CHAPTER XV.
ON THE BRIDGE.
To say that the Syndic, as soon as he had withdrawn, repented of hisweakness and wished with all his heart that he had not opened until the_remedium_ was in his hand, is only to say that he was human. He didmore than this, indeed. When he had advanced some paces in the directionof the Porte Tertasse he returned, and for a full minute he stood beforethe Royaumes' door irresolute; half-minded to knock and, casting thefear of publicity to the winds, to say that he must have at once thatfor which he had come. He would get it, if he did, he was certain ofthat. And for the rest, what the young men said or thought, or whatothers who heard their story might say or think, mattered not a strawnow that he came to consider it; since he could have Basterga seized onthe morrow, and all would pass for a part of his affair.
Yet he did not knock. A downward step on the slope of indecision is hardto retrace. He reflected that he would get the _remedium_ in themorning. He would certainly get it. The girl was won over, Basterga wasaway. Practically, he had no one to fear. And to make a stir when thematter could be arranged without a stir was not the part of a wise manin the position of a magistrate. Slowly he turned and walked away.
But, as if his good angel touched him on the shoulder, under the PorteTertasse he had qualms; and again he stood. And when, after a shorterinterval and with less indecision, he resumed his course, it was by nomeans with the air of a victor. He would receive what he needed in themorning: he dared not admit a doubt of that. And yet--was it a vaguepresentiment that weighed on him as he walked, or only the wintry nightwind that caused the blood to run more slowly and more tamely in hisveins? He had not fared ill in his venture, he had made success certain.And yet he was unreasonably, he was unaccountably, he was undefinablydepressed.
He grew more cheerful when he had had his supper and seated before ahalf-flagon of wine gave the reins to his imagination. For the space ofa golden hour he held the _remedium_ in his grasp, he felt itslife-giving influence course through his frame, he tasted again ofhealth and strength and manhood, he saw before him years of success andpower and triumph! In comparison to it the bath of Pelias, thoughendowed with the virtues which lying Medea attributed to it, had notseemed more desirable, nor the elixir of life, nor the herb of Anticyra.Nor was it until he had taken the magic draught once and twice andthrice in fancy, and as often hugged himself on health renewed and liferestored that a thought, which had visited him at an earlier period ofthe evening, recurred and little by little sobered him.
This was the reflection that he knew nothing of the quantity of thepotion which he must take, nothing of the time or of the manner oftaking it. Was it to be taken all at once, or in doses? Pure, or dilutedwith wine, or with water, or with _aqua vitae_? At any hour, or atmidnight, or at a particular epoch of the moon's age, or when this orthat star was in the ascendant?
The question bulked larger as he considered it; for in life no troubleis surmounted but another appears to confront us; nor is the mostperfect success of an imperfect world without its drawback. Now that heheld the elixir his, now that in fancy he had it in his grasp, theproblem of the mode and the quantity which had seemed trivial andnegligible a few days or hours before, grew to formidable dimensions;nor could he of himself discover any solution of it. He had counted onfinding with the potion some scrap of writing, some memorandum, somehieroglyphics at least, that, interpreted by such skill as he couldcommand, would give him the clue he sought. But if there was nothing, asthe girl asserted, not a line nor a sign, the matter could be resolvedin one way only. He must resort to pressure. With the potion and the manin his possession, he must force the secret from Basterga; force it bythreats or promises or aught that would weigh with a man who layhelpless and in a dungeon. It would not be difficult to get the truth inthat way: not at all difficult. It seemed, indeed, as if Providence--andFabri and Petitot and Baudichon--had arranged to put the man in hispower _ad hoc_.
He hugged this thought to him, and grew so enamoured of it that hewondered that he had not had the courage to seize Basterga in thebeginning. He had allowed himself to be disturbed by phantoms; there laythe truth. He should have seen that the scholar dared not for his ownsake destroy a thing so precious, a thing by which he might, at theworst, ransom his life. The Syndic wondered that he had not discernedthat point before: and still in sanguine humour he retired to bed, andslept better than he had slept for weeks, ay, for months. The elixir washis, as good as his; if he did not presently have Messer Basterga by thenape he was much mistaken.
He had had the scholar watched and knew whither he was gone and that hewould not return before noon. At nine o'clock, therefore, the hour atwhich he had directed Claude to come to him at his house, he approachedthe Royaumes' door. Pluming himself on the stratagem by which twice inthe twenty-four hours he had rid himself of an inconvenient witness, heopened the door boldly and entered.
On the hearth, cap in hand, stood not Claude, but Louis. The lad worethe sneaking air as of one surprised in a shameful action, which suchcharacters wear even when innocently employed. But his actions provedthat he was not surprised. With finger on his lip, and eyes enjoiningcaution, he signed to the Syndic to be silent, and with head aside setthe example of listening.
The Syndic was not the man to suffer fools gladly, and he opened hismouth. He closed it--all but too late. All but too late, if--the thoughtsent cold shivers down his back--if Basterga had returned. With an airalmost as furtive as that of the lad before him, he signed to him toapproach.
Louis crossed the room with a show of caution the more strange as theearly December sun was shining and all without was cheerful. "Has hecome back?" Blondel whispered.
"Claude?"
"Fool!" Low as the Syndic pitched his tone it expressed a world ofcontempt. "No, Basterga?"
The youth shook his head, and again laying his finger to his lipslistened.
"What! He has not?" Blondel's colour returned, his eyes bulged out withpassion. What did the imbecile mean? Because he knew certain things didhe think himself privileged to play the fool? The Syndic's fingerstingled. Another second and he had broken the silence with a vengeance,when--
"You are--too late!" Louis muttered. "Too late!" he repeated withprotruded lips.
Blondel glared at him as if he would annihilate him. Too late? What didthis creature know? Or how could it be too late, if Basterga had notreturned? Yet the Syndic was shaken. His fingers no longer tingled forthe other's cheek; he no longer panted to break the silence in a waythat should startle him. On the contrary, he listened; while his eyespassed swiftly round the room, to gather what was amiss. But all seemedin order. The lads' bowls and spoons stood on the table, the great rollof brown bread lay beside them, and a book, probably Claude's, lay facedownwards on the board. The door of one of the bedrooms stood open. TheSyndic's suspicious gaze halted at the closed door. He pointed to it.
Louis shook his head; then, seeing that this was not enough, "There isno one there," he whispered. "But I cannot tell you here. I will followyou, honoured sir, to----"
"The Porte Tertasse."
"Mercier would meet us, by your leave," Louis rejoined with a faintgrin.
The magistrate glared at the tool who on a sudden was turned adviser.Still, for the time he must humour him. "The mills, then, on thebridge," he muttered. And he opened the door with care and went out.With a dreadful sense of coming evil he went along the Corraterie andtook his way down the steep to the bridge which, far below, curbed theblue rushing waters of the Rhone. The roar of the icy torrent and of thebusy mills, stupendous as it was, was not loud enough to deaden the twowords that clung to his ears, "Too late! Too late!" Nor did the frostysunshine, gloriously reflected from the line of snowy peaks to eastward,avail to pierce the gloom in which he walked. For Louis Gentilis, if itshould turn out that he had inflicted this penance for naught, there waspreparing an evil hour.
The magistrate turned aside on a part of the bridge between two mills.With his back to the wind-swept lake and its wi
de expanse of ruffledwaves, he stood a little apart from the current of crossers, on a spacekept clear of loiterers by the keen breeze. He seemed, if any curiouseye fell on him, to be engaged in watching the swirling torrent pourfrom the narrow channel beneath him, as in warmer weather many a onestood to watch it. Here two minutes later Louis found him; and ifBlondel still cherished hope, if he still fought against fear, ormaintained courage, the lad's smirking face was enough to end all.
For a moment, such was the effect on him, Blondel could not speak. Atlast, with an effort, "What is it?" he said. "What has happened?"
"Much," Louis replied glibly. "Last night, after you had gone, honouredsir, I judged by this and that, that there was something afoot. Andbeing devoted to your interests, and seeking only to serve you----"
"The point! The point!" the Syndic ejaculated. "What has happened?"
"Treachery," the young man answered, mouthing his words with enjoyment;it was for him a happy moment. "Black, wicked treachery!" with a glancebehind him. "The worst, sir, the worst, if I rightly apprehend thematter."
"Curse you," Blondel cried, contrary to his custom, for he was noswearer, "you will kill me, if you do not speak."
"But----"
"What has happened. What has happened, man!"
"I was going to tell you, honoured sir, that I watched her----"
"Anne? The girl?"
"Yes, and an hour before midnight she took that which you wished me toget--the bottle. She went to Basterga's room, and----"
"Took it! Well? Well?" The Syndic's face, grey a moment before, wasdangerously suffused with blood. The cane that had inflicted the bruiseLouis still wore across his visage, quivered ominously. Public as thebridge was, open to obloquy and remark as an assault must lay him,Blondel was within an inch of striking the lad again. "Well? Well?" herepeated. "Is that all you have to tell me?"
"Would it were!" Louis replied, raising his open hands withsanctimonious fervour. "Alas, sir!"
"You watched her?"
"I watched her back to her room."
"Upstairs?"
"Yes, the room which she occupies with her mother. And kneeling andlistening, and seeing what I could for your sake," the knave continued,not a feature evincing the shame he should have felt, "I saw her handlethe phial at a little table opposite the door, but hidden by a curtainfrom the bed."
The Syndic's eyes conveyed the question his lips refused to frame. Noman, submitted to the torture, has ever suffered more than he wassuffering.
But Louis had as much mind to avenge himself as the bravest, if he coulddo so safely; and he would not be hurried. "She held it to the light,"he said, dwelling on every syllable, "and turned it this way and that,and I could see bubbles as of gold----"
"Ah!"
"Whirling and leaping up and down in it as if they lived--God guard usfrom the evil one! Then she knelt----"
The Syndic uttered an involuntary cry.
"And prayed," Louis continued, confirming his astonishing statement by anod. "But whether to it--'twas on the table before her--or to the devil,or otherwise, I know not. Only"--with damnatory candour--"it had astrange aspect. Certainly she knelt, and it was on the table in front ofher, and her forehead rested on her hands, and----"
"What then? What then? By Heaven, the point!" gasped Blondel, writhingin torture. "What then? blind worm that you are, can you not see thatyou are killing me? What did she do with it? Tell me!"
"She poured it into a glass, and----"
"She drank it?"
"No, she carried it to her mother," Louis replied as slowly as he dared.Fawning on the hand that had struck him, he would fain bite it if hecould do so safely. "I did not see what followed," he went on, "theywere behind the screen. But I heard her say that it was Madame'smedicine. And I made out enough----"
"Ah!"
"To be sure that her mother drank it."
Blondel stared at him a moment, wide-eyed; then, with a cry of despair,bitter, final, indescribable, the Syndic turned and hurried away. He didnot hear the timid remonstrances which Louis, who followed a few pacesbehind, ventured to utter. He did not heed the wondering looks of thosewhom he jostled as he plunged into the current of passers and thrust hisway across the bridge in the direction whence he had come. The oneimpulse in his blind brain was to get home, that he might be alone, tothink and moan and bewail himself unwatched; even as the first instinctof the wounded beast is to seek its lair and lie hidden, there to awaitwith piteous eyes and the divine patience of animals the coming ofdeath.
But this man had the instinct only, not the patience. In his case wouldcome with thought wild rages, gnawings of regret, tears of blood. Thathe might have, and had not, that he had failed by so little, that hehad been worsted by his own tools--these things and the bitter irony oflife's chances would madden and torment him. In an hour he would live alifetime of remorse; yet find in his worst moments no thought morepoignant than the reflection that had he played the game with courage,had he grasped the nettle boldly, had he seized Basterga while it wasyet time, he might have lived! He might have lived! Ah, God!
Meanwhile Louis, though consumed with desire to see what would happen,remained on the bridge. He had tasted a fearful joy and would fainsavour more of it if he could do so with a whole skin. But to followseemed perilous; he held the Syndic's mood in too great awe for that. Hedid the next best thing. He hastened to a projecting part of the bridgea few paces from the spot where they had conferred; there he raisedhimself on the parapet that he might see which way Blondel turned at theend of the bridge. If he entered the town no more could be made of it:but if he turned right-handed and by the rampart to the Corraterie,Louis' mind was made up to risk something. He would follow to theRoyaumes' house. The magistrate could hardly blame him for going to hisown lodging!
It was a busy hour, and, cold as it was, a fair number of people werepassing between the island and the upper town. For a moment, look as hemight, he could not discern the Syndic's spare figure; and he wasbeginning to think that he had missed him when he saw something that ina twinkling turned his thoughts. On the bank a little beside the end ofthe bridge stood Claude Mercier. He carried a heavy stick in his hand,and he was waiting: waiting, with his eyes fixed on our friend, and alook in those eyes that even at that distance raised a gentle sweat onLouis' brow.
It required little imagination to follow Claude's past movements. He hadgone to the Syndic's house at nine, and finding himself tricked a secondtime had returned hot-foot to the Corraterie. Thence he had tracked thetwo to this place. But how long had he been waiting, Louis wondered; andhow much had he seen? Something for certain. His face announced that;and Louis, hot all over, despite the keen wind and frosty air, auguredthe worst. Cowards however have always one course open. The way wasclear behind him. He could cross the island to the St. Gervais bank, andif he were nimble he might give his pursuer the slip in the maze ofsmall streets beside the water. It was odd if the lapse of a few hoursdid not cool young Mercier's wrath, and restore him to a frame of mindin which he might be brought to hear reason.
No sooner planned than done. Or rather it would have been done ifturning to see that the way was clear behind him, Louis had notdiscovered a second watcher, who from a spot on the edge of the islandwas marking his movements with grim attention. This watcher wasBasterga. Moreover the glance which apprised Louis of this showed himthat the scholar's face was as black as thunder.
Then, if the gods looked down that day upon any mortal with pity, theymust have looked down on this young man; who was a coward. At the oneend of the bridge, Claude, with an ugly weapon and a face to match! Atthe other, Basterga, with a black brow and Heaven alone could say howmuch knowledge of his treachery! The scholar could not know of the lossof the phial, indeed, for it was clear that he had just returned to thecity by the St. Gervais gate. But that he soon would know of it, that heknew something already, that he had been a witness to the colloquy withthe Syndic--this was certain.
At any rate Louis thought so, and hi
s knees trembled under him. He hadno longer a way of retreat, and out of the corner of his eye he sawClaude beginning to advance. What was he to do? The perspiration burstout on him. He turned this way and that, now casting wild eyes at thewhirling current below, now piteous eyes--the eyes of a calf on its wayto the shambles, and as little regarded--on the thin stream of passers.How could they go on their way and leave him to the mercies of thismadman?
He smothered a shriek as Claude, now less than twenty paces away, sped alook at him. Claude, indeed, was thinking of Anne and her wrongs; and ofa certain kiss. His face told this so plainly, and that passion was hismaster, that Louis' cheek grew white. What if the ruffian threw him intothe river? What if--and then like every coward, he chose the remoterdanger. With Claude at hand, he turned and fled, dashed blindly throughthe passers on the bridge, flung himself on Basterga, and, seizing thebig scholar by the arm, strove to shelter himself behind him.
"He is mad!" he gasped. "Mad! Save me! He is going to throw me over!"
"Steady!" Basterga answered; and he opposed his huge form to Claude'srush. "What is this, young man? Coming to blows in the street? Forshame! For shame!" He moved again so as still to confront him.
"Give him up!" Claude panted, scarcely preventing himself from attackingboth. "Give him up, I say, and----"
"Not till I have heard what he has done! Steady, young man, keep yourdistance!"
"I will tell you everything! Everything!" Louis whined, clinging to hisarm.
"Do you hear what he says?" Basterga replied. "In the meantime, I tellyou to keep your distance, young man. I am not used to be jostled!"
Claude hesitated a moment, scowling. Then, "Very well!" he said, drawingoff with a gesture of menace. "It is only put off: I shall pay himanother time. It is waiting for you, sneak, bear that in mind!" Andshrugging his shoulders he turned with as much dignity as he could andmoved off.
Basterga wheeled from him to the other. "So!" he said. "You havesomething to tell me, it seems?" And taking the trembling Louis by thearm, he drew him aside, a few paces from the approach of the bridge. Indoing this he hung a moment searching the bridge and the farther bankwith a keen gaze. He knew, and for some hours had known, on what anarrow edge of peril he stood, and that only Blondel's influenceprotected him from arrest. Yet he had returned: he had not hesitated toput his head again into the lion's mouth. Still if Louis' words meantthat certain arrest awaited him, he was not too proud to save himself.
He could discern no officers on the bridge, and satisfied on the pointof immediate danger, he turned to his shivering ally. "Well, what isit?" he said. "Speak!"
"I'll tell you the truth," Louis gabbled.
"You had better!" Basterga replied, in a tone that meant much more thanhe said. "Or you will find me worse to deal with than yonder hot-head! Iwill answer for that."
"Messer Blondel has been at the house," Louis murmured glibly, his mindcentred on the question how much he should tell. "Last night and againthis morning. He has been closeted with Anne and Mercier. And there hasbeen some talk--of a box or a bottle."
"Were they in my room?" Basterga asked, his brow contracting.
"No, downstairs."
"Did they get--the box or the bottle?" There was a dangerous note inBasterga's voice; and a look in his eyes that scared the lad.
Louis, as his instinct was, lied again, fleeing the more pressing peril."Not to my knowledge," he said.
"And you?" The scholar eyed him with bland suavity. "You had nothing todo--with all this, I suppose?"
"I listened. I was in my room, but they thought I was out. When I went,"the liar continued, "they discovered me; and Messer Blondel followed meand overtook me on the bridge and threatened--that he would have mearrested if I were not silent."
"You refused to be silent, of course?"
But Louis was too acute to be caught in a trap so patent. He knew thatBasterga would not believe in his courage, if he swore to it. "No, Isaid I would be silent," he answered. "And I should have been," hecontinued with candour, "if I had not run into your arms."
"But if you assented to his wish," Basterga retorted, eyeing him keenly,"why did he depart after that fashion?"
"Something happened to him," Louis said. "I do not know what. He seemedto be in distress, or to be ill."
"I could see that," the scholar answered dryly. "But Master Claude? Whatof him? And why was he so enamoured of you that he could not be partedfrom you?"
"It was to punish me for listening. They followed me different ways."
"I see. And that is the truth, is it?"
"I swear it is!"
The scholar saw no reason why it should not be the truth. Louis, afacile tool, had always been of his, the stronger, party. If Blondeltampered with any one, he would naturally, if he knew aught of thehouse, suborn Claude or Anne. And Louis, spying and fleeing, and whenovertaken, promising silence, was quite in the picture. The only thing,indeed, which stood out awkwardly, and refused to fall into place, wasthe fashion in which the Syndic had turned and gone off the bridge. Andfor that there might be reasons. He might have been seized with a suddenattack of his illness, or he might have perceived Basterga watching himfrom the farther bank.
On the whole, the scholar, forgetting that cowards are ever liars, sawno reason to doubt Louis' story. It did but add one more to the motiveshe had for action: immediate, decisive, striking action, if he wouldsave his neck, if he would succeed in his plans. That the Syndic alonestood between him and arrest, that by the Syndic alone he lived, he hadlearned at a meeting at which he had been present the previous night atthe Grand Duke's country house four leagues distant. D'Albigny had beenthere, and Brunaulieu, Captain of the Grand Duke's Guards, and FatherAlexander, who dreamed of the Episcopate of Geneva, and others--thechiefs of the plot, his patrons. To his mortification they had been ableto tell him things he had not learned, though he was within the city,and they without. Among others, that the Council had certain knowledgeof him and his plans, and but for the urgency of Blondel would havearrested him a fortnight before.
His companions at the midnight supper had detected his dismay, and hadderided him, thinking that with that there was an end of the mysteriousscheme which he had refused to impart. They fancied that he would notreturn to the city, or venture his head a second time within the lion'sjaws. But they reckoned without their man, Basterga with all his faultswas brave; and he had failed in too many schemes to resign this onelightly.
"Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinae,"
he murmured; and he had ventured, he had passed the gates, he was here.Here, with his eyes open to the peril, and open to the necessity ofimmediate action if the slender thread by which all hung were not tosnap untimely.
Blondel! He lived by Blondel. And Blondel--why had he left the bridge inthat strange fashion? Abruptly, desperately, as if something hadbefallen him. Why? He must learn, and that quickly.