CHAPTER XXVII. TO ME, MY FRIENDS!
I was impatient to learn who had come, and what was their errand withme; and being still in that state of exaltation in which we seem to hearand see more than at other times, I remarked a peculiar lagging inthe ascending footsteps, and a lack of buoyancy, which was quick tocommunicate itself to my mind. A vague dread fell upon me as I stoodlistening. Before the door opened I had already conceived a score ofdisasters. I wondered that I had not inquired earlier concerning theking's safety, and en fin I experienced in a moment that completereaction of the spirits which is too frequently consequent upon anexcessive flow of gaiety.
I was prepared, therefore, for heavy looks, but not for the persons whowore them nor the strange bearing the latter displayed on entering. Myvisitors proved to be M. d'Agen and Simon Fleix. And so far well. Butthe former, instead of coming forward to greet me with the punctiliouspoliteness which always characterised him, and which I had thought tobe proof against every kind of surprise and peril, met me with downcasteyes and a countenance so gloomy as to augment my fears a hundredfold;since it suggested all those vague and formidable pains which M. deRambouillet had hinted might await me in a prison. I thought nothingmore probable than the entrance after them of a gaoler laden with gyvesand handcuffs; and saluting M. Francois with a face which, do what Iwould, fashioned itself upon his, I had scarce composure sufficient toplace the poor accommodation of my room at his disposal.
He thanked me; but he did it with so much gloom and so littlenaturalness that I grew more impatient with each laboured syllable.Simon Fleix had slunk to the window and turned his back on us. Neitherseemed to have anything to say. But a state of suspense was one which Icould least endure to suffer; and impatient of the constraint whichmy friend's manner was fast imparting to mine, I asked him at once andabruptly if his uncle had returned.
'He rode in about midnight,' he answered, tracing a pattern on the floorwith the point of his riding-switch.
I felt some surprise on hearing this, since d'Agen was still dressedand armed for the road, and was without all those prettinesseswhich commonly marked his attire. But as he volunteered no furtherinformation, and did not even refer to the place in which he found me,or question me as to the adventures which had lodged me there, I let itpass, and asked him if his party had overtaken the deserters.
'Yes,' he answered, 'with no result.'
'And the king?'
'M. de Rambouillet is with him now,' he rejoined, still bending over histracing.
This answer relieved the worst of my anxieties, but the manner ofthe speaker was so distrait and so much at variance with the studiedINSOUCIANCE which he usually, affected, that I only grew more alarmed. Iglanced at Simon Fleix, but he kept his face averted, and I could gathernothing from it; though I observed that he, too, was dressed for theroad, and wore his arms. I listened, but I could hear no sounds whichindicated that the Provost-Marshal was approaching. Then on a sudden Ithought of Mademoiselle de la Vire. Could it be that Maignan had provedunequal to his task?
I started impetuously from my stool under the influence of the emotionwhich this thought naturally aroused, and seized M. d'Agen by the arm.'What has happened?' I exclaimed. 'Is it Bruhl? Did he break into mylodgings last night? What!' I continued, staggering back as I read theconfirmation of my fears in his face. 'He did?'
M. d'Agen, who had risen also, pressed my hand with convulsive energy.Gazing into my face, he held me a moment thus embraced, His manner astrange mixture of fierceness and emotion. 'Alas, yes,' he answered, 'hedid, and took away those whom he found there! Those whom he found there,you understand! But M. de Rambouillet is on his way here, and in afew minutes you will be free. We will follow together. If we overtakethem--well. If not, it will be time to talk.'
He broke off, and I stood looking at him, stunned by the blow, yet inthe midst of my own horror and surprise retaining sense enough to wonderat the gloom on his brow and the passion which trembled in his words.What had this to do with him? 'But Bruhl?' I said at last, recoveringmyself with an effort--'how did he gain access to the room? I left itguarded.'
'By a ruse, while Maignan and his men were away,' was the answer. 'Onlythis lad of yours was there. Bruhl's men overpowered him.'
'Which way has Bruhl gone?' I muttered, my throat dry, my heart beatingwildly.
He shook his head. 'All we know is that he passed through the south gatewith eleven horsemen, two women, and six led horses, at daybreak thismorning,' he answered. 'Maignan came to my uncle with the news, and M.de Rambouillet went at once, early as it was, to the king to procureyour release. He should be here now.'
I looked at the barred window, the most horrible fears at my heart;from it to Simon Fleix, who stood beside it, his attitude expressingthe utmost dejection. I went towards him. 'You hound!' I said in a lowvoice, 'how did it happen?'
To my surprise he fell in a moment on his knees, and raised his arm asthough to ward off a blow. 'They imitated Maignan's voice,' he mutteredhoarsely. 'We opened.'
'And you dare to come here and tell me!' I cried, scarcely restrainingmy passion. 'You, to whom I entrusted her. You, whom I thought devotedto her. You have destroyed her, man!'
He rose as suddenly as he had cowered down. His thin, nervous faceunderwent a startling change; growing on a sudden hard and rigid, whilehis eyes began to glitter with excitement. 'I--I have destroyed her?Ay, mon dieu! I HAVE,' he cried, speaking to my face, and no longerflinching or avoiding my eye. 'You may kill me, if you like. You do notknow all. It was I who stole the favour she gave you from your doublet,and then said M. de Rosny had taken it! It was I who told her you hadgiven it away! It was I who brought her to the Little Sisters', that shemight see you with Madame de Bruhl! It was I who did all, and destroyedher! Now you know! Do with me what you like!'
He opened his arms as though to receive a blow, while I stood beforehim astounded beyond measure by a disclosure so unexpected; full ofrighteous wrath and indignation, and yet uncertain what I ought to do.'Did you also let Bruhl into the room on purpose?' I cried at last.
'I?' he exclaimed, with a sudden flash of rage in his eyes. 'I wouldhave died first!'
I do not know how I might have taken this confession; but at the momentthere was a trampling of horses outside, and before I could answer himI heard M. de Rambouillet speaking in haughty tones, at the door below.The Provost-Marshal was with him, but his lower notes were lost in thering of bridles and the stamping of impatient hoofs. I looked towardsthe door of my room, which stood ajar, and presently the two entered,the Marquis listening with an air of contemptuous indifference to theapologies which the other, who attended at his elbow, was pouring forth.M. de Rambouillet's face reflected none of the gloom and despondencywhich M. d'Agen's exhibited in so marked a degree. He seemed, on thecontrary, full of gaiety and good-humour, and, coming forward and seeingme, embraced me with the utmost kindness and condescension.
'Ha! my friend,' he said cheerfully, 'so I find you here after all!But never fear. I am this moment from the king with an order for yourrelease. His Majesty has told me all, making me thereby your lastingfriend and debtor. As for this gentleman,' he continued, turning witha cold smile to the Provost-Marshal, who seemed to be trembling in hisboots, 'he may expect an immediate order also. M. de Villequier haswisely gone a-hunting, and will not be back for a day or two.'
Racked as I was by suspense and anxiety, I could not assail him withimmediate petitions. It behoved me first to thank him for his promptintervention, and this in terms as warm as I could invent. Nor couldI in justice fail to commend the Provost; to him, representing theofficer's conduct to me, and lauding his ability. All this, thoughmy heart was sick with thought and fear and disappointment, and everyminute seemed an age.
'Well, well,' the Marquis said with stately good-nature, 'We will laythe blame on Villequier then. He is an old fox, however, and ten to onehe will go scot-free. It is not the first time he has played this trick.But I have not yet come to the end of my commission,' he continu
edpleasantly. 'His Majesty sends you this, M. de Marsac, and bade me saythat he had loaded it for you.'
He drew from under his cloak as he spoke the pistol which I had leftwith the king, and which happened to be the same M. de Rosny had givenme. I took it, marvelling impatiently at the careful manner in which hehandled it; but in a moment I understood for I found it loaded to themuzzle with gold-pieces, of which two or three fell and rolled upon thefloor. Much moved by this substantial mark of the king's gratitude,I was nevertheless for pocketing them in haste; but the Marquis, tosatisfy a little curiosity on his part, would have me count them, andbrought the tale to a little over two thousand livres, without countinga ring set with precious stones which I found among them. This handsomepresent diverted my thoughts from Simon Fleix, but could not relieve theanxiety I felt on mademoiselle's account. The thought of her position sotortured me that M. de Rambouillet began to perceive my state of mind,and hastened to assure me that before going to the Court he had alreadyissued orders calculated to assist me.
'You desire to follow this lady, I understand?' he said. 'What with theking who is enraged beyond the ordinary by this outrage, and Francoisthere, who seemed beside himself when he heard the news, I have not gotany very clear idea of the position.'
'She was entrusted to me by--by one, sir, well known to you,' I answeredhoarsely. 'My honour is engaged to him and to her. If I follow on myfeet and alone, I must follow. If I cannot save her, I can at leastpunish the villains who have wronged her.'
'But the man's wife is with them,' he said in some wonder.
'That goes for nothing,' I answered.
He saw the strong emotion under which I laboured, and which scarcelysuffered me to answer him with patience; and he looked at me curiously,but not unkindly. 'The sooner you are off, the better then,' he said,nodding. 'I gathered as much. The man Maignan will have his fellowsat the south gate an hour before noon, I understand. Francois has twolackeys, and he is wild to go. With yourself and the lad there you willmuster nine swords. I will lend you two. I can spare no more, for we mayhave an EMEUTE at any moment. You will take the road, therefore, elevenin all, and should overtake them some time to-night if your horses arein condition.'
I thanked him warmly, without regarding his kindly statement that myconduct on the previous day had laid him under lasting obligations tome. We went down together, and he transferred two of his fellows to methere and then, bidding them change their horses for fresh ones andmeet me at the south gate. He sent also a man to my stable--Simon Fleixhaving disappeared in the confusion--for the Cid, and was in the act ofinquiring whether I needed anything else, when a woman slipped throughthe knot of horsemen who surrounded us as we stood in the doorway ofthe house, and, throwing herself upon me, grasped me by the arm. It wasFanchette. Her harsh features were distorted with grief, her cheekswere mottled with the violent weeping in which such persons vent theirsorrow. Her hair hung in long wisps on her neck. Her dress was torn anddraggled, and there was a great bruise over her eye. She had the air ofone frantic with despair and misery.
She caught me by the cloak, and shook me so that I staggered. 'I havefound you at last!' she cried joyfully. 'You will take me with you! Youwill take me to her!'
Though her words tried my composure, and my heart went out to her,I strove to answer her according to the sense of the matter. 'It isimpossible, I said sternly. 'This is a man's errand. We shall have toride day and night, my good woman.'
'But I will ride day and night too!' she replied passionately, flingingthe hair from her eyes, and looking wildly from me to M. Rambouillet.'What would I not do for her? I am as strong as a man, and stronger.Take me, take me, I say, and when I meet that villain I will tear himlimb for limb!'
I shuddered, listening to her; but remembering that, being countrybred, she was really as strong as she said, and that likely enough someadvantage might accrue to us from her perfect fidelity and devotionto her mistress, I gave a reluctant consent. I sent one of M. deRambouillet's men to the stable where the deaf man's bay was standing,bidding him pay whatever was due to the dealer, and bring the horse tothe south gate; my intention being to mount one of my men on it, andfurnish the woman with a less tricky steed.
The briskness of these and the like preparations, which even for oneof my age and in my state of anxiety were not devoid, of pleasure,prevented my thoughts dwelling on the future. Content to have M.Francois' assistance without following up too keenly the train of ideaswhich his readiness suggested, I was satisfied also to make use of Simonwithout calling him to instant account for his treachery. The bustle ofthe streets, which the confirmation of the king's speedy departure hadfilled with surly, murmuring crowds, tended still further to keep myfears at bay; while the contrast between my present circumstances, as Irode through them well-appointed and well-attended, with the Marquis bymy side, and the poor appearance I had exhibited on my first arrival inBlois, could not fail to inspire me with hope that I might surmount thisdanger, also, and in the event find Mademoiselle safe and uninjured. Itook leave of M. de Rambouillet with many expressions of esteem on bothsides, and a few minutes before eleven reached the rendezvous outsidethe south gate.
M. d'Agen and Maignan advanced to meet me, the former still presentingan exterior so stern and grave that I wondered to see him, and couldscarcely believe he was the same gay spark whose elegant affectationshad more than once caused me to smile. He saluted me in silence; Maignanwith a sheepish air, which ill-concealed the savage temper defeat hadroused in him. Counting my men, I found we mustered ten only, but theequerry explained that he had despatched a rider ahead to make inquiriesand leave word for us at convenient points; to the end that we mightfollow the trail with as few delays as possible. Highly commendingMaignan for his forethought in this, I gave the word to start, andcrossing the river by the St. Gervais Bridge, we took the road forSelles at a smart trot.
The weather had changed much in the last twenty-four hours. The sunshone brightly, with a warm west wind, and the country already showedsigns of the early spring which marked that year. If, the first hurry ofdeparture over, I had now leisure to feel the gnawing of anxiety and thetortures inflicted by an imagination which, far outstripping us, rodewith those whom we pursued and shared their perils, I found two sourcesof comfort still open to me. No man who has seen service can look on alittle band of well-appointed horsemen without pleasure. I reviewed thestalwart forms and stern faces which moved beside me and comparing theirdecent order and sound equipments with the scurvy foulness of the menwho had ridden north with me, thanked God, and, ceased to wonder at theindignation which Matthew and his fellows had aroused in mademoiselle'smind. My other source of satisfaction, the regular beat of hoofs andring of bridles continually augmented. Every step took us farther fromBlois--farther from the close town and reeking streets and the Court;which, if it no longer seemed to me a shambles, befouled by one greatdeed of blood--experience had removed that impression--retained anappearance infinitely mean and miserable in my eyes. I hated and loathedits intrigues and its jealousies, the folly which trifled in a closetwhile rebellion mastered France, and the pettiness which recognised nowisdom save that of balancing party and party. I thanked God that mywork there was done, and could have welcomed any other occasion thatforced me to turn my back on it, and sent me at large over the pureheaths, through the woods, and under the wide heaven, speckled withmoving clouds.
But such springs of comfort soon ran dry. M. d'Agen's gloomy rage andthe fiery gleam in Maignan's eye would have reminded me, had I beenin any danger of forgetting the errand on which we were bound, and theneed, exceeding all other needs, which compelled us to lose no momentthat might be used. Those whom we followed had five hours' start. Thethought of what might; happen in those five hours to the two helplesswomen whom I had sworn to protect burned itself into my mind; so thatto refrain from putting spurs to my horse and riding recklessly forwardtaxed at times all my self-control. The horses seemed to crawl. The menrising and falling listlessly in their saddles maddened
me. Though Icould not hope to come upon any trace of our quarry for many hours,perhaps for days, I scanned the long, flat heaths unceasingly, searchedevery marshy bottom before we descended into it, and panted for themoment when the next low ridge should expose to our view a fresh trackof wood and waste. The rosy visions of the past night, and those fanciesin particular which had made the dawn memorable, recurred to me, as hisdeeds in the body (so men say) to a hopeless drowning wretch. I grew tothink of nothing but Bruhl and revenge. Even the absurd care with whichSimon avoided the neighbourhood of Fanchette, riding anywhere so longas he might ride at a distance from the angry woman's tongue andhand--which provoked many a laugh from the men, and came to be the jokeof the company--failed to draw a smile from me.
We passed through Contres, four leagues from Blois, an hour after noon,and three hours later crossed the Cher at Selles, where we stayedawhile to bait our horses. Here we had news of the party before us, andhenceforth had little doubt that Bruhl was making for the Limousin; adistrict in which he might rest secure under the protection of Turenne,and safely defy alike the King of France and the King of Navarre. Thegreater the necessity, it was plain, for speed; but the roads inthat neighbourhood, and forward as far as Valancy, proved heavy and,foundrous, and it was all we could do to reach Levroux with jadedhorses three hours after sunset. The probability that Bruhl would lieat Chateauroux, five leagues farther on--for I could not conceive thatunder the circumstances he would spare the women--would have led me topush forward had it been possible; but the darkness and the difficultyof finding a guide who would venture deterred me from the hopelessattempt, and we stayed the night where we were.
Here we first heard of the plague; which was said to be ravagingChateauroux and all the country farther south. The landlord of the innwould have regaled us with many stories of it, and particularly of theswiftness with which men and even cattle succumbed to its attacks. Butwe had other things to think of, and between anxiety and weariness hadclean forgotten the matter when we rose next morning.
We started shortly after daybreak, and for three leagues pressed on attolerable speed. Then, for no reason stated, our guide gave us the slipas we passed through a wood, and was seen no more. We lost the road,and had to retrace our steps. We strayed into a slough, and extractedourselves with difficulty. The man who was riding the bay I hadpurchased forgot the secret which I had imparted to him, and got an uglyfall. En fin, after all these mishaps it wanted little of noon,and less to exhaust our patience, when at length we came in sight ofChateauroux.
Before entering the town we had still an adventure; for we came ata turn in the road on a scene as surprising as it was at firstinexplicable. A little north of the town, in a coppice of box facing thesouth and west, we happed suddenly on a rude encampment, consisting ofa dozen huts and booths, set back from the road and formed, some ofbranches of evergreen trees laid clumsily together, and some of sackingstretched over poles. A number of men and women of decent appearance layon the short grass before the booths, idly sunning themselves; or movedabout, cooking and tending fires, while a score of children raced to andfro with noisy shouts and laughter. The appearance of our party on thescene caused an instant panic. The women and children fled screaminginto the wood, spreading the sound of breaking branches farther andfarther as they retreated; while the men, a miserable pale-faced set,drew together, and seeming half-inclined to fly also, regarded us withglances of fear and suspicion.
Remarking that their appearance and dress were not those of vagrants,while the booths seemed to indicate little skill or experience in thebuilders, I bade my companions halt, and advanced alone.
'What is the meaning of this, my men?' I said, addressing the firstgroup I reached. 'You seem to have come a-Maying before the time. Whenceare you?'
'From Chateauroux,' the foremost answered sullenly. His dress, now I sawhim nearer, seemed to be that of a respectable townsman.
'Why?' I replied. 'Have you no homes?'
'Ay, we have homes,' he answered with the same brevity.
'Then why, in God's name, are you here?' I retorted, marking the gloomyair and downcast faces of the group. 'Have you been harried?'
'Ay, harried by the Plague!' he answered bitterly. 'Do you mean to sayyou have not heard? In Chateauroux there is one man dead in three. Takemy advice, sir--you are a brave company--turn, and go home again.'
'Is it as bad as that?' I exclaimed. I had forgotten the landlord'sgossip, and the explanation struck me with the force of surprise.
'Ay, is it! Do you see the blue haze?' he continued, pointing with asudden gesture to the lower ground before us, over which a light pallof summery vapour hung still and motionless. 'Do you see it? Well, underthat there is death! You may find food in Chateauroux, and stalls foryour horses, and a man to take money; for there are still men there.But cross the Indre, and you will see sights worse than a battle-field aweek old! You will find no living soul in house or stable or church, butcorpses plenty. The land is cursed! cursed for heresy, some say! Halfare dead, and half are fled to the woods! And if you do not die of theplague, you will starve.'
'God forbid!' I muttered, thinking with a shudder of those beforeus. This led me to ask him if a party resembling ours in number, andincluding two women, had passed that way. He answered, Yes, after sunsetthe evening before; that their horses were stumbling with fatigueand the men swearing in pure weariness. He believed that they had notentered the town, but had made a rude encampment half a mile beyond it;and had again broken this up, and ridden southwards two or three hoursbefore our arrival.
'Then we may overtake them to-day?' I said.
'By your leave, sir,' he answered, with grave meaning. 'I think you aremore likely to meet them.'
Shrugging my shoulders, I thanked him shortly and left him; the fullimportance of preventing my men hearing what I had heard--lest thepanic which possessed these townspeople should seize on them also--beingalready in my mind. Nevertheless the thought came too late, for onturning my horse I found one of the foremost, a long, solemn-faced man,had already found his way to Maignan's stirrup; where he was dilatingso eloquently upon the enemy which awaited us southwards that thecountenances of half the troopers were as long as his own, and I sawnothing for it but to interrupt his oration by a smart application of myswitch to his shoulders. Having thus stopped him, and rated him back tohis fellows, I gave the word to march. The men obeyed mechanically, weswung into a canter, and for a moment the danger was over.
But I knew that it would recur again and again. Stealthily marking thefaces round me, and listening to the whispered talk which went on, I sawthe terror spread from one to another. Voices which earlier in the dayhad been raised in song and jest grew silent. Great reckless fellows ofMaignan's following, who had an oath and a blow for all comers, andto whom the deepest ford seemed to be child's play, rode with droopingheads and knitted brows; or scanned with ill-concealed anxiety thestrange haze before us, through which the roofs of the town, and hereand there a low hill or line of poplars, rose to plainer view. Maignanhimself, the stoutest of the stout, looked grave, and had lost hisswaggering air. Only three persons preserved their SANG-FROID entire. Ofthese, M. d'Agen rode as if he had heard nothing, and Simon Fleix as ifhe feared nothing; while Fanchette, gazing eagerly forward, saw, it wasplain, only one object in the mist, and that was her Mistress's face.
'We found the gates of the town open, and this, which proved to be theherald of stranger sights, daunted the hearts of my men more than themost hostile reception. As we entered, our horses' hoofs, clatteringloudly on the pavement, awoke a hundred echoes in the empty houses toright and left. The main street, flooded with sunshine, which made itsdesolation seem a hundred times more formidable, stretched away beforeus, bare and empty; or haunted only by a few slinking dogs, and prowlingwretches, who fled, affrighted at the unaccustomed sounds, or stood andeyed us listlessly as me passed. A bell tolled; in the distance we heardthe wailing of women. The silent ways, the black cross which markedevery second door, the fri
ghtful faces which once or twice looked outfrom upper windows and blasted our sight, infected my men with terror soprofound and so ungovernable that at last discipline was forgotten;and one shoving his horse before another in narrow places, there wasa scuffle to be first. One, and then a second, began to trot. The trotgrew into a shuffling canter. The gates of the inn lay open, nay seemedto invite us to enter; but no one turned or halted. Moved by a singleimpulse we pushed breathlessly on and on, until the open country wasreached, and we who had entered the streets in silent awe, swept out andover the bridge as if the fiend were at our heels.
That I shared in this flight causes me no shame even now, for my menwere at the time ungovernable, as the best-trained troops are whenseized by such panics; and, moreover, I could have done no good byremaining in the town, where the strength of the contagion was probablygreater and the inn larder like to be as bare, as the hillside. Fewtowns are without a hostelry outside the gates for the convenience ofknights of the road or those who would avoid the dues, and Chateaurouxproved no exception to this rule. A short half-mile from the walls wedrew rein before a second encampment raised about a wayside house.It scarcely needed the sound of music mingled with brawling voices toinform us that the wilder spirits of the town had taken refuge here, andwere seeking to drown in riot and debauchery, as I have seen happen in abesieged place, the remembrance of the enemy which stalked abroad in thesunshine. Our sudden appearance, while it put a stop to the mimicryof mirth, brought out a score of men and women in every stage ofdrunkenness and dishevelment, of whom some, with hiccoughs and loosegestures, cried to us to join them, while others swore horridly at beingrecalled to the present, which, with the future, they were endeavouringto forget.
I cursed them in return for a pack of craven wretches, and threateningto ride down those who obstructed us, ordered my men forward; haltingeventually a quarter of a mile farther on, where a wood of groundlingoaks which still wore last year's leaves afforded fair shelter. Afraidto leave my men myself, lest some should stray to the inn and othersdesert altogether, I requested M. d'Agen to return thither with Maignanand Simon, and bring us what forage and food we required. This he didwith perfect success, though not until after a scuffle, in whichMaignan showed himself a match for a hundred. We watered the horses ata neighbouring brook, and assigning two hours to rest and refreshment--agreat part of which M. d'Agen and I spent walking up and down in moodysilence, each immersed in his own thoughts--we presently took the roadagain with renewed spirits.
But a panic is not easily shaken off, nor is any fear so difficult tocombat and defeat as the fear of the invisible. The terrors which foodand drink had for a time thrust out presently returned with sevenfoldforce. Men looked uneasily in one another's faces, and from them to thehaze which veiled all distant objects. They muttered of the heat,which was sudden, strange, and abnormal at that time of the year. Andby-and-by they had other things to speak of. We met a man, who ranbeside us and begged of us, crying out in a dreadful voice that his wifeand four children lay unburied in the house. A little farther on, besidea well, the corpse of a woman with a child at her breast lay poisoningthe water; she had crawled to it to appease her thirst, and died of thedraught. Last of all, in, a beech-wood near Lotier we came upon a ladyliving in her coach, with one or two panic-stricken women for her onlyattendants. Her husband was in Paris, she told me; half her servantswere dead, the rest had fled. Still she retained in a remarkable degreeboth courage and courtesy, and accepting with fortitude my reasonsand excuses for perforce leaving her in such a plight, gave me a clearaccount of Bruhl and his party, who had passed her some, hours before.The picture of this lady gazing after us with perfect good-breeding,as we rode away at speed, followed by the lamentations of her women,remains with me to this day; filling my mind at once with admiration andmelancholy. For, as I learned later, she fell ill of the plague where weleft her in the beech-wood, and died in a night with both her servants.
The intelligence we had from her inspired us to push forward, sparingneither spur nor horseflesh, in the hope that we might overtake Bruhlbefore night should expose his captives to fresh hardships and dangers.But the pitch to which the dismal sights and sounds I have mentioned,and a hundred like them, had raised the fears of my following did muchto balk my endeavours. For a while, indeed, under the influence ofmomentary excitement, they spurred their horses to the gallop, as iftheir minds were made up to face the worst; but presently they checkedthem despite all my efforts, and, lagging slowly and more slowly, seemedto lose all spirit and energy. The desolation which met our eyes onevery side, no less than the death-like stillness which prevailed, eventhe birds, as it seemed to us, being silent, chilled the most recklessto the heart. Maignan's face lost its colour, his voice its ring. As forthe rest, starting at a sound and wincing if a leather galled them,they glanced backwards twice for once they looked forwards, and heldthemselves ready to take to their heels and be gone at the least alarm.
Noting these signs, and doubting if I could trust even Maignan, Ithought it prudent to change my place, and falling to the rear, rodethere with a grim face and a pistol ready to my hand. It was not theleast of my annoyances that M. d'Agen appeared to be ignorant of anycause for apprehension save such as lay before us, and riding on in thesame gloomy fit which had possessed him from the moment of starting,neither sought my opinion nor gave his own, but seemed to have undergoneso complete and mysterious a change that I could think of one thing onlythat could have power to effect so marvellous a transformation. I felthis presence a trial rather than a help, and reviewing the course of ourshort friendship, which a day or two before had been so great a delightto me--as the friendship of a young man commonly is to one growingold--I puzzled myself with much wondering whether there could be rivalrybetween us.
Sunset, which was welcome to my company, since it removed the haze,which they regarded with superstitious dread, found us still ploddingthrough a country of low ridges and shallow valleys, both clothed inoak-woods. Its short brightness died away, and with it my last hope ofsurprising Bruhl before I slept. Darkness fell upon us as we wendedour way slowly down a steep hillside where the path was so narrow anddifficult as to permit only one to descend at a time. A stream of somesize, if we might judge from the noise it made, poured through theravine below us, and presently, at the point where we believed thecrossing to be, we espied a solitary light shining in the blackness.To proceed farther was impossible, for the ground grew more and moreprecipitous; and, seeing this, I bade Maignan dismount, and leaving uswhere we were, go for a guide to the house from which the light issued.
He obeyed, and plunging into the night, which in that pit; between thehills was of an inky darkness, presently returned with a peasant and alanthorn. I was about to bid the man guide us to the ford, or to somelevel ground where we could picket the horses, when Maignan gleefullycried out that he had news. I asked what news.
'Speak up, MANANT!' he said, holding up his lanthorn so that the lightfell on the man's haggard face and unkempt hair. 'Tell his Excellencywhat you have told me, or I will skin you alive, little man!'
'Your other party came to the ford an hour before sunset,' the peasantanswered, staring dully at us. 'I saw them coming, and hid myself. Theyquarrelled by the ford. Some were for crossing, and some not.'
'They had ladies with them?' M. d'Agen said suddenly.
'Ay, two, your Excellency,' the clown answered, 'riding like men. In theend they did not cross for fear of the plague, but turned up the river,and rode westwards towards St. Gaultier.'
'St. Gaultier!' I said, 'Where is that? Where does the road to it go tobesides?'
But the peasant's knowledge was confined to his own neighbourhood. Heknew no world beyond St. Gaultier, and could not answer my question. Iwas about to bid him show us the way down, when Maignan cried out thathe knew more.
'What?' I asked.
'Arnidieu! he heard them say where they were going to spend the night!'
'Ha!' I cried. 'Where?'
'In an old ru
ined castle two leagues from this, and between here and St.Gaultier,' the equerry answered, forgetting in his triumph both plagueand panic. 'What do you say to that, your Excellency? It is so, sirrah,is it not?' he continued, turning to the peasant. 'Speak, MasterJacques, or I will roast you before a slow fire!'
But I did not wait to hear the answer. Leaping to the ground, I took theCid's rein on my arm, and cried impatiently to the man to lead us down.