Almost did those unhappy women of the cordon, or chain-gang--those skeletons clad in rags--thank God that something was occurring down below in the great city, the nature of which they could not divine beyond the fact that it was horrible, and must be something portentous, since it delayed their descent from the hill towards the ships that were, doubtless, now waiting in the harbour to transport them to New France. For, whatever the cause might be--whether the city were in flames, or attacked by an enemy from the sea, or set on fire in different places by the recent lightning--at least they were enabled to rest; to cast themselves upon the dank earth that reeked with the recent rain; to lie there with their eyes closed wearily.
Yet, amongst those women was one who knew--or guessed, surely--what was the cause of those flames; what they signified. The dark woman of Hérault--the woman who, as a child, had listened to stories told of not so many years ago, when, forth from this smoking city which lay now at their feet, had rushed countless people seeking the pure air of the plains and mountains; people seeking to escape from the stifling and pestiferous poison of the pest that was lurking in the narrow, confined streets of Marseilles.
"It has come to the city again," she whispered in Laure's ear, as the latter lay prostrate by her side--chained to her side--"As it has come, they say, more than thirty times since first Christ walked the earth--since Cæsar first made the place his. It must be that it has come again."
"What?" murmured Laure, not understanding. "What has come? Freedom or death? Which is it?"
"Probably both," Marion Lascelles answered. "Freedom and death. Both."
Then, because her eyes were clearer than the eyes of many by whom she was surrounded, and because her great, strong frame had resisted even the fatigues and the miseries of that terrible journey from Paris to which so many of her original companions had succumbed--to which all had succumbed, more or less!--she was able to observe that the mounted gendarmes and the warders and gaolers were holding close consultation; and that, also, they looked terror-stricken and agitated. She was able to observe, too, that a moment later they had been joined by a creature which had crept up the hill to where they were, and had slowly drawn near to them. Yet it had done so as though half afraid to approach too close, or as one who feared that he might be beaten away as an unknown dog is driven off on approaching too near to the heels of a stranger.
Thrusting her brown, sunburnt hands through her matted, coal-black hair, now filled and clotted with mud that had once been the dust of the long weary roads she had traversed until the rain turned it into what it was, she parted that hair from off her eyes and glared transfixed at the figure. It was that of a man almost old, his sparse white locks glistening in the rays of the moon which now overtopped the brow of the hill behind them--yet it was neither the man's age nor his grey hairs that appalled her. Instead, it was his face, which was of a loathsome yellow hue--it being plainly perceptible in the moonbeams--as is the face of a man stricken to death with jaundice; a face covered, too, with huge carbuncles and pustules, and with eyes of a chalky, dense white, sunken in the hollow sockets.
"It is," Marion muttered hoarsely to herself, "the pest. That man is sickening, has sickened of it. God help us all! Slave-drivers and slaves alike. I saw one like him at Toulon once." And again she muttered, "God help us all!"
Above her murmur, which hardly escaped beyond her white, clenched teeth, there rose a shout from those whom she termed to herself the slave-drivers--a shout of fury and of horror.
"Away, leper!" cried the man who had been the most stern of all the guards, on seeing this figure near to him and his companions; "away, or I shoot you like a dog," and he wrenched a great horse pistol from out his belt as he spoke. "Away, I say, to a distance. At once."
The unfortunate, yellow-faced creature did as he was bidden, dragging himself wearily off for several paces, while falling once, also, upon one knee, yet recovering himself by the aid of a huge knotted stick he held in his hands; then he turned and said in a voice which, though feeble, was still strong enough to be heard:
"In the name of God give me some water. I burn within. Oh! that one should live and yet endure such agony!"
"You shall have water--later," a warder answered. "Only, approach not on peril of your life. Presently, a jar of water for you shall be carried to a spot near here." Then the speaker asked huskily, and in a voice which trembled with fear, "Is it the pest? Down there--in the city?"
"It is the pest," the man replied, his awful white eyes gleaming sickeningly. "They die in hundreds daily. Whole families--whole streets of families--are dead. All mine are gone--my wife and seven children. I, too, am stricken after nursing, burying them. I cannot live. In pity's sake, put that jar of water where I can reach it ere--ere they come forth!"
"They come forth?" the guards of the cordon exclaimed all together. "Ere who come forth?"
"Many who are still left alive. All are fleeing who can leave the city. It is a vast tomb. Hundreds lie dead in the streets--poisoning, infecting the air. Also, the dogs--they, too, are stricken, through tearing them. The rooks, likewise, who have swooped down upon the bodies. God help me! The water! The water The water! Ere they come."
Perhaps it was compassion, perhaps fear, perhaps the knowledge that ere long they, too, might be burning inwardly from the same cause as that which now affected this unhappy man, which caused those brutal custodians to take pity on his sufferings. But, from whatever cause it might be, at least that pity was shown. A flat, squat bottle holding about a pint was taken by one of them to a little rising knoll some seventy yards away and put on the ground; then the pest-stricken man was told he might go to it.
By now, even as he hobbled and dragged himself on his stick towards that knoll, his white eyes gleaming horribly, the women of the chain-gang had somewhat recovered from the stupor in which they had been lying; some besides Marion Lascelles had even sat up upon the rain-steeped ground and had heard all that had passed. And, now, they raised their voices in a shrill clatter, shrieking to their custodians:
"Release us! Release us! Set us free! We are not doomed to this; instead, we are on our road to freedom. Strike off these accursed irons; let us find safety somewhere. None meant that we should perish thus," while Marion's voice was the loudest, most strident of all, since she was the strongest and the fiercest.
A common fear--a common horror--was upon everyone by now: women prisoners and captors, or custodians, alike; all dreaded what was impending over them. Wherefore their cries and shrieks, which, before this day, would have been answered with the lash or the heavy riding wand, were replied to almost kindly.
"Have patience, good women," the gendarmes and guards replied, "have patience. All may yet be well. If the vessels are in the port they will soon carry you to sea; to a pure air away from this."
Yet still more hubbub arose from all the women. Those very women who, upon the weary journey, had prayed that each day might be their last, screamed at this time for life and safety and preservation from this awful death--the death by the pest.
"Turn us back," they wailed. "Turn us back. It has not penetrated inland, or we should have heard of it on the route. Turn us back, or set us free to escape by ourselves. 'Tis all we ask. It is our due. The law desires not our death. Above all, no such death as this!"
But again their guardians bade them have patience, telling them that soon they would be on board the transports and well out upon the pure bosom of the ocean.
"Well out!" cried Marion Lascelles, her voice still harsh and strident, her accent defiant and contemptuous. "Well out to sea! Yes, after traversing that fever-stricken city from one end to the other to reach the docks. How shall we accomplish that; how will you, who must accompany us? You! You, too! Can we pass through Marseilles unharmed? Can you?" and again she emphasised the "you," while striking terror into the men's hearts and making them quake as they sat on their horses or reclined in the carts. "All are doomed. We, the prisoners. You, the gaolers."
Those men knew it was as she said; they knew that their lives were subject to as much risk, were as certain to be forfeited, as the lives of the wretched women in their charge. Whereon they trembled and grew pale, especially since they remembered that this was a woman of the South, and, therefore, one who doubtless understood what she spoke of. The people of the Midi had been reared from time immemorial on legends telling of the horrors of the earlier pests.
Whatever terrors were felt by either prisoners or custodians, women or men, were now, however, to be doubly, trebly intensified. They were to see, here, upon this rising upland of sunburnt and, now, rain-soaked grass, sights even more calculated to make their hearts beat with apprehension, their nerves tingle, and their lips turn more white.
Forth from the smitten, pestiferous city lying at their feet--that city which now flared with a hundred fires lit to purify it, if possible--there came those who could escape while still life remained, and while the poisonous venom of the scourge had not reduced them to helplessness. They came dragging themselves feebly if already struck by the disease; swiftly if, as yet, the fever had not penetrated their systems nor death set its mark upon them. Walking rapidly in some cases, crawling in others; running, almost leaping, if able to do so. Doing anything, thereby to flee away in the open; out into the woods and plains and mountains--anything to leave behind the accursed city in which the houses were empty or only filled with corpses; the accursed streets in which the dead bodies of men and women, of dogs and crows, lay in huddled masses.
A band of nuns passed first--their heads bound in cloths that had been steeped in vinegar into which gunpowder had been soaked; their holy garments trailing on the ground, their rosaries clattering as they went along, their faces white with terror though not with disease. These were good, pious women, many of them young, who, until now, when the panic of dread had seized upon them, had nursed the sick and dying under the orders of their saintly bishop, Henri de Belsunce de Castlemoron, but who, at last, had yielded to the fear that was upon all within Marseilles, and had fled. They had fled from their cloisters out into the open, rushing away from the city of death, shrieking to those who were stricken to keep off from them in the name of God and all his Saints; even arming themselves with what were called the "Sticks of St. Roch," namely, canes from eight to ten feet long, wherewith to ward off and push aside the passers-by and, especially, the dogs which were supposed to be thoroughly infected from the dead bodies at which they sniffed and sometimes tore. Nay, not supposed only, since the creatures had already perished by hundreds from having done so.
Running by their side, endeavouring to keep up with those over whom, but a little while ago, she had ruled with a stern, unbending power, went the mother superior, a fat, waddling woman, whose face may have been comely once, but was now drawn with fright and terror. Yet--with perhaps some recollections left in her mind, even now, of the sanctity and charity that should be the accompaniment of her holy calling--she paused on seeing the group of worn, sunburnt, and emaciated women sitting there under the charge of their frightened warders, and asked who and what they were?
"Galley slaves," one of these warders answered; "at least, emigrants. They go to New France. Can we pass through the city, think you, holy mother, or reach the ships without danger? Can we go on to safety and pure breezes?"
"Alas!" the woman answered, gathering up her skirts even as she spoke, so as to flee as swiftly as might be after her flock, which had gone on without pausing when she herself did so. "Alas, there are no ships. The galleys are moored outside 'tis true, but all else have put to sea to escape. Turn back if you are wise. Ah!" she cried with a scream, a shriek, as some other fugitives from the city passed near her, their eyes chalky white, their faces yellow and blotched with great livid carbuncles. "Oh, keep off! keep off!" And she waved her long stick around her and then rushed precipitously after her band of nuns.
But still the refugees came forth, singly, in pairs, in families. Some staggered under burdens which they bore, such as bags containing food or jars holding water. Numbers of women carried not only babes in their arms and folded to their breasts, but others strapped on to their backs. Some men wheeled hand barrows before them with their choicest household goods flung pell-mell into them; some, even, had got rough vehicles drawn by horses or cows--in one or two instances by dogs, and in another by a pig--by the side of which they walked while their stricken relatives lay gasping within. Yet, even as these latter passed along, that which was most distinctive in their manner was the horror which those who still remained unstruck testified for those who were stricken, yet whom the ties of blood still prompted them to save. A son passed along with his aged mother dying on the truck he pushed before him, yet he had bound his mouth up with vinegar-steeped cloths so that her infected breath should not be inhaled by him; a husband, whose wife was at the point of death, bore, fastened on his chest, a small iron tray on which smoked burning sulphur, so that he should inhale those fumes. Others, too, carried flasks and bottles of spirituous liquors, from which they drank momentarily; some smoked incessantly enormous pipes full of rank, coarse tobacco, and drew into their lungs as much of the fumes as they could bear.
There, too, passed flying domestics and servitors, upon whose coarse hands sparkled rich and sumptuous rings never made to be worn by such as they, and carrying in those hands strong boxes and jewel boxes. None need have asked how they became possessed of such treasures as these! Imagination would have told at once of dead or dying employers, of dark houses rifled, and of robbery successful.
Yet these fugitives were such as, up to now, had escaped the deadly breath of the pest, and were not so horrible as those stricken by that breath. These latter were too awful to behold as they staggered along moaning, "I burn! I burn!" and then flung themselves down to lick the rain-water off the grass beneath them, or to thrust their parched tongues into rivulets formed by the recent downpour. They flung themselves down, never, in many cases, to stagger to their feet again. Exhausted they lay where they fell, and so they died.
The stream of refugees ceased not. Under the rays of the now risen moon they poured forth continuously from the flaming city beneath them, their faces lit also by the crimson-illuminated sky above. They came on in numbers, running or walking, breathlessly if strong, staggering, falling, moaning, shrieking sometimes, if already attacked by the pest.
And Marion Lascelles sitting up upon the sodden hill slope, her hands holding back her matted hair so that the soft wind now blowing from above should not cause it to obscure her eyes, saw all these passers-by, and felt a horror in her soul that she had never before known in her tempestuous life. While, also, she saw something else, and whispered in the ears of the half inanimate Laure what it was that she perceived. "Observe, dear one," she muttered, "observe. The guards, all of them, the gaolers and gendarmes move. They mix with that rushing crowd; see, they disappear; almost, it seems, they dissolve into the night. One understands what they have determined to do. They flee, too; they dare not face this thing. They depart, leaving us here. The cowards!" And if eyes as well as lips could hurl contemptuous curses at others, the woman of the South hurled them now at the departing captors.
"For," she said a moment later, "the safety the creatures seek they do not give us the opportunity of finding as well. They have left us chained and manacled so that we, on our part, cannot escape."
The night wind rose as the hours went by, so that at last the cool breezes brought ease, and, in a manner, restoration to those unhappy women lying or sitting upon the slope of the hill which lay to the north of Marseilles. Gradually, under its influence, many of them began to feel more strength coming to their wasted and aching limbs, while others, who up to now had been dazed and stupefied at the end of their journey, began to understand that the long and terrible march from Paris was at last concluded; that, henceforth, there was to be no more dragging of weary, bleeding feet along league after league of rough and stony roads.
Unhappily, however, as this fact dawned upon them, so did another and more hideous one--the awful, ghastly fact that they had but escaped from one terror to be surrounded by a second to which the first was almost a trifle.
As their senses came back to many of them, such senses being aroused by the continual excitement of the talk amongst those who were already awake or had never slept since their arrival, they grasped this fact, and became aware of what was now threatening them. They grasped the fact that death in a more horrid garb than that which it had previously worn had to be faced, and was around them; close to them; and about to seize them in an awful embrace.
Some started to their feet shrieking as this knowledge dawned upon them, while clanking their chains as they did so, and endeavouring to tear from off their necks the loathsomecarcan, or collar, in their frenzy, or to rush away from where they were back to the great plain through which they had passed but a day or so ago, or up to the vine-clad heights of which they had caught a sight as they drew near to the end of their journey. Anywhere! Anywhere, away from this new terror which threatened them. Then, even as they wailed aloud, while some cast themselves upon their knees and prayed to be spared from the horrible contagion into which they had advanced, the voice of Marion Lascelles was heard speaking to them, counselling them as to what they should do, what measures take to preserve themselves from this fresh calamity. And, because, all along that dreary road which stretched from Paris in the north to Marseilles in the south, this woman's strong, indomitable courage and contempt for suffering and misfortune had cheered and comforted them, they hearkened to her now. They welcomed, indeed, any words that fell from her lips.
"Listen," she said, "my sisters in misery. Listen to me. Of what use is it for each to try and wrest from off her neck the accursedcarcanthat encloses it, to tear from off her wrists the accursed cordon that binds her to her neighbour? It is impossible; not that they might be thus easily parted with, did the warder rivet them to us in Paris. Yet, how else have we progressed here but with them on; how progressed along dusty roads, beneath the burning sun, the beating rains, over mountains and across valleys. We have done this, I say to you, yet now the night is fresh and cool."
"Thank God for that. For that," they murmured.
"Ay, thank Him for that. 'Tis well we do so, sinners as most of us are. We need His help and blessing. But, hear me. Can we not also retreat together, as we have advanced over all these leagues to this plague-stricken spot? Can we not?"
But no more words were required from her; already they understood and grasped her meaning. It was simple enough, yet, heretofore, their despair and frenzy had prevented them from conceiving that, together, they might escape from this place, as, together, they had reached it.
With cries of rejoicing and exultation they prepared to do what she suggested; to flee at once from this awful spot. To join those who were still pouring out of the city unceasingly, even though the depth of the night was now upon them; to follow in the wake of those who had already gone. They knew--those previous fugitives--they must know--where to flee for safety; to follow them was to reach that safety themselves.
Weak, enfeebled as they were, they prepared to act upon Marion's advice; staggeringly they formed themselves once more into the lines in which they had marched day after day and week after week; they turned themselves about to unwind the tangled chains which ran from the first woman of the chain-gang to the last, and placed themselves in order to at once depart. And it seemed easier to their poor bruised bodies, easier, too, to their aching hearts, to thus set about these preparations for seeking safety since there were now no longer brutal gendarmes nor custodians, nor guards of any kind to lash them with whips or curse them with foul oaths.
Wherefore they turned back, commencing at once to retrace the road they had come and walking in the same order as they walked from the first--since the position of none could be altered. And by Marion's side was Laure, as ever.
"You are refreshed," the former said to her companion; "you can accomplish this? Strive--oh! strive--poor soul, to be brave! Remember, every step we take, every moment, removes us farther and farther from the risk of this awful thing. Be brave, dear one," and, herself still strong and brave, unconquered and unconquerable, she placed her arm around that of her more delicate fellow-prisoner and helped her upon the way.
"I will be brave," Laure answered. "I will struggle to the end. My heart is broken, death would be welcome--yet not such a death as this. Oh! Marion, I do not desire to die thus--like those," and she pointed to some of the awful yellow-faced victims who were being wheeled or dragged along, or were staggering by themselves to the mountains and open country. "Yet, surely," she added, "the risk is as great here as in the city below, so long as we keep in their vicinity. Is it not?"
"Ay, it is," the other answered. "Yet we will break off from them ere long. Alas! these chains. If we were only free of them we could all separate; you and I could climb that little hill together which rises over there; we could go on and on until the feverous breath of the pest was left behind. But we can do nothing. All must stay together."
Still they went on, however--not swiftly, because amongst them there was not one, not even Marion herself, who could progress otherwise than slowly, owing to the fatigue that was upon them after their long march, and owing, also, to the weight of their irons, as well as to the fact that they were almost famished. Their last meal had been eaten at midday, and they had been promised a full one by their late guardians on entering the gates of Marseilles. Yet, now, they were retreating from Marseilles, and there were no guardians left to provide for them. When, Marion wondered, would they ever eat again; how would food be found for the mouths of all in their company? There were still some twenty women left chained together; how could they be fed?
Even, however, as she reflected on all this, another thought arose in her mind; one that had had no existence in it for many hours, or, indeed, days.
"Where is the men's chain-gang, I wonder?" she mused aloud. "The men who, poor wretches, are in many cases our newly-made husbands. Where can they be? They were ahead of us all the way; therefore, since we have not passed them, and since, also, we halted within musket-shot of the city, it follows that they, at least, have entered the doomed place--are doomed themselves. Great God! we who survive this are as like as not to be widows again soon," and she laughed a harsh, strident laugh that had no mirth in it, but was born of the bitterness within her.
Those words "our newly-made husbands" gave rise to thoughts in Laure's own sad heart that she would willingly have stifled if she had possessed the power to do so. They recalled memories that (when she had not been too dazed--almost too delirious--to dwell upon them during the horrors of the past six weeks) she had endeavoured to dispel. Memories of the noble Englishman who had sacrificed his existence for her--nay! if that villain Desparre had spoken truth, his very life--and whose sacrifice had obtained for her no more than the state of misery in which she was now plunged.
"Yet," she whispered, half to herself, half aloud, so that Marion heard her words; "yet, almost I pray that he may be dead----"
"Your husband?" the other interrupted. "You pray that he may be dead! He who gave up all for you--the man whom you love. Whom, Laure, you know you love?" For still Marion insisted, as she had insisted often enough before during the journey, that Laure had come to love Walter Clarges.
"Yes--I even pray for that--sometimes," the girl answered. "For--for if he lives, how doubly vile must he deem me. What must he think of me, supposing--supposing that Desparre lied--that he was not dead--that he was not even met by that villain and his myrmidons--that the whole story was false!"
"What should he think!" exclaimed Marion, not, in truth, grasping Laure's meaning. "What should he think?"
"What? Why think that but I used him for my own selfish purposes to escape from marriage with Desparre, as, God forgive me, was the case; and that, once he had left me alone in his home, I next escaped from him. How can he know--how dream of what befell me? Who was there to tell him of what happened in that room? Even I, myself, know nothing of what occurred from the time I fell prostrate at Desparre's feet, until I awoke a prisoner in that--that prison, which I only left for this," and she cast her eyes despairingly around upon her miserable companions and upon the flying inhabitants of the stricken city who still went on and on, their one hope being to leave the place behind.
But the brave heart, the strong mind of Marion Lascelles--neither of which could be subdued by even that which now encompassed them--would not for an instant agree to such hopelessness as her companion expressed. Instead, she cried:
"Nay, nay. He would not do so. Believe that Desparre lied when he said that your husband was dead, since how could such a creeping snake as that slay such as he was, one so noble. Believe he lived, and, thus living, returned to find you gone. But, in doing so----"
"He would hate, despise, loathe me. He would deem me what I was, base and contemptible, and so, God help me! endeavour to forget. He would remember nothing except that he had parted with his freedom for ever to save so vile a thing as I."
"Again I say nay, Laure," and now Marion's voice sank even lower, her tone became more deep. "Laure, I know the hearts of men--God helpme, too!--I have had cause to know them--bitter cause, brought about sometimes by my own errors, sometimes by their own wickedness. And I--I tell you, you have judged wrongly. This man, this Englishman, loved you with his whole heart and soul; he loves you still."
"Alas! alas! it cannot be," Laure murmured. "It is impossible."
"At first," Marion went on, "he may, it is true, deem that you used him only as a tool. He may do so because no man who ever lived has yet understood woman's nature--ever sounded the depths of that nature. Therefore, not knowing, as they none of them know, our hearts, he may at first believe, as you say, that you sacrificed his existence to your salvation. Not understanding, not guessing in his man's blindness that, as he made the sacrifice, so the love for him sprang newborn into your heart. Is it not so, Laure? Here in the midst of all these horrors with which we are surrounded, here with death close at hand, with infection in the air, ready to seize on one or all at any moment, answer me. Speak truth as you would speak it on your death-bed. You love him--loved him from that moment? Answer! Is it not so?"
"Yes," Laure said, faintly, her whisper being almost drowned in the soft, cool breeze that came sweeping over them from the distant mountain-tops of the Basses Alpes. "Yes, I loved him from the first--from the moment when he took me to his house. Oh, God!" she murmured, "when he told me that we must part, deeming that I could never love him, almost I threw myself at his feet, almost I rushed to his arms beseeching him to fold me in them, to stay by my side for ever. And now--now--we shall never meet again."
"Never meet again, perhaps," said Marion, scorning to hold out hopes to the other that she could not believe were ever likely to be realised; "yet of one thing be sure, namely, that he will seek for you. As time goes on he will learn the truth--how, I cannot tell, yet surely he must learn it--and then--and then no power on earth, nothing short of the will of God will prevent him from seeking for you."
"And finding me dead. Here, or in the new land to which we go."
"The new land to which we go!" Marion echoed, scornfully. "The new land to which we go! I doubt if that will ever be. If it were not for these cursed irons we should be free now--free for ever. We could disperse singly, or in couples, wander forth over France, even seek other lands. And--and you could write to him."
"Ah!" Laure exclaimed. "Write to him! To do that! Oh, Marion, Marion, you are so strong, so brave! Set us free! Set us free! Set us free!" Alas! that Marion should have spoken those words, or have let them fall on Laure's ears, thus raising desires and expectations never to be gratified. There was no freedom to come to them--none from so awful a captivity as that which was now to enslave them.
For, even as Laure uttered her wail for freedom, which was born of her companion's hopeful words, the atom of liberty they possessed--the liberty of being able to remove from this fever-tainted spot to some other that remained still unpoisoned by the breath of the pestilence, although shackled and chained altogether--was taken away.
There came up swiftly behind them a band of men; they were a number of convicts, drawn from the galleys lying at the Quai de Riveneuve, as well as several of the beggars of Marseilles, known as "the crows:" beggars who were employed and told off to act under the orders of the sheriffs in removing the dead from the streets, in lighting nightly the fires to purge the city, and in fulfilling the duties of the police--mostly dead themselves by this time.
And in command of them were two sheriffs.
"These are the women, the emigrants," one of the latter said to the other. "'Twas certain they could not be very far behind the men." Then the speaker, who was mounted, rode his horse up to where this group of desolate, forlorn wanderers stood hesitating while appalled by the sudden stoppage of their escape, and said--
"Good women, whither are you going? Your destiny is Marseilles, en route for New France."
For a moment those unhappy women stood helpless and silent, gazing into each other's worn faces, not knowing what answer to make or what to say. In truth they were paralysed with the fear that was upon them, namely, that they were about to be driven into the infected city, paralysed also with grief at their escape being cut off.
"Answer," the Sheriff said, not speaking harshly. And then, with all the eyes of her companions in misery fixed on her and bidding her plainly enough to act as their mouthpiece, Marion said--
"Those who drove us from Paris here have fled in fear of the contagion that is amongst you. We, too, have sought to flee away from it. The law which condemned us to transportation to New France, to be followed by our freedom, did not condemn us to this."
"You speak truth," the Sheriff said, his voice a grave and solemn, yet not unkindly, one. "Yet you must go on with what you are sent here for. And--and--we need women's help here, such help as nursing and so forth. You must come with us and stay until the ships, which have put to sea in fear, return to transport you to New France."
"It is tyranny!" Marion Lascelles exclaimed. "Tyranny to force us thus!"
"Not so," the Sheriff replied. "Not so. You will be treated well; your freedom will begin at once. Your irons shall be struck off now. Also, while you remain with us and work for us--heaven knows how we require assistance--you shall have a daily wage and good food. But--you must come."
"We shall die," Marion exclaimed, acting still as the spokeswoman of all. "And our deaths will lie at your door."
But still the Sheriff spoke very gently, saying that, even so, they must do as he bid them. Then, next, he ordered some of the convicts to stand forward and remove their chains and collars, so that even the short distance to be accomplished ere reaching the city should be no more irksome than possible.
After which he said to the group of women, many of whom were sobbing around him, some with fear of what they were about to encounter, and some with joy at losing at last, their horrible, hateful iron burdens.
"Do not weep. Do not weep. Already is our once bright, joyous city a vale of tears. Nay, there can be, I think, no more tears left for us to shed. I myself can weep no more. I who, in the last week, have buried my wife, my two daughters, and my little infant babe."
"Oh! oh!" gasped Marion and Laure and all the women standing round who heard the bereaved man's words. "Oh! Unhappy man. Unhappy man!"
The little watering-place of Eaux St. Fer, which stood on the slope of a hill some few leagues outside Montpelier, and nearer than that city to the southern sea-board, was very full this summer; so full, indeed, that hardly could the visitors to it be accommodated with the apartments they required. So full that, already it had incurred the displeasure of many of those patrons--who were mostly of the ancient nobility of France--at their being forced to rub shoulders with, and also live cheek by jowl with, such common persons as--to go no lower--those of the upper bourgeoisie. Yet it had to be done--the doing of it could not be avoided; for this very year the waters of Eaux St. Fer had bubbled forth a degree warmer than they had ever been known to do before; they tasted more of saltpetre than any visitor could recollect their having done previously, and tasted also more unutterably nauseous; while marvellous cures of gout and rheumatism, and complaints brought on by overeating and overdrinking and late hours, as well as other indulgences, were reported daily. Even at this very moment the gossips staying at The Garland (the fashionable hostelry) were relating how Madame la Marquise de Montesprit, who was noted for eating a pâté of snipe every night of her life for supper, was already free from pain and able to sit up in her bed and play piquet with the Abbé Leri, whose carbuncles were fast disappearing from his face; while, too, the Chevalier Rancé d'Irval had lost eight pounds of his terrible weight, and the Vicomtesse de Fraysnes had announced that in another week she would actually appear without her veil, so much improved was her complexion. Likewise, it was whispered that, only a day or so before, three casks of the atrociously tasting water had been sent up to Paris to no less a person than the Regent himself.
Wherefore Eaux St. Fer was full to suffocation; dukes, duchesses, and all the other members of what was even then called the old régime, were huddled together pell-mell with bankers, merchants, even eminent shopkeepers and tradesmen; and, except that in the principal alley, or walk, it was understood that the nobility kept to one side of it, and those whom they termed the "refuse" to the other, one could hardly have told which were the people who boasted the blood of centuries in their veins, and which were those who, if they knew who their grandfathers were, knew no more. And, after all, when one's blood is corrupted by every indulgence that human weakness can give way to until the body is like a barrel, and the legs are like bolsters, and the face is a mass of swollen impurity, or as white as that of a corpse within its shroud, it matters very little whether that blood is drawn from ancestors who fought at Ascalon and Jerusalem or peddled vulgar wares in the lowest purlieus of cities.
"Mon ami!" exclaimed one of the high-born dames, who kept to the right side of the alley, to an aristocrat who sat on a bench beneath a tree close by where one of the fountains of Eaux St. Fer bubbled forth its waters, "Mon ami, you do not look well this morning. Yet see how the sun shines around; observe how it shows the wrinkles beneath the eyes of Mademoiselle de Ste. Ange over there, and also the paint on the face of the old Marquis de Pontvert. You should be gay, mon ami, this morning."
"I am not well," replied the personage whom she addressed. "Neither in health nor mind. Sometimes I wish I were a soldier again, living a life of----"
"Neither in health nor mind!" the lady who had accosted him repeated. "Come, now. That is not as it should be. Let us see. Tell me your symptoms. First, for the health. What ails that?" and, as she asked the question, she peered into the man's dull eyes with her own large clear ones. Then she continued, "Remember, Monsieur le Duc, that, although an arrangement once subsisting between us will never come to a settlement now, we are still to be very good--friends. Is it not so?" Yet, even as she asked the question, especially as she mentioned the word "friends," she turned her face away from him on the pretence of flicking off some dust from her farthest sleeve, and smiled, while biting her full, red nether lip with her brilliantly white teeth.
Then she turned back to him, saying: "Now for the health. What is the worst?"
"Diane, I suffer. I burn----"
"Already!" she exclaimed. And the Marquise laughed aloud at her own cruel joke; a merry little, rippling laugh, and one more befitting a girl of twenty than a woman nearly double that age. And her blue eyes flashed saucily--though some might, however, have said, sinisterly. Then she begged the other's pardon, and desired him to continue.
But, annoyed, petulant at her scoff, he would not do so; instead, he turned his white face away from where she had taken a seat beside him, and watched the other members of his own order strolling about under the trees, their hats, when men, under their arms, their dresses, when women, held up in many cases by little page boys.
She, on her part, did not press him to continue. She had strolled forth that morning from The Garland, where she had been fortunate enough to secure rooms for herself and her maid, with the full determination of meeting Monsieur le Duc Desparre and of conversing with him on a certain topic, her own share in which conversation she had rehearsed a thousand times in the last seven months, and she meant to do so still; but as for his health, or his mental troubles, she cared not one jot. Indeed, had Diane Grignan de Poissy been asked what gift of Fate she most desired should be accorded to her old lover at the present time, she would doubtless have suggested that a long, lingering illness, which should prevent him from ever again being able to enjoy, in the slightest degree, the fortune and position he had lately inherited, would be most agreeable to her. For this man sitting by her side had, in his poverty, been her lover, he had accepted substantial offerings from her under the guise of her future husband, and, in his affluence, had refused to fulfil his pledge to her--a Grignan de Poissy by marriage, a Saint Fresnoi de Buzanval by birth--a woman notorious, famous, for her beauty even now!
No wonder she hated the "cadaverous infidel"--as often enough she termed him in her own thoughts--the man now seated by her side.
Her presence in this resort of the sick and ailing was, like that of many others, simply for her own purpose. Some of those others came to keep assignations; some to win money off well-to-do invalids who, although rushing with swift strides to their tombs, could not, nevertheless, exist without gaming; some to carry on here the same life which they led in Paris, but which life there was now at a standstill and would be so until the leaves began to fall in the woods round and about the capital. As for her, Diane Grignan de Poissy, she needed neither to drink unpleasant waters that tasted of iron and saltpetre, nor to bathe in them, nor to follow any regimen; though, to suit her own ends, she gave out that she did thus need to do so. Instead, and actually, in all her thirty-eight years she had never know either ache or pain or ailment, but had revelled always in superb health, notwithstanding the fact that she had been a maid of honour once at Versailles to a daughter of the old King--that now-forgotten "Roi Soleil!"--and had taken part since in many of the supper parties given by Philippe le Débonnaire.
Yet in spite of all, she was here, at Eaux St. Fer.
Presently she spoke again, saying in a soft, subdued voice, into which she contrived to throw a contrite tone--
"Armand, dear friend, you are not going to quarrel with me for a foolish word; a silly joke! Armand, the memories of the past brought me here--to see you. I heard that you were suffering, and also--that--that--you--could not recover from the trick put upon you by that girl--Laure Vauxc----"
"Silence!" he said, turning swiftly round on her. "Silence! Never mention that name, that episode again in my hearing. It has damned me in the eyes of Paris--of France--for ever. It has heaped ridicule on me from which I can never recover. It is that--that--that--which has broken me down. Neither Tokay, nor late nights--as I cause it to be given out--nor----" He paused in his furious words, then said a moment later, "Yet, so far as he, as she, are concerned, I have paid the score. He is dead, she worse than dead."
"I know, I know," she murmured, her blue eyes almost averted, so that he should not observe the glance that she felt, that she knew, must be in them. "I know. Let us talk of it no more. Armand, forget it."
"Forget it! I shall never forget it. What can I do to drive it from my own thoughts or to drive the memory of my humiliation by that beggar's brat from out the memory of men--of all Paris!"
"Ignore it. Again I say, forget. Thus you cause others to do so." Then, as though she, at least, had no intention of saying aught that might re-open, or help to re-open, the wounds caused to his vanity by the events of the winter, she picked up idly a book he had been glancing at when she drew near him, and which had fallen on to the crushed-shell path of the alley as they conversed. She picked it up and began turning its fresh white pages over.
"It amuses you?" she asked. "This thing?" And she read out the title of one of Piron's latest productions, the comic opera, "Arlequin Deucalion."
"One must do something--to pass the time. If we cannot see a play, the next best thing is to read one."
"Alas," his companion exclaimed, "the plays of to-day are so stupid--so puerile! No plot, no characters bearing truth to life. Now I! Now I--ah!----" she broke off. "Look at that! And just as we speak, too, of plays and playwriters. Behold, Papa de Crébillon. Mon Dieu! What is the matter with him. He jabbers like a monkey. Yet still he bows with grace--the grace of a gentleman."
"He suffers from gout atrociously," Desparre muttered.
In truth, the figure which now approached the pair seated in the alley might have been either of the things which Diane Grignan de Poissy had mentioned, a monkey or a gentleman. His face was a drawn and twitching one, filled with innumerable lines and with, set into it, deep sunken eyes, while his manners were--for the period--perfect, his bow that of a courtier, and worthy of the most refined member of the late Louis' court. For the rest, he was a man of over forty years of age, and was renowned already as the author of the popular dramas "Electra," "Atreus," and "Idomeneus." By his side walked a lad, his son, Claude Prosper, destined to be better known even than his father, though not so creditably.
"Good morning, Monsieur de Crébillon," cried the bright and joyous Diane--bright and joyous as she assumed to be!--while the dramatist drew near to where she and her companion were seated beneath the acacias. "You are most welcome. 'Tis but now we were talking of plays and dramas--lamenting, too----"
"Ah! Madame la Marquise!" exclaimed the dramatist at the word "lamenting," while his face twitched worse than before, since assumed horror was added to it now. "Lamenting; no! no! madame! lament nothing. At least there is, I trust, nothing to lament in our modern drama."
"Ay, but there is though!" the Marquise said. Then assuming an air of playful reproof, she went on: "How is it that you all miss plot in your productions now? Why have you no secrets reserved for the end--for the dénouement, for the last moment ere they make ready to extinguish the lights. Eh! Answer me that. Hardy was the last. Since then it is all pompous declamation, heavy versification, dull pomp, and thunder. Hardy belonged to a past day, but at least he excited his listeners, kept them awake for what was to come--what they knew would come--what they knew must come."
"Madame has said it----" the dramatist bowed at this moment to three ladies of the aristocracy who passed by, while Desparre rose from his seat to greet them with stiff courtesy, and Diane Grignan de Poissy smiled affectionately. "Hardy did belong to a past day. We have changed all that, Corneille changed it." At the name of Corneille he bowed again solemnly. "Yet," he said, "plot is no bad thing. A little vulgar and straining, perhaps, yet sufficiently interesting."
"Monsieur de Crébillon," Desparre exclaimed here, he not having spoken a word before or acknowledged the dramatist's presence, except by a glance, "you may be seated. There is a sufficiency of room upon this bench."
With a gleam from his sunken eyes--which might have meant to testify thanks to Monsieur le Duc, or might have meant to convey contempt--was he not already a popular favourite among the highest ranks of the aristocracy in Paris, and, even here, in Eaux St. Fer, one of those to whom the fashionable side of the alley was thrown open as a right!--he took his seat upon the vacant space on the other side of the Marquise. Then, from out the hollow caverns of his eye-sockets he regarded her steadily, while he said--
"Has Madame la Marquise by chance any protegé among her many friends who has written a play with a plot? An embryo Hardy, for example. Almost, if a poor poet might be permitted to have a thought," and again his glance rested with contempt on Desparre; "I would wager such to be the case. Some gentleman of her house who deems that he has the sacred fire within him----"
"Supposing," interrupted Diane, "that one who is no poor gentleman--but--but--as a matter of fact--myself--had conceived a good drama, a--a--story so strange that she imagined it might amuse--nay--interest an audience. Suppose that! Would it be possible to----?"
"Madame," exclaimed le Duc Desparre, "have you turned dramatist. Are you about to become a bluestocking?"
"Why not?" she asked, with a swift glance that met his; a glance that reminded him--he knew not why--of the blue steely glitter of a rapier. "Why not? Have not other women of France, of my class, done such things?"
"Frequently," de Crébillon replied, answering the question addressed to the other. "Frequently. Yet--yet--never that I can recall in public, before the lower orders, the people. But to pass a soirée away, to amuse one's friends in the country. That would be another thing. A little comedy now,--with a brilliant, startling conclusion--"
"Mine is not a comedy!"
"Perhaps," questioned the dramatist, "a great classical tragedy? With a dénouement such as was used in early days?"
"Nay, a drama. One of our own times."
Still, as she spoke, she kept her eyes fixed full blaze upon de Crébillon--yet--out of the side of them--she watched Monsieur le Duc. And it might be that the sun was flickering the shadows of the acacia leaves upon his face and, thereby, causing that face to look now as though it were more yellow than white. She thought, at least, that this was the tinge it was assuming. Yet--she might be mistaken.
"Will you not tell us, Madame la Marquise, something of this plot, at least?" the duke asked, "give us some premonition of what this subject is. Or prepare us for what we are to expect when this drama sees the day?"
And she knew that his voice trembled as he spoke. "Nay, nay, Monsieur le Duc," the dramatist exclaimed, "to do that would destroy the pleasure of the representation. It would remove expectancy--the salt of such things." Then, turning to the Marquise, he asked: "Is Madame's little play written, or, at present, only conceived? If so, I should be ravished to read it; to myself alone, or to a number of Madame's friends. There are many here, in Eaux St. Fer. And the after dinner hours are a little dull; such an afternoon would compensate for much."
"The plot is alone conceived. It is in the air only. Yet it is all here," and she tapped with her finger on her white forehead over which the golden hair curled crisply.
"Will Madame la Marquise permit that I construct a little play for the benefit of her friends? The saloon of The Garland will hold all she chooses to invite. Doubtless, Monsieur le Duc will agree with me that no more ravishing entertainment could be provided in Eaux St. Fer, which is a little--one may say--a littletriste--sometimes."
Heavily, stolidly, Monsieur le Duc bowed his head acquiescingly; though, had it been in his power to do so, he would have thrown obstacles in the way of the Marquise's little plot ever falling into de Crébillon's hands. He had seen something in that steely glitter of her blue eyes which disturbed him, though he scarcely knew why such should be the case--yet, also, he could not forget that this was a woman whom he had wronged in the worst way possible to wrong such as she--by scorning her in his prosperity. Therefore he was disturbed.
Half an hour later the alley was deserted, the visitors were going to their dinners, it was one o'clock. The Duc had departed to his, the Marquise Grignan de Poissy was strolling slowly towards The Garland, there to partake of hers; de Crébillon and his son walked by her side. And, as they did so, the dramatist said a word.
"Always," he remarked quietly, "I have thought that Madame la Marquise was possessed of the deepest friendship for Monsieur le Duc."
"Vraiment!" she exclaimed, transfixing him with her wondrous eyes. "Vraiment!And has Monsieur de Crébillon seen fit to alter that opinion?" To which the other made no answer, unless a shrug of his lean shoulders was one.