The Black Douglas Part 58

"The hireling--the popular mouther after favour! I know him," cried Duke John, angrily. "What accursed demon sent you to him? In this, as in other matters, he will strive to oust me from the hearts of the folk of Brittany. He will be the people's advocate and will gain great honour from this trial, will he? We shall see. Ho! guards there! Turn out. Summon those that are asleep. Let the full muster be called. I will lead you to Machecoul myself. And these gentlemen shall march with us. But by Heaven and the bones of Saint Anne of Auray, if in one jot they shall fail to substantiate against Gilles de Retz those things which they have testified, they shall die by the rack, and by the cord, and by disembowelling, and by fire. So swear I, Duke John of Brittany."

"It is good," said James Douglas. And "It is good," accorded also Malise and Sholto MacKim.

"But before any dies in Brittany, Gilles de Retz or another, _I_ will judge the case," commented Pierre de l'Hopital, President of Justice and Grand Councillor of the reigning sovereign.

CHAPTER LVII

THE TOWER OF DEATH

Throughout La Vendee and all the country of Retz had run a terrible rumour. "The Marshal de Retz is the murderer of our children. He has a thousand bodies in the vaults of his castles. The Duke of Brittany has given orders that they shall be searched. His soldiers are forsaking him. The names of the dead have been written in black and white, and are in the hands of the headmen of the villages. Hasten--it is the hour of vengeance! Let us overwhelm him! Rise up and let us seek our lost ones, even if we find no more than their bones!"

And terrible as had been the gathering of the were-wolves in the dark forests around Machecoul upon the night of the fight by the hollow tree, far more threatening and terrible was the uprising of the angry commons.

In whole villages there was not a man left, and mothers too marched in that muster armed with choppers and kitchen knives, wild eyed and angry hearted as lionesses robbed of their cubs. From the deep glens and deeper woods of the country of Retz they poured. They disgorged from the caves of the earth whither the greed and rapacity of their terrible lord had driven them.

Schoolmasters were there with the elder of their pupils. For many of the vanished children had disappeared on their way to school, and these men were in danger of losing both their credit and occupation.

Towards Tiffauges, Champtoce, Machecoul, the angry populace, long repressed, surged tumultuously, and with them, much wondering at their orders, went the soldiers of the Duke.

But it is with the columns that concentrated upon Machecoul that we have chiefly to do. Our three Scots accompanied these, and here, too, marched John of Brittany himself with his Councillor Pierre de l'Hopital by his side.

Night fell as they journeyed on, ever joined by fresh contingents from all the country round. In the van pressed forward the folk of Saint Philbert, warm from the utter destruction of the house of the witch woman, La Meffraye, so that not one stone was left upon another.

Guided by these the Duke and his party made their way easily through the forest, even in the darkness of the night. And as they pa.s.sed hamlet or cottage ever and anon some frenzied mother would rush upon them and fall on her knees before the Duke, praying him to look well for her darling, and bringing mayhap some pitiful shred of clothing or lock of hair by which the searchers might identify the lost innocent.

As they went forward the soldiers p.r.i.c.ked on ahead, and caused the people to fall to the rear, lest any foreknowledge of their purpose might reach the wizard and warn him to escape.

The woods of Machecoul were dark and silent that night. Not the howl of a questing wolf was heard. Truly the marshal's demons had forsaken him, or mayhap they were all busy at that last carnival in the keep of the Castle of Machecoul.

As the storming party approached nearer, and while yet they were several miles distant, they became aware of a great red light that gleamed forth above them. They could not see whence it came, but the peasants of Saint Philbert with affrighted glances told how it beaconed only after the disappearance of some little one from their homes, what strange cries were heard ringing out from that lofty tower, and how for days after the smoke of a great burning would hang about the gloomy turrets of devil-haunted Machecoul.

Fiercer and ever fiercer shone the red glare, and the faces of the soldiers were lit up so that Pierre de l'Hopital ordered them to keep to the more gloomy arcades of the forest.

Then by midnight the cordon was drawn so closely that none might pa.s.s in or out. And behind the soldiery the common folk lay crouched, anger in their hearts, and their eyes turned towards the open windows in the keep of Machecoul, from which flared the red light of bale.

Then, covering their lanterns, the three Scots, with Duke John, Pierre de l'Hopital, and a score of officers, stole silently towards the tower by which the Lady Sybilla had promised that an entrance should be gained to the Castle of Machecoul.

It was situated at the western corner towards the south, and was joined to its fellows at the corresponding angles of the fortress by galleried walls of great height. Ten feet above the ground was a little door of embossed iron, but ordinarily no steps led to it when the castle was in a state of defence. Yet when Sholto adventured into the angle of the wall, he stumbled upon a ladder that leaned against the little landing-ledge, above which was the entrance denoted on the plan.

Sholto ascended first, being the lightest and most agile of all. As he had expected, he found the door unlocked and a narrow pa.s.sage leading within the tower. He lay a moment and listened, and then, being certain there was a light and the sounds of labour within, he crawled back to the ladder head, and whispered to the Lord James an order for total silence.

Whereupon, Sholto holding the ladder at the top, Duke John and his Councillor mounted like shadows, and with Malise and James Douglas to guard them they were presently crouched in the pa.s.sage with the door shut behind them, and the officers keeping watch at the foot of the tower without.

These five listened to the sounds of busy picks within the tower. They could hear the ring of iron on stones and the panting of men engaged in severe toil.

"The marshal is preparing for flight," whispered the Duke, exultantly.

"He is interring his treasures. He has been warned. But we will be overspeedy for him."

And he chuckled in his satisfaction so loudly that Malise, using no ceremony with Duke or varlet at such a season, put his hand over his mouth.

Then one by one they crawled along the narrow pa.s.sage on their hands and knees, and presently from a little balcony, plastered like a swallow's nest on the inner wall of the tower, they found themselves looking down upon a strange scene.

A flight of steps led slantwise to the bottom, and at the foot of the tower, stripped to the waist, they beheld two men busily filling great sacks with a curious cargo.

The turret had never been finished. It contained nothing whatever except the staircase. So far as Sholto could see there was not even a window anywhere. The door by which they had entered and another which evidently led into the interior of the castle were its only outlets.

The earth at the bottom had remained as it had been left by the builders, who surely must have thought that no madder architectural freak was ever planned than this shut tower of the Castle of Machecoul with its blank walls and sordid accoutrement.

But most strange of all, the original earth had been covered to the depth of a foot or more with dark objects, the true significance of which did not appear from the distance of the little gallery where the party of five had stationed themselves.

The two men at work below had brought torches with them, which were fastened to the walls by iron spikes. The smoke from these hung in heavy ma.s.ses about the tower, still further diminis.h.i.+ng the clearness with which the watchers aloft could observe what went on below.

One of the workmen was tall and spare, with the forward thrust of head and neck seen in vultures and other unclean birds. The other, who held the sacks while his companion shovelled, was on the contrary stout and short, of a notably jovial, rubicund countenance, in habit like the hostler of an inn, or perhaps a well-to-do carrier upon the roads.

The two worked without speaking, as if the task were distasteful. When one sack was full, both would seize their picks and dig furiously at the floor of the tower. Then when they had enough loosened, they would fall to shovelling the curiously shaped objects into the sacks again.

As Sholto looked down he heard a hissing whisper at his ear.

"These be Blanchet the sorcerer and Robin Romulart. But last week they took notice of my little Jean and praised him for a n.o.ble boy."

Sholto turned round, and there at his elbow, having followed them in spite of all orders and precautions, he discerned the woodman Louis Verger, whose little son had been carried off by the grey she-wolf.

Sholto motioned him back, and at a sign from the Duke, his father and he began to descend. So silently did they make their way down the stone steps, and so intent were the men upon their work, that in a minute after leaving the little gallery Malise stood behind the taller and Sholto stole like a shadow along the wall nearer to the little rotund man who had been called Robin Romulart.

The Duke held up his hand. Sholto and Malise each took their man about the throat with their left arms and pulled them backward, at the same time covering their mouths with their right hands. Blanchet never moved in the strong arms of Malise. But Robin, whose rotund figure concealed his great muscular development, might have escaped from Sholto had not the woodman Verger flung himself at the little man's throat and brought him to the ground. Then the Duke and the others descended, and as they did so they became conscious of a choking mephitic vapour which clung dank and heavy to the lower courses of the tower.

Suddenly a wild cry made all s.h.i.+ver. It came from Louis Verger, who had sprung upon something that lay tossed aside in a corner.

"Silence, man--on your life! Silence!" hissed Pierre de l'Hopital.

"Whatever you have found, think only of revenge and help us to it!"

"I have found him. He is dead! The fiends! The fiends!" sobbed Louis Verger, covering a small partially charred object with the curtmantle of which he had rapidly divested himself for the purpose.

Then it came upon those who stood on the floor of the tower that they were in the marshal's main charnel-house. These vague forms, mostly charred like half-burned wood, these sc.r.a.ps of white bone, these little crushed skulls, were all that remained of the innocent children who, in the freshness of their youth and beauty, had been seduced into the fatal Castle of Machecoul.

And what wonder that an appalling terror sat on the heart and mastered the soul of Sholto MacKim. For how did he know that he was not treading under foot at each step the calcined fragments of the fair body of Maud Lindesay?

Twenty sacks had been filled ready for transport, and as many more lay folded and empty in a heap in a corner. The marshal, uneasy perhaps as to the suspicions against him, and anxious to remove evidence from the precincts of his castle, had ordered this Tower of Death to be cleared. But truly his devil had once more forsaken him. The order had been given a day too late.

"G.o.d's grace, I stifle. Let us get out of this, and seize the murderer," quoth Duke John, making his way towards the door.

"Wait a moment," said Pierre de l'Hopital, "we must consider. We cannot let the commons see this or they will sack the castle from foundation to roof tree, and slay the innocent with the guilty. We must seize and hold for fair trial all who are found within. _And I, Pierre de l'Hopital, will try them!_"

"What then do you propose?" said the Duke, getting as near the door as possible.

"Let us bring in hither the officers and what soldiers you can trust--that is not my business," answered the President. "Then we will go through the castle, and after we have secured the prisoners and made sure of sufficient pieces of justificative evidence, of which we have infinite supply in these sacks, we may e'en permit the people to work their will."