunks. The snow line lay less than
half a mile away on either hand; and crowning all--at the end of
the pass, as it seemed to the eye--rose the pure white pillar of
the Pic du Midi shooting up six thousand feet into the blue of
heaven. Such a scene so suddenly disclosed, was enough to drive
the sense of danger from my mind; and for a moment I reined in my
horse. But 'Forward, Monsieur!' came the grating order. I fell
to earth again, and went on. What was to be done?
I was at my wits' end to know. The man refused to talk, refused
to ride abreast of me, would have no dismounting, no halting, no
communication at all. He would have nothing but this silent,
lonely procession of two, with the muzzle of his gun at my back.
And meanwhile we were fast climbing the pass. We had left the
others an hour--nearly two. The sun was declining; the time, I
supposed, about half-past three.
If he would only let me come within reach of him! Or if anything
would fall out to take his attention! When the pass presently
widened into a bare and dreary valley, strewn with huge boulders
and with snow lying here and there in the hollows, I looked
desperately before me, and scanned even the vast snow-fields that
overhung us and stretched away to the base of the ice-peak. But
I saw nothing. No bear swung across the path, no izard showed
itself on the cliffs. The keen, sharp air cut our cheeks and
warned me that we were approaching the summit of the ridge. On
all sides were silence and desolation.
MON DIEU! And the ruffians on whose tender mercies I was to be
thrown might come to meet us! They might appear at any moment.
In my despair I loosened my hat on my head, and let the first
gust carry it to the ground, and then with an oath of annoyance
tossed my feet from the stirrups to go after it. But the rascal
roared to me to keep my seat.
'Forward, Monsieur!' he shouted brutally. 'Go on!'
'But my hat!' I cried. 'MILLE TONNERRES, man! I must--'
'Forward, Monsieur, or I shoot!' he replied inexorably raising
his gun. 'One--two--'
And I went on. But, ah, I was wrathful! That I, Gil de Berault,
should be outwitted, and led by the nose like a ringed bull, by
this Gascon lout! That I, whom all Paris knew and feared--if it
did not love--the terror of Zaton's, should come to my end in
this dismal waste of snow and rock, done to death by some pitiful
smuggler or thief! It must not be. Surely in the last resort I
could give an account of one man, though his belt were stuffed
with pistols.
But how? Only, it seemed, by open force. My heart began to
flutter as I planned it; and then grew steady again. A hundred
paces before us a gully or ravine on the left ran up into the
snow-field. Opposite its mouth a jumble of stones and broken
rocks covered the path, I marked this for the place. The knave
would need both his hands to hold up his nag over the stones,
and, if I turned on him suddenly enough, he might either drop his
gun or fire it harmlessly.
But, in the meantime, something happened; as, at the last moment,
things do happen. While we were still fifty yards short of the
place, I found his horse's nose creeping forward on a level with
my crupper; and, still advancing, still advancing, until I could
see it out of the tail of my eye, and my heart gave a great
bound. He was coming abreast of me: he was going to deliver
himself into my hands! To cover my excitement, I began to
whistle.
'Hush!' he muttered fiercely, his voice sounding so strange and
unnatural, that my first thought was that he was ill; and I
turned to him. But he only said again,--
'Hush! Pass by here quietly, Monsieur.'
'Why?' I asked mutinously, curiosity getting the better of me.
For had I been wise I had taken no notice; every second his horse
was coming up with mine. Its nose was level with my stirrup
already.
'Hush, man!' he said again. This time there was no mistake
about the panic in his voice. 'They call this the Devil's
Chapel, God send us safe by it! It is late to be here. Look at
those!' he continued, pointing with a finger which visibly
shook.
I looked. At the mouth of the gully, in a small space partly
cleared of stones, stood three broken shafts, raised on rude
pedestals.
'Well?' I said in a low voice. The sun, which was near setting,
flushed the great peak above to the colour of blood; but the
valley was growing grey and each moment more dreary. 'Well, what
of those?' I said.
In spite of my peril and the excitement of the coming struggle I
felt the chill of his fear. Never had I seen so grim, so
desolate, so God-forsaken a place! Involuntarily I shivered.
'They were crosses,' he muttered in a voice little above a
whisper, while his eyes roved this way and that in terror. 'The
Cure of Gabas blessed the place, and set them up. But next
morning they were as you see them now. Come on, Monsieur; come
on!' he continued, plucking at my arm. 'It is not safe here
after sunset. Pray God, Satan be not at home!'
He had completely forgotten in his panic that he had anything to
fear from me. His gun dropped loosely across his saddle, his leg
rubbed mine. I saw this, and I changed my plan of action. As
our horses reached the stones I stooped, as if to encourage mine,
and, with a sudden clutch, snatched the gun bodily from his hand,
at the same time that I backed my horse with all my strength. It
was done in a moment! A second and I had him at the end of the
gun, and my finger was on the trigger. Never was victory more
easily gained.
He looked at me between rage and terror, his jaw fallen.
'Are you mad?' he cried, his teeth chattering as he spoke. Even
in this strait his eyes left me and wandered round in alarm.
'No, sane!' I retorted fiercely. 'But I do not like this place
any better than you do.' Which was true enough, if not quite
true. 'So, by your right, quick march!' I continued
imperatively. 'Turn your horse, my friend, or take the
consequences.'
He turned like a lamb, and headed down the valley again, without
giving a thought to his pistols. I kept close to him, and in
less than a minute we had left the Devil's Chapel well behind us,
and were moving down again as we had come up. Only now I held
the gun.
When we had gone have a mile or so--until then I did not feel
comfortable myself, and though I thanked heaven that the place
existed, I thanked heaven also that I was out of it--I bade him
halt.
'Take off your belt,' I said curtly, 'and throw it down. But,
mark me, if you turn I fire.'
The spirit was quite gone out of him, and he obeyed mechanically.
I jumped down, still covering him with the gun, and picked up the
belt, pistols and all. Then I remounted, and we went on. By-
and-by he asked me sullenly what I was going to do.
'Go back,' I said, 'and take the road to Auch when I come to it.'
'It will be dark in an hour,' he answered sulkily.
'I know that,' I retorted. 'We must camp and do the best we
can.'
And as I said, we did. The daylight held until we gained the
skirts of the pine-wood at the head of the pass. Here I chose a
corner a little off the track, and well sheltered from the wind,
and bade him light a fire. I tethered the horses near this and
within sight. Then it remained only to sup. I had a piece of
bread: he had another and an onion. We ate in silence, sitting
on opposite sides of the fire.
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