CHAPTER LVII
THE TOWER OF DEATH
Throughout La Vendee and all the country of Retz had run a terriblerumour. "The Marshal de Retz is the murderer of our children. He has athousand bodies in the vaults of his castles. The Duke of Brittany hasgiven orders that they shall be searched. His soldiers are forsakinghim. The names of the dead have been written in black and white, andare in the hands of the headmen of the villages. Hasten--it is thehour of vengeance! Let us overwhelm him! Rise up and let us seek ourlost ones, even if we find no more than their bones!"
And terrible as had been the gathering of the were-wolves in the darkforests around Machecoul upon the night of the fight by the hollowtree, far more threatening and terrible was the uprising of the angrycommons.
In whole villages there was not a man left, and mothers too marched inthat muster armed with choppers and kitchen knives, wild eyed andangry hearted as lionesses robbed of their cubs. From the deep glensand deeper woods of the country of Retz they poured. They disgorgedfrom the caves of the earth whither the greed and rapacity of theirterrible lord had driven them.
Schoolmasters were there with the elder of their pupils. For many ofthe vanished children had disappeared on their way to school, andthese men were in danger of losing both their credit and occupation.
Towards Tiffauges, Champtoce, Machecoul, the angry populace, longrepressed, surged tumultuously, and with them, much wondering at theirorders, went the soldiers of the Duke.
But it is with the columns that concentrated upon Machecoul that wehave chiefly to do. Our three Scots accompanied these, and here, too,marched John of Brittany himself with his Councillor Pierre del'Hopital by his side.
Night fell as they journeyed on, ever joined by fresh contingents fromall the country round. In the van pressed forward the folk of SaintPhilbert, warm from the utter destruction of the house of the witchwoman, La Meffraye, so that not one stone was left upon another.Guided by these the Duke and his party made their way easily throughthe forest, even in the darkness of the night. And as they passedhamlet or cottage ever and anon some frenzied mother would rush uponthem and fall on her knees before the Duke, praying him to look wellfor her darling, and bringing mayhap some pitiful shred of clothing orlock of hair by which the searchers might identify the lost innocent.
As they went forward the soldiers pricked on ahead, and caused thepeople to fall to the rear, lest any foreknowledge of their purposemight reach the wizard and warn him to escape.
The woods of Machecoul were dark and silent that night. Not the howlof a questing wolf was heard. Truly the marshal's demons had forsakenhim, or mayhap they were all busy at that last carnival in the keepof the Castle of Machecoul.
As the storming party approached nearer, and while yet they wereseveral miles distant, they became aware of a great red light thatgleamed forth above them. They could not see whence it came, but thepeasants of Saint Philbert with affrighted glances told how itbeaconed only after the disappearance of some little one from theirhomes, what strange cries were heard ringing out from that loftytower, and how for days after the smoke of a great burning would hangabout the gloomy turrets of devil-haunted Machecoul.
Fiercer and ever fiercer shone the red glare, and the faces of thesoldiers were lit up so that Pierre de l'Hopital ordered them to keepto the more gloomy arcades of the forest.
Then by midnight the cordon was drawn so closely that none might passin or out. And behind the soldiery the common folk lay crouched, angerin their hearts, and their eyes turned towards the open windows in thekeep of Machecoul, from which flared the red light of bale.
Then, covering their lanterns, the three Scots, with Duke John, Pierrede l'Hopital, and a score of officers, stole silently towards thetower by which the Lady Sybilla had promised that an entrance shouldbe gained to the Castle of Machecoul.
It was situated at the western corner towards the south, and wasjoined to its fellows at the corresponding angles of the fortress bygalleried walls of great height. Ten feet above the ground was alittle door of embossed iron, but ordinarily no steps led to it whenthe castle was in a state of defence. Yet when Sholto adventured intothe angle of the wall, he stumbled upon a ladder that leaned againstthe little landing-ledge, above which was the entrance denoted on theplan.
Sholto ascended first, being the lightest and most agile of all. As hehad expected, he found the door unlocked and a narrow passage leadingwithin the tower. He lay a moment and listened, and then, beingcertain there was a light and the sounds of labour within, he crawledback to the ladder head, and whispered to the Lord James an order fortotal silence.
Whereupon, Sholto holding the ladder at the top, Duke John and hisCouncillor mounted like shadows, and with Malise and James Douglas toguard them they were presently crouched in the passage with the doorshut behind them, and the officers keeping watch at the foot of thetower without.
These five listened to the sounds of busy picks within the tower. Theycould hear the ring of iron on stones and the panting of men engagedin severe toil.
"The marshal is preparing for flight," whispered the Duke, exultantly."He is interring his treasures. He has been warned. But we will beoverspeedy for him."
And he chuckled in his satisfaction so loudly that Malise, using noceremony with Duke or varlet at such a season, put his hand over hismouth.
Then one by one they crawled along the narrow passage on their handsand knees, and presently from a little balcony, plastered like aswallow's nest on the inner wall of the tower, they found themselveslooking down upon a strange scene.
A flight of steps led slantwise to the bottom, and at the foot of thetower, stripped to the waist, they beheld two men busily filling greatsacks with a curious cargo.
The turret had never been finished. It contained nothing whateverexcept the staircase. So far as Sholto could see there was not even awindow anywhere. The door by which they had entered and another whichevidently led into the interior of the castle were its only outlets.The earth at the bottom had remained as it had been left by thebuilders, who surely must have thought that no madder architecturalfreak was ever planned than this shut tower of the Castle of Machecoulwith its blank walls and sordid accoutrement.
But most strange of all, the original earth had been covered to thedepth of a foot or more with dark objects, the true significance ofwhich did not appear from the distance of the little gallery where theparty of five had stationed themselves.
The two men at work below had brought torches with them, which werefastened to the walls by iron spikes. The smoke from these hung inheavy masses about the tower, still further diminishing the clearnesswith which the watchers aloft could observe what went on below.
One of the workmen was tall and spare, with the forward thrust of headand neck seen in vultures and other unclean birds. The other, who heldthe sacks while his companion shovelled, was on the contrary stout andshort, of a notably jovial, rubicund countenance, in habit like thehostler of an inn, or perhaps a well-to-do carrier upon the roads.
The two worked without speaking, as if the task were distasteful. Whenone sack was full, both would seize their picks and dig furiously atthe floor of the tower. Then when they had enough loosened, theywould fall to shovelling the curiously shaped objects into the sacksagain.
As Sholto looked down he heard a hissing whisper at his ear.
"These be Blanchet the sorcerer and Robin Romulart. But last week theytook notice of my little Jean and praised him for a noble boy."
Sholto turned round, and there at his elbow, having followed them inspite of all orders and precautions, he discerned the woodman LouisVerger, whose little son had been carried off by the grey she-wolf.
Sholto motioned him back, and at a sign from the Duke, his father andhe began to descend. So silently did they make their way down thestone steps, and so intent were the men upon their work, that in aminute after leaving the little gallery Malise stood behind the tallerand Sholto stole like a shadow along the wall nearer to the littlerotund m
an who had been called Robin Romulart.
The Duke held up his hand. Sholto and Malise each took their man aboutthe throat with their left arms and pulled them backward, at the sametime covering their mouths with their right hands. Blanchet nevermoved in the strong arms of Malise. But Robin, whose rotund figureconcealed his great muscular development, might have escaped fromSholto had not the woodman Verger flung himself at the little man'sthroat and brought him to the ground. Then the Duke and the othersdescended, and as they did so they became conscious of a chokingmephitic vapour which clung dank and heavy to the lower courses of thetower.
Suddenly a wild cry made all shiver. It came from Louis Verger, whohad sprung upon something that lay tossed aside in a corner.
"Silence, man--on your life! Silence!" hissed Pierre de l'Hopital."Whatever you have found, think only of revenge and help us to it!"
"I have found him. He is dead! The fiends! The fiends!" sobbed LouisVerger, covering a small partially charred object with the curtmantleof which he had rapidly divested himself for the purpose.
Then it came upon those who stood on the floor of the tower that theywere in the marshal's main charnel-house. These vague forms, mostlycharred like half-burned wood, these scraps of white bone, theselittle crushed skulls, were all that remained of the innocent childrenwho, in the freshness of their youth and beauty, had been seduced intothe fatal Castle of Machecoul.
And what wonder that an appalling terror sat on the heart and masteredthe soul of Sholto MacKim. For how did he know that he was nottreading under foot at each step the calcined fragments of the fairbody of Maud Lindesay?
Twenty sacks had been filled ready for transport, and as many more layfolded and empty in a heap in a corner. The marshal, uneasy perhaps asto the suspicions against him, and anxious to remove evidence from theprecincts of his castle, had ordered this Tower of Death to becleared. But truly his devil had once more forsaken him. The order hadbeen given a day too late.
"God's grace, I stifle. Let us get out of this, and seize themurderer," quoth Duke John, making his way towards the door.
"Wait a moment," said Pierre de l'Hopital, "we must consider. Wecannot let the commons see this or they will sack the castle fromfoundation to roof tree, and slay the innocent with the guilty. Wemust seize and hold for fair trial all who are found within. _And I,Pierre de l'Hopital, will try them!_"
"What then do you propose?" said the Duke, getting as near the door aspossible.
"Let us bring in hither the officers and what soldiers you cantrust--that is not my business," answered the President. "Then we willgo through the castle, and after we have secured the prisoners andmade sure of sufficient pieces of justificative evidence, of which wehave infinite supply in these sacks, we may e'en permit the people towork their will."
As it was Sholto who had first entered, so it was Sholto who firstleft the Tower of Death. He it was also who, at the head of a strongband, surprised the marshal's sleepy inner guard, and helped to bindthem with his own hands. It was Sholto who, at the foot of the stairsof the great keep, stood listening that he might know the right momentto lead the besiegers upward.
But even as he stood thus, down the stairway there came pealing aterrible cry, the shriek of a woman in the final agony, shrill,desperate, unavailing.
And at the sound Sholto flew up the stone steps in the direction ofthe cry, not knowing what he did, save that he went to kill.
And scarce a foot behind him followed the woodman, Louis Verger, andas they fled upward the red gloom grew brighter till they seemed to berushing headlong into a furnace mouth.