The Sword of Gideon
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As, however, on this dark, early autumn night Bevill turned away from the deep window to cast himself on his pallet, neither bedclothes nor light having ever been supplied him since his detention, he heard voices speaking below on the stone courtyard which was between the wall of the fortress itself and the gate known as the Porte de la Ville. And not only did he hear those voices, but, on turning his eyes back towards the window, he saw the reflection of some light cast upon the upper part of the embrasure. A moment later, and even before he could return to the window to glance below, he heard the sound of planks and boards being cast down upon the stones.
"The Allies must be near," he whispered to himself, "very near. And their presence is known. Some further protection against them is about to be undertaken, something is to be erected, perhaps to shield or obscure the defenders. Some mantlets, it may be."
Then, his heart stirred, his pulses beating at the hopes that had sprung to his breast; the hopes that even now, at the eleventh hour, the chance of escape, of rescue, was at hand, Bevill glanced towards the stone courtyard again.
The soldiers below were, he saw, undoubtedly about to raise some erection with the planks and boards they had brought into the courtyard. Yet, to the mind of the prisoner above, who, in his time, had not only taken part in sieges but had himself on more than one occasion been besieged in some strong fortress or town of the Netherlands, it did not appear that either mantlet or temporary shield against sharpshooters of the enemy was about to be erected.
Instead, four large stones, each forming the corner of a square, had been removed from the earth below, and easily removed, too, as though this was not the first time they had been subjected to the process.
A moment later, in the spots those stones had occupied four short posts had taken their place, while, next, two other stones were removed in the middle of the square space. A second later a platform, itself a square of about eight feet, had been lifted on to the top of those posts and was being nailed down to them at each corner.
"I misdoubt me of what it is they do," Bevill murmured to himself as he saw this, while now the warm glow, the throb, the tremor of happy anticipation that had sprung to his heart but a few moments ago ebbed from it, leaving in its place a chill as of ice, one that he thought must be as the chill of death.
"Ah!" he gasped now. "Ah! It is so. That tells all."
For the soldiers, still working steadily below, had lifted first one piece of framework and then another-two long posts that, in their way, resembled signal posts at crossroads-on to the wooden platform, had thrust the lower ends through it into the two holes last left empty, and had gradually fitted them into the vacant spaces.
As now those things stood there towering some eight feet above the platform, he almost reeled back into the embrasure. For it needed nothing more, it needed no rope thrown over the cross-beams that, illumined alone in the dusky light by the flare of the torches which burnt flickeringly in the night air, seemed like some ghastly hands pointing the sombre road to death-to tell him that they were gibbets awaiting their victims.
"The hour is at hand," he whispered. "At dawn to-morrow if not now, I-" then suddenly he paused. "No, no," he exclaimed a moment later. "Not I! Neither of them is for me. My hour is not yet. They are for those others-Francbois, Stuven. My death is to be more noble or, at least, less ignominious. 'Tis true. There is still a chance for me-a chance for life. For her. For our love and happiness together."
Yet in an instant Bevill knew that he had spoken too soon.
As still he gazed below, fascinated by the sight of those awful, hideous things, he saw the man who was in command of this party, a sergeant of the dragoons of Risbourg, look round the courtyard as though in search of something. Next, he saw him advance towards the farther wall, while evidently counting his footsteps as he did so. Then, having touched the wall, he recounted them backwards, stopped two paces short of the spot whence he had before started, and, taking a chisel out of the hand of one of the others, stooped down and scratched a long line on the stones. After which he returned to the wall, made some other rough scratchings on it at about the height of a man's head, and, pointing his hand at the mark on the stones and afterwards at that on the wall, said something to the soldier which, naturally, Bevill could not hear.
Not hear! Nay, what hearing was necessary-to him, a soldier; to him who had ere now seen the place marked out where a condemned man was to stand while, at another place, the spot was marked where the platoon that should despatch him was to be drawn up! A million words uttered trumpet-tongued could have told him no more than those significant actions of the dragoon had done.
Now that Bevill knew the worst all tremors, all trepidations were gone, even as every warm glow of hope was gone too. The end was close at hand, and he knew it. Therefore, all bitterness was past. He was a soldier, he told himself, an Englishman who had faced thousands of bullets: a dozen could not fright him now.
Calmly, as though watching curiously the actions of strangers who interested him but disturbed him not at all, he leant against the window frame looking down at the preparations for his death and that of the others. Counting indifferently, too, the distance between the scratches on the stones and those on the wall, and endeavouring to decide whether the muzzles of the muskets would be fourteen or sixteen paces from his heart as the soldiers presented them!
Then, suddenly, he saw the men below draw themselves up stiffly to an attitude of attention, and perceived that De Violaine, enveloped in a long blue cavalry cloak, had entered the courtyard, and was regarding the scaffold. Also, he appeared to be giving some directions about one of the gallows supports, judging by the manner in which he pointed with his gloved hand to it and by the fact that, a moment later, one of the men mounted the scaffold and began to make the post more firm in the socket below it. Next, De Violaine gazed at the marks on the stones and on the wall, after which he shrugged his shoulders, said a word to the sergeant, and turned away and left the place. The moment he was gone Bevill saw that the soldiers had gathered round the sergeant and seemed to be asking him questions, and that they all gesticulated earnestly.
"It will be to-morrow, at dawn," he said to himself as he saw the men retiring with the almost burnt-out torches in their hands, leaving the courtyard in darkness. "To-morrow. Ah! I have still six hours or so left," as now he heard the clock of St. Lambert boom out ten over the city-the clock he had grown so accustomed to listening to-and listening for-during his long period of imprisonment. "Six hours in which to make my peace with God, to humbly fit myself to go before Him. Hours in which to pray for her who sits at home wondering what may have befallen me and whether I live or am dead and gone before her."
For now, as his hour of death drew near, his thoughts turned not to the girl whom he had but lately known and learnt to love, but to his grey-haired mother whose love had been his from the moment of his birth; at whose knees he had learned to lisp his first prayer.
Yet still there was not absent from his mind the stately form, the beautiful face of Sylvia-the latter ever present to him as he had seen it last-bedashed with tears and piteous in its sorrow. Of her he could think, too, and would think as the order to the platoon was given, as the flints fell, and, a second later, the bullets found his heart.
"Sylvia! Mother!" he murmured. "The two I had in the world to love me and to love; the two who will mourn my end. The one but for a short time, since now she is grown old and feeble; but the other-ah! God, it may be for years."
In the darkness he had reached his pallet, intent on casting himself on his knees by it and so passing his last few hours-later, there would be a long sleep! – when he heard a sound he had grown well accustomed to in the last few weeks-the sound of a soldier's tread, of the keys jangling in his hand as he came on.
"Is it now?" Bevill whispered. "Now? At once? If so, be brave. A soldier. And-remember. Their names the last upon your lips, their memories the last in your thoughts."
A moment later the key grated in the lock, the door was opened, and a soldier bearing a flambeau came in accompanied by De Violaine.
"Set down the light," the latter said, "place it in the socket and leave us." After which, and when the man was gone, De Violaine advanced towards where Bevill stood and said quietly, yet while seeming to brace himself to speak:
"Means were found to communicate with M. Tallard."
"Ah!"
"To summon him to our assistance. He has not come, but-"
"I understand," Bevill said, instantly, divining the remainder of what the other would say; "I have seen the preparations made below. The warrants are signed. Is it?" he asked calmly, "to be now or at dawn?"
"It had to be done, no matter what pity, what sympathy you aroused. In the position that all who judged you stood, they had to be inflexible in their honour, in their duty."
"I need hear no more. Yet, my time is short. I would spend it alone."
"Do not misunderstand me. The warrants are signed but a message has come from-from De Boufflers-that overrides those warrants. A message has been brought by a swift, a willing messenger-one who would speak with you."
Utterly bewildered, yet with once more that mad rush of joy to his heart as he comprehended that the Marshal's message nullified the signed warrant of his subordinate; that, for a time at least, his life was safe, Bevill could scarcely understand clearly De Violaine's latter words, nor, as a matter of fact, his halting manner and strange agitation. Yet one thing alone he did understand, namely, that De Violaine seemed to suppose some self-extenuation to be necessary in regard to the inflexibility of which he had spoken-an extenuation for which, in truth, Bevill himself saw no occasion, remembering De Violaine's position and the position in which he, by his own actions, had placed himself.
But now he found his voice; his words fell pell-mell over each other as he said:
"I am bewildered. I-I-the suddenness of this reprieve, even though it be no more, has dulled my senses. I cannot understand. A messenger here from Le Maréchal de Boufflers-to me-a condemned spy! Brought by a swift, a willing messenger."
"A messenger, now a prisoner like yourself!"
"In mercy, I beseech you explain-" But he stopped. For, even as De Violaine uttered these last words, he went towards the door and returned a moment later, leading a woman by the hand-a woman who was wrapped in a long houppelande, or lady's riding cloak, but who, since the furred hood was thrown back from her face, was a moment later clasped to Bevill's heart.
* * * * * * *"I am in time. Thank God, thank God," Sylvia had said again and again after that fond embrace, and when now they were alone, or comparatively alone, since De Violaine had departed as those two met, though leaving the turnkey outside in the corridor and also leaving the door open-open because, it may be, of what he knew was now going on outside the city. Because, if all happened as he feared, those locked within the cells or rooms of that Citadel would soon have very little chance of leaving them alive. Marlborough was within three miles of Liége; already the magistracy and the commissioners of the Cathedral chapter were arranging to deliver up the city to him, and St. Walburgh had been set on fire by the French garrison. Already, too, De Violaine had been summoned by the advance portion of Marlborough's army to surrender, but had replied that "it would be time enough to consider that when their provisions were exhausted, six weeks hence."
"My love, my love," Sylvia murmured. "I have saved you-you who would have died to save me-you who strove so valiantly."
"And failed! Yet did not fail either, since are not you, my sweet, the gain of a loss?"
"Also another reward is yours. Lord Marlborough restores you to the life you covet, the life that I would have you lead, except only for one thing."
"One thing. What, Sylvia?"
"That, following this life, I must part from you; must let you go from my side. You whom I would have ever near to me, you from whom I would never part more, you whom I love with my whole heart and soul."
CHAPTER XXXV
The suburb of St. Walburgh was in flames, the French soldiers, consisting of twelve battalions who had been stationed there, had come into the Citadel and the Chartreuse. A hundred houses had been set on fire by them, and, ere dawn came, all that part of Liége was as light as day. The magistracy and the chapter against whom no orders, even if they had been issued, could have had any effect since now the gates were neglected by the French, had visited Marlborough in his camp outside, and had signed articles as to the disposition of the city and all in it, while three English battalions under Lord Cutts, and three Dutch, held the North gate and endeavoured to keep order in the streets. It only remained now that the artillery should arrive, the fascines be cut and the trenches opened for the Citadel and Chartreuse to be attacked, unless those within them surrendered.
Inside that room in which Bevill had passed so many weary days, waiting to meet the doom that had been pronounced on him, there were now three prisoners, namely, he who had so long occupied it, the woman he loved so tenderly, and the Comtesse de Valorme. For she, too, had been detained by De Violaine in consequence of her having escaped with Sylvia out of Liége, and placed herself in communication with the enemy. Inflexible to the last, strong in his duty towards the interests of the country he loved and the King whom he despised, he had done that which honour demanded and made prisoners of both women.
"Yet," he said bitterly to the Comtesse, as he informed her of what must be done, "be cheered. Our positions must soon be reversed. The old walls of this Citadel and of the Chartreuse will not long resist the battering pieces and mortars, or the double grenades, that the Earl of Marlborough is known to have with him, and then-well, then! – you will be free. I shall be the prisoner."
"At least," Sylvia, who had heard his words, said, "you will be a noble one-noble as I shall ever esteem you, though now I know that your hand signed the condemnation of my lover; that in your stern, rigid sense of honour you found the means of communicating with M. Tallard, of obtaining his confirmation of the sentence. Ah!" she continued, "that one so loyal as you should serve so evil a master."
"Duty before all, mademoiselle," De Violaine answered. "When Louis gave me my first brevet, when I vowed fidelity to him and France, there was no more noble king in Europe, in the whole world. There was no master less cruel to his subjects, no matter what their faith was."
Now, on this night, however, De Violaine was not there, but, instead, on the battlement of the Citadel directing all preparations to be made for resisting the siege. For already the English artillery which had come up the Meuse was disembarked and most of it dragged up the hill upon which the Citadel stood, as were also forty-eight huge mortars invented by the great engineer Cœhorn (who was now present with the force), as well as several Seville mortars, the bombs from which could blow to pieces the walls and doors of fortresses. And, ominous sign for those within the Citadel! the fuses were all lighted.
Behind these lay the troops of General Ingoldsby and Brigadier Stanley, as well as four companies of the Grenadiers, while, to protect them from being taken in the rear, were the dragoons and Bevill's old regiment, the Cuirassiers.
Afar off the autumn dawn was coming now; away towards where the Rhine lay, the eyes of those three watchers could see the darkness of the night changing to grey, and, swiftly, the grey to a pale daffodil that told of the dayspring which was at hand; then, next, a fleck of flame shot like a barbed arrow above the daffodil that was changing to pink and opal; the rim of the sun was seen to be swiftly mounting behind. At this moment, clearly on the still, cold morning air a trumpet rang out beneath the Citadel; another answered from below the Chartreuse across the river; a moment later the Cœhorns had belched forth their bombs and the six and twelve pounders of the artillery had made their first discharge.
"Oh! to be there!" Bevill cried. "There behind them, with the old regiment, instead of a helpless man, a waster, here. Yet, no, no! My place is here by you, my heart, my very own, to save and help you even as you have saved me."
But from Sylvia there came no response, or, at least, none in answer to his words. Instead, from the lips of both these women, brave as each was, there came a cry, a gasp that was in actual fact a suppressed shriek. Already against the wall of the Citadel more than one bomb had struck and exploded with an awful crash; they saw falling swiftly before the window huge masses of detached masonry that thundered a moment later on to the stones of the courtyard below; they saw, through the grime and smoke that rolled suddenly away on the breathless, unstirred morning air, that slowly the English infantry was creeping up nearer the great guns in preparation for a rush. For already a breach was made below; it was not only the side of the Citadel that was now being battered by the attackers.
Still, a little later, the mouth of the embrasure was closed by the explosion of a bomb, that, while shattering the window into a million pieces, burst in the stone framework and also dislodged the stones above. Those in the room were therefore in darkness once more, a darkness as profound as that of the night now passed away, and, with an anxious cry, Bevill demanded if either of his companions had been struck by the dislodged masonry.
"Ah! heaven be praised," he cried, finding both were safe. "But now, now, the time has come to leave this. The door is still open; even were it not so, none would keep us confined here at such a moment. Come! Come At least let us make our way below."
Then, hurriedly escorting Sylvia and the Comtesse through the corridors in which-though they passed now and again French soldiers hurrying either up or down the staircase-they met with no molestation, they reached the salle d'armes on the lower floor.
Yet, as they did so, they saw also the terrible devastation that the bombardment had already wrought. One side of a corridor, the outer one formed by the great front of the Citadel, was entirely blown away; a room or large cell that presented the appearance of having been recently occupied-since they saw within it the débris of a shattered pallet and a table-was a mass of ruins; the three remaining sides were open to the morning air. Also, more than once, the women had to raise their dresses to step over wounded men lying in the passages, who had doubtless been shot while themselves firing from the windows.
But still they were in the salle d'armes: here, since it was not quite so exposed to the fire of the besiegers, they might hope to remain in comparative safety.
"Come," Bevill said to his companions. "Come to this corner. At this spot you are farthest removed from the outer wall which is alone likely to be struck. Meanwhile, since one knows not what violence these soldiers may attempt in the bitterness of their defeat, it is as well I should be armed." Saying which he moved towards the trophies of ancient weapons that decorated all the inner side of the great salle, and let his eyes rove over the swords that hung upon the wall.
"This should serve," he said to himself, reaching out his hand towards a great Schiavona or Venetian broadsword; one with a long bi-convex blade that, in the hands of an expert and powerful swordsman, might do terrible execution.
Returning now to where Sylvia and Madame de Valorme were, Bevill seated himself by the former's side while telling both that the Citadel must soon surrender before such an attack as this now being made, and that, doubtless, the Chartreuse must be in the same position. Yet his words fell almost unheard upon their ears, so awful was the din around. From the roof of this old fortress discharge followed discharge unceasingly; from the windows the crack of muskets went on, and still against the walls the artillery balls and the bombs of the besiegers thundered and crashed.
"It must cease ere long," Bevill said. "Ah! do not look. Avert your glances. They are already bringing down the wounded from above," while he added beneath his breath, "and the slain."
As he spoke, what was evidently either a powder magazine or one for grenades blew up with an awful roar, while the concussion caused even that old solid hall to rock. And now Sylvia and the Comtesse threw themselves on their knees by the bench on which they had been sitting, and prayed that further slaughter and devastation might be spared.
Also, each prayed for him who, by their side, was keeping watch and ward over them; for him who, entering but a few months earlier into their lives, had now become so dear to them.
Unwilling to disturb them even by the closeness of his presence, Bevill softly withdrew towards the other end of the salle d'armes; towards that spot where he had stood to hear his fate pronounced, the spot where Stuven had denounced Francbois as a liar and himself as the executioner of the renegade, Sparmann. Towards, also, that spot where the doomsman had stood above the awful instruments of his calling. He stood there, looking on the scene where all these things had happened, when, suddenly, there rang through the hall the shriek of a woman, and, next, a cry from Sylvia's lips. "Bevill! Look, look! Beware. Look behind you!"
In an instant he saw that which had so much terrified the girl he loved. Creeping from behind a pillar there came towards him a man with a weapon in his hand that had, doubtless, also been taken earlier from the collection of arms-a man whom at first he did not recognise, so ghastly was his face, so wildly staring his eyes, so dishevelled his whole appearance. But in a moment he knew him. He knew that this was Francbois, Francbois who should have died this morning, but who, in the confusion of the siege, had escaped from wherever he had been confined.
"Wretch!" he exclaimed, as, turning, he recognised him. "Doubly treacherous wretch! Again you seek my life, again attempt it behind my back."
"I love her," the other hissed. "Her, her! And she loves you. So be it. She shall have nought but your memory left to love," and he sprang full at Bevill, while brandishing the sword he held. For a moment-only a moment-it was in Bevill's mind to run the craven through from breast to back, as he came on. Yet, in a second moment the thought was gone. If Francbois were not mad he was still beneath his vengeance. Whatever his doom might be, now or in the future, he should not find it at his hands; those hands should not be stained by the blood of such as he.
Stepping back, therefore, as the other came full at him, one turn of the Schiavona, as it met the blade wielded by the other, was enough. That blade fell with a clang from Francbois' hand to the stone floor; a moment later Bevill's foot was on it.
"Go, hangdog," he said. "Seek another executioner than I."
With a cry-almost pitiful in its tone of misery, vile as the creature was-with a howl of wild despair, Francbois rushed now across the salle d'armes to the other side of it; the side against which the English bombs and cannon balls were being hurled, and there endeavoured to snatch a huge mace out of another trophy of arms. But, suddenly, not only he but Bevill, and also the two affrighted women, started with terror at that which they saw now.
From another door than the one by which they had entered they saw a second figure approaching, creeping towards Francbois; a figure in whose eyes there was a more awful light than even those of Francbois possessed; one whose lips gibbered as the lips of the raving maniac gibber; whose face was flecked with the foam from them. It was the form of Stuven, also free, of Stuven, now an absolute demoniac, that they saw; the form of the man whose thirst for the blood of spies and traitors was at its height. Armed also with an ancient weapon, a thing pointed and sharp like the shell-dag of mediæval days, he crept as swiftly towards Francbois as the panther creeps towards its prey, while uttering incoherent sounds yet telling plainly all that was in his distraught brain by the look that shone from out those awful, scintillating eyes, and by the hideous twitching of that mouth. And Francbois, paralysed with fear, shrieked aloud and turned to flee. At this moment the madman flew with a bound at him, the great two-handled knife was raised-yet it was never fated to be buried in the unhappy wretch's breast.