CHAPTER VIII.
THE MARK OF CAIN.
When Jehan, in a fever of indignation, slipped stealthily out of thehouse in the Rue Touchet and sped up the dark, quiet street afterMadame de Vidoche, he had no subtler purpose in his mind than toovertake her and warn her. The lady had spoken kindly to him on thenight of the supper at Les Andelys. She was young, weak, oppressed;the plot against her seemed to the child to be fiendish in itsartfulness. It needed no more to rouse every chivalrous instinct inhis nature--and these in a boy should be many, or woe betide theman--and determine him to save her.
He thought that if he could overtake her and warn her all would bewell; and at first his purpose went no farther than that. But as heran, now looking over his shoulder in terror, and now peering into thedarkness ahead, sometimes slipping into the gutter in his haste, andsometimes stumbling over a projecting step, a new and whimsicalthought flashed into his mind, and in a moment fascinated him. How itcame to one so young, whether the astrologer's duplicity, to which hehad been a witness, suggested it, or it sprang from some precociousaptitude in the boy's own nature, it is impossible to say. But on asudden there it was in his mind, full-grown, full-armed, a perfectscheme. He had only a few minutes in which to consider it before hecaught madame up, and the time to put it into execution came; but inthat interval he found no flaw in it. Rather he revelled in it. Itsatisfied the boy's stern sense of retribution and justice. It morethan satisfied the boy's love of mischief and trickery.
He felt not the slightest misgiving, therefore, when it came toplaying his part. He went through it without pity, without a scrupleor thought of responsibility--nay, he followed madame home, and hidhimself behind the curtain, with no feeling of apprehension as to whatwas coming, with no qualms of conscience.
But when he had seen all, and lying spell-bound in his hiding-placehad witnessed the tragedy, when covering his ears with his hands,and cowering down as if he would cower through the floor, he hadheard Vidoche's death-cry and winced at each syllable of madame'sheart-broken utterance--when, with quaking limbs and white cheeks, hehad crept at last down the stairs and fled from the accursed house,then the boy knew all; knew what he had done, and was horror-stricken!Even the darkness and freezing cold were welcome, if he might escapefrom that house--if he might leave those haunting cries behind. Buthow? by what road? He fled through street after street, alley afteralley, over bridges, and along quays, by the doors of churches and thegates of prisons. But everywhere the sights and sounds went with him,forestalled him, followed him. He could not forget. When at last,utterly exhausted, he flung himself down on a pile of refuse in adistant corner of the Halles, his heart seemed bursting. He had killeda man. He had worse than killed a woman. He would be hung. Theastrologer had told him truly; he was doomed, given up to evil and thedevil!
He lay for a long time panting and shuddering, with his face hidden;while a burst of agony, provoked by some sudden pang of remembrance,now and again racked his frame. The spot he had, almost unconsciously,chosen for his hiding-place was a corner between two stalls, at theeast end of the market: an angle well sheltered from the wind, andpiled breast-high with porters' knots and rubbish. The air was alittle less bitter there than outside; and by good fortune he hadthrown himself down on an old sack, which he, by-and-bye, drew overhim. Otherwise he must have perished. As it was, he presently sobbedhimself into an uneasy slumber; but only to awake in a few minuteswith a scream of affright and a dismal return of all hisapprehensions.
Still, nature was already at work to console him; and misery sleepsproverbially well. After a time he dozed again for a few minutes, andthen again. At length, a little before daybreak, he went off into asounder sleep, from which he did not awake until the wintry sun wasnearly an hour up, and old-fashioned people were thinking of dinner.
After opening his eyes, he lay a while between sleeping and waking,with the sense of some unknown trouble heavy upon him. On a sudden avoice, a harsh, rasping voice, speaking a strange clipped jargon,roused him effectually. "He is a runaway!" the voice said, with two orthree unnecessary oaths. "A crown to a penny on it, my bully-boys!Well, it is an ill-wind blows no one any good. Rouse up the littleshaveling, will you? That is not the way! Here, lend it me."
The next moment the boy sat up, with a cry of pain, for a heavyporter's knot fell on his shin-bone and nearly broke it. He foundhimself confronted by three or four grinning ruffians, whose eyesglistened as they scanned his velvet clothes and the little silverbuttons that fastened them. The man who had spoken before seemed to bethe leader of the party: a filthy beggar with one arm and a hare-lip."Ho! ho!" he chuckled; "so you can feel, M. le Marquis, can you! Fleshand blood like other folk. And doubtless with money in your pockets topay for your night's lodging."
He hauled the child to him and passed his hands through his clothes.But he found nothing, and his face grew dark. "_Morbleu!_" he swore."The little softy has brought nothing away with him!"
The other men, gathering round, glared at the boy hungrily. In themiddle of the Forest of Bondy he could not have been more at theirmercy than he was in this quiet corner of the market, where a velvetcoat with silver buttons was as rare a sight as a piece of the truecross. Two or three houseless wretches looked on from their frowsylairs under the stalls, but no one dreamed of interfering with the menin possession. As for the boy, he gazed at his captors stolidly; hewas white, mute, apathetic.
"Plague, if I don't think the lad is a softy!" said one, staring athim.
"Not he!" replied the man who had hold of him. And roughly seizing theboy by the head with his huge hand, he forced up an eyelid with hisfinger as if to examine the eye. The boy uttered a cry of pain."There!" said the ruffian, grinning with triumph. "He is all right.The question is, what shall we do with him?"
"There are his clothes," one muttered, eyeing the boy greedily.
"To be sure, there are always his clothes," was the answer. "It doesnot take an Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu to see that, gaby!And, of course, they would melt to the tune of something apiece! Butmaybe we can do better than that with him. He has run away. You don'tfind truffles on the dung-hill every day."
"Well," said his duller fellows, their eyes beginning to sparkle withgreed, "what then, Bec de Lievre?"
"If we take him home again, honest market porters, why should we notbe rewarded? Eh, my bully-boys?"
"That is a bright idea!" said one. So said another. The rest nodded."Ask him where he lives, when he is at home."
They did. But Jehan remained mute. "Twist his arm!" said the lastspeaker. "He will soon tell you. Or stick your finger in his eyeagain! Blest if I don't think the kid _is_ dumb!" the man continued,gazing with astonishment at the boy's dull face and lack-lustre eyes.
"I think I shall find a tongue for him," the former operator repliedwith a leer. "Here, sonny, answer before you are hurt, will you? Wheredo you live?"
But Jehan remained silent. The ruffian raised his hand. In anothermoment it would have fallen, but in the nick of time came aninterruption. "Nom de ma mere!" someone close at hand cried, in avoice of astonishment. "It is my Jehan!"
Two of the party in possession turned savagely on the intruder--amiddle-sized man with foxy eyes, and a half-starved ape on hisshoulder. "Who asked you to speak?" snarled one. "Begone about yourbusiness, my fine fellow, or I shall be making a hole in you!" criedanother.
"But he is my boy!" the new-comer answered, fairly trembling with joyand astonishment. "He is my boy!"
"Your boy?" cried Bec de Lievre, in a tone of contempt. "You look likeit, don't you? You look as if you dined on gold plate every day andhad a Rohan to your cup-bearer, you do! Go along, man; don't try tobamboozle us, or it will be the worse for you!" And with an angryscowl he turned to his victim.
But the showman, though he was a coward, was not to be put down soeasily. "It is the boy who is bamboozling you!" he said. "You take himfor a swell! It is only his show dress he has on. He is a tumbler
'sboy, I tell you. He circled the pole with me for two years. LastNovember he ran away. If you do not believe me, ask the monkey. See,the monkey knows him."
Bec de Lievre had to acknowledge that the monkey did know him. For thepoor beast was no sooner brought close to its old playmate than itsprang upon him and covered him with caresses, gibbering and cryingout the while after so human a fashion that it might well have movedhearts less hard. The boy did not return its endearments, however; buta look of intelligence came into his eyes, and on a sudden he heaved asigh as if his heart was breaking.
The men who had taken possession of him looked at one another. "It wasthe boy's cursed clothes fooled us," Bec de Lievre growled savagely."We will have them, at any rate. Strip him and have done with it. Anddo you keep off, Master Tumbler, or we will tumble you."
But when the showman, who was trembling with delight and anticipation,made them understand that he would give a crown for the boy as he wasin his clothes--"and that is more than the fence will give you," headded--they began to see reason. True, they stood out for a while fora higher price; but the bargain was eventually struck at a crown and alivre, and the boy handed over.
Master Crafty Eyes' hand shook as he laid it on the child's collar andturned him round so that he might see his face the better. Bec deLievre discerned the man's excitement, and looked at him curiously."You must be very fond of the lad," he said.
The showman's eyes glittered ferociously. "So fond of him," he said,in a mocking tone, "that when I get him home I shall--oh, I shall nothurt his fine clothes, or his face, or his little brown hands, forthose all show, and they are worth money to me. But I shall--I shallput a poker in the fire, and then Master Jehan will take off his newclothes so that they may not be singed, and--I shall teach him severalnew tricks with the poker."
"You are a queer one," the other answered. "I'll be shot if you don'tlook like a man with a good dinner before him."
"That is the man I am," the showman answered, a hideous smiledistorting his face. "I have gone without dinner or supper many a daybecause my little friend here chose to run away one fine night, whenhe was on the point of making my fortune. But I am going to dine now.I am going to feed--on him!"
"Well, every man to his liking," the hare-lipped beggar answeredindifferently. "You have paid for your dinner, and may cook it as youplease, for me."
"I am going to," the showman answered, with an ugly look. He pluckedthe boy almost off his feet as he spoke, and while the men cried afterhim "_Bon appetit!_" and jeered, dragged him away across the open partof the market; finally disappearing with him in one of the noisomealleys which then led out of the Halles on the east side.
His way lay through a rabbit-warren of beetling passages and narrowlanes, where the boy, once loose, could have dodged him a hundred waysand escaped; and he held him with the utmost precaution, expecting himevery moment to make a desperate attempt at it. But Jehan was not theold Jehan who had turned and twisted, walked and frolicked on therope, and in the utmost depths of ill-treatment had still kept teethto bite and spirit to use them. He was benumbed body and soul. He hadhad no food for nearly twenty hours. He had passed the night exposedto the cold. He had gone through intense excitement, horror, despair.So he stumbled along, with Vidoche's dying cries in his ears, and,famished, frozen, bemused, met the showman's threats with a face offixed, impassive apathy. He was within a very little of madness.
For a time Crafty Eyes did not heed this strange impassiveness. Theshowman's fancy was busy with the punishment he would inflict when hegot the boy home to his miserable room. He gloated in anticipationover the tortures he would contrive, and the care he would take thatthey should not maim or disfigure the boy. When he had him tied down,and the door locked, and the poker heated--ah! how he would enjoyhimself! The ruffian licked his lips. His eyes sparkled with pleasure.He jerked the boy along in his hideous impatience.
But after a time the child's bearing began to annoy him. He stoppedand, holding him with one hand, beat him brutally on the head with theother, until the boy fell and hung in his grasp. Then he dragged himup roughly and hauled him on with volleys of oaths; still scowling athim from time to time, as if, somehow, he found this little foretasteof vengeance less satisfying than he had expected.
There were people coming and going in the dark filthy lane where thishappened--a place where smoke-grimed gables almost met overhead, andthe gutter was choked with refuse--but no one interfered. What was alittle beating more or less? Or, for the matter of that, what was aboy more or less? The hulking loafers and frowsy slatterns, whohuddled for warmth in corners, nodded their heads and looked onapprovingly. They had their own brats to beat and business to mind.There was no one to take the boy's part. And another hundred yardswould lodge him in the showman's garret.
At that last moment the boy awoke from his trance and understood; andin a convulsion of fear hung back and struggled, screaming andthrowing himself down. The man dragged him up savagely, and was in theact of taking him up bodily to carry him, when a person, who hadalready passed the pair once, came back and looked at the boy again.The next moment a hand fell on the showman's arm, and a voice said,"Stop! What boy is that?"
The showman looked up, saw that the intervener was a priest, andsneered. "What is that to you, father?" he said, trying by a sidemovement to pass by. "Not one of your flock, at any rate."
"No, but you are!" the priest retorted in a strangely sonorous voice.He was a stalwart man, with a mobile face and sad eyes that seemed outof keeping with the rest of him. "You are! And if you do not thisminute set him down and answer my question, you ruffian, when yourtime comes you shall go to the tree alone!"
"Diable!" the showman muttered, startled yet scowling. "Who are you,then?"
"I am Father Bernard. Now tell me about that boy, and truly. What haveyou been doing to him? Ay, you may well tremble, rascal!"
For the showman was trembling. In the Paris of that day the name ofFather Bernard was almost as well known as the name of CardinalRichelieu. There was not a night-prowler or cutpurse, bully orswindler, who did not know it, and dream in his low fits, when thedrink was out and the money spent, of the day when he would travel byFather Bernard's side to Montfaucon, and find no other voice and noother eye to pity him in his trouble. Impelled by feelings ofhumanity, rare at that time, this man made it his life-work to attendon all who were cast for execution; to wait on them in prison, and bewith them at the last, and by his presence and words of comfort toalleviate their sufferings here, and bring them to a better mind. Hehad become so well known in this course of work that the king himselfdid him honour, and the Cardinal granted him special rights. The mobalso. The priest passed unharmed through the lowest wynds of Paris,and penetrated habitually to places where the Lieutenant of theChatelet, with a dozen pikes at his back, would not have been safe fora moment.
This was the man whose stern voice brought the showman to astandstill. Master Crafty Eyes faltered. Then he remembered that theboy was his boy, that his title to him was good. He said so sulkily.
"Your boy?" the priest replied, frowning. "Who are you, then?"
"An acrobat, father."
"So I thought. But do acrobats' boys wear black velvet clothes withsilver buttons?"
"He was stolen from me," the showman answered eagerly. He had a goodconscience as to the clothes. "I have only just recovered him,father."
"Who stole him? Where has he been?" The priest spoke quickly, and withno little excitement. He looked narrowly at the boy the while, holdinghim at arm's length. "Where did he spend last night, for instance?"
The showman spread out his palms and shrugged his shoulders. "Howshould I know?" he said. "I was not with him."
"He has black hair and blue eyes!"
"Yes. But what of that?" Crafty Eyes answered. "I can swear to him. Heis my boy."
"And mine!" Father Bernard retorted with energy. "The boy I want!" Thepriest's eyes sparkled, his form seemed to dilate with triumph. "Deolaus! Deo laus!" he murmured sonorousl
y, so that a score of loitererswho had gathered round, and were staring and shivering by turns, fellback affrighted and crossed themselves. "He is the boy! God has puthim in my way this day as clearly as if an angel had led me by thehand. And he goes with me; he goes with me. Chut, man!"--this to theshowman, who stood frowning in his path--"don't dare to look black atme. The boy goes with me, I say. I want him for a purpose. If youchoose you can come too."
"Whither?"
"To the Chatelet," Father Bernard answered, with a grim chuckle. "Youdon't seem to relish the idea. But do as you please."
"You will take the boy?"
"This moment," the priest answered.
"_Mon Dieu!_ but you shall not!" the showman exclaimed. Wrath for themoment drove out fear. He seized the child by the arm. "He is my boy!You shall not, I say!" he cried, almost foaming with rage. "He ismine!"
"'WHO STOLE HIM? WHERE HAS HE BEEN?'" (_p_. 169).]
"Idiot! Beast! Gallows-bird!" the priest thundered in reply. "Forone-half of a denier I would throw you into the next street! Let go,or I will blast you with--Oh, it is well for you you are reasonable.Now begone! Begone! or, at a word from me, there are a score herewill----"
He did not finish his sentence, for the showman fell backpanic-stricken, and stood off among the crowd, malevolence and cravenfear struggling for the mastery in his countenance. The priest tookthe boy up gently in his arms and looked at him. His face grewstrangely mild as he did so. The black brows grew smooth, the lipsrelaxed. "Get a little water," he said to the nearest man, a hulking,olive-skinned Southerner. "The child has swooned."
"Your pardon, father," the man answered. "He is dead."
But Father Bernard shook his head. "No, my son," he said kindly. "Hewho led me here to-day will keep life in him a little longer. God'sways never end in a _cul-de-sac_. Get the water. He has swooned only."