Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Part 22

"_By these presents I command and empower Gilles de Berault, sieur de Berault, to seek for, hold, arrest, and deliver to the Governor of the Bastile the body of Henri de Cocheforet, and to do all such acts and things as shall be necessary to effect such arrest and delivery, for which these shall be his warrant_.

"(_Signed_) _RICHELIEU, Lieut.-Gen_."

When he had done,--and he read the signature with a peculiar intonation,--some one said softly, "_Vive le roi!_" and there was a moment's silence. The sergeant lowered his lanthorn. "Is it enough?" I said hoa.r.s.ely, glaring from face to face.

The lieutenant bowed stiffly. "For me?" he said. "Quite, Monsieur. I beg your pardon again. I find that my first impressions were the-correct ones. Sergeant, give the gentleman his paper." And turning his shoulder rudely, he tossed the commission towards the sergeant, who picked it up, and gave it to me, grinning.

I knew that the clown would not fight, and he had his men round him; and I had no choice but to swallow the insult. As I put the paper in my breast, with as much indifference as I could a.s.sume, he gave a sharp order. The troopers began to form on the edge above, the men who had descended, to climb the bank. As the group behind him began to open and melt away, I caught sight of a white robe in the middle of it. The next moment, appearing with a suddenness which was like a blow on the cheek to me, Mademoiselle de Cocheforet glided forward, and came towards me. She had a hood on her head, drawn low; and for a moment I could not see her face. I forgot her brother's presence at my elbow; from habit and impulse rather than calculation, I took a step forward to meet her---though my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth, and I was dumb and trembling.

But she recoiled with such a look of white hate, of staring, frozen-eyed loathing, that I stepped back as if she had indeed struck me. It did not need the words which accompanied the look, the "_Do not touch me!_" which she hissed at me as she drew her skirts together, to drive me to the farther edge of the hollow; there to stand with clenched teeth and nails driven into the flesh while she hung, sobbing tearless sobs, on her brother's neck.

CHAPTER XI.

THE ROAD TO PARIS.

I remember hearing Marshal Ba.s.sompierre, who, of all men within my knowledge, had the widest experience, say that not dangers, but discomforts, prove a man, and show what he is; and that the worst sores in life are caused by crumpled rose-leaves and not by thorns.

I am inclined to agree with this. For I remember that when I came from my room on the morning after the arrest, and found hall and parlour and pa.s.sage empty, and all the common rooms of the house deserted, and no meal laid, and when I divined anew from this discovery the feeling of the house towards me,--however natural and to be expected,--I felt as sharp a pang as when, the night before, I had had to face discovery and open rage and scorn. I stood in the silent, empty parlour, and looked round me with a sense of desolation; of something lost and gone, which I could not replace. The morning was grey and cloudy, the air sharp; a shower was falling. The rose-bushes at the window swayed in the wind, and where I could remember the hot suns.h.i.+ne lying on floor and table, the rain beat in and stained the boards. The main door flapped and creaked to and fro. I thought of other days and meals I had taken there, and of the scent of flowers, and I fled to the hall in despair.

But here, too, was no sign of life or company, no comfort, no attendance. The ashes of the logs, by whose blaze Mademoiselle had told me the secret, lay on the hearth white and cold; and now and then a drop of moisture, sliding down the great chimney, pattered among them. The great door stood open as if the house had no longer anything to guard. The only living thing to be seen was a hound which roamed about restlessly, now gazing at the empty hearth, now lying down with p.r.i.c.ked ears and watchful eyes. Some leaves which had been blown in rustled in a corner.

I went out moodily into the garden, and wandered down one path, and up another, looking at the dripping woods and remembering things, until I came to the stone seat. On it, against the wall, trickling with rain-drops, and with a dead leaf half filling its narrow neck, stood the pitcher of food. I thought how much had happened since Mademoiselle took her hand off it and the sergeant's lanthorn disclosed it to me. And sighing grimly, I went in again through the parlour door.

A woman was on her knees, kindling the belated fire. I stood a moment, looking at her doubtfully, wondering how she would bear herself, and what she would say to me: and then she turned, and I cried out her name in horror; for it was Madame!

She was very plainly dressed; her childish face was wan, and piteous with weeping. But either the night had worn out her pa.s.sion and drained her tears, or this great exigency gave her temporary calmness; for she was perfectly composed. She s.h.i.+vered as her eyes met mine, and she blinked as if a light had been suddenly thrust before her. But she turned again to her task, without speaking.

"Madame! Madame!" I cried, in a frenzy of distress. "What is this?"

"The servants would not do it," she answered, in a low but steady voice. "You are still our guest, Monsieur, and it must be done."

"But--I cannot suffer it!" I cried, in misery. "Madame de Cocheforet, I will--I would rather do it myself!"

She raised her hand, with a strange, patient expression on her face.

"Hush, please," she said. "Hus.h.!.+ you trouble me."

The fire took light and blazed up as she spoke, and she rose slowly from it, and, with a lingering look at it, went out; leaving me to stand and stare and listen in the middle of the floor. Presently I heard her coming back along the pa.s.sage, and she entered, bearing a tray with wine and meat and bread. She set it down on the table, and with the same wan face, trembling always on the verge of tears, she began to lay out the things. The gla.s.ses clinked pitifully against the plates as she handled them; the knives jarred with one another; and I stood by, trembling myself, and endured this strange, this awful penance.

She signed to me at last to sit down and eat; and she went herself, and stood in the garden doorway, with her back to me. I obeyed. I sat down; but though I had eaten nothing since the afternoon of the day before, and a little earlier had had appet.i.te enough, I could not swallow. I fumbled with my knife, and munched and drank; and grew hot and angry at this farce; and then looked through the window at the dripping bushes, and the rain, and the distant sundial, and grew cold again.

Suddenly she turned round and came to my side. "You do not eat," she said.

I threw down my knife, and sprang up in a frenzy of pa.s.sion. "_Mon Dieu!_ Madame!" I cried. "Do you think I have _no_ heart?"

And then in a moment I knew what I had done. In a moment she was on her knees on the floor, clasping my knees, pressing her wet cheeks to my rough clothes, crying to me for mercy--for life! life! life! his life! Oh, it was horrible! It was horrible to see her fair hair falling over my mud-stained boots, to see her slender little form convulsed with sobs, to feel that this was a woman, a gentlewoman, who thus abased herself at my feet.

"Oh, Madame! Madame!" I cried, in my agony. "I beg you to rise. Rise, or I must go! You will drive me out!"

"Grant me his life!" she moaned pa.s.sionately. "Only his life! What had he done to you, that you should hunt him down? What had we done to you, that you should slay us? Ah, Sir, have mercy! Let him go, and we will pray for you; I and my sister will pray for you every morning and night of our lives."

I was in terror lest some one should come and see her lying there, and I stooped and tried to raise her. But she would not rise; she only sank the lower until her tender hands clasped my spurs, and I dared not move. Then I took a sudden resolution. "Listen then, Madame," I said, almost sternly, "if you will not rise. When you ask what you do, you forget how I stand, and how small my power is! You forget that were I to release your husband to-day, he would be seized within the hour by those who are still in the village, and who are watching every road--who have not ceased to suspect my movements and my intentions.

You forget, I say, my circ.u.mstances--"

She cut me short on that word. She sprang abruptly to her feet and faced me. One moment, and I should have said something to the purpose.

But at that word she was before me, white, breathless, dishevelled, struggling for speech. "Oh yes, yes," she panted eagerly, "I know! I understand!" And she thrust her hand into her bosom and plucked something out and gave it to me--forced it upon me into my hands. "I know! I know!" she said again. "Take it, and G.o.d reward you, Monsieur!

We give it freely--freely and thankfully! And may G.o.d bless you!"

I stood and looked at her, and looked at it, and slowly froze. She had given me the packet--the packet I had restored to Mademoiselle, the parcel of jewels. I weighed it in my hands, and my heart grew hard again, for I knew that this was Mademoiselle's doing; that it was she who, mistrusting the effect of Madame's tears and prayers, had armed her with this last weapon--this dirty bribe, I flung it down on the table among the plates, all my pity changed to anger. "Madame," I cried ruthlessly, "you mistake me altogether. I have heard hard words enough in the last twenty-four hours, and I know what you think of me!

But you have yet to learn that I have never turned traitor to the hand that employed me, nor sold my own side! When I do so for a treasure ten times the worth of that, may my hand rot off!"

She sank into a seat, with a moan of despair, and at that moment the door opened, and M. de Cocheforet came in. Over his shoulder I had a glimpse of Mademoiselle's proud face, a little whiter to-day, with dark marks under the eyes, but still firm and cold. "What is this?" he said, frowning and stopping short as his eyes lighted on Madame.

"It is--that we start at eleven o'clock, Monsieur," I answered, bowing curtly. "Those, I fancy, are your property." And pointing to the jewels, I went out by the other door.

That I might not be present at their parting, I remained in the garden until the hour I had appointed was well pa.s.sed; then without entering the house I went to the stable entrance. Here I found all ready, the two troopers (whose company I had requisitioned as far as Auch) already in the saddle, my own two knaves waiting with my sorrel and M.

de Cocheforet's chestnut. Another horse was being led up and down by Louis, and, alas, my heart winced at the sight. For it bore a lady's saddle, and I saw that we were to have company. Was it Madame who meant to come with us? or Mademoiselle? And how far? To Auch? or farther?

I suppose that they had set some kind of a watch on me; for, as I walked up, M. de Cocheforet and his sister came out of the house,--he looking white, with bright eyes and a twitching in his cheek, though through all he affected a jaunty bearing; she wearing a black mask.

"Mademoiselle accompanies us?" I said formally.

"With your permission, Monsieur," he answered, with grim politeness.

But I saw that he was choking with emotion. I guessed that he had just parted from his wife, and I turned away.

When we were all mounted, he looked at me. "Perhaps, as you have my parole, you will permit me to ride alone," he said, with a little hesitation, "and--"

"Without me!" I rejoined keenly. "a.s.suredly, so far as is possible." I directed the troopers to ride in front and keep out of ear-shot; my two men followed the prisoner at a like distance, with their carbines on their knees. Last of all I rode myself, with my eyes open and a pistol loose in my holster. M. de Cocheforet, I saw, was inclined to sneer at so many precautions, and the mountain made of his request; but I had not done so much and come so far, I had not faced scorn and insults, to be cheated of my prize at last. Aware that until we were beyond Auch there must be hourly and pressing danger of a rescue, I was determined that he who would wrest my prisoner from me should pay dearly for it. Only pride, and, perhaps, in a degree also, appet.i.te for a fight, had prevented me borrowing ten troopers instead of two.

We started, and I looked with a lingering eye and many memories at the little bridge, the narrow woodland path, the first roofs of the village; all now familiar, all seen for the last time. Up the brook a party of soldiers were dragging for the captain's body. A furlong farther on, a cottage, burned by some carelessness in the night, lay a heap of black ashes. Louis ran beside us, weeping; the last brown leaves fluttered down in showers. And between my eyes and all, the slow, steady rain fell and fell and fell. And so I left Cocheforet.

Louis went with us to a point a mile beyond the village, and there stood and saw us go, cursing me furiously as I pa.s.sed. Looking back when we had ridden on, I still saw him standing; and after a moment's hesitation I rode back to him. "Listen, fool," I said, cutting him short in the midst of his mowing and snarling, "and give this message to your mistress. Tell her from me that it will be with her husband as it was with M. de Regnier, when he fell into the hands of his enemy--no better and no worse."

"You want to kill her, too, I suppose?" he answered, glowering at me.

"No, fool! I want to save her!" I retorted wrathfully. "Tell her that, just that and no more, and you will see the result."

"I shall not," he said sullenly. "I shall not tell her. A message from you, indeed!" And he spat on the ground.

"Then on your head be it!" I answered solemnly. And I turned my horse's head and galloped fast after the others. For, in spite of his refusal, I felt sure that he would report what I had said--if it were only out of curiosity; and it would be strange if Madame did not understand the reference.