The Scourge of God
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Around the nearly destroyed mill, except on one side where it adjoined an inn, "La Rose de Provence," the front of which was all singed and scarred, he saw the executioners, the men who had been soldiers, fierce yet valiant, until this morning, but who were now worthy of no nobler name than that of cowardly murderers. Dragoons, Croatian Cravates, now Prance's most bloody swashbucklers with one exception, the Miquelets, those fierce Pyrenean tigers, as well as chevaux-légers and countless numbers of the milice. And near them, his sword drawn, his face inflamed with drink and fury, his breast a mass of ribbons and orders, was Montrevel upon his horse, a scandal to the bâton he had lately gained.
"Murderer! Assassin! Brave butcher of women and babes," howled many in the crowd, one half of which was Protestant, "noble papist! you have done your work well. Yet beware of Cavalier and Roland!"
And even as they so shouted, from more than one window high up in the roofs there came little puffs of smoke and spits of flame, showing that he was aimed at. Only the devil protected him. His time was not yet come. He was mad now with fury or drink, or thirst for human blood. Mad, stung to frenzy by resistance and contempt, even in spite of all that he had done that morning, of having glutted his ire on the helpless, which should have sufficed, all heard him roar:
"Finissons! Nîmes is heretic to the core. Make an end of it. Avancez, mes soldats. Burn, destroy, slaughter. Kill all." And he turned his horse toward where the crowd was thickest and bade the carnage begin, marshalling his troops into companies the better to distribute them about the doomed city.
But now there stepped forth one-Sandricourt, Governor of Nîmes-who forbade him to do that which he threatened; warned him that if one more house or street was injured he would himself that night set forth for Paris, and tell Louis that Montrevel was unworthy of the command he held in this distracted province.
"Ha! Sandricourt, 'tis Sandricourt," whispered one in a knot of Protestants standing near to where Martin and the man he had accosted were. "He is the best, he and Fléchier, bishop though he is. If all were like them-if Baville were-then-then we might live in peace, not see nor know the awful terrors we have seen this day. Oh, the horror of it! the horror of it!" and he buried his face in his hands as though to hide some sight that he feared might blast him.
Baville! The name recalled the man to Martin's memory. Nay, it did more, far more than that. Recalled his love, Urbaine. Set him wondering, too, if by any chance this holocaust had taken place at the Intendant's suggestion; if this was a vengeance on those who had destroyed her. For he must deem her dead by now; weeks had passed since she disappeared. Had he set the shambles fresh running with blood to avenge her loss?
He must see Baville at once, must tell him she was safe. Thereby, perhaps, more slaughter might be averted.
"Where is Baville?" he asked, turning to the group of terrified Protestants by his side. "Is he in this carnage?"
"God, he knows," one replied. "Yet he has not appeared. Not since this commenced. Were you here at the beginning?"
"Nay, I arrived but now. Is it true, can it be true there are three hundred destroyed within that?" and he glanced toward the débris of the mill, the superstructure now nothing but ashes and charred beams, with, lying above them, the red tiles of what had been a roof ere it fell in, burying beneath it-what?
"It is true, it is true," the man wailed. Then, composing himself, he told of all that had gone before. "They were at prayer," he said, "in there, in Mercier's mill. I myself and Prosper Roumilli," indicating one of the men by his side. "Also Antoine La Quoite and Pierre Delamer," nodding to two others near him, "were hastening to join them; all grieved that we were too late. Late, grand Dieu! What have we not escaped?"
"Death and destruction," whispered La Quoite, trembling.
"Ay, death and destruction. Hélas! they raised their songs of thanksgiving too loud. Their cantiques told where they were, reached the ears of that murderer there who was at his breakfast-"
"He was," again interrupted La Quoite, "with the woman, Léonie Sabbat. A fitting companion. She can drink even him beneath the table."
"Furious he left that table, summoned a battalion, passed swiftly here, surrounded the mill. Furious, too, because as they passed the cathedral he heard the organ blow, knew that Fléchier worshipped too, mad and savage because during such time we should also worship God in our own way."
"Yet our day will come," murmured Pierre Delamer, "it will come. I am old, yet shall I not die until it comes."
"The soldiers burst open the door," went on the original speaker, "rushed in among them sabres in hand, slew many. Yet this was too slow for him-"
"It was," exclaimed La Quoite. "He said they would be three hundred minutes slaying three hundred people thus. Too slow! He drew off his men, closed the doors, set fire to the mill. You see the end," and he pointed to the ashes of the ruined place, ashes that were also something else besides the remains of the mill.
Again the first speaker took up the story, Martin feeling sick unto death as he stood by and heard.
"From within there came the shouts of the lost, the piercing cries, the heartrending shrieks. Midst burst walls, at windows, upon the roof, we saw the death-doomed appear. Flying spectres, phantoms, upon them the wounds the soldiers had made, black, singed by the flames. And then, O God! the sight passed man's endurance."
"What next?" asked Martin, white to the lips.
"What next? This: With their new weapons, the accursed baïonnettes, the soldiers thrust back into the flames those whom the could get at; those whom they could not reach they fired at. We saw them fall back shrieking. Yet in God's mercy their shrieks ceased soon-there were none left."
"But one," exclaimed the man called La Quoite, "a girl, pauvre petite fillette! She escaped so far as to reach the ground unhurt, to escape their blades, although they held them up as she jumped from the window, so that thereby she might be impaled. But they missed her, and, running toward Montrevel, she shrieked for mercy. Poor child, poor child! not more than fifteen-than fifteen!"
"His lackey," struck in Delamer, "had more mercy than the master. He helped her to escape from out the hands of the soldiers."
"Thank God there was a man, a human heart, among them," murmured Martin.
"Ay, yet it availed little. The brigand ordered her to the hangman's hands, also the lackey. The gibbet was prepared. Both would have died but that a Catholic woman, une sœur de la miséricorde, upon her knees-Heaven's blessings light upon her! – besought him by the God whom all worship equally to give them their lives."
"And he yielded?"
"He yielded. He spared these two, though an hour later the lackey was thrown outside the gate of Nîmes, his master bidding him go hang or drown himself, or join his friends, les Protestants, whereby once more he might fall into his hands."
"There is one good piece of news yet to be told," whispered La Quoite, who was a man of fiercer mood than the others. "In the mêlée the soldiers sabred many of the Catholics unwittingly. God be praised!" and he laughed harshly.
And now the end of this day's work had come. Montrevel had left the spot. Behind him went the dragoons and milices. The butchery was over. He should have been well satisfied with his morning.
Yet it scarcely looked as though he were so. His eyes glared around him as he rode off, his hand clutched convulsively the sword laid across his horse's mane. No wonder that they said afterward, when his recall came and the noble and merciful Villars replaced him, that on that day he was mad as the long-chained and infuriated panther is mad. He had met with nothing but defeat and disaster since he had marched into Languedoc tambours battants; nothing but scorn and contempt and derision from the mountaineers whom he had sworn to crush beneath his heel; had received nothing but reproof from headquarters.
"Baville must be somewhere near," Martin said to La Quoite as they watched him ride forth from the scene of carnage. "Where is he?"
"I know not; yet, doubtless, not far. And he too is mad for the death of his loved one. God grant he is not close at hand; that none of us fall into his clutches. He would spur Montrevel on to fresh attempts."
Yet La Quoite's prayer found no echo in Martin's heart. He wished to find Baville, desired to see him, to stand face to face with him and tell him that Urbaine was safe. For safe she must be even after this massacre, safe even though in Cavalier's hands.
Had he not said that he knew for certain she too was a Protestant, as they were-une Huguenote!
Note. – Justice requires it to be said that, of all the Roman Catholic writers who have described and written upon the slaughter at the mill in Nîmes, not one has approved of it, or attempted to exonerate Montrevel. In truth, this awful outrage was the brutality of a rude, ungovernable soldier and not of a priest; and Fléchier, Bishop of Nîmes, was loud in its condemnation. It led to Montrevel's recall and to the arrival of Marshal Villars, who at last restored peace to Languedoc by the use of clemency and mercy. Such peace was not, however, to take place for some time.
Also it should be stated that Baville was quite free from any part in this matter, and that Louis XIV knew nothing of what had happened, nor indeed of any of the terrible events which occurred about the same time, it being the system of Madame de Maintenon and of Chamillart to keep him in ignorance of what was being enacted so far away from Versailles. It has been told that when he heard of the massacre at the mill he was observed to weep for the first and only time in his life. He might well do so!
CHAPTER XXVI
DOOMED
Remembering that his horse (which he would require ere long to carry him to the mountains, since although, as he had thanked God again and again, Urbaine was in no danger, Baville would doubtless desire him to obtain her release at once) had been left in the stables behind the Porte des Carmes, Martin made his way there. Went toward the gate, resolved to fetch it away and place it in some more secure spot than the one in which several dragoons had tied up theirs ere dismounting.
Reaching the yard, he found the animal; found also that the dragoons must have preceded him, since now all their horses were gone excepting one, which, by its caparisons and trappings, by the great gold sun upon the bridle, the throat-plume and saddle-flaps, as well as by its fleecy bear-skin saddle-cloth, was plainly an officer's.
"A fine beast," he mused as, ere he removed his own horse, he held a bucket of water to its mouth, "a fine beast. Too good to be employed in carrying its rider to such work as he and his men have been about to-day."
As he thought thus he heard the heavy ring of spurred boots upon the rough flags of the yard, also the clang of a metal scabbard-tip on them, and, glancing round, saw coming toward him a young dragoon officer, his face flushed, perhaps with the heat, perhaps with the business that he and his troops had been recently employed upon.
"Peste!" the man exclaimed as he came up to his own steed and began unfastening the bridle from the staple to which it was attached. "Peste! Hot work, monsieur, this morning, what with the glaring sun and the flames from the mill. N'est-ce pas, monsieur? Yet, yet I wish those heretics had not been of the feeble. It is no soldier's work slaughtering babes and women and vieillards. My God!" he broke off, exclaiming, a moment later, "So it is you, villain!"
"What!" exclaimed Martin, astonished at this sudden change of speech and regarding him as though he were a madman. "What! Villain! To whom does monsieur apply that word?" and the look upon his face should have warned the young man to be careful of his words.
"To whom," the other sneered, however, "to whom? To whom should I apply it but one? Who else is there in the stable-yard but you to whom it would apply? And if there were fifty more, I should still address it to you. Also the word murderer."
"To me! Are you mad that you assault a stranger thus with such opprobrium? Answer, or, being sane, draw the weapon by your side."
"Which is that which I intend to do. Yet I know not whether you are fit to cross blades with. You! You!"
"You will know it shortly," Martin said quietly, as now he drew his own sword and stood before him, "unless, that is, you have some very tangible explanation of your words to offer."
"Explanation! Explanation! Oh, avec ça! you shall have an explanation. Are you not the fellow who sat on the bridge when De Peyre's dragoons rode into Montvert after the murder of the Abbé du Chaila? Are you not the man who led the attack on the Intendant's daughter, dragging her from her carriage, carried her off to the mountains, to your accursed attroupés; doubtless assisted in her murder? Answer that, maraud, and tell no lies."
And even as he spoke he struck at him with the gauntlet he held in his hand, muttering, "I loved her, I loved her, and I will slay you." Then said again, "Answer ere I slay you."
"I will answer you," said Martin quietly still-so quietly, yet ominously, that, had the man before him not been a soldier, he would have been well advised to flee from out the yard. "But it must be later; when I have stretched you at my feet for your insolence. You shall have the explanation when I have paid you back that blow, when your soul is hurrying to join your victims of this morning."
His blood was up now. The abusive words of the soldier; the sting of the heavy gauntlet still upon his cheek; perhaps, though that he scarce recognized, the feeling of hate against this swashbuckler for having dared to dream of loving Urbaine-all combined to make him resolute to kill the man before him. Also the horror, the disgust, that every effort he had made, every danger he had run, should be subjected to such misinterpretation, added to the accusation, if any addition were needed, that doubtless he had murdered her. For the first time in the course of this unholy war his weapon was unsheathed, about to be used. It should not find its scabbard again till it was wet with this man's life blood.
"Have I been mistaken?" the soldier said, astonished by his words, above all by his calm. "Made some strange error?"
"You have. No greater in your life than that foul blow. Put up your weapon before you, or I run you through as you stand here. Quick, en garde. I am neither 'woman, babe, nor vieillard.'"
"If it must be, it must-"
"It must!"
"Soit! If you will have it so."
The yard was large enough for any pair of escrimeurs to make fair play in, yet had it been smaller it would have well sufficed, as the dragoon found. Found that he had his master here before him, a man in whose hands he was a child; a fencer who would not let him move from the spot he was on, except backward slowly to the wall. And that not by his own desire, but because the iron wrist in front of him rendered resistance to its owner's will impossible.
Sword-play such as this he had never known, nor an adversary who parried every thrust as he made it, yet never lunged himself, reserving, doubtless, all his strength for that lunge at last. Strength to thrust through muscle and chest-wall the blade which would pierce his heart.
He felt that he was doomed. There rose before him an old manoir with a window high up in a tourelle, a window from which he knew that, even now, a gray-haired, sad-eyed woman-his mother! – watched as she had often watched for his coming. Ah, well, he would never appear again to gladden her. Never, never, through all the years that she might live. Never!
There was a click, a tic-tac of steel against steel that told him his reflections were but too true and just, that the gray-haired woman's chance of ever seeing him again would be gone in a few seconds now. Also he experienced that feeling which every swordsman has known more than once, the feeling that the wrist of the opponent is preparing the way for the deadly lunge, the feeling that his own guard is being pressed down with horrible, devilish force, that the lightning thrust will be through him in a moment.
For a moment he was saved, his agony prolonged by an interruption. Two men-warders-had appeared on the roof of the gate, and, seeing what was going on below, stood there watching the play of the swords. Joking and jeering, too, about his incompetency in spite of the scarlet and gold he wore, bidding him take heart; that soon it would be over; also that the pain was not great after the first bite of the steel.
And disturbed, agitated, he but clumsily endeavoured to guard himself from that awful pressure, knowing that the thrust must come directly.
Astonished, he found it did not do so. Instead, the pressure relaxed. A moment later his adversary spoke to him.
"Those fellows agitate you. Take breath," and the dreaded blade was still. Soon both weapons were unlocked.
"You are very noble," the dragoon said. "I-I-no matter. Let us continue," and muttered to himself, "as well now as three moments later," preparing for the death he knew was to be his. Or rather thought was to be his, not dreaming that it would never be dealt to him by the calm and apparently implacable swordsman before him. For Martin, his blood cooling as he learned how poor a foeman he was opposed to, a swordsman unworthy of his steel, had resolved to dismiss him, strike up his weapon and give him his life, with some contemptuous words added to the gift.
Not understanding, however, all that was in the brain of the man who, as a boy, had been sent across the Alps from Paris to the best maestri di scherma of Padua and Florence to learn all they could teach in the use of small arms; not knowing this, the other prepared himself for his fate, seeing now that the men on the roof jeered and fleered no longer; instead, stared with a look of apprehension at the entrance to the yard.
Started, too, at a voice which Martin heard, as the others heard.
"Strike up that man's guard," the voice cried. "Secure him. For you, Montglas, touch him not at your peril. Arrest the English spy."
The voice of Baville! As Martin knew well enough ere, contemptuously disarming the dragoon by a flanconnade, he turned and faced the Intendant. The man whose child he had saved, yet who now denounced him as an English spy; who had learned by some means that he was a subject of France's bitterest foe.
Behind him there stood six Croatian Cravates, part of the Intendant's guards, swarthy fellows whose very name caused tremblings to all in France, though they themselves had trembled once before Prince Eugene's soldiers, and were to tremble again as Marlborough hedged them in with English steel later-men who now advanced to seize the English spy.
"Take his sword from him," Baville said. "If he resists, knock him on the head. Yet spare his life. That is mine to deal with."
For a moment the glittering blade flashed ominously before the Croatians; glittered, too, before Baville's eyes. Then the point was lowered to the ground, and Martin spoke.
"What," he asked calmly, "do these orders mean?"
"Mean?" echoed Baville. "Mean! You ask me that? They mean that you are in my hands. That to-morrow you die."
"Upon what charge?"
"Bah! I equivocate not with such as you," and he turned to go. "Nay," he exclaimed violently, looking round as Martin again addressed him. "Speak not. I require no answer. If you reply I shall forget that I am the King's Intendant, shall remember only that you are the murderer of my child, shall bid these men despatch you here upon this spot."
"The-murderer-of-your-child!" Martin repeated. "Of-of-"
"Of Urbaine Ducaire."
"You believe that?"
"Believe it? I know it. This man whom but now you attempted to slay, le Baron de Montglas, saw you drag her from her carriage, carry her off. Enough. Answer me not. Take him," he said to the Croatians, "to the citadel." Then, once more addressing Martin, he said, his voice calm now, his tones gentle:
"To-morrow you will have your chance to speak, even you, an English spy, you, the murderer of an innocent woman, will not be condemned unheard. The Court will sit at the earliest moment possible."
"What if I tell you that Urbaine Ducaire lives, is well, happy? What then?"
As Martin spoke he saw the handsome face of the Intendant flush, the dark olive complexion become suffused with a warm glow, the dark, full eyes sparkle beneath their long black lashes. Saw, too, that he took a step forward toward him, whispering, "Lives-is happy!" Next, turned away again with a movement of contempt.
"What then!" he exclaimed, once more addressing Martin. "What then! What, you ask, should I say or do? Say it is a lie, such as you told before, only of five thousand times a deeper dye-a lie such as the lie you uttered when you proclaimed yourself a propriétaire of the North. Shall do that which no power on earth, not Louis' own, can prevent. Slay you as I have sworn a thousand times to do if ever by God's grace I had you in my hands again."
At the feet of the soldiers there was a clang-the clang of Martin's sword as he flung it on the paved stable-yard.
"Bid your bravoes pick it up," he said. "For yourself, do with me what you choose. It will never be sheathed by me again till you have heard my story before the Court you speak of. Packed as it may be, packed as all the courts of Languedoc have been by Monsieur l'Intendant from the beginning, packed by every one of your creatures whom you can gather round you, they shall all hear to-morrow morning my story, if I am not done to death ere I can tell it."
"Lies, bravado, will avail you nothing. Le Baron Montglas is witness against you. Come," he said, turning to that person. "Come."
And he strode from out the stable-yard after bidding the Cravates to follow with their prisoner.
Yet when he was alone in the house which he occupied at Nîmes his mind was ill at ease. Ill at ease because, in the calm bearing of this prisoner, in the contempt which that prisoner had shown for him and his authority as he flung his sword at his feet, he saw something which was neither guilt nor fear. Instead, contempt and scorn.
Also he had said "Urbaine Ducaire lives, is well, happy," and in saying it had spoken as one speaks who utters truth.
Yet how could he believe that such as this could be possible? Montglas, whose life had been at this man's mercy as he entered the stable-yard, had seen the other in the mêlée, had seen him tear Urbaine from the coach, lift her on to his horse, ride off with her. To what, to where? To death, to the mountains where the Protestants sheltered. And, if further confirmation was needed, had he not caused to be brought before him one who had escaped from the massacre of the Château St. Servas, one who plainly told how ere the Camisards attacked the castle disguised as royalists, this man, the Englishman as he now knew him to be, had brought Urbaine there, to wait doubtless for his accomplices? Also that very day he had heard, had been told by some who had returned from Cette, that among the Cévenoles who had been on the beach waiting for the landing of the English, this man had been recognised. His own spies had seen him; there could be no possibility of doubt.
"Yet if, after all, they should be wrong," he mused to himself; "if, after all, Montglas, the escaped one from St. Servas, the spy, should be deceived! Or, not being deceived, Urbaine should still live! What then? What if in truth he has in some manner managed to protect her, to save her! What then?"
Even as he muttered these words, these surmises, he wiped the heat drops from his brow. For-and now almost he prayed that this man might be lying-if all were wrong in what they accused him of, if instead of leading Urbaine to her death he had saved, protected her, all the same he was doomed. Doomed beyond hope!