CHAPTER XVI.
VADE IN PACE.
THE thought of undefined horror conveyed by that word "_oubliette_" fora moment held Noemi as though it had paralysed her. But this was for amoment only, and then she bounded in the direction of the keep.
A word must be said as to what an _oubliette_ was. In almost everymediaeval castle in France and Germany the visitor is shown holes,usually in the floor, that descend to a considerable depth, and whichare said to be _oubliettes_--that is to say, places down which prisonerswere dropped when it was to the interest of the lord of the castle tosink them in oblivion.
Sometimes these places communicate with a river or a lake, as atChillon, and this passage is set with irons, presumably to cut in piecesthe body of the man cast down it.
In the vast majority of cases these so-called _oubliettes_ are nothingbut openings connected with the drainage of the castle or else are thewell-mouths of cisterns in which the rain-water from the roofs wascollected and stored.
Nevertheless, the fact that skeletons have been found in some of theclosed subterranean vaults, and that a percentage of them cannot beexplained as having been anything else but receptacles for prisonersthrown in, to die a languishing death, and lastly, the historiccertainty that some poor wretches have so perished, shows that popularbelief is not wholly unfounded. The writer has himself been let down byropes into one in which four skeletons were entombed, and it is wellknown that in 1403 one of the Counts of Armagnac so disposed of hiscousin, who lingered on thus immured for eight days. The son would haveshared his father's fate but that out of horror at the notion of beingflung down the well on the corpse of his father, the poor lad droppeddead on the brink.
Moreover, under the title of _vade in pace_, the _oubliette_ was used,not in castles only, but in convents as well, and was there introducedby Matthew, Prior of St. Martin des Pres, in Languedoc, in the middle ofthe fourteenth century, when the Archbishop of Toulouse interfered toforbid the employment of this inhuman mode of execution. A prelate mightstep in to check the barbarity of a prior, but who was there to hold thehand of a noble?
Noemi saw a cluster of men outside the door that led into the dungeon,and forced her way through them. The dungeon was not large, it would notadmit more than a dozen men. It opened on to a platform of rock on theoutside of the castle, not into the inner court. Access to it wasobtained by a doorway in the basement of the keep, where the wall wasten feet thick. The chamber was vaulted, and only near the middlesufficiently lofty to admit of anyone standing upright in it. There wasno window by which light and air could penetrate. When the door wasshut, both were excluded. The walls, the floor, the vault were ofsquare-cut limestone.
At the further end, immediately opposite the door was a recess,conchoidal, and in this recess what seemed to be a well. There was astone step in the floor, and above that a circular coped wall, preciselysuch as may be seen where there is a well; with this difference, thatthe orifice was not two feet in diameter, a very inconvenient size for abucket to pass up or down.
In the dungeon sat Le Gros Guillem on a pallet, with his feet raised andbandaged. Before him, bound, with his hands behind his back, was Ogierdel' Peyra, between two jailers. The old man had concluded that his headwould be struck off, at the worst that he would be hanged. The sight ofthe _vade in pace_, and the knowledge that he was to be cast down aliveand left to a lingering agony, had blanched his cheek, but did not makehim tremble.
Ogier did not know, he could not guess, the depth of the _oubliette_.But he was aware that such were sometimes not so profound but that hewho was flung in broke some of his bones, and thus died of a combinationof miseries. Happy he who, falling on his head, was reduced at once tounconsciousness.
"Well, Del' Peyra," cried Guillem, in his harsh tones, rendered harsherby the feverishness and weariness of the past night, "will you not stoopto beg of me your life?"
"It is of no use," answered Ogier.
"Hold the lights, that I may see him!" ordered the Captain.
Two of his men brought torches that emitted as much smoke as light. Inthe dungeon, darkened by the men crowding the door, artificialillumination was necessary.
"You are right there!" shouted Guillem, in response to the words ofOgier. "I shall not spare your life. But what think you of the mode ofdeath? Come, kneel, kiss my foot--wounded through you; and I may consentto have you hanged instead of thrown down yonder!" He indicated thewell-like opening.
The glare of the torches was on Guillem's face as much as on that of hisprisoner. He was haggard with pain and mortified pride. He was buthalf-dressed, was in his shirt, and his shirt was open over his red,hairy breast. His tall, polished head shone like copper in the luridflicker of the links. His great mouth, half open with a grim laugh,revealed the teeth, pointed as though to bite and tear. He was verythin, but muscular, and his limbs were long. As already said, it was butin jest that he was entitled "Le Gros."
It may be questioned whether in the heart of a single ruffian presentthere stirred the smallest emotion of pity for the man who was to besent to so horrible a fate, for all had been humbled by Ogier, and allangrily resented their humiliation. Moreover, all desired to avengetheir ten companions.
"Hold up the light, that I may see how he relishes it!" ordered Guillem,brutally. Then he said: "Pull off his boots, strip him to his shirt."
But immediately he countermanded the order.
"Nay," said he, "leave him his leather belt and boots; he may satisfyhis cravings on them. And, Sieur Ogier, when you want more leather, callfor my boots. They have been cut to pieces, and are useless to me. Theymay make a meal for you."
The Captain looked steadily at his victim from under his loweringeyebrows.
"How came you to think of resisting me?" he asked.
Ogier shrugged his shoulders.
"This execution will be noised everywhere," continued Guillem. "I shalltake care of that. And then every man will have a wholesome dread of me,and a fear of resisting me."
"Not my son Jean," retorted Ogier.
"Your son Jean comes next," said the Captain. "I shall deal with himpresently."
"You must catch him first," said Ogier.
"Take the prisoner to the hold!" shouted Guillem.
Then the two jailers laid their hands on the shoulders of Ogier del'Peyra.
"You need not drag me. I can walk," said the old man.
Those crowding the close and narrow dungeon fell back, as well as theywere able, to make a passage for the condemned man.
He was taken to the well-mouth and seated on it, with his face towardsthe door, through which glimpses of sunlight were visible athwart theheads that filled the opening. Ogier had been divested of his jerkin. Hewas in his shirt and breeches and boots. As the Captain had bidden thathis belt should be left him, this had been refastened about his waist,after that his coat had been removed. In order to divest him of hisouter garments it had been necessary for the jailers to remove thehandcuffs that had fastened his arms behind his back.
"Cursed smoke!" said Guillem. "We are smothered in the fume. Stand asideall of you and let the fresh air enter, that we may breathe. Hearken,Ogier! Will you yet ask life of me?"
At Guillem's command the men had stepped forth and completely clearedthe entrance, so that the brilliant sunlight flowed in as well as thepure air. And this light fell directly on the man who was soon to beexcluded for ever from it. He was seated on the well-mouth in his whiteshirt. His face was as grey as the thick hair of his beard. He wasconscious that he was looking for the last time at the light. He couldsee intense blue sky, and one fleecy cloud in it. He could see the greenturf, and some yellow tansies standing against a bit of wall in shade,the tansies in full sunlight; and he could see a red admiral butterflyhovering about them. It was marvellous how, with death before him, hecould yet distinguish so much. But he looked at everything with a sortof greed, because he saw all these things for the last time. For thefirst and onl
y moment in his life he saw that a red admiral wasbeautiful, that the sky was beautiful, the grass beautiful.
"You have not answered me," said Le Gros Guillem, sneering. "MessireOgier, will you yet ask life of me?"
"If you were in my hands, as I am in yours, would you ask thatquestion?"
Le Gros Guillem paused one moment. Then with an oath--
"No!"
"Nor I of you," said Ogier gravely.
Guillem raised his hands. The fingers were inordinately long and thin.He made a sign to the jailers, one of whom stood back, on each side ofOgier, by the well-mouth, with his hand on the shoulder of the prisoner.Each man, as was customary, had his face covered--that is to say, ablack sack was drawn over his head, in which were two holes cut, throughwhich peered the eyes.
"Throw him down!"
At that moment, taking advantage of the avenue made for the admission ofair, Noemi rushed in. A couple of men stepped forward to intercept her,but she was too nimble for them; she was within almost as soon as theythought of throwing themselves in her way, and had cast herself uponOgier and clasped him with her arms.
"Father! Father! It cannot, it shall not be!"
The door was filled again; the men crowded in to see what new turnevents would take, whether this intervention would avail.
The jailers desisted as they were raising the old man; they felt thatthe sight of the execution of the sentence could not be permitted to ayoung girl. Moreover, she held Del' Peyra fast, and he could not beextricated from her arms without the exercise of force.
"Noemi!" exclaimed Le Gros Guillem, throwing his feet off the pallet,"what is the meaning of this? Why are you here? At once away! Do youhear me?"
"I will not let go! He shall not die! Father, it cannot--it shall notbe!"
"Unloose her arms," ordered Guillem, and signed to the men.
Firmly they obeyed. It was in vain that the girl clung, writhed,endeavoured to disengage her arms from their grasp, and clung to thecondemned man. They held her like a vice and drew her back from thepit-mouth and interposed their persons between her and the man she wasendeavouring to save.
Then, in a paroxysm of horror and pity, Noemi threw herself on her kneesbefore her father and implored him to yield.
"What is Del' Peyra to you?" he asked sternly.
"Nothing--nothing," she gasped. "Oh, father, let him go! let him go!"
"Twice have you interfered between me and him. Why is that?"
She could not answer his question; she did not attempt to do so. Shepersisted in her entreaties. In her anguish she caught hold of one ofhis injured feet and made him cry out with pain.
"Father! If I have ever done anything for you! If you have any love forme--any thought to do what I wish--grant me this. Spare him! Spare him!"
"Never!" answered Le Gros Guillem. Then he waved his long hand and said,"Remove this silly girl."
But when Noemi felt hands laid on her, she leaped to her feet, shookherself free, and said, panting--
"Let be! Do not touch me! I ask his life, no more."
"You do well, child," sneered the Captain. "You then run no more risk ofdisappointment."
"Yet--if that be denied me, there is one thing I do ask," gasped Noemi.
Her breath came as though she had been running up hill. She put herhands to her head, and held it, till she had recovered sufficiently toproceed.
"There is one thing I do ask," she repeated. "Do not cast him down--lethim down gently."
A harsh laugh from Le Gros Guillem.
"You are a silly child, a fool, who know not what you ask. You willprolong his torture, not shorten it--but you shall have your wish. Be itso."
He waved to the jailers.
"Go, child, go!" said he to his daughter.
"I will stay and see it done," she said. "I will not ask another thing."
She stood erect and looked at the old man; her mouth quivered, and hereyes were as though fixed hard in their sockets like stones in asetting.
And the sight was one to freeze the blood.
The jailers raised Ogier, who offered no resistance, but fixed his eyesstrainingly on a spot of light above a man's head in the doorway.
He was lifted till his feet were above the well, and then he was letdown by ropes passed under his arms, slowly, deliberately.
Those holding the torches raised them, and the smoke describedcabalistic devices on the roof. The glare was on the sinking man.
He went down below his knees, then his waist disappeared. Involuntarilyhe put forth his arms to arrest his descent, by gripping thewell-breast, but recollected that resistance was in vain, and loweredhis arms to his sides.
Then his breast was hidden, then his shoulders went under. For a momentall visible was the ghastly grey face with the glittering eyes, andthen--that also was gone.
He uttered no cry, no groan, he went down like a dead man, into profounddarkness, into his living tomb.
All was still in the dungeon, save for the labouring breath of those wholooked on. The jailers lowered till the ropes became slack. Then theyknew the poor wretch was on the floor of the vault below. Each man threwdown one end of his rope and drew at the other, even as at a funeral theropes are withdrawn when the dead has been lowered.
In the stillness, Guillem laughed--silently--showing all his fangs, andwaving his arms in the direction of the _oubliette_ mouth, and extendinghis lean fingers said--
"_Vade in pace!_"