CHAPTER XLVII. THE CHAPEL OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
The sergeant's voice broke in upon her misery.
The man had apparently done as the citizen agent had ordered, and hadclosely examined the little building that stood on the left--a vague,black mass more dense than the surrounding gloom.
"It is all solid stone, citizen," he said; "iron gates in front, closedbut not locked, rusty key in the lock, which turns quite easily; nowindows or door in the rear."
"You are quite sure?"
"Quite certain, citizen; it is plain, solid stone at the back, and theonly possible access to the interior is through the iron gate in front."
"Good."
Marguerite could only just hear Heron speaking to the sergeant. Darknessenveloped every form and deadened every sound. Even the harsh voicewhich she had learned to loathe and to dread sounded curiously subduedand unfamiliar. Heron no longer seemed inclined to storm, to rage, orto curse. The momentary danger, the thought of failure, the hopeof revenge, had apparently cooled his temper, strengthened hisdetermination, and forced his voice down to a little above a whisper. Hegave his orders clearly and firmly, and the words came to Marguerite onthe wings of the wind with strange distinctness, borne to her ears bythe darkness itself, and the hush that lay over the wood.
"Take half a dozen men with you, sergeant," she beard him say, "and joincitizen Chauvelin at the chateau. You can stable your horses in the farmbuildings close by, as he suggests and run to him on foot. You and yourmen should quickly get the best of a handful of midnight prowlers; youare well armed and they only civilians. Tell citizen Chauvelin that Iin the meanwhile will take care of our prisoners. The Englishman I shallput in irons and lock up inside the chapel, with five men under thecommand of your corporal to guard him, the other two I will drive myselfstraight to Crecy with what is left of the escort. You understand?"
"Yes, citizen."
"We may not reach Crecy until two hours after midnight, but directlyI arrive I will send citizen Chauvelin further reinforcements, which,however, I hope may not necessary, but which will reach him in the earlymorning. Even if he is seriously attacked, he can, with fourteen men hewill have with him, hold out inside the castle through the night. Tellhim also that at dawn two prisoners who will be with me will be shot inthe courtyard of the guard-house at Crecy, but that whether he has gothold of Capet or not he had best pick up the Englishman in the chapel inthe morning and bring him straight to Crecy, where I shall be awaitinghim ready to return to Paris. You understand?"
"Yes, citizen."
"Then repeat what I said."
"I am to take six men with me to reinforce citizen Chauvelin now."
"Yes."
"And you, citizen, will drive straight back to Crecy, and will sendus further reinforcements from there, which will reach us in the earlymorning."
"Yes."
"We are to hold the chateau against those unknown marauders if necessaryuntil the reinforcements come from Crecy. Having routed them, we returnhere, pick up the Englishman whom you will have locked up in thechapel under a strong guard commanded by Corporal Cassard, and join youforthwith at Crecy."
"This, whether citizen Chauvelin has got hold of Capet or not."
"Yes, citizen, I understand," concluded the sergeant imperturbably; "andI am also to tell citizen Chauvelin that the two prisoners will be shotat dawn in the courtyard of the guard-house at Crecy."
"Yes. That is all. Try to find the leader of the attacking party, andbring him along to Crecy with the Englishman; but unless they arein very small numbers do not trouble about the others. Now en avant;citizen Chauvelin might be glad of your help. And--stay--order all themen to dismount, and take the horses out of one of the coaches, thenlet the men you are taking with you each lead a horse, or even two, andstable them all in the farm buildings. I shall not need them, and couldnot spare any of my men for the work later on. Remember that, aboveall, silence is the order. When you are ready to start, come back to mehere."
The sergeant moved away, and Marguerite heard him transmitting thecitizen agent's orders to the soldiers. The dismounting was carriedon in wonderful silence--for silence had been one of the principalcommands--only one or two words reached her ears.
"First section and first half of second section fall in, right wheel.First section each take two horses on the lead. Quietly now there; don'ttug at his bridle--let him go."
And after that a simple report:
"All ready, citizen!"
"Good!" was the response. "Now detail your corporal and two men to comehere to me, so that we may put the Englishman in irons, and take himat once to the chapel, and four men to stand guard at the doors of theother coach."
The necessary orders were given, and after that there came the curtcommand:
"En avant!"
The sergeant, with his squad and all the horses, was slowly moving awayin the night. The horses' hoofs hardly made a noise on the soft carpetof pine-needles and of dead fallen leaves, but the champing of the bitswas of course audible, and now and then the snorting of some poor, tiredhorse longing for its stable.
Somehow in Marguerite's fevered mind this departure of a squad of menseemed like the final flitting of her last hope; the slow agony of thefamiliar sounds, the retreating horses and soldiers moving away amongstthe shadows, took on a weird significance. Heron had given his lastorders. Percy, helpless and probably unconscious, would spend the nightin that dank chapel, while she and Armand would be taken back to Crecy,driven to death like some insentient animals to the slaughter.
When the grey dawn would first begin to peep through the branches of thepines Percy would be led back to Paris and the guillotine, and she andArmand will have been sacrificed to the hatred and revenge of brutes.
The end had come, and there was nothing more to be done. Struggling,fighting, scheming, could be of no avail now; but she wanted to get toher husband; she wanted to be near him now that death was so imminentboth for him and for her.
She tried to envisage it all, quite calmly, just as she knew that Percywould wish her to do. The inevitable end was there, and she wouldnot give to these callous wretches here the gratuitous spectacle of adespairing woman fighting blindly against adverse Fate.
But she wanted to go to her husband. She felt that she could face deathmore easily on the morrow if she could but see him once, if she couldbut look once more into the eyes that had mirrored so much enthusiasm,such absolute vitality and whole-hearted self-sacrifice, and such anintensity of love and passion; if she could but kiss once more thoselips that had smiled through life, and would smile, she knew, even inthe face of death.
She tried to open the carriage door, but it was held from without, and aharsh voice cursed her, ordering her to sit still.
But she could lean out of the window and strain her eyes to see. Theywere by now accustomed to the gloom, the dilated pupils taking inpictures of vague forms moving like ghouls in the shadows. The othercoach was not far, and she could hear Heron's voice, still subdued andcalm, and the curses of the men. But not a sound from Percy.
"I think the prisoner is unconscious," she heard one of the men say.
"Lift him out of the carriage, then," was Heron's curt command; "and yougo and throw open the chapel gates."
Marguerite saw it all. The movement, the crowd of men, two vague, blackforms lifting another one, which appeared heavy and inert, out of thecoach, and carrying it staggering up towards the chapel.
Then the forms disappeared, swallowed up by the more dense mass of thelittle building, merged in with it, immovable as the stone itself.
Only a few words reached her now.
"He is unconscious."
"Leave him there, then; he'll not move!"
"Now close the gates!"
There was a loud clang, and Marguerite gave a piercing scream. She toreat the handle of the carriage door.
"Armand, Armand, go to him!" she cried; and all her self-control, allher enforced calm, vanished in an outburst of wild, a
gonising passion."Let me get to him, Armand! This is the end; get me to him, in the nameof God!"
"Stop that woman screaming," came Heron's voice clearly through thenight. "Put her and the other prisoner in irons--quick!"
But while Marguerite expended her feeble strength in a mad, patheticeffort to reach her husband, even now at this last hour, when all hopewas dead and Death was so nigh, Armand had already wrenched the carriagedoor from the grasp of the soldier who was guarding it. He was of theSouth, and knew the trick of charging an unsuspecting adversary withhead thrust forward like a bull inside a ring. Thus he knocked one ofthe soldiers down and made a quick rush for the chapel gates.
The men, attacked so suddenly and in such complete darkness, did notwait for orders. They closed in round Armand; one man drew his sabre andhacked away with it in aimless rage.
But for the moment he evaded them all, pushing his way through them,not heeding the blows that came on him from out the darkness. At last hereached the chapel. With one bound he was at the gate, his numb fingersfumbling for the lock, which he could not see.
It was a vigorous blow from Heron's fist that brought him at last to hisknees, and even then his hands did not relax their hold; they grippedthe ornamental scroll of the gate, shook the gate itself in its rustyhinges, pushed and pulled with the unreasoning strength of despair.He had a sabre cut across his brow, and the blood flowed in a warm,trickling stream down his face. But of this he was unconscious; all thathe wanted, all that he was striving for with agonising heart-beatsand cracking sinews, was to get to his friend, who was lying in thereunconscious, abandoned--dead, perhaps.
"Curse you," struck Heron's voice close to his ear. "Cannot some of youstop this raving maniac?"
Then it was that the heavy blow on his head caused him a sensation ofsickness, and he fell on his knees, still gripping the ironwork.
Stronger hands than his were forcing him to loosen his hold; blows thathurt terribly rained on his numbed fingers; he felt himself draggedaway, carried like an inert mass further and further from that gatewhich he would have given his lifeblood to force open.
And Marguerite heard all this from the inside of the coach where she wasimprisoned as effectually as was Percy's unconscious body inside thatdark chapel. She could hear the noise and scramble, and Heron's hoarsecommands, the swift sabre strokes as they cut through the air.
Already a trooper had clapped irons on her wrists, two others held thecarriage doors. Now Armand was lifted back into the coach, and she couldnot even help to make him comfortable, though as he was lifted in sheheard him feebly moaning. Then the carriage doors were banged to again.
"Do not allow either of the prisoners out again, on peril of yourlives!" came with a vigorous curse from Heron.
After which there was a moment's silence; whispered commands camespasmodically in deadened sound to her ear.
"Will the key turn?"
"Yes, citizen."
"All secure?"
"Yes, citizen. The prisoner is groaning."
"Let him groan."
"The empty coach, citizen? The horses have been taken out."
"Leave it standing where it is, then; citizen Chauvelin will need it inthe morning."
"Armand," whispered Marguerite inside the coach, "did you see Percy?"
"It was so dark," murmured Armand feebly; "but I saw him, just insidethe gates, where they had laid him down. I heard him groaning. Oh, myGod!"
"Hush, dear!" she said. "We can do nothing more, only die, as he lived,bravely and with a smile on our lips, in memory of him."
"Number 35 is wounded, citizen," said one of the men.
"Curse the fool who did the mischief," was the placid response. "Leavehim here with the guard."
"How many of you are there left, then?" asked the same voice a momentlater.
"Only two, citizen; if one whole section remains with me at the chapeldoor, and also the wounded man."
"Two are enough for me, and five are not too many at the chapel door."And Heron's coarse, cruel laugh echoed against the stone walls of thelittle chapel. "Now then, one of you get into the coach, and the othergo to the horses' heads; and remember, Corporal Cassard, that you andyour men who stay here to guard that chapel door are answerable to thewhole nation with your lives for the safety of the Englishman."
The carriage door was thrown open, and a soldier stepped in and sat downopposite Marguerite and Armand. Heron in the meanwhile was apparentlyscrambling up the box. Marguerite could hear him muttering curses as hegroped for the reins, and finally gathered them into his hand.
The springs of the coach creaked and groaned as the vehicle slowlyswung round; the wheels ploughed deeply through the soft carpet of deadleaves.
Marguerite felt Armand's inert body leaning heavily against hershoulder.
"Are you in pain, dear?" she asked softly.
He made no reply, and she thought that he had fainted. It was betterso; at least the next dreary hours would flit by for him in the blissfulstate of unconsciousness. Now at last the heavy carriage began to movemore evenly. The soldier at the horses' heads was stepping along at arapid pace.
Marguerite would have given much even now to look back once more atthe dense black mass, blacker and denser than any shadow that had everdescended before on God's earth, which held between its cold, cruelwalls all that she loved in the world.
But her wrists were fettered by the irons, which cut into her flesh whenshe moved. She could no longer lean out of the window, and she couldnot even hear. The whole forest was hushed, the wind was lulled to rest;wild beasts and night-birds were silent and still. And the wheels of thecoach creaked in the ruts, bearing Marguerite with every turn furtherand further away from the man who lay helpless in the chapel of the HolySepulchre.