CHAPTER XXV
THE UNDER WORLD
A coterie of brilliant folk soon followed in the wake of my lord, theMarquis' retinue; holy-day banners were succeeded by holiday ribbons;the _miserere_ of the multitude by paeans of merriment. Hymen, IoHymen! In assuming the leading role to which circumstances nowassigned her, the Governor's daughter brought to the task less energythan she had displayed on that other occasion when visitors hadsojourned at the rock. Her manner was changed--first, lukewarm; then,almost indifferent; until, at length, one day she fairly waived theresponsibility of planning amusements; laid before them the question:What, now, would they like to do?
"Devise a play," said one.
"With shepherds and shepherdesses!"
The Marquis, however, qualified the suggestion. "A masque! that isvery good; but, for this morning--I have been talking with thecommandant--and have another proposal--"
"Which is?"
"To visit the dungeons."
"The dungeons?" My lady's face changed.
"And incidentally inspect their latest guest! Some of you heard of himwhen we were here before--_Le Seigneur Noir_--the Black Seigneur!"
"_Le Seigneur Noir_!" They clapped their hands. "Yes, let us see him!Nothing could be better. What do you say, Elise?"
She started to speak, but for the instant her lips could frame noanswer; with a faint, strained smile, confronted them, when some oneanticipated her reply--
"Did she not leave it to us? It is we who decide."
And a merry party, they swept along, bearing her with them; up thebroad stairway, cold, gray in the morn; beneath the abbot'sbridge--black, spying span!--to the church, and thence to the isolatedspace before the guard-house to the dungeons. Here, at the sound oftheir voices, a man, carrying a bunch of keys--but outwardly theantithesis to the hunchback--peered from the entrance.
"Unless I am mistaken, the new jailer!" With a wave of his hand, theMarquis indicated this person. "The commandant was telling me hisExcellency had engaged one--from Bicetre, or Fort l'Eveque, I believe?"
"Bicetre, my Lord!" said the man gravely. "And before that, theBastille."
"Ah!" laughed the nobleman. "That pretty place some of the foolishpeople are grumbling about! As if we could do without prisons any morethan without palaces! But we have come, my good fellow, to inspectthis lower world of yours!"
The man's glance passed over the paper the Marquis handed him; thensilently he moved aside, and unlocked the iron doors.
"Are you not coming?" At the threshold the Marquis looked back. Whenfirst they had approached the guard-house, involuntarily had theGovernor's daughter drawn aside to the ramparts; now, with facehalf-averted, stood gazing off.
"Coming?" Surprised, the Marquis noted her expression; the fixedbrightness of her eyes and her parted lips. "Oh, yes!" And turningabruptly, she hastened past him.
Would _they_ have to be locked in?--the half-apprehensive query of oneof the ladies caused the jailer at first to hesitate and then to answerin the negative. He would leave the doors from the outer room open,and himself await there the visitors' return. With which reassuringpromise, he distributed lights; called a guardsman, familiar with theintricate underground passages, and consigned them to his care.
One of the gay procession, the Lady Elise stepped slowly forward; theguide proved a talkative fellow, and seemed anxious to answer theirmany inquiries concerning the place. The _salle de la question_? Yes,it existed; but the ancient torture devices for the "interrogatoryordinary" and the "interrogatory extraordinary" were no longer pressedinto service; the King had ordered them relegated to the shelves of themuseum. The cabanons, or black holes? Louis XI built them; the_carceres duri_ and _vade in pace_, however, dated from SaintMauritius, fourth abbot of the Mount.
"And the Black Seigneur? How have you accommodated him?"
"In the _petit exil_; just to the left! We are going there now."
"I--am going back!" A hand touched the arm of the Marquis, last of thefile of visitors, and, lifting his candle, he held it so that theyellow glimmer played on the face of the Governor's daughter. Her eyeslooked deeper; full of dread, as if the very spirit of the subterraneanabode had seized her. He started.
"Surely _you_, Elise, are not afraid?"
"I prefer the sunlight," she said hurriedly in a low tone. "It--it isnot cheerful down here! No; do not call to the guide--or let theothers know. I'll return alone, and--wait for you at the guard-house."
He, nevertheless, insisted upon accompanying her; but, indicating thenot distant door through which they had come, she professed to makelight of objections, and when he still clung to the point, replied witha flash of spirit, sudden and passionate. It compelled hisacquiescence; left him surprised for a second time that day; a littlehurt, too, perhaps, for heretofore had their intimacy been maintainedon a strictly ethical and charming plane. But he had no time foranalysis; the others were drawing away to the left, into a sidepassage; and, with a last backward glance toward the retreating figure,the Marquis reluctantly followed the majority.
Despite, however, her avowed repugnance for that under-world, my ladyshowed now no haste to quit it; for scarcely had the others vanishedthan she stopped; began slowly to retrace her way in the direction theyhad taken. When the narrow route to the _petit exil_ connected withthe main aisle, a sudden draft of air extinguished her light; yet stillshe went on, led by the voices, and a glimmer afar, until reaching aroom, low, massive, as if hewn from the solid rock, again she paused.Drawing behind a heavy square pillar, she gazed at the lords and ladiesassembled in the forbidding place; listened to a voice that ran on, asif discoursing about some anomalous thing. Again was she cognizant oftheir questions; a jest from my lord, the Marquis; she saw that severalstole forward; peered, and started back, half afraid.
But, at length, they asked about the oubliettes, and, chatting gaily,left. Their garments almost touched the Governor's daughter; lightsplayed about the gigantic pillars, and like will-o'-the-wisps whiskedaway. Now, staring straight ahead toward the chamber they had vacated,my lady's attention became fixed by a single dot of yellow--a candleplaced in a niche by the jailer's assistant. It seemed to fascinate;to draw her forward; across the portals--into the room itself!
How long she stood there in the faint suggestion of light, she did notrealize; nor when she approached the iron-barred aperture, and what shefirst said! Something eager, solicitous, with odd silences between herwords, until the impression of a motionless form, and two steady,cynical eyes fastened on her, brought her to an abrupt pause. It wassome time before she continued, more coherently, an explanation abouther apprehension on account of her father, which had entirely left herwhen she had peered through the window of the guard-house.
"You thought me, then, but a common assassin?" a satirical voiceinterposed.
"My father hates you, and you--"
"My Lady has, perhaps, a standard of her own for judging!"
Unmindful of ironical incredulity, she related how she had been forcedto take refuge in the wheel-house; how, when Sanchez had seen her,alarmed she had fled blindly down the passage; waited, then hearingthem all coming, at a loss what else to do, had opened the wheel-housedoor; run into the store-room! What she had seen from there,disconnectedly, also she referred to; his rescue of the others; hisremaining behind to bear the brunt--as brave an act as she knew of!Her tone became tremulous.
"Who betrayed me?" His voice, bold and scoffing, interrupted.
She answered. It was like speaking to some one in a tomb. "Thesoldier you bound gave the alarm."
From behind the bars came a mocking laugh.
"You don't believe me?" She caught her breath.
"Believe? Of course."
"You don't!" she said, and clung tighter to the iron grating. "And Ican't make you!"
"Why should your Ladyship want to? What does it matter?"
"But it does matter!" wildly. "When your servant accused me that dayin the cl
oister I did not answer nor deny; but now--"
"Your Ladyship would deny?"
"That I betrayed you at Casque? Here? Yes, yes!"
"Or at the wheel-house when you called to warn the soldiers?"
"You were about to--to throw yourself over!" she faltered.
"And your Ladyship was apprehensive lest the Black Seigneur shouldescape?"
"Escape?" she cried. "It was death!"
"And the alternative? My Lady preferred to see the outlaw taken--dielike a felon on the gallows!"
"No; no! It was not that."
"What then?" His eyes gleamed bright; her own turned; shrank fromthem. A moment she strove to answer; could not. Within the blackrecess a faint light from the flickering candle played up and down. Socomplete the stillness, so dead the very air, the throbbings of herpulses filled the girl with a suffocating sense of her own vitality.
"I spoke to my father to try to get your cell changed," she at lastfound herself irrelevantly saying; "but could do nothing."
"I thank your Ladyship! But your Ladyship's friends will be far away.Your Ladyship may miss something amusing!"
"I did not bring them--did not want them to come!"
"No?"
Her figure straightened.
"Perhaps, even, they are not aware you are here?"
"They are not, unless--"
"Elise!" From afar a loud call interrupted; reverberating down themain passage, was caught up here and there. "Elise! Elise!" Thewhole under-world echoed to the name.
"I promised to meet them at the guard-house," she explained hurriedly.And hardly knowing what she did, put out her hand, through the bars,toward him. In the darkness a hand seized hers; she felt herselfdrawn; held against the bars. They bruised her shoulder; hurt herface. The chill of the iron sent a shudder through her; though thepain she did not feel; she was cognizant only of a closer view of afigure; the chains from him to the wall; the bare, damp floor--then, ofa voice low, tense, that now was speaking:
"Your Ladyship, indeed, found means to punish a presumptuous fellow,who dared displease her. But _ma foi!_ she should have confined herpunishment to the offender. Those stripes inflicted on him, my oldservant! Think you I knew not it was my Lady's answer to the outlaw,who had the temerity to speak words that offended--"
"You dream that! You imagine that!"
The warmth of his hand seemed to burn hers; her fingers, so closelyimprisoned, to throb with the fierce beating of his pulses.
"I do not want you to think--I can't let you think," she began.
"Elise!" The searchers were drawing nearer.
She would have stepped back, but the fingers tightened on her hand.
"They will be here in a moment--"
Still he did not relinquish his hold; the dark face was next hers; thepiercing, relentless eyes studied the agitated brown ones. The lattercleared; met his fully an instant. "Believe!" that imploring wildglance seemed to say. Did his waver for a moment; the harshness andmockery soften on his face?
"Elise!" From but a short distance came the voice of the Marquis.
A moment the Black Seigneur's hand gripped my lady's harder with astrength he was unaware of. A slight cry fell from her lips, and atonce, almost roughly, he threw her hand from him.
"Bah!" again he laughed mockingly. "Go to your lover."
Released thus abruptly she wavered, straightened, but continued tostand before the dungeon as if incapable of further motion.
"Elise! Are you there?"
"There!" Caverns and caves called out.
"There!" gibed voices amid a labyrinth of pillars, and mechanically shecaught up the candle; fled.
"Here she is!" Coming toward her quickly out of the darkness, theMarquis uttered a glad exclamation. "We have been looking for youeverywhere. Did I not say you should not have attempted to returnalone? _Mon dieu!_ you must have been lost!"