The House of the Wolf Part 15
"Ay, that he did!" she replied quickly. "That poor fellow, yonder-he lies quiet enough now G.o.d forgive him his heresy, say I!-kept the door manfully while the gentleman got on the roof, and ran right down the street on the tops of the houses, with them firing and hooting at him: for all the world as if he had been a squirrel and they a pack of boys with stones!"
"And he escaped?"
"Escaped!" she answered more slowly, shaking her old head in doubt. "I do not know about that I fear they have got him by now, gentlemen. I have been shivering and shaking up stairs with my husband-he is in bed, good man, and the safest place for him-the saints have mercy upon us! But I heard them go with their shouting and gunpowder right along to the river, and I doubt they will take him between this and the CHATELET! I doubt they will."
"How long ago was it, dame?" I cried.
"Oh! may be half an hour. Perhaps you are friends of his?" she added questioningly.
But I did not stay to answer her. I shook Croisette, who had not heard a word of this, by the shoulder. "There is a chance that he has escaped!" I cried in his ear. "Escaped, do you hear?" And I told him hastily what she had said.
It was fine, indeed, and a sight, to see the blood rush to his cheeks, and the tears dry in his eyes, and energy and decision spring to life in every nerve and muscle of his face, "Then there is hope?" he cried, grasping my arm. "Hope, Anne! Come! Come! Do not let us lose another instant. If he be alive let us join him!"
The old woman tried to detain us, but in vain. Nay, pitying us, and fearing, I think, that we were rushing on our deaths, she cast aside her caution, and called after us aloud. We took no heed, running after Croisette, who had not waited for our answer, as fast as young limbs could carry us down the street. The exhaustion we had felt a moment before when all seemed lost be it remembered that we had not been to bed or tasted food for many hours-fell from us on the instant, and was clean gone and forgotten in the joy of this respite. Louis was living and for the moment had escaped.
Escaped! But for how long? We soon had our answer. The moment we turned the corner by the river-side, the murmur of a mult.i.tude not loud but continuous, struck our ears, even as the breeze off the water swept our cheeks. Across the river lay the thousand roofs of the Ile de la Cite, all sparkling in the sunshine. But we swept to the right, thinking little of THAT sight, and checked our speed on finding ourselves on the skirts of the crowd. Before us was a bridge-the Pont au Change, I think-and at its head on our side of the water stood the CHATELET, with its h.o.a.ry turrets and battlements. Between us and the latter, and backed only by the river, was a great open s.p.a.ce half-filled with people, mostly silent and watchful, come together as to a show, and betraying, at present at least, no desire to take an active part in what was going on.
We hurriedly plunged into the throng, and soon caught the clue to the quietness and the lack of movement which seemed to prevail, and which at first sight had puzzled us. For a moment the absence of the dreadful symptoms we had come to know so well-the flying and pursuing, the random blows, the shrieks and curses and batterings on doors, the tipsy yells, had rea.s.sured us. But the relief was short-lived. The people before us were under control. A tighter grip seemed to close upon our hearts as we discerned this, for we knew that the wild fury of the populace, like the rush of a bull, might have given some chance of escape-in this case as in others. But this cold-blooded ordered search left none.
Every face about us was turned in the same direction; away from the river and towards a block of old houses which stood opposite to it. The s.p.a.ce immediately in front of these was empty, the people being kept back by a score or so of archers of the guard set at intervals, and by as many hors.e.m.e.n, who kept riding up and down, belabouring the bolder spirits with the flat of their swords, and so preserving a line. At each extremity of this-more noticeably on our left where the line curved round the angle of the buildings-stood a handful of riders, seven in a group perhaps. And alone in the middle of the s.p.a.ce so kept clear, walking his horse up and down and gazing at the houses rode a man of great stature, booted and armed, the feather nodding in his bonnet. I could not see his face, but I had no need to see it. I knew him, and groaned aloud. It was Bezers!
I understood the scene better now. The hors.e.m.e.n, stern, bearded Switzers for the most part, who eyed the rabble about them with grim disdain, and were by no means chary of their blows, were all in his colours and armed to the teeth. The order and discipline were of his making: the revenge of his seeking. A grasp as of steel had settled upon our friend, and I felt that his last chance was gone. Louis de Pavannes might as well be lying on his threshold with his dead servant by his side, as be in hiding within that ring of ordered swords.
It was with despairing eyes we looked at the old wooden houses. They seemed to be bowing themselves towards us, their upper stories projected so far, they were so decrepit. Their roofs were a wilderness of gutters and crooked gables, of tottering chimneys and wooden pinnacles and rotting beams, Amongst these I judged Kit's lover was hiding. Well, it was a good place for hide and seek-with any other player than DEATH. In the ground floors of the houses there were no windows and no doors; by reason, I learned afterwards, of the frequent flooding of the river. But a long wooden gallery raised on struts ran along the front, rather more than the height of a man from the ground, and access to this was gained by a wooden staircase at each end. Above this first gallery was a second, and above that a line of windows set between the gables. The block-it may have run for seventy or eighty yards along the sh.o.r.e-contained four houses, each with a door opening on to the lower gallery. I saw indeed that but for the Vidame's precautions Louis might well have escaped. Had the mob once poured helter-skelter into that labyrinth of rooms and pa.s.sages he might with luck have mingled with them, unheeded and unrecognized, and effected his escape when they retreated.
But now there were sentries on each gallery and more on the roof. Whenever one of the latter moved or seemed to be looking inward-where a search party, I understood, were at work-indeed, if he did but turn his head, a thrill ran through the crowd and a murmur arose, which once or twice swelled to a savage roar such as earlier had made me tremble. When this happened the impulse came, it seemed to me, from the farther end of the line. There the rougher elements were collected, and there I more than once saw Bezers' troopers in conflict with the mob. In that quarter too a savage chant was presently struck up, the whole gathering joining in and yelling with an indescribably appalling effect:
"Hau! Hau! Huguenots!
Faites place aux Papegots!"
in derision of the old song said to be popular amongst the Protestants. But in the Huguenot version the last words were of course transposed.
We had worked our way by this time to the front of the line, and looking into one another's eyes, mutely asked a question; but not even Croisette had an answer ready. There could be no answer but one. What could we do? Nothing. We were too late. Too late again! And yet how dreadful it was to stand still among the cruel, thoughtless mob and see our friend, the touch of whose hand we knew so well, done to death for their sport! Done to death as the old woman had said like any rat, not a soul save ourselves pitying him! Not a soul to turn sick at his cry of agony, or shudder at the glance of his dying eyes. It was dreadful indeed.
"Ah, well," muttered a woman beside me to her companion-there were many women in the crowd-"it is down with the Huguenots, say I! It is Lorraine is the fine man! But after all yon is a bonny fellow and a proper, Margot! I saw him leap from roof to roof over Love Lane, as if the blessed saints had carried him. And him a heretic!"
"It is the black art," the other answered, crossing herself.
"Maybe it is! But he will need it all to give that big man the slip to-day," replied the first speaker comfortably.
"That devil!" Margot exclaimed, pointing with a stealthy gesture of hate at the Vidame. And then in a fierce whisper, with inarticulate threats, she told a story of him, which made me shudder. "He did! And she in religion too!" she concluded. "May our Lady of Loretto reward him."
The tale might be true for aught I knew, horrible as it was! I had heard similar ones attributing things almost as fiendish to him, times and again; from that poor fellow lying dead on Pavannes' doorstep for one, and from others besides. As the Vidame in his pacing to and fro turned towards us, I gazed at him fascinated by his grim visage and that story. His eye rested on the crowd about us, and I trembled, lest even at that distance he should recognise us.
And he did! I had forgotten his keenness of sight. His face flashed suddenly into a grim smile. The tail of his eye resting upon us, and seeming to forbid us to move, he gave some orders. The colour fled from my face. To escape indeed was impossible, for we were hemmed in by the press and could scarcely stir a limb. Yet I did make one effort.
"Croisette!" I muttered he was the rearmost-"stoop down. He may not have seen you. Stoop down, lad!"
But St. Croix was obstinate and would not stoop. Nay, when one of the mounted men came, and roughly ordered us into the open, it was Croisette who pushing past us stepped out first with a lordly air. I, following him, saw that his lips were firmly compressed and that there was an eager light in his eyes. As we emerged, the crowd in our wake broke the line, and tried to pursue us; either hostilely or through eagerness to see what it meant. But a dozen blows of the long pikes drove them back, howling and cursing to their places.
I expected to be taken to Bezers; and what would follow I could not tell. But he did always it seemed what we least expected, for he only scowled at us now, a grim mockery on his lip, and cried, "See that they do not escape again! But do them no harm, sirrah, until I have the batch of them!"
He turned one way, and I another, my heart swelling with rage. Would he dare to harm us? Would even the Vidame dare to murder a Caylus' nephew openly and in cold blood? I did not think so. And yet-and yet-
Croisette interrupted the train of my thoughts. I found that he was not following me. He had sprung away, and in a dozen strides reached the Vidame's stirrup, and was clasping his knee when I turned. I could not hear at the distance at which I stood, what he said, and the horseman to whom Bezers had committed us spurred between us. But I heard the Vidame's answer.
"No! no! no!" he cried with a ring of restrained fury in his voice. "Let my plans alone! What do you know of them? And if you speak to me again, M. St. Croix-I think that is your name, boy-I will-no, I will not kill you. That might please you, you are stubborn, I can see. But I will have you stripped and lashed like the meanest of my scullions! Now go, and take care!"
Impatience, hate and wild pa.s.sion flamed in his face for the moment-transfiguring it. Croisette came back to us slowly, white-lipped and quiet. "Never mind," I said bitterly. "The third time may bring luck."
Not that I felt much indignation at the Vidame's insult, or any anger with the lad for incurring it; as I had felt on that other occasion. Life and death seemed to be everything on this morning. Words had ceased to please and annoy, for what are words to the sheep in the shambles? One man's life and one woman's happiness outside ourselves we thought only of these now. And some day I reflected Croisette might remember even with pleasure that he had, as a drowning man clutching at straws, stooped to a last prayer for them.
We were placed in the middle of a knot of troopers who closed the line to the right. And presently Marie touched me. He was gazing intently at the sentry on the roof of the third house from us; the farthest but one. The man's back was to the parapet, and he was gesticulating wildly.
"He sees him!" Marie muttered.
I nodded almost in apathy. But this pa.s.sed away, and I started involuntarily and shuddered, as a savage roar, breaking the silence, rang along the front of the mob like a rolling volley of firearms. What was it? A man posted at a window on the upper gallery had dropped his pike's point, and was levelling it at some one inside: we could see no more.
But those in front of the window could; they saw too much for the Vidame's precautions, as a moment showed. He had not laid his account with the frenzy of a rabble, the pa.s.sions of a mob which had tasted blood. I saw the line at its farther end waver suddenly and toss to and fro. Then a hundred hands went up, and confused angry cries rose with them. The troopers struck about them, giving back slowly as they did so. But their efforts were in vain. With a scream of triumph a wild torrent of people broke through between them, leaving them stranded; and rushed in a headlong cataract towards the steps. Bezers was close to us at the time. "S'death!" he cried, swearing oaths which even his sovereign could scarce have equalled. "They will s.n.a.t.c.h him from me yet, the h.e.l.l-hounds!"
He whirled his horse round and spurred him in a dozen bounds to the stairs at our end of the gallery. There he leaped from him, dropping the bridle recklessly; and bounding up three steps at a time, he ran along the gallery. Half-a-dozen of the troopers about us stayed only to fling their reins to one of their number, and then followed, their great boots clattering on the planks.
My breath came fast and short, for I felt it was a crisis. It was a race between the two parties, or rather between the Vidame and the leaders of the mob. The latter had the shorter way to go. But on the narrow steps they were carried off their feet by the press behind them, and fell over and hampered one another and lost time. The Vidame, free from this drawback, was some way along the gallery before they had set foot on it.
How I prayed-amid a scene of the wildest uproar and excitement-that the mob might be first! Let there be only a short conflict between Bezers' men and the people, and in the confusion Pavannes might yet escape. Hope awoke in the turmoil. Above the yells of the crowd a score of deep voices about me thundered "a Wolf! a Wolf!" And I too, lost my head, and drew my sword, and screamed at the top of my voice, "a Caylus! a Caylus!" with the maddest.
Thousands of eyes besides mine were strained on the foremost figures on either side. They met as it chanced precisely at the door of the house. The mob leader was a slender man, I saw; a priest apparently, though now he was girt with unpriestly weapons, his skirts were tucked up, and his head was bare. So much my first glance showed me. It was at the second look it was when I saw the blood forsake his pale lowering face and leave it whiter than ever, when horror sprang along with recognition to his eyes, when borne along by the crowd behind he saw his position and who was before him-it was only then when his mean figure shrank, and he quailed and would have turned but could not, that I recognized the Coadjutor.
I was silent now, my mouth agape. There are seconds which are minutes; ay, and many minutes. A man may die, a man may come into life in such a second. In one of these, it seemed to me, those two men paused, face to face; though in fact a pause was for one of them impossible. He was between-and I think he knew it-the devil and the deep sea. Yet he seemed to pause, while all, even that yelling crowd below, held their breath. The next moment, glaring askance at one another like two dogs unevenly coupled, he and Bezers shot shoulder to shoulder into the doorway, and in another jot of time would have been out of sight. But then, in that instant, I saw something happen. The Vidame's hand flashed up above the priest's head, and the cross-hilt of his sheathed sword crashed down with awful force, and still more awful pa.s.sion, on the other's tonsure! The wretch went down like a log, without a word, without a cry! Amid a roar of rage from a thousand throats, a roar that might have shaken the stoutest heart, and blanched the swarthiest cheek, Bezers disappeared within!
It was then I saw the power of discipline and custom. Few as were the troopers who had followed him-a mere handful-they fell without hesitation on the foremost of the crowd, who were already in confusion, stumbling and falling over their leader's body; and hurled them back pell-mell along the gallery. The throng below had no firearms, and could give no aid at the moment; the stage was narrow; in two minutes the Vidame's people had swept it clear of the crowd and were in possession of it. A tall fellow took up the priest's body, dead or alive, I do not know which, and flung it as if it had been a sack of corn over the rail. It fell with a heavy thud on the ground. I heard a piercing scream that rose above that babel-one shrill scream! and the mob closed round and hid the thing.
If the rascals had had the wit to make at once for the right-hand stairs, where we stood with two or three of Bezers' men who had kept their saddles, I think they might easily have disposed of us, enc.u.mbered as we were, by the horses; and then they could have attacked the handful on the gallery on both flanks. But the mob had no leaders, and no plan of operations. They seized indeed two or three of the scattered troopers, and tearing them from their horses, wreaked their pa.s.sion upon them horribly. But most of the Switzers escaped, thanks to the attention the mob paid to the houses and what was going forward on the galleries; and these, extricating themselves joined us one by one, so that gradually a little ring of stern faces gathered about the stair-foot. A moment's hesitation, and seeing no help for it, we ranged ourselves with them; and, unchecked as unbidden, sprang on three of the led horses.
All this pa.s.sed more quickly than I can relate it: so that before our feet were well in the stirrups a partial silence, then a mightier roar of anger at once proclaimed and hailed the re-appearance of the Vidame. Bigoted beyond belief were the mob of Paris of that day, cruel, vengeful, and always athirst for blood; and this man had killed not only their leader but a priest. He had committed sacrilege! What would they do? I could just, by stooping forward, command a side view of the gallery, and the scene pa.s.sing there was such that I forgot in it our own peril.
For surely in all his reckless life Bezers had never been so emphatically the man for the situation-had never shown to such advantage as at this moment when he stood confronting the sea of faces, the sneer on his lip, a smile in his eyes; and looked down unblenching, a figure of scorn, on the men who were literally agape for his life. The calm defiance of his steadfast look fascinated even me. Wonder and admiration for the time took the place of dislike. I could scarcely believe that there was not some atom of good in this man so fearless. And no face but one no face I think in the world, but one-could have drawn my eyes from him. But that one face was beside him. I clutched Marie's arm, and pointed to the bareheaded figure at Bezers' right hand.
It was Louis himself: our Louis de Pavannes, But he was changed indeed from the gay cavalier I remembered, and whom I had last seen riding down the street at Caylus, smiling back at us, and waving his adieux to his mistress! Beside the Vidame he had the air of being slight, even short. The face which I had known so bright and winning, was now white and set. His fair, curling hair-scarce darker than Croisette's-hung dank, bedabbled with blood which flowed from a wound in his head. His sword was gone; his dress was torn and disordered and covered with dust. His lips moved. But he held up his head, he bore himself bravely with it all; so bravely, that I choked, and my heart seemed bursting as I looked at him standing there forlorn and now unarmed. I knew that Kit seeing him thus would gladly have died with him; and I thanked G.o.d she did not see him. Yet there was a quietness in his fort.i.tude which made a great difference between his air and that of Bezers. He lacked, as became one looking unarmed on certain death, the sneer and smile of the giant beside him.
What was the Vidame about to do? I shuddered as I asked myself. Not surrender him, not fling him bodily to the people? No not that: I felt sure he would let no others share his vengeance that his pride would not suffer that. And even while I wondered the doubt was solved. I saw Bezers raise his hand in a peculiar fashion. Simultaneously a cry rang sharply out above the tumult, and down in headlong charge towards the farther steps came the band of hors.e.m.e.n, who had got clear of the crowd on that side. They were but ten or twelve, but under his eye they charged, as if they had been a thousand. The rabble shrank from the collision, and fled aside. Quick as thought the riders swerved; and changing their course, galloped through the looser part of the throng, and in a trice drew rein side by side with us, a laugh and a jeer on their reckless lips.
It was neatly done: and while it was being done the Vidame and his knot of men, with those who had been searching the building, hurried down the gallery towards us, their rear cleared for the moment by the troopers' feint. The dismounted men came bundling down the steps, their eyes aglow with the war-fire, and got horses as they could. Among them I lost sight of Louis, but perceived him presently, pale and bewildered, mounted behind a trooper. A man sprang up before each of us too, greeting our appearance merely by a grunt of surprise. For it was no time to ask or answer. The mob was recovering itself, and each moment brought it reinforcements, while its fury was augmented by the trick we had played it, and the prospect of our escape.
We were under forty, all told; and some men were riding double. Bezers' eye glanced hastily over his array, and lit on us three. He turned and gave some order to his lieutenant. The fellow spurred his horse, a splendid grey, as powerful as his master's, alongside of Croisette, threw his arm round the lad, and dragged him dexterously on to his own crupper. I did not understand the action, but I saw Croisette settle himself behind Blaise Bure-for he it was-and supposed no harm was intended. The next moment we had surged forward, and were swaying to and fro in the midst of the crowd.
What ensued I cannot tell. The outlook, so far as I was concerned, was limited to wildly plunging horses-we were in the centre of the band and riders swaying in the saddle-with a glimpse here and there of a fringe of white scowling faces and tossing arms. Once, a lane opening, I saw the Vidame's charger-he was in the van-stumble and fall among the crowd and heard a great shout go up. But Bezers by a mighty effort lifted it to its legs again. And once too, a minute later, those riding on my right, swerved outwards, and I saw something I never afterwards forgot.
It was the body of the Coadjutor, lying face upwards, the eyes open and the teeth bared in a last spasm. Prostrate on it lay a woman, a young woman, with hair like red gold falling about her neck, and skin like milk. I did not know whether she was alive or dead; but I noticed that one arm stuck out stiffly and the crowd flying before the sudden impact of the horses must have pa.s.sed over her, even if she had escaped the iron hoofs which followed. Still in the fleeting glance I had of her as my horse bounded aside, I saw no wound or disfigurement. Her one arm was cast about the priest's breast; her face was hidden on it. But for all that, I knew her-knew her, shuddering for the woman whose badges I was even now wearing, whose gift I bore at my side; and I remembered the priest's vaunt of a few hours before, made in her presence, "There is no man in Paris shall thwart me to-night!"