Noémi
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With the river thus watched and every road guarded jealously, it was important for Le Gros Guillem to cross in the dark, unperceived, lest a warning should be sent to La Roque, and the garrison be set on the alert so that the castellan would be unable to fulfil his engagement.
As the evening closed in the clouds that had been noticed by Heliot covered the whole heavens. There was no wind below; at the same time one must have been blowing aloft, for the vapours parted and disclosed the moon and then drifted over its face again, and through them it peered dimly, like an eye with cataract over it, or else became totally obscured.
The men detailed for the expedition were assembled in the courtyard of the castle. They were not mounted – horses were unnecessary and inconvenient. The tramp might be heard and cause alarm. The routiers remained in their ranks motionless till the word was given, and then silently they defiled out of the castle, through the street of Domme, and the town portcullis was raised to allow them to pass forth.
Le Gros Guillem had boats on the river at his command. And the passage of the Dordogne was effected in the darkness successfully without attention being attracted on the opposite bank. The companions issued from the boats and drew up on the bank till the Captain gave the command to march, when they proceeded down the right bank of the river without speaking and without making any noise. Owing to the rainfall the way was muddy and the mud prevented their tramp from being audible. Shortly before the hour named by the castellan the entire party was near the Sarlat gate, concealed behind vineyard walls and bushes.
The town that was menaced seemed to be buried in slumber and security. The only light discernible was the faint glow through the church window of S. Donat, where the sanctuary lamp burned. There was not even a light in the castle – which in the general darkness was indiscernible – only the mighty cliff into which it was built stood high overhead like a gigantic wave ready to fall and bury everything beneath it. The Captain picked out the men he had fixed on to accompany him and gave his instructions to the others in a whisper. As soon as the alarm-bell sounded in the castle they were to draw rapidly to the gate. Their comrades within would open, "and," said Guillem, "the town is yours – to do as you please therein." Then he advanced cautiously with his five men to the postern at the side and not to the main gate. This postern was small, it would admit but one man at a time.
On reaching it Guillem scratched with the point of his sword, and the signal was answered at once – cautiously the door was unbarred and unlocked and the castellan appeared in it. The clouds had momentarily parted and the new moon gleamed forth and was reflected by the river. Guillem could perceive that this was the same man who had visited him at Domme.
"The word?"
"Le Peuch."
"It is well, Le Peuch. How many?" he asked under his breath.
"Myself and five," answered Guillem.
"It is well – let two men remain here. The others follow me." He led the way up a steep stair of stone steps, past houses built into the rock, past the little church, one wall of which was the rock itself, and the roadway lay almost level with the eave. There was a clock in the tower, it throbbed like the pulse of a living being – the pulse of the whole town, but it beat evenly, as if the town was without fear.
The road lay beneath some houses; for, in order to penetrate from one portion of the town to another, to reach from one ledge of rock with the buildings occupying it where every foot of ground was precious, the path was conducted beneath chambers, in which, overhead, the citizens were peacefully sleeping, unsuspicious of what was proceeding below.
In another moment the platform had been reached below the sheer cliff that rose without so much as a shelf on which a shrub could root itself, even of a cranny in which a pink or harebell might cling.
All was now so dark that Guillem could not see his guide or his men.
Not a sound had been heard in the town – and here there was nothing audible save a cat that was mewing. It had been shut out of a house and feared that a storm was coming on. The time was winter, the little creature was cold, and it craved for the warmth and the dryness of the kitchen hearth. The foolish cat came up to Le Gros Guillem and rubbed herself against his legs and pleaded for attention. Irritated at her persistence and cries, the Captain dealt her a kick which sent her flying and squealing. Then he regretted that he had done this, lest her shrill cry should reach the mistress and induce her to open the door and show a light.
But no token followed and showed that the cat had been heard. Again the creature came near, mewing. The darkness was so dense that nothing could be seen, not even the rock in front, only the buildings round loomed black against the sky that was but a shade lighter than the rock.
Then hail rushed down, hissing, leaping, and with the hail a flash of lightning revealing the blank wall of rock in front and the floor over which the hailstones ran and spun.
"Where is the stair?" asked Le Gros Guillem of the castellan, who kept at his side.
"Stair – what stair?"
"The way by which we are to mount into the castle?"
The old man chuckled.
"Wait a while," said he in a whisper. "When next the lightning flashes look ahead of you – a little to the right, and you will see a cobweb path up the face of the rock."
"Lead us to the path – cobweb or not we will mount it. We are accustomed to that, and this is tedious – tarrying here. Curse that cat! Here she is again!"
"Ah, Messire – you do not comprehend. Have you never been in La Roque?"
"I? Never! Do you suppose they would suffer me within the walls?"
"Then, Messire, you cannot understand how it is that of the garrison none are awake, how it comes that there is no need for watchfulness. Wait a while, the lightning – there – did you see?"
The old man pointed in the direction of the stair. The construction of this path of ascent has been already described. It consisted of a ladder of pegs driven into the rock, each peg sustained by a wedge underneath it. Nothing was easier than by a blow to loosen the wedge and to throw the steps down, and when down no passage could be effected to or from the castle along the face of the rock.
"Did you observe?" asked the old man.
"I observed nothing save a stair."
"Look at the base of the stair. Ah! the hail! how it whitens the ground, how it lights up the landscape. One can see a little now, and presently, if you will have patience, Messire, I will explain it all."
"I want no explanation, I want to mount the stair and enter the castle."
"You cannot mount the stair. It is not possible. There – another flash – now do you see? All the lower portion is removed, so that, till put together again in the morning, no one can ascend. Moreover, there aloft is a landing place, and between that landing place and the gate there is a gap – and over that a draw-plank is lowered. Now, at night, all the lowest rungs of the stair are taken away and above the plank is lifted. There is no possibility of anyone mounting by that means."
"Then, in the devil's name, why have you brought us here? I tell you, old man, I will drive my poignard down your throat if you have dared to deceive me."
"I deceive you! Oh, Messire! There is a second way of entering the castle."
"And that is – ?"
"See!"
Again the lightning flickered, and now the clouds parting allowed the moon to flash over the whitened earth and show the great wall of chalk rock in front mounting into the sky and white as the ghostly clouds touched by moonlight that moved above it. The freebooter saw something hanging down the face of the cliff. It was a rope, and at the end was a bar of wood some two feet long which it held in a horizontal position by a knot in the middle.
"My good friend, whom you will have to reward, is above at the windlass. You can mount, Messire. I have but to shake the cord and put my fingers into my mouth and hoot as an owl and he will begin to wind up. It is by this means that provisions are carried up, and by this one can go up or down when the passage of the stair is cut off. Will you please to mount first – or shall I, most honoured Captain?" The castellan took off his hat and bowed.
Le Gros Guillem looked up a sheer height of a hundred feet; in the uncertain light it appeared as though this cord was let down out of the sky. He was a man who rarely knew fear – in the heat of conflict he never knew it at all. He was dauntless in every daring feat; but this was a venture sufficient to make even him hesitate. He knew not who was the man at the capstan above. He was not sure that the rope would endure his weight.
"Oh," said the castellan, "if you are afraid to trust yourself to this cord, you must e'en return by the way you came. I thought other of Le Gros Guillem, of the famous Captain. I did not think he would quail as a girl from such a trifle as this. I will ascend first, and then you may pluck up heart to follow an old man."
The castellan went to the rope and shook it twice, then imitated the scream of an owl, and instantly planted himself on the pole and held the cord with both hands. He began at once to ascend.
The sky cleared of thunder-cloud and the wan new moon illumined the scene. The rock was white, and against it mounted a dark figure with a darker shadow. The windlass moved noiselessly; Le Gros Guillem and his men below heard no sound. The dark figure slid up the rock and became smaller, ever smaller, and then disappeared. In the uncertain light, at the great elevation they could not see, but supposed the castellan had passed through a window into the castle.
Then rapidly down came rope and pole, and the latter hung swaying at a couple of feet above the hail-strewn platform.
"In the devil's name, I will try it!" said Guillem, and committed himself to the bar. He grasped the rope and hooted. At the same moment the cat leaped and lighted on his shoulder. He would have thrust it off, but could not. The rope had tightened, was straining, and he was carried upwards off his feet.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE FOURTH TIME
The rock of Gageac somewhat overhung, so that as Le Gros Guillem ascended he swung clear in space. Only occasionally was there a projection against which he could apply his foot, but he avoided doing this lest he should set the cord in oscillation.
The rope was so stout and the piece of wood on which he was seated so strong, that the momentary qualm that had come over his heart left it, and he felt naught save impatience to reach the castle and creep in at the window. Then his comrades would be drawn up and all four would fall on the sleeping garrison, kill every man, ring the tocsin, and the place would be in his possession, the houses given up to pillage and the inhabitants to outrage and murder. To win La Roque – a place that through the Hundred Years' War had not been taken, that for three centuries had defied the English – would indeed be an achievement, and one for which he could obtain any terms he liked to ask from the Earl of Shrewsbury on his arrival in Guyenne.
The clouds were dispersing, Guillem looked up, the floor of Heaven was as it were spilt over with curds; he looked down, every platform, roof, garden, was white with hail. On the horizon lightning was still fluttering. He had heard no thunder when below – he heard none now.
The Dordogne flowed black through a white world. It did not reflect the sky to one rising so high in the air above it; it was black as Acheron and seemed to have lost all flow – to be stilled in its course.
The moon was still shining on the wall of rock, Guillem's shadow passed with him, as substantial apparently as himself, undergoing strange, monkey-like contortions against the rocky inequalities. A curse on that cat! It was wailing in his ear. He turned his chin to endeavour to force the brute from his shoulder. The cat clung with its thorn-like claws that pierced his jerkin. He disengaged a hand, and laid hold of the cat, but it bit and tore at his hand, it drove its claws into his neck, and he could not shake it off without tearing away ribbons of his flesh as well.
His efforts to rid himself of the cat set the cord spinning, and the stick revolved, with him on it, and then spun back again; it began to swing, and in swinging jammed him against the rock.
He must make up his mind to endure the cat. It was but for a minute or two longer, and then he would be free, and would grasp the accursed brute and fling it down on to the houses beneath. A cat has nine lives. A cat will always fall on his feet. This puss must have more than nine lives if it escaped being dashed to pieces by such a fall.
All was hushed below.
Guillem, looking down, could see the black spots that he knew represented his three men who were to follow him.
Something brushed his face – it was a sprig of juniper – he knew it by the scent; and now he saw that he had reached that point where rock and wall were blended, the rock running up into ragged points, the gaps filled in with masonry, and finally courses of ashlar lying evenly above the rock.
He was nearing the window. In another minute he would be inside. He could hear the creak of the windlass. His progress upwards seemed to him to be extraordinarily slow. One line of wallstone, then another, then a third, then a halt.
He expected to be able to grasp the threshold of the window and to assist those within in drawing him through. But the window sill was some feet above his head; it was beyond his reach.
Why had those working the capstan ceased to turn the levers? Were they exhausted? Had they galled their hands? Half a dozen turns and he would be aloft.
At that moment, one of those inexplicable, unreasonable sensations that do occasionally seize the imagination swept over the mind of Guillem. Looking at the limestone before him, he all at once thought it resembled the flesh of old Ogier del' Peyra's face as he was lowered into the oubliette, with the light from the dungeon door sitting on it. There was absolutely no similarity save that the rock was grey, and that it was illumined by the new moon with some such a colourless cadaverous light as that which had lighted the face of the man sentenced to a living tomb.
Le Gros Guillem shook his head and closed his eyes to free himself from the impression.
Immediately the cat, driving its claws into his neck under the right ear, sprang on his head, ran up the rope and leaped in at the window above.
It was perhaps due to the fact that those working the capstan were frightened by the apparition of the beast; but suddenly the rope was run out and Guillem dropped through space, to be brought up by a jerk as those above mastered the spokes and arrested the flight of the rope.
As the falling man was stopped in his descent, the strands of the cord were strained and some snapped. The jerk would have thrown him from his seat had he not grappled the rope with desperation. He had not, however, dropped very far, and now to his great satisfaction he felt that the men above were again turning the levers, and that he was again being steadily hauled upwards. When aloft he would chastise them sharply for their scare about a cat, risking thereby his valuable life.
Again the juniper bush brushed his face, it was as an elfin hand which was thrust forth out of the rock to lay hold of him, or at least to warn him against further progress. Not a plant had been passed springing out of the sheer cliff. This juniper grew at the summit of the rock, and at its junction with the masonry of the castle.
Much time had elapsed, surely more than an hour, since he had passed through the postern gate. His men, concealed in the vineyards, must be impatient for the signal to enter the town and plunder it.
Then he heard a harsh, jarring sound like an angry growl, followed by the strokes of a bell. One – two – three – he reckoned till twelve. It was midnight.
Again he was ascending past the courses of ashlar, and again he was brought to a halt at some distance below the window.
Then, from above, through the window a face protruded that looked down on him. The moon was on the face; it was the colour of the grey rock; it was blotched like the rock, it was furrowed with age like the rock. Unlike the rock, two eyes gleamed out of it, with the moon glinting in them.
"Gros Guillem!" said the man who peered on the freebooter from above.
"Draw me up!" gasped the Captain, "or by – "
"Do you threaten – you – situated as you are?"
"I pray you give the windlass another turn."
"Ah, you pray now, Gros Guillem!"
The Captain looked above his head at the face that overhung him. There was in it something that sent the blood back to his heart. There was in it that likeness to a someone, uncertain, recalled but unidentified, that came out now with terrible distinctness, and insisted on his straining his powers for recognition.
"Gros Guillem! do you remember me? This is our final meeting – the fourth and the last!"
At that moment the tocsin pealed forth its summons from the tower. This tower, planted under a concave opening in the rock, sent out the ring of the alarm-bell multiplied thirtyfold below; it flung it forth in volumes, it sent it up and down the Dordogne valley – across it – over the level land, far, far away, wave on wave of sound through the still night.
At the first note it was as though a magic wand had touched every house in La Roque. Each window was illumined. Every door was opened, and forth burst men with torches, all fully armed.
In a moment the three companions of the Captain on the platform and the two by the postern were surrounded, disarmed, bound or cut down. In a moment, also, from orchards, vineyards, from out of barns, from behind hedgerows, rose a multitude of men, peasants, fishermen, soldiers of the Bishop, serving-men, all with what weapons they could most readily handle, and closed in on the men of Guillem who had come forward at the note of the bell with purpose to enter by the postern. Then ensued on all sides a wild hubbub of cries, shrieks, shouts of triumph, curses, prayers for mercy.
Le Gros Guillem, hanging in mid-air, heard the uproar, saw the upward glow of light, and knew that he and his had been drawn into a cleverly contrived trap, and that he was lost irretrievably. He writhed, he turned, he looked above – there he saw but the face of Ogier remorseless as fate. He looked below – there he saw his men, making desperate battle for life, and falling one by one. He could not distinguish each individual, but he saw knots of men forming whence issued cries and the clash of steel, then the knot broke up and its members dispersed seeking other clusters which they swelled, and whence issued the same cries and din of strife.
Presently a great flare of fire rose from below and illumined the whole rock of Gageac. A torch had been applied to a bonfire of faggots ready stacked on the platform. By that glare those below saw the suspended Captain, and uttered a roar of hate and savage delight. In Guillem's ears was a singing, and the growl of voices came in throbs like waves beating on his brain.
From those below rose cries of, "Cut the rope! Cast him down! We will receive him on our pikes. He shall fall into the fire!"
Slowly the cable was let out, and Guillem felt himself descending. He was glad that it was so. He desired to be in the midst of men, though these were his enemies; for he had his sword at his side and he would die fighting, wounding others, killing those who sought his life. So to perish were a death befitting a soldier – this such a death as he would hail. He put his hand to his sword and grasped the hilt. His blood that had curdled in his arteries began to pulsate, the film that had formed over his eyes was dissipated, and a flash of eager anticipation came into them.
But again the rope ceased to be let out. He was suspended just half-way between the castle and the platform below, in full view of the townsmen who had gathered there, standing at a sufficient distance not to be struck by his falling body; he was in view also of the little garrison of the castle who had clambered to the battlements and were looking over at him.
Then he heard a hammering, and saw below men employed driving the pegs into the sockets in the rock, and fastening the wedges that held them firm. No sooner was the full connection made than up the stair ran men and even women, and boys who had scrambled out of bed, and these stood in a line against the rock up the lengthy ladder-stair gazing at the suspended man. Then also from above the draw-bridge was lowered, and the men-at-arms who had been in the castle ran out of the gate and ran down the stair to have a better sight thence of the swinging, helpless man than they could from the battlements.
A terrible spectacle it was that they witnessed – such a one as could not be looked on by Christian people unmoved save in such an evil age as that, when men were rendered ferocious as wild Indians and callous to the sufferings of their brethren; a spectacle such as could not be looked on without pity save in such a place as that where all had suffered in some degree from the exactions or the barbarities of this wretched man. The flames danced and curled as if they also frolicked at the sight of the agony of the man who had so often fed them with hard-won harvests of the peasantry, and the humble goods of the cottager too worthless to be carried away.
In the glare of the leaping bonfire Le Gros Guillem was distinctly visible, looking like a monstrous yellow spider at the end of his line. He thrust out now one long leg, then another, next he extended his lengthy arms each armed with lean and bony fingers. He endeavoured to scramble into a standing position upon his bar, but failed – one side would descend before the other, and he nearly fell in attempting this impossible feat. He gripped the rope with hands and knees and endeavoured to swarm up it, but the cable was rendered slippery by its passage over a roller in the window.
Rage was in his heart, rage at being there a sight to men, women, and children, without power of spreading destruction about him before he died.
Then he swung himself laterally, hoping to be able to reach a projection of rock whence possibly he might creep up or down, or even laterally from jutting point to point, holding by his fingers till he attained the stair. As he came swinging like a pendulum he was carried close to the stairway, and those upon it held their breath and drew back against the rock, thinking he would make a leap in attempt to light on the steps. Were he to do this, then to arrest himself from falling backwards, with his long fingers he would inevitably clutch at them, and so precipitate them along with himself below.
Those persons standing on that portion of the steps within range sidled upwards or else downwards, to be out of the risk of such a danger. They could see in the upward flash of the firelight the sparkle in his great eyes as he glared at the steps, calculating his distance, making resolve to leap, and his heart failing him or his judgment assuring him that to do so were certainly fatal.
A tinkle of a little bell. The priest of S. Donat had hastily donned his surplice, and run and taken the Holy Sacrament, and was coming – he alone with a thought of mercy for the agonised, to obtain for him release, or to administer consolation in death. Before him went a boy with a lantern, ringing the bell.
Then a loud voice from below cried: "Cut the cable!" And then: "It is I – Francis Bonaldi – I, the governor, say it. Enough! Cut the cable!"
A gasp from all that multitude.
The cord had been chopped through before the priest arrived.
CHAPTER XXV.
A HELEBORE WREATH
The destruction of Le Gros Guillem's body of men at La Roque Gageac was the prelude to the surrender of the citadel of Domme. The small garrison left in charge of that stronghold was panic-stricken when it heard the tidings from La Roque. The whole country was in arms. The citizens had marshalled in the square, and the soldiers, deserting the town, had taken refuge in the castle. Without head, without prospect of relief, hemmed in by the Bishop's troops that arrived from Sarlat and La Roque on one side, menaced from Beynac, where was a royal garrison, on another, and from Fénelon on a third, where the baron was loyal to the French crown as well as a personal enemy of Guillem, the remnant of the Company that had acknowledged Guillem as Captain was fain to capitulate; and the confederate troops under the governor of La Roque were content to accord terms, knowing the danger of driving these freebooters to desperation.