‘Nous ne brullons que pour bruller les autres.’
And I wish you could see all the fine things we shall do if we are fortunate enough to come to blows.”
The fair Marion, who did not like him, began to talk over his head to M. de Thou—a mortification which always exasperated the little Abbe, who abruptly left her, walking as tall as he could, and scornfully twisting his moustache.
All at once a sudden silence took possession of the assembly. A rolled paper had struck the ceiling and fallen at the feet of Cinq-Mars. He picked it up and unrolled it, after having looked eagerly around him. He sought in vain to divine whence it came; all those who advanced had only astonishment and intense curiosity depicted in their faces.
“Here is my name wrongly written,” he said coldly.
“A CINQ MARCS,CENTURIE DE NOSTRADAMUS.Quand bonnet rouge passera par la fenetre,A quarante onces on coupera tete,Et tout finira.”[This punning prediction was made public three months before the,conspiracy.]
“There is a traitor among us, gentlemen,” he said, throwing away the paper. “But no matter. We are not men to be frightened by his sanguinary jests.”
“We must find the traitor out, and throw him through the window,” said the young men.
Still, a disagreeable sensation had come over the assembly. They now only spoke in whispers, and each regarded his neighbor with distrust. Some withdrew; the meeting grew thinner. Marion de Lorme repeated to every one that she would dismiss her servants, who alone could be suspected. Despite her efforts a coldness reigned throughout the apartment. The first sentences of Cinq-Mars’ address, too, had left some uncertainty as to the intentions of the King; and this untimely candor had somewhat shaken a few of the less determined conspirators.
Gondi pointed this out to Cinq-Mars.
“Hark ye!” he said in a low voice. “Believe me, I have carefully studied conspiracies and assemblages; there are certain purely mechanical means which it is necessary to adopt. Follow my advice here; I know a good deal of this sort of thing. They want something more. Give them a little contradiction; that always succeeds in France. You will quite make them alive again. Seem not to wish to retain them against their will, and they will remain.”
The grand ecuyer approved of the suggestion, and advancing toward those whom he knew to be most deeply compromised, said:
“For the rest, gentlemen, I do not wish to force any one to follow me. Plenty of brave men await us at Perpignan, and all France is with us. If any one desires to secure himself a retreat, let him speak. We will give him the means of placing himself in safety at once.”
Not one would hear of this proposition; and the movement it occasioned produced a renewal of the oaths of hatred against the minister.
Cinq-Mars, however, proceeded to put the question individually to some of the persons present, in the election of whom he showed much judgment; for he ended with Montresor, who cried that he would pass his sword through his body if he had for a moment entertained such an idea, and with Gondi, who, rising fiercely on his heels, exclaimed:
“Monsieur le Grand Ecuyer, my retreat is the archbishopric of Paris and L’Ile Notre-Dame. I’ll make it a place strong enough to keep me from being taken.”
“And yours?” he said to De Thou.
“At your side,” murmured De Thou, lowering his eyes, unwilling to give importance to his resolution by the directness of his look.
“You will have it so? Well, I accept,” said Cinq-Mars; “and my sacrifice herein, dear friend, is greater than yours.” Then turning toward the assembly:
“Gentlemen, I see in you the last men of France, for after the Montmorencys and the Soissons, you alone dare lift a head free and worthy of our old liberty. If Richelieu triumph, the ancient bases of the monarchy will crumble with us. The court will reign alone, in the place of the parliaments, the old barriers, and at the same time the powerful supports of the royal authority. Let us be conquerors, and France will owe to us the preservation of her ancient manners and her time-honored guarantees. And now, gentlemen, it were a pity to spoil the ball on this account. You hear the music. The ladies await you. Let us go and dance.”
“The Cardinal shall pay the fiddlers,” added Gondi.
The young men applauded with a laugh; and all reascended to the ballroom as lightly as they would have gone to the battlefield.
It was on the day following the assembly that had taken place in the house of Marion de Lorme. A thick snow covered the roofs of Paris and settled in its large gutters and streets, where it arose in gray heaps, furrowed by the wheels of carriages.
It was eight o’clock, and the night was dark. The tumult of the city was silent on account of the thick carpet the winter had spread for it, and which deadened the sound of the wheels over the stones, and of the feet of men and horses. In a narrow street that winds round the old church of St. Eustache, a man, enveloped in his cloak, slowly walked up and down, constantly watching for the appearance of some one. He often seated himself upon one of the posts of the church, sheltering himself from the falling snow under one of the statues of saints which jutted out from the roof of the building, stretching over the narrow path like birds of prey, which, about to make a stoop, have folded their wings. Often, too, the old man, opening his cloak, beat his arms against his breast to warm himself, or blew upon his fingers, ill protected from the cold by a pair of buff gloves reaching nearly to the elbow. At last he saw a slight shadow gliding along the wall.
“Ah, Santa Maria! what villainous countries are these of the North!” said a woman’s voice, trembling. “Ah, the duchy of Mantua! would I were back there again, Grandchamp!”
“Pshaw! don’t speak so loud,” said the old domestic, abruptly. “The walls of Paris have Cardinalist ears, and more especially the walls of the churches. Has your mistress entered? My master awaits her at the door.”
“Yes, yes; she has gone in.”
“Be silent,” said Grandchamp. “The sound of the clock is cracked. That’s a bad sign.”
“That clock has sounded the hour of a rendezvous.”
“For me, it sounds like a passing-bell. But be silent, Laure; here are three cloaks passing.”
They allowed three men to pass. Grandchamp followed them, made sure of the road they took, and returned to his seat, sighing deeply.
“The snow is cold, Laure, and I am old. Monsieur le Grand might have chosen another of his men to keep watch for him while he’s making love. It’s all very well for you to carry love-letters and ribbons and portraits and such trash, but for me, I ought to be treated with more consideration. Monsieur le Marechal would not have done so. Old domestics give respectability to a house, and should be themselves respected.”
“Has your master arrived long, ‘caro amico’?”
“Eh, cara, cayo! leave me in peace. We had both been freezing for an hour when you came. I should have had time to smoke three Turkish pipes. Attend to your business, and go and look to the other doors of the church, and see that no suspicious person is prowling about. Since there are but two vedettes, they must beat about well.”
“Ah, what a thing it is to have no one to whom to say a friendly word when it is so cold! and my poor mistress! to come on foot all the way from the Hotel de Nevers. Ah, amore! qui regna amore!”
“Come, Italian, wheel about, I tell thee. Let me hear no more of thy musical tongue.”
“Ah, Santa Maria! What a harsh voice, dear Grandchamp! You were much more amiable at Chaumont, in Turena, when you talked to me of ‘miei occhi neri.”
“Hold thy tongue, prattler! Once more, thy Italian is only good for buffoons and rope-dancers, or to accompany the learned dogs.”
“Ah, Italia mia! Grandchamp, listen to me, and you shall hear the language of the gods. If you were a gallant man, like him who wrote this for a Laure like me!”
And she began to hum:
Lieti fiori a felici, e ben nate erbeChe Madonna pensando premer sole;Piaggia ch’ascolti su dolci paroleE del bel piede alcun vestigio serbe.
The old soldier was but little used to the voice of a young girl; and in general when a woman spoke to him, the tone he assumed in answering always fluctuated between an awkward compliment and an ebullition of temper. But on this occasion he appeared moved by the Italian song, and twisted his moustache, which was always with him a sign of embarrassment and distress. He even omitted a rough sound something like a laugh, and said:
“Pretty enough, ‘mordieu!’ that recalls to my mind the siege of Casal; but be silent, little one. I have not yet heard the Abbe Quillet come. This troubles me. He ought to have been here before our two young people; and for some time past—”
Laure, who was afraid of being sent alone to the Place St. Eustache, answered that she was quite sure he had gone in, and continued:
“Ombrose selve, ove’percote il soleChe vi fa co’suoi raggi alte a superbe.”
“Hum!” said the worthy old soldier, grumbling. “I have my feet in the snow, and a gutter runs down on my head, and there’s death at my heart; and you sing to me of violets, of the sun, and of grass, and of love. Be silent!”
And, retiring farther in the recess of the church, he leaned his gray head upon his hands, pensive and motionless. Laure dared not again speak to him.
While her waiting-woman had gone to find Grandchamp, the young and trembling Marie with a timid hand had pushed open the folding-door of the church.
She there found Cinq-Mars standing, disguised, and anxiously awaiting her. As soon as she recognized him, she advanced with rapid steps into the church, holding her velvet mask over her face, and hastened to take refuge in a confessional, while Henri carefully closed the door of the church by which she had entered. He made sure that it could not be opened on the outside, and then followed his betrothed to kneel within the place of penitence. Arrived an hour before her, with his old valet, he had found this open—a certain and understood sign that the Abbe Quillet, his tutor, awaited him at the accustomed place. His care to prevent any surprise had made him remain himself to guard the entrance until the arrival of Marie. Delighted as he was at the punctuality of the good Abbe, he would still scarcely leave his post to thank him. He was a second father to him in all but authority; and he acted toward the good priest without much ceremony.
The old parish church of St. Eustache was dark. Besides the perpetual lamp, there were only four flambeaux of yellow wax, which, attached above the fonts against the principal pillars, cast a red glimmer upon the blue and black marble of the empty church. The light scarcely penetrated the deep niches of the aisles of the sacred building. In one of the chapels—the darkest of them—was the confessional, of which we have before spoken, whose high iron grating and thick double planks left visible only the small dome and the wooden cross. Here, on either side, knelt Cinq-Mars and Marie de Mantua. They could scarcely see each other, but found that the Abbe Quillet, seated between them, was there awaiting them. They could see through the little grating the shadow of his hood. Henri d’Effiat approached slowly; he was regulating, as it were, the remainder of his destiny. It was not before his king that he was about to appear, but before a more powerful sovereign, before her for whom he had undertaken his immense work. He was about to test her faith; and he trembled.
He trembled still more when his young betrothed knelt opposite to him; he trembled, because at the sight of this angel he could not help feeling all the happiness he might lose. He dared not speak first, and remained for an instant contemplating her head in the shade, that young head upon which rested all his hopes. Despite his love, whenever he looked upon her he could not refrain from a kind of dread at having undertaken so much for a girl, whose passion was but a feeble reflection of his own, and who perhaps would not appreciate all the sacrifices he had made for her—bending the firm character of his mind to the compliances of a courtier, condemning it to the intrigues and sufferings of ambition, abandoning it to profound combinations, to criminal meditations, to the gloomy labors of a conspirator.
Hitherto, in their secret interviews, she had always received each fresh intelligence of his progress with the transports of pleasure of a child, but without appreciating the labors of each of these so arduous steps that lead to honors, and always asking him with naivete when he would be Constable, and when they should marry, as if she were asking him when he would come to the Caroussel, or whether the weather was fine. Hitherto, he had smiled at these questions and this ignorance, pardonable at eighteen, in a girl born to a throne and accustomed to a grandeur natural to her, which she found around her on her entrance into life; but now he made more serious reflections upon this character. And when, but just quitting the imposing assembly of conspirators, representatives of all the orders of the kingdom, his ear, wherein still resounded the masculine voices that had sworn to undertake a vast war, was struck with the first words of her for whom that war was commenced, he feared for the first time lest this naivete should be in reality simple levity, not coming from the heart. He resolved to sound it.
“Oh, heavens! how I tremble, Henri!” she said as she entered the confessional; “you make me come without guards, without a coach. I always tremble lest I should be seen by my people coming out of the Hotel de Nevers. How much longer must I yet conceal myself like a criminal? The Queen was very angry when I avowed the matter to her; and whenever she speaks to me of it, ‘tis with her severe air that you know, and which always makes me weep. Oh, I am terribly afraid!”
She was silent; Cinq-Mars replied only with a deep sigh.
“How! you do not speak to me!” she said.
“Are these, then, all your terrors?” asked Cinq-Mars, bitterly.
“Can I have greater? Oh, ‘mon ami’, in what a tone, with what a voice, do you address me! Are you angry because I came too late?”
“Too soon, Madame, much too soon, for the things you are to hear—for I see you are far from prepared for them.”
Marie, affected at the gloomy and bitter tone of his voice, began to weep.
“Alas, what have I done,” she said, “that you should call me Madame, and treat me thus harshly?”
“Be tranquil,” replied Cinq-Mars, but with irony in his tone. “‘Tis not, indeed, you who are guilty; but I—I alone; not toward you, but for you.”
“Have you done wrong, then? Have you ordered the death of any one? Oh, no, I am sure you have not, you are so good!”
“What!” said Cinq-Mars, “are you as nothing in my designs? Did I misconstrue your thoughts when you looked at me in the Queen’s boudoir? Can I no longer read in your eyes? Was the fire which animated them that of a love for Richelieu? That admiration which you promised to him who should dare to say all to the King, where is it? Is it all a falsehood?”
Marie burst into tears.
“You still speak to me with bitterness,” she said; “I have not deserved it. Do you suppose, because I speak not of this fearful conspiracy, that I have forgotten it? Do you not see me miserable at the thought? Must you see my tears? Behold them; I shed enough in secret. Henri, believe that if I have avoided this terrible subject in our last interviews, it is from the fear of learning too much. Have I any other thought that that of your dangers? Do I not know that it is for me you incur them? Alas! if you fight for me, have I not also to sustain attacks no less cruel? Happier than I, you have only to combat hatred, while I struggle against friendship. The Cardinal will oppose to you men and weapons; but the Queen, the gentle Anne of Austria, employs only tender advice, caresses, sometimes tears.”
“Touching and invincible constraint to make you accept a throne,” said Cinq-Mars, bitterly. “I well conceive you must need some efforts to resist such seductions; but first, Madame, I must release you from your vows.”
“Alas, great Heaven! what is there, then, against us?”
“There is God above us, and against us,” replied Henri, in a severe tone; “the King has deceived me.”
There was an agitated movement on the part of the Abbe.
Marie exclaimed, “I foresaw it; this is the misfortune I dreamed and dreamed of! It is I who caused it?”
“He deceived me, as he pressed my hand,” continued Cinq-Mars; “he betrayed me by the villain Joseph, whom an offer has been made to me to poniard.”
The Abbe gave a start of horror which half opened the door of the confessional.
“O father, fear nothing,” said Henri d’Effiat; “your pupil will never strike such blows. Those I prepare will be heard from afar, and the broad day will light them up; but there remains a duty—a sacred duty—for me to fulfil. Behold your son sacrifice himself before you! Alas! I have not lived long in the sight of happiness, and I am about, perhaps, to destroy it by your hand, that consecrated it.”
As he spoke, he opened the light grating which separated him from his old tutor; the latter, still observing an extraordinary silence, passed his hood over his forehead.
“Restore this nuptial ring to the Duchesse de Mantua,” said Cinq-Mars, in a tone less firm; “I can not keep it unless she give it me a second time, for I am not the same whom she promised to espouse.”
The priest hastily seized the ring, and passed it through the opposite grating; this mark of indifference astonished Cinq-Mars.
“What! Father,” he said, “are you also changed?”
Marie wept no longer; but, raising her angelic voice, which awakened a faint echo along the aisles of the church, as the softest sigh of the organ, she said, returning the ring to Cinq-Mars:
“O dearest, be not angry! I comprehend you not. Can we break asunder what God has just united, and can I leave you, when I know you are unhappy? If the King no longer loves you, at least you may be assured he will not harm you, since he has not harmed the Cardinal, whom he never loved. Do you think yourself undone, because he is perhaps unwilling to separate from his old servant? Well, let us await the return of his friendship; forget these conspirators, who affright me. If they give up hope, I shall thank Heaven, for then I shall no longer tremble for you. Why needlessly afflict ourselves? The Queen loves us, and we are both very young; let us wait. The future is beautiful, since we are united and sure of ourselves. Tell me what the King said to you at Chambord. I followed you long with my eyes. Heavens! how sad to me was that hunting party!”
“He has betrayed me, I tell you,” answered Cinq-Mars. “Yet who could have believed it, that saw him press our hands, turning from his brother to me, and to the Duc de Bouillon, making himself acquainted with the minutest details of the conspiracy, of the very day on which Richelieu was to be arrested at Lyons, fixing himself the place of his exile (our party desired his death, but the recollection of my father made me ask his life). The King said that he himself would direct the whole affair at Perpignan; yet just before, Joseph, that foul spy, had issued from out of the cabinet du Lys. O Marie! shall I own it? at the moment I heard this, my very soul was tossed. I doubted everything; it seemed to me that the centre of the world was unhinged when I found truth quit the heart of the King. I saw our whole edifice crumble to the ground; another hour, and the conspiracy would vanish away, and I should lose you forever. One means remained; I employed it.”
“What means?” said Marie.
“The treaty with Spain was in my hand; I signed it.”
“Ah, heavens! destroy it.”
“It is gone.”
“Who bears it?”
“Fontrailles.”
“Recall him.”
“He will, ere this, have passed the defiles of Oleron,” said Cinq-Mars, rising up. “All is ready at Madrid, all at Sedan. Armies await me, Marie—armies! Richelieu is in the midst of them. He totters; it needs but one blow to overthrow him, and you are mine forever—forever the wife of the triumphant Cinq-Mars.”
“Of Cinq-Mars the rebel,” she said, sighing.
“Well, have it so, the rebel; but no longer the favorite. Rebel, criminal, worthy of the scaffold, I know it,” cried the impassioned youth, falling on his knees; “but a rebel for love, a rebel for you, whom my sword will at last achieve for me.”
“Alas, a sword imbrued in the blood of your country! Is it not a poniard?”
“Pause! for pity, pause, Marie! Let kings abandon me, let warriors forsake me, I shall only be the more firm; but a word from you will vanquish me, and once again the time for reflection will be passed from me. Yes, I am a criminal; and that is why I still hesitate to think myself worthy of you. Abandon me, Marie; take back the ring.”
“I can not,” she said; “for I am your wife, whatever you be.”
“You hear her, father!” exclaimed Cinq-Mars, transported with happiness; “bless this second union, the work of devotion, even more beautiful than that of love. Let her be mine while I live.”
Without answering, the Abbe opened the door of the confessional and had quitted the church ere Cinq-Mars had time to rise and follow him.
“Where are you going? What is the matter?” he cried.
But no one answered.
“Do not call out, in the name of Heaven!” said Marie, “or I am lost; he has doubtless heard some one in the church.”
But D’Effiat, agitated, and without answering her, rushed forth, and sought his late tutor through the church, but in vain. Drawing his sword, he proceeded to the entrance which Grandchamp had to guard; he called him and listened.
“Now let him go,” said a voice at the corner of the street; and at the same moment was heard the galloping of horses.
“Grandchamp, wilt thou answer?” cried Cinq-Mars.
“Help, Henri, my dear boy!” exclaimed the voice of the Abbe Quillet.
“Whence come you? You endanger me,” said the grand ecuyer, approaching him.
But he saw that his poor tutor, without a hat in the falling snow, was in a most deplorable condition.
“They stopped me, and they robbed me,” he cried. “The villains, the assassins! they prevented me from calling out; they stopped my mouth with a handkerchief.”
At this noise, Grandchamp at length came, rubbing his eyes, like one just awakened. Laure, terrified, ran into the church to her mistress; all hastily followed her to reassure Marie, and then surrounded the old Abbe.
“The villains! they bound my hands, as you see. There were more than twenty of them; they took from me the key of the side door of the church.”
“How! just now?” said Cinq-Mars; “and why did you quit us?”
“Quit you! why, they have kept me there two hours.”
“Two hours!” cried Henri, terrified.
“Ah, miserable old man that I am!” said Grandchamp; “I have slept while my master was in danger. It is the first time.”
“You were not with us, then, in the confessional?” continued Cinq-Mars, anxiously, while Marie tremblingly pressed against his arm.
“What!” said the Abbe, “did you not see the rascal to whom they gave my key?”
“No! whom?” cried all at once.
“Father Joseph,” answered the good priest.
“Fly! you are lost!” cried Marie.
‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind;Thou art not so unkindAs man’s ingratitude.Thy tooth is not so keen,Because thou art not seen,Although thy breath be rude.Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly.Most friendship is feigning; most loving mere folly.’SHAKESPEARE.
Amid that long and superb chain of the Pyrenees which forms the embattled isthmus of the peninsula, in the centre of those blue pyramids, covered in gradation with snow, forests, and downs, there opens a narrow defile, a path cut in the dried-up bed of a perpendicular torrent; it circulates among rocks, glides under bridges of frozen snow, twines along the edges of inundated precipices to scale the adjacent mountains of Urdoz and Oleron, and at last rising over their unequal ridges, turns their nebulous peak into a new country which has also its mountains and its depths, and, quitting France, descends into Spain. Never has the hoof of the mule left its trace in these windings; man himself can with difficulty stand upright there, even with the hempen boots which can not slip, and the hook of the pikestaff to force into the crevices of the rocks.
In the fine summer months the ‘pastour’, in his brown cape, and his black long-bearded ram lead hither flocks, whose flowing wool sweeps the turf. Nothing is heard in these rugged places but the sound of the large bells which the sheep carry, and whose irregular tinklings produce unexpected harmonies, casual gamuts, which astonish the traveller and delight the savage and silent shepherd. But when the long month of September comes, a shroud of snow spreads itself from the peak of the mountains down to their base, respecting only this deeply excavated path, a few gorges open by torrents, and some rocks of granite, which stretch out their fantastical forms, like the bones of a buried world.
It is then that light troops of chamois make their appearance, with their twisted horns extending over their backs, spring from rock to rock as if driven before the wind, and take possession of their aerial desert. Flights of ravens and crows incessantly wheel round and round in the gulfs and natural wells which they transform into dark dovecots, while the brown bear, followed by her shaggy family, who sport and tumble around her in the snow, slowly descends from their retreat invaded by the frost. But these are neither the most savage nor the most cruel inhabitants that winter brings into these mountains; the daring smuggler raises for himself a dwelling of wood on the very boundary of nature and of politics. There unknown treaties, secret exchanges, are made between the two Navarres, amid fogs and winds.
It was in this narrow path on the frontiers of France that, about two months after the scenes we have witnessed in Paris, two travellers, coming from Spain, stopped at midnight, fatigued and dismayed. They heard musket-shots in the mountain.
“The scoundrels! how they have pursued us!” said one of them. “I can go no farther; but for you I should have been taken.”
“And you will be taken still, as well as that infernal paper, if you lose your time in words; there is another volley on the rock of Saint Pierre-de-L’Aigle. Up there, they suppose we have gone in the direction of the Limacon; but, below, they will see the contrary. Descend; it is doubtless a patrol hunting smugglers. Descend.”
“But how? I can not see.”
“Never mind, descend. Take my arm.”
“Hold me; my boots slip,” said the first traveller, stamping on the edge of the rock to make sure of the solidity of the ground before trusting himself upon it.
“Go on; go on!” said the other, pushing him. “There’s one of the rascals passing over our heads.”
And, in fact, the shadow of a man, armed with a long gun, was reflected on the snow. The two adventurers stood motionless. The man passed on. They continued their descent.
“They will take us,” said the one who was supporting the other. “They have turned us. Give me your confounded parchment. I wear the dress of a smuggler, and I can pass for one seeking an asylum among them; but you would have no resource with your laced dress.”
“You are right,” said his companion; and, resting his foot against the edge of the rock, and reclining on the slope, he gave him a roll of hollow wood.
A gun was fired, and a ball buried itself, hissing, in the snow at their feet.
“Marked!” said the first. “Roll down. If you are not dead when you get to the bottom, take the road you see before you. On the left of the hollow is Santa Maria. But turn to the right; cross Oleron; and you are on the road to Pau and are saved. Go; roll down.”
As he spoke, he pushed his comrade, and without condescending to look after him, and himself neither ascending nor descending, followed the flank of the mountain horizontally, hanging on by rocks, branches, and even by plants, with the strength and energy of a wild-cat, and soon found himself on firm ground before a small wooden hut, through which a light was visible. The adventurer went all around it, like a hungry wolf round a sheepfold, and, applying his eye to one of the openings, apparently saw what determined him, for without further hesitation he pushed the tottering door, which was not even fastened by a latch. The whole but shook with the blow he had given it. He then saw that it was divided into two cabins by a partition. A large flambeau of yellow wax lighted the first. There, a young girl, pale and fearfully thin, was crouched in a corner on the damp floor, just where the melted snow ran under the planks of the cottage. Very long black hair, entangled and covered with dust, fell in disorder over her coarse brown dress; the red hood of the Pyrenees covered her head and shoulders. Her eyes were cast down; and she was spinning with a small distaff attached to her waist. The entry of a man did not appear to move her in the least.
“Ha! La moza,—[girl]—get up and give me something to drink. I am tired and thirsty.”
The young girl did not answer, and, without raising her eyes, continued to spin assiduously.
“Dost hear?” said the stranger, thrusting her with his foot. “Go and tell thy master that a friend wishes to see him; but first give me some drink. I shall sleep here.”
She answered, in a hoarse voice, still spinning:
“I drink the snow that melts on the rock, or the green scum that floats on the water of the swamp. But when I have spun well, they give me water from the iron spring. When I sleep, the cold lizards crawl over my face; but when I have well cleaned a mule, they throw me hay. The hay is warm; the hay is good and warm. I put it under my marble feet.”
“What tale art thou telling me?” said Jacques. “I spoke not of thee.”
She continued:
“They make me hold a man while they kill him. Oh, what blood I have had on my hands! God forgive them!—if that be possible. They make me hold his head, and the bucket filled with crimson water. O Heaven!—I, who was the bride of God! They throw their bodies into the abyss of snow; but the vulture finds them; he lines his nest with their hair. I now see thee full of life; I shall see thee bloody, pale, and dead.”
The adventurer, shrugging his shoulders, began to whistle as he passed the second door. Within he found the man he had seen through the chinks of the cabin. He wore the blue berret cap of the Basques on one side, and, enveloped in an ample cloak, seated on the pack-saddle of a mule, and bending over a large brazier, smoked a cigar, and from time to time drank from a leather bottle at his side. The light of the brazier showed his full yellow face, as well as the chamber, in which mule-saddles were ranged round the byasero as seats. He raised his head without altering his position.
“Oh, oh! is it thou, Jacques?” he said. “Is it thou? Although ‘tis four years since I saw thee, I recognize thee. Thou art not changed, brigand! There ‘tis still, thy great knave’s face. Sit down there, and take a drink.”
“Yes, here I am. But how the devil camest thou here? I thought thou wert a judge, Houmain!”
“And I thought thou wert a Spanish captain, Jacques!”
“Ah! I was so for a time, and then a prisoner. But I got out of the thing very snugly, and have taken again to the old trade, the free life, the good smuggling work.”
“Viva! viva! Jaleo!”—[A common Spanish oath.]—cried Houmain. “We brave fellows can turn our hands to everything. Thou camest by the other passes, I suppose, for I have not seen thee since I returned to the trade.”
“Yes, yes; I have passed where thou wilt never pass,” said Jacques.
“And what hast got?”
“A new merchandise. My mules will come tomorrow.”
“Silk sashes, cigars, or linen?”
“Thou wilt know in time, amigo,” said the ruffian. “Give me the skin. I’m thirsty.”
“Here, drink. It’s true Valdepenas! We’re so jolly here, we bandoleros! Ay! jaleo! jaleo! come, drink; our friends are coming.”
“What friends?” said Jacques, dropping the horn.
“Don’t be uneasy, but drink. I’ll tell thee all about it presently, and then we’ll sing the Andalusian Tirana.”—[A kind of ballad.]
The adventurer took the horn, and assumed an appearance of ease.
“And who’s that great she-devil I saw out there?” he said. “She seems half dead.”
“Oh, no! she’s only mad. Drink; I’ll tell thee all about her.”
And taking from his red sash a long poniard denticulated on each side like a saw, Houmain used it to stir up the fire, and said with vast gravity:
“Thou must know first, if thou dost not know it already, that down below there [he pointed toward France] the old wolf Richelieu carries all before him.”
“Ah, ah!” said Jacques.
“Yes; they call him the king of the King. Thou knowest? There is, however, a young man almost as strong as he, and whom they call Monsieur le Grand. This young fellow commands almost the whole army of Perpignan at this moment. He arrived there a month ago; but the old fox is still at Narbonne—a very cunning fox, indeed. As to the King, he is sometimes this, sometimes that [as he spoke, Houmain turned his hand outward and inward], between zist and zest; but while he is determining, I am for zist—that is to say, I’m a Cardinalist. I’ve been regularly doing business for my lord since the first job he gave me, three years ago. I’ll tell thee about it. He wanted some men of firmness and spirit for a little expedition, and sent for me to be judge-Advocate.”
“Ah! a very pretty post, I’ve heard.”
“Yes, ‘tis a trade like ours, where they sell cord instead of thread; but it is less honest, for they kill men oftener. But ‘tis also more profitable; everything has its price.”
“Very properly so,” said Jacques.
“Behold me, then, in a red robe. I helped to give a yellow one and brimstone to a fine fellow, who was cure at Loudun, and who had got into a convent of nuns, like a wolf in a fold; and a fine thing he made of it.”
“Ha, ha, ha! That’s very droll!” laughed Jacques. “Drink,” said Houmain. “Yes, Jago, I saw him after the affair, reduced to a little black heap like this charcoal. See, this charcoal at the end of my poniard. What things we are! That’s just what we shall all come to when we go to the Devil.”
“Oh, none of these pleasantries!” said the other, very gravely. “You know that I am religious.”
“Well, I don’t say no; it may be so,” said Houmain, in the same tone. “There’s Richelieu, a Cardinal! But, no matter. Thou must know, then, as I was Advocate-General, I advocated—”
“Ah, thou art quite a wit!”
“Yes, a little. But, as I was saying, I advocated into my own pocket five hundred piastres, for Armand Duplessis pays his people well, and there’s nothing to be said against that, except that the money’s not his own; but that’s the way with us all. I determined to invest this money in our old trade; and I returned here. Business goes on well. There is sentence of death out against us; and our goods, of course, sell for half as much again as before.”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Jacques; “lightning at this time of year?”
“Yes, the storms are beginning; we’ve had two already. We are in the clouds. Dost hear the roll of the thunder? But this is nothing; come, drink. ‘Tis almost one in the morning; we’ll finish the skin and the night together. As I was telling thee, I made acquaintance with our president—a great scoundrel called Laubardemont. Dost know him?”
“Yes, a little,” said Jacques; “he’s a regular miser. But never mind that; go on.”
“Well, as we had nothing to conceal from one another, I told him of my little commercial plans, and asked him, when any good jobs presented themselves, to think of his judicial comrade; and I’ve had no cause to complain of him.”
“Ah!” said Jacques, “and what has he done?”
“Why, first, two years ago, he himself brought, me, on horseback behind him, his niece that thou’st seen out there.”
“His niece!” cried Jacques, rising; “and thou treat’st her like a slave! Demonio!”
“Drink,” said Houmain, quietly stirring the brazier with his poniard; “he himself desired it should be so. Sit down.”
Jacques did so.
“I don’t think,” continued the smuggler, “that he’d even be sorry to know that she was—dost understand?—to hear she was under the snow rather than above it; but he would not put her there himself, because he’s a good relative, as he himself said.”
“And as I know,” said Jacques; “but go on.”
“Thou mayst suppose that a man like him, who lives at court, does not like to have a mad niece in his house. The thing is self-evident; if I’d continued to play my part of the man of the robe, I should have done the same in a similar case. But here, as you perceive, we don’t care much for appearances; and I’ve taken her for a servant. She has shown more good sense than I expected, although she has rarely ever spoken more than a single word, and at first came the delicate over us. Now she rubs down a mule like a groom. She has had a slight fever for the last few days; but ‘twill pass off one way or the other. But, I say, don’t tell Laubardemont that she still lives; he’d think ‘twas for the sake of economy I’ve kept her for a servant.”
“How! is he here?” cried Jacques.
“Drink!” replied the phlegmatic Houmain, who himself set the example most assiduously, and began to half shut his eyes with a languishing air. “‘Tis the second transaction I’ve had with this Laubardemont—or demon, or whatever the name is; but ‘tis a good devil of a demon, at all events. I love him as I do my eyes; and I will drink his health out of this bottle of Jurangon here. ‘Tis the wine of a jolly fellow, the late King Henry. How happy we are here!—Spain on the right hand, France on the left; the wine-skin on one side, the bottle on the other! The bottle! I’ve left all for the bottle!”
As he spoke, he knocked off the neck of a bottle of white wine. After taking a long draught, he continued, while the stranger closely watched him:
“Yes, he’s here; and his feet must be rather cold, for he’s been waiting about the mountains ever since sunset, with his guards and our comrades. Thou knowest our bandoleros, the true contrabandistas?”
“Ah! and what do they hunt?” said Jacques.
“Ah, that’s the joke!” answered the drunkard. “‘Tis to arrest two rascals, who want to bring here sixty thousand Spanish soldiers in paper in their pocket. You don’t, perhaps, quite understand me, ‘croquant’. Well, ‘tis as I tell thee—in their own pockets.”
“Ay, ay! I understand,” said Jacques, loosening his poniard in his sash, and looking at the door.
“Very well, devil’s-skin, let’s sing the Tirana. Take the bottle, throw away the cigar, and sing.”
With these words the drunken host began to sing in Spanish, interrupting his song with bumpers, which he threw down his throat, leaning back for the greater ease, while Jacques, still seated, looked at him gloomily by the light of the brazier, and meditated what he should do.
A flash of lightning entered the small window, and filled the room with a sulphurous odor. A fearful clap immediately followed; the cabin shook; and a beam fell outside.
“Hallo, the house!” cried the drunken man; “the Devil’s among us; and our friends are not come!”
“Sing!” said Jacques, drawing the pack upon which he was close to that of Houmain.
The latter drank to encourage himself, and then continued to sing.
As he ended, he felt his seat totter, and fell backward; Jacques, thus freed from him, sprang toward the door, when it opened, and his head struck against the cold, pale face of the mad-woman. He recoiled.
“The judge!” she said, as she entered; and she fell prostrate on the cold ground.
Jacques had already passed one foot over her; but another face appeared, livid and surprised-that of a very tall man, enveloped in a cloak covered with snow. He again recoiled, and laughed a laugh of terror and rage. It was Laubardemont, followed by armed men; they looked at one another.
“Ah, com-r-a-d-e, yo-a ra-a-scal!” hiccuped Houmain, rising with difficulty; “thou’rt a Royalist.”
But when he saw these two men, who seemed petrified by each other, he became silent, as conscious of his intoxication; and he reeled forward to raise up the madwoman, who was still lying between the judge and the Captain. The former spoke first.
“Are you not he we have been pursuing?”
“It is he!” said the armed men, with one voice; “the other has escaped.”
Jacques receded to the split planks that formed the tottering wall of the hut; enveloping himself in his cloak, like a bear forced against a tree by the hounds, and, wishing to gain a moment’s respite for reflection, he said, firmly:
“The first who passes that brazier and the body of that girl is a dead man.”
And he drew a long poniard from his cloak. At this moment Houmain, kneeling, turned the head of the girl. Her eyes were closed; he drew her toward the brazier, which lighted up her face.
“Ah, heavens!” cried Laubardemont, forgetting himself in his fright; “Jeanne again!”
“Be calm, my lo-lord,” said Houmain, trying to open the eyelids, which closed again, and to raise her head, which fell back again like wet linen; “be, be—calm! Do-n’t ex-cite yourself; she’s dead, decidedly.”
Jacques put his foot on the body as on a barrier, and, looking with a ferocious laugh in the face of Laubardemont, said to him in a low voice:
“Let me pass, and I will not compromise thee, courtier; I will not tell that she was thy niece, and that I am thy son.”
Laubardemont collected himself, looked at his men, who pressed around him with advanced carabines; and, signing them to retire a few steps, he answered in a very low voice:
“Give me the treaty, and thou shalt pass.”
“Here it is, in my girdle; touch it, and I will call you my father aloud. What will thy master say?”
“Give it me, and I will spare thy life.”
“Let me pass, and I will pardon thy having given me that life.”
“Still the same, brigand?”
“Ay, assassin.”
“What matters to thee that boy conspirator?” asked the judge.
“What matters to thee that old man who reigns?” answered the other.
“Give me that paper; I’ve sworn to have it.”
“Leave it with me; I’ve sworn to carry it back.”
“What can be thy oath and thy God?” demanded Laubardemont.
“And thine?” replied Jacques. “Is’t the crucifix of red-hot iron?”
Here Houmain, rising between them, laughing and staggering, said to the judge, slapping him on the shoulder.
“You are a long time coming to an understanding, friend; do-on’t you know him of old? He’s a very good fellow.”
“I? no!” cried Laubardemont, aloud; “I never saw him before.”
At this moment, Jacques, who was protected by the drunkard and the smallness of the crowded chamber, sprang violently against the weak planks that formed the wall, and by a blow of his heel knocked two of them out, and passed through the space thus created. The whole side of the cabin was broken; it tottered, and the wind rushed in.
“Hallo! Demonio! Santo Demonio! where art going?” cried the smuggler; “thou art breaking my house down, and on the side of the ravine, too.”
All cautiously approached, tore away the planks that remained, and leaned over the abyss. They contemplated a strange spectacle. The storm raged in all its fury; and it was a storm of the Pyrenees. Enormous flashes of lightning came all at once from all parts of the horizon, and their fires succeeded so quickly that there seemed no interval; they appeared to be a continuous flash. It was but rarely the flaming vault would suddenly become obscure; and it then instantly resumed its glare. It was not the light that seemed strange on this night, but the darkness.
The tall thin peaks and whitened rocks stood out from the red background like blocks of marble on a cupola of burning brass, and resembled, amid the snows, the wonders of a volcano; the waters gushed from them like flames; the snow poured down like dazzling lava.
In this moving mass a man was seen struggling, whose efforts only involved him deeper and deeper in the whirling and liquid gulf; his knees were already buried. In vain he clasped his arms round an enormous pyramidal and transparent icicle, which reflected the lightning like a rock of crystal; the icicle itself was melting at its base, and slowly bending over the declivity of the rock. Under the covering of snow, masses of granite were heard striking against each other, as they descended into the vast depths below. Yet they could still save him; a space of scarcely four feet separated him from Laubardemont.
“I sink!” he cried; “hold out to me something, and thou shalt have the treaty.”
“Give it me, and I will reach thee this musket,” said the judge.
“There it is,” replied the ruffian, “since the Devil is for Richelieu!” and taking one hand from the hold of his slippery support, he threw a roll of wood into the cabin. Laubardemont rushed back upon the treaty like a wolf on his prey. Jacques in vain held out his arm; he slowly glided away with the enormous thawing block turned upon him, and was silently buried in the snow.
“Ah, villain,” were his last words, “thou hast deceived me! but thou didst not take the treaty from me. I gave it thee, Father!” and he disappeared wholly under the thick white bed of snow. Nothing was seen in his place but the glittering flakes which the lightning had ploughed up, as it became extinguished in them; nothing was—heard but the rolling of the thunder and the dash of the water against the rocks, for the men in the half-ruined cabin, grouped round a corpse and a villain, were silent, tongue-tied with horror, and fearing lest God himself should send a thunderbolt upon them.