CHAPTER XI.
BY THIS OR THAT.
Long after Basterga, with an exultant smile and the words "I have limedhim!" on his lips, had passed into the Bourg du Four and gone to hislodging, the Syndic sat frowning in his chair. From time to time a sighdeep and heart-rending, a sigh that must have melted even Petitot, evenBaudichon, swelled his breast; and more than once he raised his eyes tohis painted effigy over the mantel, and cast on it a look that claimedthe pity of men and Heaven.
Nevertheless with each sigh and glance, though sigh and glance lost nowhit of their fervour, it might have been observed that his face grewbrighter; and that little by little, as he reflected on what had passed,he sat more firmly and strongly in his chair.
Not that he purposed buying his life at the price which Basterga had puton it. Never! But when a ship is on the lee-shore it is pleasant to knowthat if one anchor fails to hold there is a second, albeit a borrowedone. The knowledge steadies the nerves and enables the mind to deal morefirmly with the crisis. Or--to put the image in a shape nearer to thefact--though the power to escape by a shameful surrender may sap thecourage of the garrison, it may also enable it to array its defenceswithout panic. The Syndic, for the present at least, entertained nothought of saving himself by a shameful compliance; it was indeedbecause the compliance was so shameful, and the impossibility ofstooping to it so complete, that he sighed thus deeply, and raised eyesso piteous to his own portrait. He who stood almost in the position ofPater Patriae to Geneva, to betray Geneva! He the father of his countryto betray his country! Perish the thought! But, alas, he too mustperish, unless he could hit on some other way of winning the _remedium_.
Still, it is not to be gainsaid that the Syndic went about the searchfor this other way in a more cheerful spirit; and revolved this plan andthat plan in a mind more at ease. The ominous shadow of the night, thesequent gloom of the morning were gone; in their place rode an almostgiddy hopefulness to which no scheme seemed too fanciful, no planwithout its promise. Betray his country! Never, never! Though, be itnoted, there was small scope in the Republic for such a man as himself,and he had received and could receive but a tithe of the honour hedeserved! While other men, Baudichon and Petitot for instance, to saynothing of Fabri and Du Pin, reaped where they had not sown.
That, by the way; for it had naught to do with the matter in hand--thediscovery of a scheme which would place the _remedium_ within his grasp.He thought awhile of the young student. He might make a second attemptto coerce him. But Claude's flat refusal to go farther with the matter,a refusal on which, up to the time of Basterga's abrupt entrance, theSyndic had made no impression, was a factor; and reluctantly, after somethought, Blondel put him out of his mind.
To do the thing himself was his next idea. But the scare of the nightbefore had given him a distaste for the house; and he shrank from theattempt with a timidity he did not understand. He held the room inabhorrence, the house in dread; and though he told himself that in thelast resort--perhaps he meant the last but one--he should venture,while there was any other way he put that plan aside.
And there was another way: there were others through whom the thingcould be done. Grio, indeed, who had access to the room and the box, wasBasterga's creature; and the Syndic dared not tamper with him. But therewas a third lodger, a young fellow, of whom the inquiries he had maderespecting the house had apprised him. Blondel had met Gentilis morethan once, and marked him; and the lad's weak chin and shifty eyes, noless than the servility with which he saluted the magistrate had notbeen lost on the observer. The youth, granted he was not underBasterga's thumb, was unlikely to refuse a request backed by authority.
As he reflected, the very person who was in his thoughts passed thewindow, moving with the shuffling gait and sidelong look which betrayedhis character. The Syndic took his presence for an omen: tempted by it,he rose precipitately, seized his head-gear and cane, and hurried intothe street. He glanced up and down, and saw Louis in the distance movingin the direction of the College. He followed. Three or four youths,bearing books, were hastening in the same direction through the narrowstreet of the Coppersmiths, and the Syndic fell in behind them. He darednot hasten over-much, for a dozen curious eyes watched him from thenoisy beetle-browed stalls on either side; and presently, finding thathe did not gain, he was making up his mind to await a better occasion,when Louis, abandoning a companion who had just joined him, dived intoone of the brassfounders' shops.
The Syndic walked on slowly, returning here and there a reverentialsalute. He was nearly at the gate of the College, when Louis, late andin haste, overtook him, and hurried by him. Blondel doubted an instantwhat he should do; doubted now the moment for action was come thewisdom of the step he had in his mind. But a feverish desire to act hadseized upon him, and after a moment's hesitation he raised his voice."Young man," he said, "a moment! Here!"
Louis, not quite out of earshot, turned, found the magistrate's eye uponhim, wavered, and at last came to him. He cringed low, wondering what hehad done amiss.
"I know your face," Blondel said, fixing him with a penetrating look."Do you not lodge, my lad, in a house in the Corraterie? Near the PorteTertasse?"
"Yes, Messer Syndic," Louis answered, overpowered by the honour of thegreat man's address, and still wondering what evil was in store for him.
"The Mere Royaume's?"
"Yes, Messer Syndic."
"Then you can do me--or rather"--with an expression of growingseverity--"you can do the State a service. Step this way, and listen tome, young man!" And his asperity increased by the fear that he wastaking an unwise step, he told the youth, in curt stiff sentences, suchfacts as he thought necessary.
The young student listened thunderstruck, his mouth open, and anexpression of fatuous alarm on his face. "Letters?" he muttered, whenthe Syndic had come to a certain point in the story he had decided totell.
"Yes, papers of importance to the State," the Syndic replied weightily,"of which it is necessary that possession should be taken as quietly aspossible."
"And they are----"
"They are in the steel box chained to the wall of his apartment. Be ityour task, young man, to bring the box and the letters unread anduntouched to me. Opportunities of securing them in Messer Basterga'sabsence cannot but occur," he continued more benignly. "Choose onewisely, use it boldly, and the care of your fortunes will be in betterhands than yours! A word to Basterga, on the other hand," Blondelcontinued slowly, and with a deadly look--he had not failed to noticethat Louis winced at the name of Basterga--"and you will find yourselfin the prison of the Two Hundred, destined to share the fate of theconspirators."
The young man began to shake. "Conspirators?" he cried faintly. The wordbrought vividly before him the horrors of the scaffold and the wheel."Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Why did I go to that house to lodge?"
"Do your duty," the Syndic said, "and you need fear nothing."
"But if I cannot--do it?" the youth stammered, his teeth chattering. Heto penetrate to Basterga's room unbidden! He to rob the formidable manand perhaps be caught in the act! He to deceive him and meet his eye atmeals! Impossible! "But if I cannot--do it?" he repeated, cowering.
"The State knows no such word!" the Syndic returned grimly. "Cannot," hecontinued slowly, "means will not. Do your duty and fear nothing. Do itnot, pause, hesitate, breathe but a syllable of that which I have toldyou, and you will have all to fear. All!"
He saw too late that it was he himself who had all to fear; that intaking the lad before him into his confidence, he had placed himself inthe hands of a craven. But he had done it. He had gone too far, moved bythe foolish impulse of the moment, to retreat. His sole chance lay inshowing the lad on which side danger pressed him most closely; onfrightening him completely. And when Louis did not reply:--
"You do not answer me?" Blondel said in his sternest tones. "You do notreply? Am I to understand that you decline? That you refuse to performthe task which the State assigns to you? In that case be sure you willperish with thos
e whom the Two Hundred know to be the enemies of Geneva,and for whom the rack and the wheel are at this moment prepared."
"No!" Louis cried passionately; he almost fell on his knees in the openstreet. "No, no! I will go anywhere, do anything, Messer Syndic! I swearI will; I am no enemy! No conspirator!"
"You may be no enemy. But you must show yourself a friend!"
"I will! I will indeed."
"And no syllable of this will pass your lips?"
"As I live, Messer Syndic! Nothing! Nothing!"
When he had repeated this several times with the earnestness of extremeterror, and appeared to have laid to heart such particulars as Blondelthought he should know, the Syndic dismissed him, letting him go with alast injunction to be silent and a last threat.
By mere force of habit the lad would have gone forward and entered theCollege; but on the threshold he felt how unfit he was to meet hisfellows' eyes, and he turned and hastened as fast as his trembling limbswould carry him towards his home. The streets, to his excitedimagination, were full of spies; he fancied his every movement watched,his footsteps counted. If he lingered they might suppose him lukewarm,if he paused they might think him ill-affected. His speed must show hiszeal. His poor little heart beat in his breast as if it would springfrom it, but he did not stay nor look aside until the door of the housein the Corraterie closed behind him.
Then within the house there fell upon him--alas! what a thing it is tobe a coward--a new fear. The fear was not the fear of Basterga, thebully and cynic, whom he had known and fawned on and flattered; but ofBasterga the dark and dangerous conspirator, of whom he now heard, readyto repay with the dagger the least attempt to penetrate his secrets! Onhis entrance he had flung himself face downward on his pallet in thelittle closet in which he slept; but at that thought he sprang up,suffocated by it; already he fancied himself in the hands of thedesperadoes whom he had betrayed, already he pictured slow and lingeringdeaths. But again, at the remembrance of the task laid upon him, heflung himself prostrate, writhing, and cursing his fate, and sheddingtears of panic. He to beard Basterga! He to betray him! Impossible! Yetif he failed, the rack and the wheel awaited him. Either way lay danger,on either side yawned torture and death. And he was a coward. He weptand shuddered, abandoning himself to a very paroxysm of terror.
When his door was pushed open a minute later, he did not hear themovement; with his head buried in the pillow he did not see the face ofwonder, mingled with alarm, which viewed him from the doorway. He hadforgotten that it was Anne Royaume's custom to attend to the young men'srooms during their absence at the afternoon lecture; and when her voice,asking in startled accents what was amiss and if he were ill, reachedhis ears, he sought, with a smothered shriek, to cover his head with thebedclothes. He fancied that Basterga was upon him!
"What is the matter?" she repeated, advancing slowly to the side of thebed. Then, getting no answer, she dragged the coverlet off him. "What isit? Don't you know me?"
He sat up then, saw who it was and came gradually to himself, but withmany sighs and tears. She stood, looking down on him with contempt. "Hassome one been beating you?" she asked, and searched with hard eyes--hehad been no friend to her--for signs of ill-treatment.
He shook his head. "Worse," he sobbed. "Far worse! Oh, what will becomeof me? What will become of me? Lord, have mercy upon me! Lord, havemercy upon me!"
Her lip curled. Perhaps she was comparing him with another youth who hadspoken to her that morning in a different strain.
"I don't think it matters much," she said scornfully, "what becomes ofyou."
"Matters?" he exclaimed.
"If you are such a coward as this! Tell me what it is. What hashappened? If it is not that some one has beaten you, I don't know whatit is--unless you have been doing something wrong, and they have put youout of the University? Is it that?"
"No!" he cried fretfully. "Worse, worse! And do you leave me! You can donothing! No one can do anything!"
She had her own troubles, and to-day was almost sinking under them. Butthis was not her way of bearing them. She shrugged her shoulderscontemptuously. "Very well," she said, "I will go if I can do nothing."
"Do?" he cried vehemently. "What can you do?" And then, in the act ofturning from him, she stood; so startling was the change, so marvellousthe transformation which she saw come over his face. "Do," he repeated,trembling violently, and speaking in a tone as much altered as hisexpression. He rose to his feet. "Do? Perhaps you--you can dosomething--still. Wait. Please wait a minute! I--I was not quitemyself." He passed his hand across his brow. She did not know thatbehind his face of frightened stupor his mind was working cunningly,following up the idea that had occurred to him.
She began to think him mad. But though she held him in distaste, she hadno fear of him; and even when he closed the door with a cringing air,and a look that implored indulgence, she held her ground. "Only, youneed not close the door," she said coldly. "There is no one in the houseexcept my mother."
"Messer Basterga?"
"He has gone out. Is it of him," in sudden enlightenment, "that you areafraid?"
He nodded sullenly. "Yes," he said; and then he paused, eyeing her indoubt if he could trust her. At last, "It is, but, if you dared do it, Iknow how I could draw his teeth! How I could"--with the cruel grin ofthe coward--"squeeze him! squeeze him!" and he went through the act withhis nervous, shaking fingers. "I could hold him like that! I could holdhim powerless as the dog that would bite and dare not!"
She stared at him. "You?" she said; it was hard to say whetherincredulity or scorn were written more plainly on her face. "You?"
"I! I!" he replied, with the same gesture of holding something. "And Iknow how to put him in your power also!"
"In my power!"
"Ay."
Her face grew hard as if she too held her enemy passive in her grip.Then her lip curled, and she laughed in scorn. "Ay! And what must I doto bring that about? Something, I suppose, you dare not, Louis?"
"Something you can do more easily than I," he answered doggedly. "Asmall thing, too," he continued, clasping his hands in his eagerness andlooking at her with imploring eyes. "A nothing, a mere nothing!"
"And yet it will do so much?"
"I swear it will."
"Then," she retorted, eyeing him shrewdly, "if it is so easy to do whywere you undone a minute ago? And puling like a child in arms?"
"Because," he said, flushing under her eyes, "it--it is not easy for meto do. And I did not see my way."
"It looked like it."
"But I see it now if you will help me. You have only to take a packet ofletters from his room--and you go there when you please--and he isyours! While you have the letters he dare not stir hand or foot, lestyou bring him to the scaffold!"
"Bring him to the scaffold?"
"Get the letters, give them to me, and I will answer for the rest."Louis' voice was low, but he shook with excitement. "See!" he continued,his eyes at all times prominent, almost starting from his head, "itmight be done this minute. This minute!"
"It might," the girl replied, watching him coldly. "But it will not bedone either this minute or at all unless you tell me what is in theletters, and how you come to know about them."
Should he tell her? He fancied that he had no choice. "Messer Blondelthe Syndic wants the letters," he answered sullenly. And, urged fartherby her expression of disbelief, he told the astonished girl the storywhich Blondel had told him. The fact that he believed it went far withher; why, for the rest, doubt a story so extraordinary that it seemed tobear the stamp of truth?
"And that is all?" she said when he came to the end.
"Is it not enough?"
"It may be enough," she replied, her resolute manner in strange contrastwith his cowardly haste. "Only there is a thing not clear. If the Syndicknows what is in the letters, why does he not seize them and Bastergawith them--the traitor with the proof of his treason?"
"Because he is afraid of the Grand Duke," Louis cried. "If h
e seizeBasterga and miss the proof of his treason, what then?"
"Then he is not sure that the letters are there?" Anne replied keenly.
"He is not sure that they would be there when he came to seize them,"Louis answered. "Basterga might have a dozen confederates in the houseready at a sign to destroy the letters."
She nodded.
"And that is what they will make us out to be," he continued, his voicesinking as his fears returned upon him. "The Syndic threatened as much;and such things have happened a hundred times. I tell you, if we do notdo something, we shall suffer with him. But do it, and he is in yourpower! And if he has any hold on you, it is gone!"
The blood surged to her face. Hold upon her? Ah! Rage--or was ithope?--lightened in her eyes and transformed her face. She was thinking,he guessed, of the hundred insults she had undergone at Basterga'shands, of the shame-compelling taunts to which she had been forced tolisten, of the loathed touch she had been forced to bear. If there wasaught in her mind beyond this, any motive deeper or more divine, he didnot perceive it; enough, that he saw that she wavered, and he pressedher.
"You will be free," he cried passionately. "Freed from him! Freed fromfear of him! Say you will do it! Say that you will do it," he continuedfervently, and he made as if he would kneel before her. "Do it, and Iswear that never shall a word to displease you pass my lips."
With a glance of scorn that pierced even his selfishness, "Swear only,"she said, "that you have told me the truth! I ask no more."
"I swear it on my salvation!"
She drew a deep breath.
"I will do it," she said. "The steel box which is chained to the wall?"
"Yes, yes," he panted, "you cannot mistake it. The key----"
"I know where he keeps it."
She said no more, but turned, and regarding his thanks as little as ifthey had been the wind passing by her, she opened the door, crossed theliving-room, and vanished up the staircase. He followed her as far asthe foot of the stairs, and there stood listening and shifting his feetand biting his nails in an agony of suspense. She had not deigned to bidhim watch for Basterga's coming, but he did so; his eyes on the outerdoor, through which the scholar must enter, and his tongue and feet inreadiness to warn her or save himself, according as the pressure ofdanger directed the one or the other step.
Meanwhile his ears were on the stretch to catch what she did. He heardher try the door of the room. It was locked. He heard her shake it. Thenhe guessed that she fetched a key, for after an interval, which seemedan age, he caught the grating of the wards in the lock. After that, shewas quiet so long, that but for the apprehensions of Basterga's coming,which weighed on his coward soul, he must have gone up in sheer jealousyso see what she was doing.
Not that he distrusted her. Even while he waited, and while the thinghung in the balance, he smiled to think how cleverly he had contrivedit. On the side of the authorities he would gain favour by deliveringthe letters: on the other side, if Basterga retained power to harm, itwas not he who had taken the letters, nor he who would be exposed to thefirst blast of vengeance--but the girl. The blame for her, the creditfor him! From the nettle danger his wits had plucked the flower safety.But for his fears he could have chuckled; and then he heard her leavethe room, and relock the door. With a gasp of relief, he retired a paceor two, and waited, his eyes fixed on the doorway through which she mustenter.
She was long in coming, and when she came his hand, extended to receivethe letters, fell by his side, the whispered question died on his lips.Her face told him that she had failed. It might have told him also thatshe had built far more on the attempt than she had let him perceive. Butwhat was that to him? It was enough for him that she had not theletters. He could have torn her with his hands. "Where are they? Whereare they?" he cried, advancing upon her. "You have not got them?"
"Got them?" And then she straightened herself, and with a passionateglance at the door, "No! And he has not come in time to take me in theact, it seems. As I have no doubt you planned, you villain! That I mightbe more and deeper in his power!"
"No! No!" he cried, recoiling. "I never thought of it!"
"Yes, yes!" she retorted.
He wrung his hands. How was he to make her understand? "I swear," hecried, and he fell on his knees with uplifted hands. "I swear on myknees I thought of no such thing. The tale I told you was true! True,every word of it! And the letters----"
"There are no letters!" she said.
"In the box?"
"None."
He sprang to his feet. He shook his fist at her in low ignoble rage."You lie!" he cried. "You have not looked. You have played with me. Youhave gone into the room and come out again, but you have not looked, youhave not dared to look."
"I have looked," she answered quietly. "In the box that is chained tothe wall. There are no papers in it. There is nothing in it except asmall phial."
"A phial?"
"Of some golden liquid."
"That is all?"
"All!"
Louis Gentilis stared at her, open-mouthed. Had the Syndic deceived him?Or had some one deceived the Syndic?