CHAPTER XVIII.
THE BARGAIN STRUCK.
Claude, at the first sign of peril, had put himself between Anne and thedoor; and, had not the fear which seized the girl at the sight ofBasterga robbed her of the power to think, she must have thrilled with anew and delicious sensation. She, who had not for years known what itwas to be sheltered behind another, was now to know the bliss of beingprotected. Nor did her lover remain on the defensive. It was he whochallenged the intruders.
"What is it?" he asked, as the Syndic crossed the threshold; which wasdarkened a moment later by the scholar's huge form. "What is yourbusiness here, Messer Syndic, if it please you?"
"With you, none!" Blondel answered; and pausing a little within thedoor, he cast a look, cold and searching, round the apartment. Hisoutward composure hid a tumult of warring passions; shame and rage wereat odds within him, and rising above both was a venomous desire to exactretribution from some one. "Nothing with you!" he repeated. "You maystand aside, young man, or, better, go to your classes. What do you hereat this hour, and idle, were the fitting question; and not, what is mybusiness! Do you hear, sirrah?" with a rap of his staff of office on thefloor. "Begone to your work!"
But Claude, who had been thirsting this hour past for realms to conquerand dragons to subdue, and who, with his mistress beside him, felthimself a match for any ten, was not to be put aside. His manhoodrebelled against the notion of leaving Anne with men whose looks bodedthe worst. "I am at home," he replied, breathing a little more quickly,and aware that in defying the Syndic he was casting away the scabbard."I am at home in this house. I have done no wrong. I am in no inn now,and I know of no right which you have to expel me without cause from myown lodging."
Blondel's lean face grew darker. "You beard me?" he cried.
"I beard no one," Claude answered hardily. "I am at home here, that isall. If you have lawful business here, do it. I am no hindrance to you.If you have no lawful business--and as to that," he continued, recallingwith indignation the tricks which had been employed to remove him, "Ihave my opinion--I have as much right to be here as you! The more, as itis not very long," he went on, with a glance of defiance, directed atBasterga, "since you gave the man who now accompanies you the foulest ofcharacters! Since you would have me rob him! Since you called himreprobate of the reprobate! Is he reprobate now?"
"Silence!"
"A corrupter of women, as you called him?"
"Liar!" the Syndic cried, trembling with passion. "Be silent!" The blowfound him unprepared. "He lies!" he stammered, turning to his ally.
Basterga laughed softly. He had guessed as much: none the less hethought it time to interfere, lest his tool be put too much out ofcountenance. "Gently, young man," he said, "or perhaps you may go toofar. I know you."
"He is a liar!" Blondel repeated.
"Probably," Basterga said, "but it matters not. It is enough that ourbusiness here lies not with him, but with this young woman. You seem tohave taken her under your protection," he continued, addressing Claude,"and may choose, if you please, whether you will see her haled throughthe streets, or will suffer her to answer our questions here. As youplease."
"Your questions?" Claude cried, recalling with rage the occasions onwhich he had heard this man insult her. "Hear me one moment, and I willvery quickly prove----"
He was silent with the word on his lips. Her hand on his sleeve recalledthe necessity of prudence. He bit his lip and stood glowering at them.It was she who spoke.
"What do you wish?" she asked in a low voice.
Naturally courageous as she was, she could not have spoken but for thesupport of her lover. For the unexpected conjunction of these two, andtheir entrance together, smote her with fear. "What is your desire?" sherepeated.
"To see your mother," Basterga answered. "We have no business withyou--at present," he added, after a perceptible pause, and with a slightemphasis.
She caught her breath. "You want to see my mother?" she faltered.
"I spoke plainly," Basterga replied with sternness. "That was what Isaid."
"What do you want with her?"
"That is our affair."
Pale to the lips, she hesitated. Yet, after all, why should they not goup and see her mother? Things were not to-day as they had beenyesterday: or she had done in vain that which she had done, had sinnedin vain if she had sinned. And that was a thing not to be considered.If they found her mother as she had left her, if they found the promiseof the morning fulfilled, even their unexpected entrance would do noharm. Her mother was sane to-day: sane and well as other people, thankGod! It was on that account she had let her heart rise like a bird's toher lips.
Yet, when she opened her mouth to assent, she found the words withdifficulty. "I do not know what you want," she said faintly. "Still ifyou wish to see her you can go up."
"Good!" Basterga replied, and advancing, he opened the staircase door,then stood aside for the Syndic to ascend first. "Good! The uppermostfloor, Messer Blondel," he continued, holding the door wide. "The stairsare narrow, but I think I can promise you that at the top you will findwhat you want."
He could not divest his tone of the triumph he felt. Slight as thewarning was, it sufficed; while the last word was still on his lips, shesnatched the door from his grasp, closed it and stood panting before it.What inward monition had spoken to her, what she had seen, what she hadheard, besides that note of triumph in Basterga's voice, matters not.Her mind was changed.
"No!" she cried. "You do not go up! No!"
"You will not let us see her?" Basterga exclaimed.
"No!" Her breast heaving, she confronted them without fear.
In his surprise at her action the scholar had recoiled a step: he wasfiercely angry. "Come, girl, no nonsense," he said roughly and brutally."Make way! Or we shall have a little to say to you of what you did in myroom last night! Do you mark me?" he continued. "I might have youpunished for it, wench! I might have you whipped and branded for it! Doyou mind me? You robbed me, and that which you took----"
"I took at his instigation!" she retorted, pointing an accusing fingerat Blondel, who stood gnawing his beard, hating the part he was playing,and hating still more this white-faced girl who had come so near toruining, if she had not ruined, his last chance of life. Hate her? TheSyndic hated her for the hour of anguish through which he had justpassed, hated her for the price--he shuddered to think of it--which hemust now pay for his life. He hated her for his present humiliation, hehated her for his future shame. She seemed to blame for all.
"You took it," Basterga answered, acknowledging her words only by adisdainful shrug, "and gave it to your mother. Why, I care not. Now thatyou see we know so much, will you let us go up!"
"No!" She faced him bravely and steadfastly. "No. If you know so much,you know also why I took it, and why I gave it to her." And then, theradiance of unselfish love illuminating her pallid face, "I would do itagain were it to do," she said. "And again, and yet again! For you, Ihave done you wrong; I have robbed you, and you may punish me. I mustbear it. But as to him," pointing to Messer Blondel, "I am innocent!Innocent," she repeated firmly. "For he would have done it himself andfor himself; it was he who would have me do it. And if I have done it, Ihave done it for another. I have robbed you, if need be I must pay theprice; but that man has naught against me in this! And for the rest, mymother is well."
"Ah?"
"Ay, well! well!" she repeated, the light of joy softening her eyes asshe repeated the word. "Well! and I fear nothing."
Basterga laughed cruelly. "Well?" he said. "Well, is she? Then let us goup and see her. If she be well, why not?"
"No!"
"Why not?"
She did not answer, but she did not make way.
"Why not? I will tell you, if you please," he said. "And it will makeyou pipe to another tune. You have given her, young woman, that whichwill make her worse, and not better!"
"She is better!"
"For an hour, or for twelve hours!" he retorted.
"That certainly. Thenworse."
"No!"
"No? But I see what it is," he continued--and, alas, his voicestrengthened the fear that like a dead hand was closing on her heart andstaying it; deepened the terror that like a veil was falling before hereyes and darkening the room; so that she had much ado, grippingfinger-nails into palms, to keep her feet and let herself from fainting."I see what it is. You would fain play Providence," he continued--"thatis it, is it? You would play Providence? Then come! Come then, and seewhat kind of Providence it is you have played. We will see if you areright or I am right! And if she be well, or if she be ill!" And again hemoved towards the staircase.
But she stood obstinately between him and the door. "No," she said. "Youdo not go up!" She was resolute. The fear that as she listened to hisgibing tones had driven the colour from her face, had hardened it too.For, if he were right? If for that fear there were foundation? If thatwhich the Syndic had led her to give and that which she had given,proved--though for a few hours it had seemed to impart marvellousvigour--useless or worse than useless? Then the need to keep these menfrom her mother was the greater, the more desperate. How they could bekept, for how long it was possible to keep them, she did not pause toconsider, any more than the she-wolf that crouches, snarling, betweenher whelps and the hunt, counts odds. It was enough for her that if theywere right the worst had come, and naught lay between her mother'sweakness and their cruel eyes and judgments but her own feeble strength.
Or no! she was wrong in that; she had forgotten! As she spoke, and asBasterga with a scowl repeated the order to stand aside, Claude put hergently but irresistibly by, and took her place. The young man's eyeswere bright, his colour high. "You will not go up!" he said, a mockingnote of challenge, replying to Basterga's tone, in his voice. "You willnot go up."
"Fool! Will you prevent us?"
"You will not go up! No!"
In the very act of falling on the lad, Basterga recoiled. Claude had notbeen idle while the others disputed. He had gone to the corner for hissword, and it was the glittering point, suddenly whipped out andflickered before his eyes that gave the scholar pause, and made him leapback. "Pollux!" he cried, "are you mad? Put down! Put down! Do you seethe Syndic? Do you know," he continued, stamping his foot, "that it ispenal to draw in Geneva?"
"I know that you are not going upstairs!" Claude answered gently. He wasradiant. He would not have exchanged his position for a crown. She waslooking, and he was going to fight.
"You fool," Basterga returned, "we have but to call the watch from theTertasse and you will be haled to the lock-up, and jailed and whipped,if not worse! And that jade with you! _Stultus es?_ Do you hear? MesserSyndic, will you be thwarted in this fashion? Call these lawbreakers toorder and bid them have done!"
"Put up!" the Syndic cried, hoarse with rage. He was beside himself,when he thought of the position in which he had placed himself. Helooked at the two as if he would fain have slain them where they stood."Or I call the watch, and it will be the worse for you," he continued."Do you hear me? Put up?"
"He shall not go upstairs!" Claude answered, breathing quickly. He waspale, but utterly and fixedly resolved. If Basterga made a movement toattack him, he would run him through whatever the consequences.
"Then, fool, I will call the watch!" Blondel babbled, fairly besidehimself.
Claude had no answer to that; only they should not go up. It was thegirl's readier wit furnished the answer.
"Call them!" she cried, in a clear voice. "Call the watch, MesserSyndic, and I will tell them the whole story. What Messer Blondel wouldhave had me do, and get, and give."
"It was for the State!" the Syndic hissed.
"And is it for the State that you come to-day with that man?" sheretorted, and with her outstretched finger she accused Basterga ofunspoken things. "That man! Last night you would have had me rob him.The day before he was a traitor. To-day he and you are one. Are one!What are you plotting together?"
The Syndic shrank from the other's side under the stab of herwords--words that, uttered at random, flew, straight as the arrow thatslew Ahab, to the joint of his armour. "To-day you and that man areone," she repeated. "One! What are you plotting together?"
She knew as much as that, did she? She knew that they were one, and thatthey were plotting together; while in the Council men were clamouringfor the Paduan's arrest, and were growing suspicious because he was notarrested--Baudichon, whom he had called a fat hog, and Petitot, thatslow, plodding sleuth-hound of a patriot. What if light fell on the truestate of things--and less than the girl had said might cast that light?Then the warrant might go, not for the Paduan only, but for himself. Ay,for him! For with an enemy ever lying within a league of the gateswarrants flew quickly in Geneva. Men who sleep ill of nights, and takethe cock-crow for war's alarum, are suspicious, and, once roused,without ruth or mercy.
There was the joint in his harness. Once let his name be published withBasterga's,--as must happen if the watch were summoned and the girlspoke out--and no one could say where the matter might end, or whatsuspicions might not be awakened. Nay, the matter was worse, moreperilous and more lightly balanced; for, setting himself aside, none theless was a brawl that brought up Basterga's name, a thing to be shunned.The least thing might precipitate the scholar's arrest; his arrest mustlead to the loss of the _remedium_, if it existed; and the loss of the_remedium_ to the loss of that which Messer Blondel had come to valuethe more dearly the more he sacrificed to keep it--the Syndic's life.
He dared not call the watch, and he dared not use violence. As he awoketo those two facts, he stood blinking in dismayed silence, swallowinghis rage, and hating the girl and hating the man with a dumb hatred.Though the reasons which weighed with him were unknown to the two, theycould not be blind to his fear and his baffled mien; and had he beenalone they might have taken victory for certain. But Basterga was notone to be so lightly thwarted. His intellect, his wit, his very massintimidated. Therefore it was with as much relief as surprise that Anneread in his face the reflection of the other's doubts, and saw that he,too, gave back.
"You are two fools!" he said. "Two great, big fools!" There wasresignation, there was something that was almost approval in his tones."You do not know what you are doing! Is there no way of making you hearreason?"
"You cannot go up," Anne said. She had won, it seemed, without knowinghow she had won.
Basterga grunted; and then, "Ah, well," he said, addressing Claude, "ifI had you in the fields, my lad, it would not be that bit of metal wouldsave you!" And he spouted with appropriate gesture--
"--Illum fidi aequales, genua aegra trahentem Jactantemque utroque caput, crassumque cruorem Ore ejectantem mixtosque in sanguine dentes Ducunt ad navis!
Half an hour in my company, and you would not be so bold."
Claude smiled with pardonable contempt, but made no reply, nor did hechange his attitude.
"Come!" Blondel muttered, addressing his ally with his eyes averted. "Ihave reasons at present for letting them be!" They were strange reasons,to judge by the hang-dog look of the proud magistrate. "But I shall knowhow to deal with them by-and-by. Come, man, come!" he repeatedimpatiently. And he turned towards the door and unlocked it.
Basterga moved reluctantly after him. "Ay, we go now," he said, with alook full of menace. "But wait a while! Caesar Basterga does not forget,and his turn will come! Where is my cap?"
He had let it fall on the floor, and he turned to pick it up, stoopingslowly and with difficulty as stout men do. As he raised himself, hishead still low, he butted it suddenly and with an activity for which noone would have given him credit full into Claude's chest. The unluckyyoung man, who had lowered his weapon the instant before, fell back witha "sough" against the wall, and leant there, pale and breathless. Anneuttered one scream, then the scholar's huge arm enfolded her neck anddrew her backwards against his breast.
"Up! up! Messer Blondel!" he cried. "Now is your chance! Up and surpriseher!" And with his disengaged hand he
gripped Claude, for furthersafety, by the collar. "Up; I will keep them quiet!"
The Syndic wasted a moment in astonishment, then he took in thesituation and the other's cleverness. Before Basterga had ceased tospeak, he was at the door of the staircase, and had dragged it open. Butas he set his foot on the lowest stair, Anne, held as she was againstBasterga's breast, and almost stifled by the arm which covered hermouth, managed to clutch the Syndic by his skirts, and, once havingtaken hold, held him with the strength of despair. In vain he struggledand strove and wrestled to jerk himself free; in vain Basterga, hamperedby Claude, tried to drag the girl away--Blondel came away with her! Sheclung to him, and even, freeing her mouth for a moment, succeeded inuttering a scream.
"Curse her!" Basterga foamed: and had he had a hand to spare, he wouldhave struck her down. "Pull, man, have you no strength! Let go, youvixen! Let go, or----"
He tried to press her throat, but in changing his hold allowed her toutter a second scream, louder, more shrill, more full of passion thanthe other. At the same instant a chair, knocked down by Blondel in hisefforts, fell with a crash, throwing down a pewter platter; and Claude,white and breathless as he was, began to struggle, seeing his mistressso handled. The four swayed to and fro. Another moment, and either theSyndic must have jerked himself free, or the contest must have attainedto dimensions that could not escape the notice of the neighbours, when asound--a sound from within, from upstairs--stayed the tumult as bymagic.
Blondel ceased to struggle, and stood aghast. Basterga relaxed his holdupon his prisoners and listened. Claude leant back against the wall. Thegirl alone--she alone moved. Without speaking, without looking, as abird flies to its young, she sprang to the stairs and fled up them.
The maniacal laugh, the crazy words--a moment only, they heard them: andthen the door above, which the poor woman, so long bedridden, hadcontrived in her frenzy of fear to open, closed on the sounds andstifled them. But enough had been heard: enough to convince Blondel,enough to justify Basterga, enough to change the fortunes of more thanone in the room. The scholar's eyes met the Syndic's.
"Are you satisfied?" he asked, in a low voice.
Blondel, breathing hard, nodded.
"You heard?"
He nodded a second time. He looked scared.
"Then you have enough to burn the old witch and the young one with her!"Basterga replied. He turned his small eyes, sparkling with malignity, onthe young man, who stood against the wall, pale, and but half recoveredfrom the blow he had sustained. "You thought to thwart me, did you,Messer Claude? You thought yourself clever enough to play with CaesarBasterga, did you? To hold at bay--oh, clever fellow--a magistrate and ascholar! And defy us both! Now I will tell you what will come of it!" Heshook his great finger in front of the young man. "Your pretty bit ofpink and white will burn! Burn, see you! A show for the little boys, aholiday for the young men and the young women, a treat for the old men,who will see her white limbs writhe in the smoke! Ha!" as Claude, with aface of horror, would have waved him away, "that touches you, does it?You had not thought of that? Nay, you had not thought of other things. Itell you, before the sun sets this evening, this house shall beanathema! Before night what we have heard will be known abroad, andthere will be much added to it. There was a child died in the fourthhouse from this on Sunday! It will be odd if she did not overlook it.And the young wife of the Lieutenant at the Porte Tertasse, who hasailed since her marriage--a pale thing; who knows but he looked this wayonce and Mistress Anne thought ill of his defection? Ha! Ha! You wouldcross Caesar Basterga, would you? No, Messer Claude," he set his hugefoot on the fallen sword which Claude had made a movement to recover. "Ifight with other weapons than that! And if you lay a finger on me"--heextended his arms to their widest extent--"I will crush the life out ofyou. That is better," as Claude stood glaring helplessly at him--"Iteach you prudence, at any rate. And as," with a sneer, "you are so aptat learning, I will do you, if you choose, a greater kindness that manever did you, or woman either!"
The young man, breathing quickly, did not speak. Perhaps his eyes werewatching for an opening; at the least appearance of one he would haveflung himself upon his enemy.
"You do not choose. And yet, I will do it. In one word--Go!
Teque his, puer, eripe flammis!"
He pointed to the door with a gesture tragic enough. "Go and live, forif you stay you die! Wait not until the chain is drawn before the door,until boards darken the windows, and men cross the street when theywould pass! Until women hide their heads as they go by, and the marketwill not sell, nor the water run for you! For then, as surely as shewill perish, you will perish with her!"
"So be it!" Claude cried. And in his turn he pointed, not withoutdignity, to the door. "Go you, and our blood be upon your head!"
Basterga shrugged his shoulders, and in one moment put the thing and hisgrand manner away from him. "Enough! we will go," he said. "You aresatisfied, Messer Syndic? Yes. Farewell, young sir, you have my lastword." And while the young man stood glowering at him, he opened thestreet door, and the two passed out.
"You will not go on with this?" Blondel muttered with a backwardgesture, as the two paused.
"Nothing," Basterga answered in a low voice, "will suit our purposebetter. It will amuse Geneva and fill men's mouths till the time come.For you too, Messer Blondel," he continued, with a piercing look, "willlive and not die, I take it?"
The other knew then that the hour had come to set his seal to thebargain: and equally, that if at this eleventh hour he would return, thepath was open. But _facilis_--known is the rest, and the grip which astrong nature gains on a weaker, and how hardly fear, once admitted, iscast out. Within the Syndic's sight rose one of the gates, almost withintouch rose the rampart of the city, long his own, which he was asked tobetray. The mountains of his native land, pure, cold and sunlit, stoodup against the blue depth of winter sky, eloquent of the permanence ofthings, and the insignificance of men. The contemplation of them turnedhis cheek a shade paler and struck terror to his heart; but did not stayhim. His eyes avoiding the other's gaze, his face shrinking andpitiable, shame already his portion, he nodded.
"Precisely," Basterga said. "Then nothing can better serve our purposethan this. Let your officers know what you have heard, and know that youwould hear more--of this house. That, and a hint of evil practices andwitch's spells dropped here and there, will give your townsfolksomething to talk of and stare at and swallow--till our time come."
"But if I bid them watch this house," Blondel muttered weakly--how fast,how fast the thing was passing out of his hands!--"attention will becalled to you, and then, Messer Basterga----"
"My work is done here," Basterga replied calmly. "I have crossed thatthreshold for the last time. When I leave you--and it is time weparted--I go out of the gates, not again to return until--until thingshave been brought to the point at which we would have them, MesserBlondel."
"And that," the Syndic said with a shudder, "will be?"
"Towards the longest night. Say, in a week or so from now. The precisemoment--that and other things, I will let you know by a safe mouth."
"But the _remedium_? That first!" the Syndic muttered, a scowl, for asecond, darkening his face.
Basterga smiled. "Have no fear," he replied. "That first, by all means.And afterwards--Geneva."