LIX
The crash broke the spell that clogged Dunoisse’s faculties. He cried out in savage anger, and tore open the swinging, splintered window, and dashed out upon the balcony, stopping short in sheer astonishment at the spectacle he beheld below.
For the vast white square of the Market Place, that was centered by four crystal, springing fountains, and backed by an August sunset of pale green and clear rose and glorious flaming orange-red, was full of heads of women and men, some bare, some covered, so closely packed that an acrobat might have walked on them without leaping a single gap. And the faces belonging to those Teutonic heads and the vari-colored glittering eyes enameled in all thefaces, were intent upon the room to which belonged the window with the shattered pane. And at the sight of Dunoisse the vast assembly sent out its breath as at a single hissing expiration:
“S’s ss!”
Beyond that, nothing more. But the very restraint of the vast crowd was worse than sinister. Plainly these lumpish Teutons were not there to waste valuable time in threats. Their silence menaced and appalled beyond all Gallic yells and execrations. And as Dunoisse stood speechless, staring down into all those tigerish eyes, a strong thin hand gripped his shoulder, and the Archbishop’s voice said in his ear:
“You witness the terrible effect of your own insane rashness—the sacrilegious presumption of your agents...! Present yourself upon the streets to-morrow—attempt to join in the procession—and the people will tear you to shreds! Be silent! I will speak to them!”
He plucked Dunoisse back into the room with one imperative hand, unhooking the shabby black cloak with the other. He shook it deftly from his shoulders, removed his soft felt hat, threw it aside, and stepped out upon the balcony, revealed as a small slight figure in a worn black cassock, red-piped, red-buttoned, and sashed, his high-domed baldish head covered with a purple skull-cap, the sacred symbol hanging by its golden chain upon his breast. And at the sight of him a change came over all those waiting faces, and a feline purr of satisfaction came from the great crowd.
The Archbishop said, in a mild and gentle tone, addressing the assemblage:
“My children, we are not ignorant of the cause of this demonstration. You are gathered here to protest, by force if necessary, against what justly appears to you a sacrilege of the most flagitious kind——”
In every attentive face there showed upon the instant a gaping hole. A roar of assent responded that shattered the leaping columns of the Market Place fountains into a rain of glittering fragments. Scared doves rose in bevies from the housetops, wheeling in circles under the rose-flushed sunset sky. The Archbishop went on, in a voice of astonishing resonance and power:
“My children, be at peace! No indignity such as youhave had reason to fear will be offered to the Divine Presence of Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament, or to the Immaculate Virginity of His Holy Mother!”
He lifted his hand.
“Therefore, I say to you, profane not the Eve of the Feast with violence! Disperse without casting one other stone. Be assured, Colonel von Widinitz-Dunoisse will not walk in the procession unless in a state of soul conducive to edification. I bid you now go home!”
The Archbishop might have been obeyed, but that a lean tall man in seedy black, with burning cavernous eyes in a lean, parched, yellow face, leaped up upon the bronze balustrade of one of the Market Place fountains, and cried, in a voice that cracked like a breaking stick:
“He has scattered money among you, and some of you have stooped to gather it! For shame! Do you not know whence those accursed coins were taken? Then I will tell you. From the dowry of the Carmelite Sister Thérèse de Saint-François! From the funds of the House of Mercy over whose closed doors the ivy is growing! From the Treasury of Christ!... Then hurl back the defiled and tainted coins with contempt and indignation! Drive forth the thief’s son with his harlot! Purge the town of them! Kill—a-a-a!”
The lean man threw up his hands at this juncture, and fell back frothing in epilepsy. But he had spoken words that had the effect of oil poured upon a slackened furnace. The hubbub of voices that ensued reduced even the Archbishop to dumb show. Stones began to fly, no longer leveled at the room behind the balcony, where the high-domed head and pale, worn profile of the prelate were descried, as he parleyed with the unwished-for visitors.... The lower windows suffered attack; and with the larger missiles came hopping the coppers and silver bits that had been scattered from Steyregg’s bag. Those who grudged parting most threw hardest of all.... The crash and tinkle of breaking glass went on until every window-frame in the frontage of “The Three Crowns” presented a central void befringed with splinters—until the landlord, hysterical with loss, rushed out bareheaded into the Market Place, and, falling upon his knees, solemnly swore that if the work of destruction did but cease, the loathed intruders should then and there depart from his house.
His piercing accents reached the beleaguered garrison in the room behind the balcony.... The Archbishop turned to Dunoisse, and said, slightly shrugging his shoulders:
“Compliance will be your only possible course.”
Dunoisse was about to expostulate, but Henriette panted at her lover’s ear:
“Yes!—let us go from this dreadful place! Oh!—mad that I was to have set my foot in it!”
Then Dunoisse rang the bell. With its broken rope in his hand, he shouted to the scared and chalk-faced waiter:
“Bring the bill! Order both carriages! Instantly! Do you hear?”
The affrighted man gasped out:
“Sir, they are ready!”
And almost instantly, as it seemed, the green chariot and the brown landau, horsed, and heaped with unlocked and unpacked portmanteaux, empty valises, and the garments and articles of toilet that these had contained, were rattled out of the posting-yard and brought to the front-door of “The Three Crowns.”
No bill appeared. The banknotes and gold Dunoisse would have thrust upon the landlord the man refused, perhaps out of conscientiousness, perhaps in fear of further damage to his property.... Throwing the money down upon the table, Dunoisse grasped his hat and cane, and offered his arm to Henriette. She placed her little hand upon it, and shrank in terror as a savage, ominous growl came from the angry throng outside.
“They shall not harm you!” Dunoisse muttered between his teeth, and urged her forwards.
“They will not harm you, Madame!” the Archbishop said, who had quitted the room a moment previously, and now returning, gravely offered his own arm to Henriette upon the other side. She cast him a swimming, eloquent look of reproach that said: “My touch pollutes,—you yourself have said it!” Then, as another growl came from the Market Place, she gulped her resentment down, and set her little frightened clutch upon the red-piped cassock-sleeve....
And so, protected by the Church that had denounced her, Henriette went forth, her livid lover bulwarking her frail charms upon the other side. At sight of her it was as if the great cattish crowd crouched before springing. Itwagged from side to side, and the eyes in it flickered yellow and green. But the blood-thirst that parched those hot and savage throats was checked when the red-buttoned black cassock and high domed head were recognized by her side. The crowd fell back into its former stolid immobility, and Dunoisse opened the carriage-door, instead of the shrinking hostler, and the Archbishop handed in Madame de Roux, and, to the astonishment of all, followed her. Dunoisse took his seat in the vehicle at a sign from the prelate, who then gave the postillions—who had slewed round in their great boots, the better to view a sight so unusual—the signal to move on....
And then, at a walking pace, through a lane that continually opened in the great mass of grim-faced people, and as continually closed behind the green chariot and the brown landau—containing only the scared valet and the quaking maid—(the Marshal’s agents having mysteriously disappeared), both vehicles passed through the Market Place, down the Promenade, and rolled under the portcullis of the Peace Gate. Only when their wheels resounded on the gravel-covered drawbridge did the Archbishop give the signal to pull up. Bareheaded, Dunoisse lent aid to his descent, stammering out some broken phrases of gratitude.
“Sir, I have done no more,” said the Archbishop, “than was enjoined on me by my calling and profession. See to the lady, who has suffered much alarm. And—I have not yet given you the message from your mother. She has a dispensation to receive you. She will expect you at dark, at the Convent of the Carmelites in the Old Town. It must be reached by a different route, but that need not concern you.... Put up for the night at ‘The Heron’ posting-house, fourteen miles from here; you will remember the inn—you passed it on your journey. I have sent on a servant with swift horses in advance of you,—you will mount and ride back with the man; he will guide you in perfect safety! As for Madame, you need be under no apprehension—the landlord of ‘The Heron’ is a trustworthy person.... Dear me! What have we here? How truly deplorable a spectacle!”... Was there a twinkle of amusement in the bright gray eyes that regarded it?... “These two gentlemen who approach in such haste,” said the Archbishop, “I take to be those members of your party who preferred to remain behind!”
Despite the water that dripped from their garments, proving them to have been ducked in one of the fountains of the Market Place, and the adhering filth that proved them to have been subsequently rolled in the kennel, the two bounding figures were recognizable as Köhler and von Steyregg. For—having concealed themselves in the cellar of “The Three Crowns,” with the intention of remaining thereperduuntil darkness should favor their departure from Widinitz—the confederates had been discovered amongst the vats and barrels by a hireling; plucked thence and, thrust by the maddened landlord and his willing servitors forth upon the pavement, but a few minutes after the departure of the Colonel and Madame....
You saw the pair, running the gauntlet of thumps, buffets, clouts, and whacks, down the lane that kept opening in the crowd in front of them and closing up behind.... The suggestion of a citizen that they should be tumbled into the city fosse met with some approval, but the majority were against the proceeding. In that case the Archbishop might have intervened, instead of taking snuff and looking the other way....
The fugitives gained the rear carriage, and leaped in, each at a door, the impromptu harlequinade provoking roars of laughter. Neither had a hat, or breath to lavish. Steyregg had parted with an entire coat-tail. His Order was missing from its soiled, watered ribbon—a loss which caused him infinite torment. Köhler was collarless and bleeding from the nose.
The accommodation offered by “The Heron” posting-house, upon the forest-road fourteen miles from Widinitz, subsequently appeared to both the worthies too near the city to be healthy. Therefore, without taking formal leave of His Serene Highness or Her Excellency (so lately the recipients of their heartfelt homage), the Baron and the attorney hired a post-chaise; and, racked by grievous bodily aches and pains, it may be conjectured, as well as twinges spiritual and mental, pushed upon the road to France.
“And so,” said von Steyregg, upon the day that saw the return of the precious pair to Paris, “because of Prince Cocky-Locky’sbéguinfor Madame Henny-Penny, a plot of the first order is fudged, dished, and done for. Devil take the woman!”
Köhler returned, straightening a brand-new paper collar with a conquering air:
“She is achictype, so no doubt he would be agreeable. Which of us is to tell Old Fireworks of the fiasco? That will have to be done!”
Von Steyregg retorted irritably:
“Tell—tell! Why the deuce are you so set on telling? Will he stump up a single shiner, once he knows of the mess?”
Köhler made a neat circle with his left thumb and forefinger, and winked through it. Both men, it will be perceived, had left their graceful phrases and courtly manners behind in Widinitz, with Köhler’s original paper collar and his partner’s left coat-tail. To the mute admission of the wink, von Steyregg returned:
“Very well, then! We have made a bit out of this—at least, you have——”
Köhler interpolated:
“Go it!”
“I am going to go it,” said von Steyregg blandly. “I have not seen my native Hungary for a long time, and the heart of the true Magyar, even amidst the most beauteous scenes of foreign countries, ceaselessly yearns for home. Impart the news of the disaster to Monseigneur if you feel disposed to be kicked!—or leave the too-painful duty to his puppy of a son!”
He turned, revealing an aching void where there had been a coat-tail.
“Tell me one thing before you hurry back to your native Hungary, you yearning Magyar,” said Köhler brutally. “Who was it kiss-kissed the people of Widinitz on to break the windows of the inn of ‘The Three Crowns,’ frighten Madame de Roux into hysterics, provoke Monsieur the Colonel into a display of determination, duck both of us in one of the public fountains, and toss me in a horse-blanket? For all his mealy mouth,Isay the Archbishop!”
Von Steyregg said, rolling a bloodshot eye in rapture:
“Undoubtedly, the Archbishop! Assuredly, the Archbishop!” He heaved an elephantine sigh. “With a confederate like that priest to back me, I could break the bank of every gambling-hell in Europe. What a waste that he should be an honest man!Au revoir, dear friend! Youshall visit me at my baronial castle in beloved Hungary, as sure as I am a Magyar of the pure blood!”
“Farewell for ever, old comrade!” said Köhler, with emotion, as he hailed a passing cab.