CHAPTER IV.
IN NOMINE BEELZEBUB.
IT was strange. The first recoil wave of the shock caused by thistidings broke into foam and fury against Noemi. Jean del' Peyra did notthink of his loss, of the ruin of his home, of the sufferings of hispeople, but of Noemi laughing, making light of these things.
It was strange. Instead of striking spurs into his steed's flank andgalloping forward to the scene of desolation, involuntarily,unconsciously, he turned his horse's head round, so that he faced thefar-off Gageac, and with set teeth and flashing eye and lowering brow,wiped his lips with the sleeve of his right arm--wiped them not once nortwice, but many times as to wipe off and wipe away for ever thesensation, the taint, the fire that had been kindled there by the kisseshe had received.
Then only did he wheel his horse about and gallop--where galloping waspossible--down the valley of the Beune. The Beune is a stream ratherthan a river, that flows into the Vezere. It has a singular quality: socharged are the waters with lime that they petrify, or rather encrust,the roots of all plants growing in the morass through which they flow,by this means forming dams for itself, which it gradually surmounts toform others. The original bottom of the ravine must be at a considerabledepth under the flat marsh of living and dead waterweed, of active andparalysed marsh plants, of growing and petrified moss that encumbers it,and extends to the very faces of the rocks.
At the present day a road laboriously constructed, and where it crossedthe valley perpetually sinking and perpetually renovated, gives accessto the springs of the Beune. It was not so in the fifteenth century.Then a track lay along the sides where the ground was solid--that is tosay, where it consisted of rubble from the hill-sides; but where themarsh reached the abrupt walls of cliff, there the track clambered upthe side of the valley, and surmounted the escarpments.
Consequently progress in former ages in that part was not as facile asit is at present.
Jean was constrained speedily to relax the pace at which he wasproceeding.
As long as he was in forest and rough place he was secure: the brigandsdid not care to penetrate, at all events at nightfall, intoout-of-the-way places, and where they might fall into ambuscades.
It was otherwise when he came to where the Beune distilled from itssponge of moss into the rapidly flowing Vezere. Here was a greatamphitheatre of scarped sides of rock, all more or less honeycombed withhabitations and refuges.
Here, on his left-hand side, looking north, scowling over the pleasantand smiling basin of the Vezere, was the castle of the Great Guillem. Itconsisted of a range of caves or overhanging ledges of rock, the facesof which had been built up with walls, windows, and crenelations, and agate-house had been constructed to command the only thread of a path bywhich the stronghold could be reached.
From this castle watch was kept, and no one could ascend or descend thevalley unobserved. Jean was on the same bank as the fortress of Guillem,though considerably above it. He must cross the river, and to do this,ascend it to the ford.
He moved along carefully and watchfully. The dusk of evening concealedhis movements, and he was able, unnoticed, or at all events unmolested,to traverse the Vezere and pass on the further side of the river downstream, in face of the strong place of Le Gros Guillem.
A couple of leagues further down was a hamlet, or rather village, calledLe Peuch Ste. Soure, clustered at the foot of a cliff or series ofcliffs that rose out of a steep incline of rubble. The houses weregathered about a little church dedicated to Ste. Soure. The white cragsabove were perforated with habitations. A scent of fire was in the air,and in the gloaming Jean could see the twinkle of sparks running, dyingout, reappearing where something had been consumed by flames, but wasstill glowing in places, and sparks were wandering among its ashes. Ashe drew nearer he heard wailing, and with the wailing voices raised incursing.
A sickness came on the lad's heart; he knew but too well what this allsignified--desolation to many homes, ruin to many families.
"Hold! Who goes?"
"It is I--Jean del' Peyra."
"Well--pass. You will find your father. He is with the Rossignols."
Jean rode on. There were tokens of confusion on all sides. Here a rickwas smouldering, and there a house was wrecked, the door broken, and thecontents of the dwelling thrown out in the way before it. Pigs that hadescaped from their styes ran about rooting after food, and dogs snarledand carried off fragments of meat. A few peasants were creeping abouttimidly, but, alarmed at the appearance in their midst of a man onhorseback, and unable in the dusk to distinguish who he was, they fledto conceal themselves. Jean leaped from his horse, hitched it up, andstrode on, with beating heart and bounding pulse, to a house which heknew was that of the Rossignols.
He entered the door. A light shone through the low window. It wascharacteristic of the times that in every village and hamlet thewindows--the only windows--were so turned inwards on a street or yardthat they revealed no light at night when a candle was kindled or a fireburned brightly on the hearth, lest the light should betray to a passingmarauder the presence of a house which might be looted.
Jean bowed his head and entered at the low door. The fire was flashingin the large open chimney. A bundle of vine faggots had been thrown on,and the light filled the chamber with its orange glare.
By this light Jean saw a bed with a man lying on it; and a woman crying,beating her head and uttering wild words--her children clinging to her,sobbing, frightened, imploring her to desist.
Erect, with a staff in his hand, stood a grey-headed, thick-bearded man,with dark eyes shadowed under heavy brows.
He turned sharply as the lad entered.
"Hah! Jean, you are back. It is well. It is well you were not here thisday earlier. If they had taken you, there would have been a heavy ransomto pay, by the Holy Napkin of Cadouin! And how to redeem those alreadytaken I know not."
"What has been done to Rossignol, father?" asked Jean, going to the bed.
"What will be done to the rest unless the ransom be forthcoming infourteen days. They have left him thus, to show us what will be the fateof the seven others."
"Seven others, father?"
"Aye; they have taken off seven of the men of Ste. Soure. We must findthe ransom, or they will send them back to us, even after the fashion ofthis poor man."
"Is he dead, father?"
The man lying on the bed moved, and, raising himself on his elbow,said--
"Young master, I am worse than dead. Dead, I would be no burden. Living,I shall drag my darlings underground with me."
Then the woman, frantic with grief, turned on her knees, threw up herhands, and uttered a stream of mingled prayer and imprecation--prayer toHeaven and prayer to Hell; to Heaven to blast and torture the destroyersof her house, to Hell to hear her cry if Heaven were deaf. It was notpossible for Jean to learn details from her in this fury and paroxysm.He drew his father outside the door and shut it.
"Father," said he, "tell me what has taken place. It was Le GrosGuillem, was it not?"
"Aye, Le Gros Guillem. We did not know he was in his church, we thoughthe was in Domme, and would be occupied there, and we gave less heed andkept less close watch. You see there were, we knew or supposed, butthree men in the church, and so long as they were supplied with food andwine, we had little fear. But we had not reckoned right on Guillem. Hecame back in the night with a score of men, and they rushed down on us;they crossed the river during the day, when the men were in the fieldsand about their work, and the women and children alone in the houses.When it was seen that the _routiers_ were coming, then the church bellwas rung, but we had little or no time to prepare; they were on us andin every house, breaking up the coffers, sacking the closets."
"Did they get into Le Peuch, father?"
"No; when we heard the bell, then we shut the gates and barricaded; butthere were not four men in the castle, myself included. What could wedo? We could only look on and witness the destruction
; and one of themen in the castle was Limping Gaston, who was no good at all; andanother was Blind Bartholomew, who could not see an enemy anddistinguish him from a friend. When the men in the fields heard thebell, they came running home, to save what might be saved; but it wastoo late. The ruffians were there robbing, maltreating, and they tookthem as they came on--seven of them--and bound their hands behind them,and these they have carried off. They have burned the stack of corn ofJean Grano. The wife of Mussidan was baking. They have carried off allher loaves, and when she entreated them to spare some they swore atanother word they would throw one of her babes into the oven. They haveransacked every house, and spoiled what they could not carry away. Andthe rest of the men, when they saw how those who came near Ste. Sourewere taken, fled and hid themselves. Some of the women, carrying theirchildren, came up the steep slope before the _routiers_ arrived, and wereceived them into the castle; but others remained, hoping to save someof their stuff, and not thinking that the enemy was so nigh. So theywere beaten to tell where any money was hidden. The wife of Drax--shehas had her soles so cut with vine-rods that she cannot walk; but shewas clever--she told where some old Roman coins were hid in a pot, andnot where were her silver livres of French money."
"How long were they here?"
"I cannot tell, Jean. It seemed a century. It may have been an hour."
"They have carried off seven men."
"Yes, to Domme, or to the church. I cannot say where. And we must sendthe ransom in fourteen days, or Le Gros Guillem swears he will returnthem all to us tied on the backs of mules, treated as he has treatedRossignol. He said he left us Rossignol as a refresher."
"But what has he done to Rossignol?"
"Hamstrung him. He can never walk again. From his thighs down he ispowerless--helpless as a babe in arms."
Jean uttered an exclamation of horror.
"Father, there must be an end put to these things! We must rouse thecountry."
"We must pay the ransom first, or all those poor fellows will be sentback to us like as is Rossignol."
"Let us go into the house," said Jean, and threw open the door. "We mustdo something for these unhappy creatures."
"Aye," said his father, "and something must be done to save seven otherhouses from being put in the same condition. Where shall we get themoney?"
"We will consider that presently--first to this man."
A strange spectacle met their eyes when they re-entered the house of theRossignols.
The woman had suspended something dark to a crook in the ceiling, hadbrought glowing ashes from the hearth, and had placed them in a circleon the floor below this dark object, and had spilled tallow over the redcinders, and the tallow having melted, had become ignited, so that aflicker of blue flame shot about the ring, and now and then sent up ajet of yellow flame like a long tongue that licked the suspended object.The woman held back her children, and in one hand she had a long steelpin or skewer, with a silver head to it, wherewith she had been wont tofasten up her hair. She had withdrawn this from her head, and all herblack hair was flowing about her face and shoulders.
"See!" yelled she, and the glitter of her eyes was terrible. "See! it isthe heart of Le Gros Guillem. I will punish him for all he has done tome. This for my man's nerves that he has cut." She made a stab with herpin at the suspended object, which Jean and his father now saw was abullock's heart. "This for all the woe he has brought on me!" Shestabbed again. "See, see, my children, how he twists and tosses! Ha! ha!Gros Guillem, am I paining you? Do you turn to escape me? Do I strikespasms of terror into your heart? Ha! ha! the Rossignol is a song-bird,but her beak is sharp."
Jean caught the woman's hand.
"Stand back!" he cried, "this is devilry. This will bring you to thestake."
"What care I--so long as I torture and stab and burn Le Gros Guillem!And who will denounce me for harming him? Will the Church--which he haspillaged? Will you--whom he has robbed? Let me alone--see--see how theflames burn him! Ha! ha! Le Gros Guillem! Am I swinging you! Dance,dance in fire! Swing, swing in anguish! For my children this!" and shestabbed at the heart again.
The woman was mad with despair and hate and terror. Jean stood back, puthis hand to his mouth, and said with a groan--
"My God! would Noemi were here!"
"In Nomine Beelzebub!" shrieked the woman, and struck the heart downinto the melted flaming fat on the floor.