The Abbess Of Vlaye
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She knew then that the footmen had crossed by the stepping-stones, a hundred yards short of the ford. And she felt that Heaven itself had given her, weak as she was, this one opportunity. As the men urged their horses warily into the stream she stretched herself out stiffly, and gripping the bound hands that hung within her reach, she cut recklessly, heeding little whether she cut to the bone if she could only cut the cords. The man who held her felt her body writhing under his hand; for she knew that any instant the other horse might move out of reach. But he was thinking most of his steed's footing, he had no fear that she could wrest herself from him, and he contented himself for the moment with a curse and a threat.
"Burn the wench," he cried, "she won't be still!"
"Don't let her go!" the other answered.
"No fear! And when we have her on the hill she shall pay for this! When-"
It was his last word. The keen long knife had passed from her hands to des Ageaux', from her weak fingers to his practised grip. As the man who held her paused to peer before him-for the ford, shadowed by spreading trees, was dark as pitch-des Ageaux drove the point straight and sure into the throat above the collar-bone. The action was so sudden, so unexpected, that the man he struck had no time to cry out, but with a low gurgling moan fell forward on his burden.
His comrade who rode before the Lieutenant knew little more. Before he could turn, almost before he could give the alarm, the weapon was driven in between his shoulders, and the Lieutenant, availing himself of the purchase which his bound feet gave him, hurled him over the horse's head. Unfortunately the man had time to utter one shriek, and the cry with the splash, and the plunging of the terrified horse, bore the alarm to his comrades on the bank.
"What is it? What is the matter?" a voice asked. And a score of feet could be heard pounding hurriedly along the bank.
The Lieutenant had one moment only in which to make his choice. If he remained on the horse, which he could not restrain, for the reins had fallen, he might escape, but the girl must perish. He did not hesitate. As the frightened horse reared he cut his feet loose, and slid from it. He made one clutch at the floating reins but missed them. Before he could make a second the terrified animal was on the bank.
There remained the girl's horse. But Bonne, drenched by the dying man's blood, had flung herself off-somehow, anyhow, in irrepressible horror. As des Ageaux turned she rose, dripping and panting beside him, her nerve quite gone. "Oh, oh!" she cried. "Save me! Save me!" and she clung to him.
Alas, while she clung to him her horse floundered out of the stream, and trotted after its fellow.
The pursuers were no more than thirty yards away, and but for the deep shadow which lay on the ford must have seen them. The Lieutenant had no time to think. He caught the girl up, and as quickly as he could he waded with her to the bank from which they had entered the water. Once on dry land he set her on her feet, seized her wrist and gripped it firmly.
"Courage!" he said. "We must run! Run for your life, and if we can reach the wind-mill we may escape!"
He spoke harshly, but his words had the effect he intended. She straightened herself, caught up her wet skirt and set off with him across the road and up the bare hill-side. He knew that not far above them stood a wind-mill with a narrow doorway in which one man might make some defence against numbers. The chance was slight, the hope desperate; but he could see no other. Already the pursuers were splashing through the ford and scattering on the trail, some running up the stream, some down, some stooping cunningly to listen. To remain beside the water was to be hunted as otters are hunted.
His plan answered well at first. For a few precious instants their line of retreat escaped detection. They even increased their start, and had put fifty or sixty yards of slippery hill-side between themselves and danger before a man of sharper ears than his fellows caught the sound of a stone rolling down the slope, and drew the hue and cry in the right direction. By that time the dark form of the wind-mill was faintly visible sixty or eighty yards above the fugitives. And the race was not ill set.
But Bonne's skirt hung heavy, her knees shook; and nearer and nearer she heard the pursuers' feet. She could do no more! She must fall, her lungs were bursting! But des Ageaux dragged her on ruthlessly, and on; and now the wind-mill was not ten paces before them.
"In!" he cried. "In!" And loosing her hand, he turned, quick as a hare, the knife gleaming in his hand.
But the nearest man-the Lieutenant's ear had told him that only one was quite near-saw the action and the knife, and as quickly sheered off, to wait for his companions. The Lieutenant turned again, and in half a dozen bounds was through the low narrow doorway and in the mill tower.
He had no sword, he had only the knife, still reeking. But he made no complaint. Instead, "There were sheep penned here yesterday," he panted. "There are some bars somewhere. Grope for them and find them."
"Yes!" she said. And she groped bravely in the darkness, though her breath came in sobs. She found the bars. Before the half-dozen men who led the chase had squeezed their courage to the attacking point, the bars that meant so much to the fugitives were in their places. Then des Ageaux bade her keep on one side, while he crouched with his knife beside the opening.
The men outside were chattering and scolding furiously. At length they scattered, and instead of charging the doorway, fired a couple of shots into it and held off, waiting for reinforcements. "Courage, we have a fair chance now," the Lieutenant muttered. And then in a different tone, "Thanks to you! Thanks to you!" with deep emotion. "Never woman did braver thing!"
"Then do you one thing for me!" she answered, her voice shaking. "Promise that I shall not fall into their hands! Promise, sir, promise," she continued hysterically, "that you will kill me yourself! I have given you my knife. I have given you all I had. If you will not promise you must give it back to me."
"God forbid!" he said. And then, "Dear Lord, am I mad? Who was it I picked up at the ford? Am I mad or dreaming? You are not the Countess?"
"I took her place," she panted. "I am Bonne de Villeneuve." The place was so dark that neither could see the other's face, nor so much as the outline of the figure.
"I might have known it," he cried impulsively. And even in that moment of danger, of discomfort, of uncertainty, the girl's heart swelled at the inference she drew from his words. "I might have known it!" he repeated with emotion. "No other woman would have done it, sweet, would have done it' But how-I am as far from understanding as ever-how come you to be here? And not the Countess?"
"I took her place," Bonne repeated-the truth must out now. "She is very young and it was hurting her. She was ill."
"You took her place? To-night?"
"This is-the third night."
"And I" – in a tone of wonder that a second time brought the blood to her cheeks-"I never discovered you! You rode beside me all those nights-all those nights and I never knew you! Is it possible?"
She did not answer.
He was silent a moment. Then, "By Heaven, it was well for me that you did!" he murmured. "Very well! Very well! Without you where should I be now?" His eyes strove to pierce the darkness in which she crouched on the farther side of the opening, scarce out of reach of his hand. "Where should I be now? A handsome situation," he continued bitterly, "for the Governor of Périgord to be seized and hurried to a dog's death by a band of brigands! And to be rescued by a woman!"
"Is it so dreadful to you," she murmured, "to owe your life to a woman?"
"Is it so dreadful to me," he repeated in an altered tone, "to owe my life to you, do you mean? I am willing to owe all to you. You are the only woman-"
But there, even as her heart began to flutter, he stopped. He stopped and she fell to earth. "They are coming!" he muttered. "Keep yourself close! For God's sake, keep yourself close!"
"And you too!" she cried impulsively. "Your life is mine."
He did not answer: perhaps he did not hear. The Crocans who had spent some minutes in consultation had brought a beam up the hill. They were about to drive it against the stout wooden bars, of which they must have guessed the presence, since they could not see them. The plan was not unwise; and as they fell into a ragged line on either side of the ram, while three skirmished forward, with a view to leaping into the opening before the defenders could recover from the shock, the Lieutenant's heart sank. The form of attack was less simple than he had hoped. He had exulted too soon.
Whether Bonne knew this or not, she acted as if she knew it. As the leader of the assault shouted to his men to be ready, and the men lifted the beam hip high, she flitted across the opening, and des Ageaux felt her fingers close upon his arm.
He did not misunderstand her: he knew that she meant only to remind him of his promise. But at the touch a wave of feeling, as unexpected as it was irresistible, filled the breast of the case-hardened soldier; who, something cold by nature, had hitherto found in his career all that he craved. At that touch the admiration and interest which had been working within him since his talk with Bonne in the old garden at Villeneuve blossomed into a feeling infinitely more tender, infinitely stronger-into a love that craved return. The girl who had saved him, who had proved herself so brave, so true, so gentle, what a wife would she be! What a mother of brave and loyal and gentle children, meet sons and daughters of a loyal sire! And even as he thought that thought and was conscious of the love that pervaded his being, he felt her shiver against him, and before he knew it his arm was round her, he was clasping her to him, giving her assurance that until the end-until the end he would not let her go! He would never let her go.
And the end was not yet. For his lips in that moment which he thought might be their last found hers in the darkness, and she knew seconds of a great joy that seemed to her long as hours as she crouched against him unresisting; while the last orders of the men who sought their lives found strange echo in his words of love.
Crash! The splinters flew to right and left, the two upper bars were gone, dully the beam struck the back of the mill. But he had drawn her behind him, and was waiting with the tight-grasped knife for the man bold enough to leap through the opening. Woe betide the first, though he must keep his second blow for her. After that-if he had to strike her-there would be one moment of joy, while he fought them.
But the stormers, poor-hearted, deemed the breach insufficient. They drew back the beam, intending to break the lowest bar, which still held place. Once more they cried, "One! Two!" But not "Three!" In place of the word a yell of pain rang loud, down crashed the battering-ram, and high rose-as all fled headlong-a clamour of shrieks and curses. A moment and the thunder of hoofs followed, and mail-clad men, riding recklessly along the steep hill-side, fell on the poor naked creatures, and driving them pell-mell before them amid stern cries of vengeance, cut and hacked them without mercy.
Trembling violently, Bonne clung to her lover. "Oh, what is it? What is it?" she cried. "What is it?" Her spirits could endure no more.
"Safety!" he replied, the harder nature of the man asserting itself. "Safety, sweetheart! Hold up your head, brave! What, swooning now when all is well!"
Ay, swooning now. The word safety sufficed. She fell against him, her head dropped back.
As soon as he was assured of it, he lifted her in his arms with a new feeling of ownership. And climbing, not without difficulty, over the bar that remained, he emerged into something that, in comparison of the darkness within the mill, was light-for the day was coming. Before the door two horsemen, still in their saddles, awaited him. One was tall, the other stout and much shorter.
"Is that you, Roger?" he asked. It was not light enough to discern faces.
The shorter figure to which he addressed himself did not answer. The other, advancing a pace and reining up, spoke.
"No," he said, in a tone that at once veiled and exposed his triumph, "I am the Captain of Vlaye. And you are my prisoner."
CHAPTER XIX.
THE CAPTAIN OF VLAYE's CONDITION
The four who looked to the door of the Duke's hut, and waited for the news, were not relieved as quickly as they expected. When men return with no news they are apt to forget that others are less wise than themselves; and where, with something to impart, they had flown to relieve the anxious, they are prone to forget that the negative has its value for those who are in suspense.
Hence some minutes elapsed before Roger presented himself. And when he came and they cried breathlessly, "Well, what news?" his answer was a look of reproach.
"Should I not have come at once if there had been any?" he said. "Alas, there is none."
"But you must have some!" they cried.
"Nothing," he answered, almost sullenly. "All we know is that they quarrelled over their prisoners. The hill above the ford is a shambles."
The Vicomte repressed the first movement of horror. "Above the ford?" he said. "How came they there?"
Roger shrugged his shoulders. "We don't know," he said. And then reading a dreadful question in his sister's eyes, "No, there is no sign of them," he continued. "We crossed to the old town on the hill, but found it locked and barred. The brutes mopped and mowed at us from the wall, but we could get no word of Christian speech from them. They seemed to be in terror of us-which looks ill. But we had no ladders and no force sufficient to storm it, and the Bat sent me back with ten spears to make you safe here while he rode on with Charles towards Villeneuve."
"Villeneuve?" the Vicomte asked, raising his eyebrows. "Why?"
"There were tracks of a large body of horsemen moving in that direction. The Bat hopes that some of the wretches quarrelled with the others, and carried off the prisoners, and are holding them safe-with an eye to their own necks."
"God grant it!" Odette muttered in a low tone, and with so much feeling that all looked at her in wonder. Nor had the prayer passed her lips many seconds before it was answered. The sound of voices drew their looks to the door, a shadow fell across the threshold, the substance followed. As the little Countess sprang forward with a shriek of joy and the Abbess dropped back in speechless emotion, Bonne stood before them.
"He has granted her prayer," the Duke muttered in astonishment. "Laus Deo!" While Roger, scarcely less surprised than if a ghost had appeared before them, stared at his sister with all his eyes.
She barely looked at them. "I am tired," she said. "Bear with me a moment. Let me sit down." Then, as if she were not content with the surprise which her words caused, "Don't touch me!" she continued, recoiling before the Countess's approach. "Wait until you have heard all. You have little cause for joy. Wait!"
The Vicomte thought his worst fears justified. "But, my child," he faltered, "is that all you have to say to us?" And to the others, in a lower voice, "She is distraught! She is beside herself. Can those wretches-"
"I escaped them," she replied, in the same dull tones. "They have done me no harm. Let me rest a minute before I tell you."
Roger stayed the inquiry after the Lieutenant which was on his lips. It was evident to him and to all that something serious had happened: that the girl before them was not the girl who had ridden away yesterday with so brave a heart. But, freed from that fear of the worst which the Vicomte had entertained, they knew not what to think. Some signs of shock, some evidences of such an experience as she had passed through, were natural; but the reaction should have cast her into their arms, not withheld her-should have flung her weeping on her sister's shoulder, not frozen her in this strange apathy.
The Abbess, indeed, who had recovered from the paroxysm of gratitude into which Bonne's return had cast her, eyed her sister with the shadow of a terror. Conscience, which makes cowards of us all, suggested to her an explanation of her sister's condition, adequate and more than adequate. A secret alarm kept her silent therefore: while the young Countess, painfully aware that she had escaped all that Bonne had suffered, sank under new remorse. For the others, they did not know what to think: and stealthily reading one another's eyes, felt doubts that they dared not acknowledge. Was it possible, notwithstanding her denial, that she had suffered ill-treatment?
"Perhaps it were better," the Duke muttered, "if we left mademoiselle in the care of her sister?"
But low as he spoke, Bonne heard. She raised her head wearily. "This does not lie with her," she said.
The Abbess breathed more freely. The colour came back to her cheeks. She sat upright, relieved from the secret fear that had oppressed her. "With whom, then, child?" she asked in her natural voice. "And why this mystery? But we-have forgotten" – her voice faltered, "we have forgotten," she repeated hardily, "M. des Ageaux. Is he safe?"
"It is of him I am going to speak," Bonne replied heavily.
"He has not-he has not fallen."
"He is alive."
"Thank Heaven for that!" Roger cried with heartiness, his eyes sparkling. "Has he gone on with Charles and the Bat?"
"No."
"Then where is he?" She did not answer, and, startled, Roger looked at her, the others looked at her. All waited for the reply.
"He is in the Captain of Vlaye's hands," she said slowly. And a gentle spasm, the beginning of weeping which did not follow, convulsed her features. "He saved me," she continued in trembling tones, "from the peasants, only to fall into M. de Vlaye's hands."
"Well, that was better!" Roger answered.
Her lips quivered, but she did not reply. Perhaps she was afraid of losing that control over herself which it had cost her much to compass.
But the Vicomte's patience, never great, was at an end. He saw that this was going to prove a troublesome matter. Hence his sudden querulousness. "Come, come, girl," he said petulantly. "Tell us what has happened, and no nonsense! Come, an end, I say! Tell us what has happened from the beginning, and let us have no mysteries!"
She began. In a low voice, and with the same tokens of repressed feeling, she detailed what had happened from the moment of the invasion of her hut by the peasants to the release of des Ageaux and the struggle in the river-bed.
"He owes us a life there," the Vicomte exclaimed, while Roger's eyes beamed with pride.
She paid no heed to her father's interjection, but continued the story of the succeeding events-the assault on the mill, and the arrival of Vlaye and his men.
"Who in truth and fact saved your lives then," Roger said. "I forgive him much for that! It is the best thing I have heard of him."
"He saved my life," Bonne replied, with a faint but perceptible shudder. She kept her eyes down as if she dared not meet their looks.
"But the Lieutenant's too," the Vicomte objected. "You told us that he was alive."
"He is alive," she murmured. And the trembling began to overpower her. "Still alive."
"Then-"
"But to-morrow at sunrise-" her voice shook with the pent-up misery, the long-repressed pain of her three hours' ride from Vlaye-"to-morrow at sunrise, he-he must die!"
"What?"
The word came from one who so far had been silent. And the Duke rising from his place by the door stood upright, supporting his weakened form against the wall of the hut. "What?" he repeated in a voice that in spite of his weakness rang clear and loud with anger. "He will not dare!"
"M. de Vlaye?" the Vicomte muttered in a discomfited tone, "I am sure-I am sure he will not-dream of such a thing. Certainly not!"
"M. de Vlaye says that if-if-" Bonne paused as if she could not force her pallid lips to utter the words-"he says that at sunrise to-morrow he will hang him as the Lieutenant last week hung one of his men."
"For murder! Clear proved murder!" Roger cried in an agitated voice. "Before witnesses!"
"Then by my salvation I will hang him!" Joyeuse retorted in a voice which shook with rage; and one of those frantic, blasphemous passions to which all of his race were subject overcame him. "I will hang him high as Haman, and like a dog as he is!" He snatched a glove from a peg on the wall beside him, and flung it down with violence. "Give him that, the miserable upstart!" he shrieked, "and tell him that as surely as he keeps his word, I, Henry of Joyeuse, who for every spear he boasts can set down ten to that, will hang him though God and all His saints stand between! Give it him! Give it him! On foot or on horse, in mail or in shirt, alone or by fours, I am his and will drag his filthy life from him! Go!" he continued, turning, his eyes suffused with rage, on Roger. "Or bid them bring me my horse and arms! I will to him now, now, and pluck his beard! I-"
"My lord, my lord," Roger remonstrated. "You are not fit."
Joyeuse sank back exhausted on his stool. "For him and such as he more than fit," he muttered. "More than fit-coward as he is!" But his tone and evident weakness gave him the lie. He looked feebly at his hand, opening and closing it under his eyes. "Well, let him wait," he said. "Let him wait awhile. But if he does this, I will kill him as surely as I sit here!"
"Ay, to be sure!" the Vicomte chimed in. "But unless I mistake, my lord, we are on a false scent. There was something of a condition unless I am in error. This silly girl, who is more moved than is needful, said-if, if-that M. de Vlaye would hang him, unless– What was it, child, you meant?"
She did not answer.
It was Roger whose wits saved her the necessity. His eyes were sharpened by affection; he knew what had gone before. He guessed that which held her tongue.
"We must give up the Countess!" he cried in generous scorn. "That is his condition. I guess it!"
Bonne bowed her head. She had felt that to state the condition to the helpless, terrified girl at whose expense it must be performed was a shame to her; that to state it as if she craved its performance, expected its performance, looked for its performance, was a thing still baser, a thing dishonouring to her family, not worthy a Villeneuve-a thing that must smirch them all and rob them of the only thing left to them, their good name.
Yet if she did not speak, if she did not make it known? If she did not do this for him who loved her and whom she loved? If he perished because she was too proud to crave his life, because she feared lest her cloak be stained ever so little? That, too, was-she could not face that.
She was between the hammer and the anvil. The question, what she should do, had bowed her to the ground. She had seen as she rode that she must choose between honour and life; her lover's life, her own honour!
Meanwhile, "Give up the Countess?" the Vicomte muttered, staring at his son in dull perplexity. "Give up the Countess? Why?"
"Unless she is surrendered," Roger explained in a low voice, "he will carry out his threat. He goes back, sir, to his old plan of strengthening himself. It is very clear. He thinks that with the Countess in his power he can make use of her resources, and by their means defy us."
"He is a villain!" the Vicomte cried, touched in his tenderest point.
"Villain or no villain, I will cut his throat!" Joyeuse exclaimed, his rage flaming up anew. "If he touch but a hair of des Ageaux' head-who was wounded striving to save my brother's life at Coutras, as all the world knows-I will never leave him nor forsake him till I have his life!"
"I fear that will not avail the Lieutenant," Roger muttered despondently.
"No. No, it may not," the Vicomte agreed, "but we cannot help that." He, in truth, was able to contemplate the Lieutenant's fate without too much vexation, or any overweening temptation to abandon the Countess. "We cannot help it, and that is all that remains to be said. If he will do this he must do it. And when his own time comes his blood be upon his own head!"