As the mountebank walked out of the apartment of the Governor's daughter, he drew himself up with an air of expectancy, like a man preparing for some sudden climax. Once beyond the threshold, his eyes glanced furtively back at the closed door, and, descending the stairs to the floor below, he carried his head a little forward, as if intent to catch unwonted sound or outcry. But no raised voice or unusual noise reached his ear, and his footsteps, as the party issued forth into the street, responded briskly to the soldiers' pace. Still with the same air of strained attention, now mingled with a trace of perplexity, he followed his guard until called upon to stop.
"You are to sleep here!" As he spoke, the commandant opened the door of what seemed a low out-building, not very far from the general barracks, and motioned the mountebank to enter. The latter, after glancing quickly at the speaker and the soldiers behind, bent to step across the dark threshold, and, still stooping, on account of the low roof, looked around him. By the faint glimmer of light from a lantern one of the soldiers held, the few details of that squalid place were indistinctly revealed: A single stall whose long-eared occupant turned its head inquiringly at the abrupt appearance of a companion lodger; bits of harness and a number of traps hanging from pegs on the wall, and, near the door, on the ground, a bundle of grass, rough fodder from the marshes close by the shore. This last salt-smelling heap, the officer, peering in with a fastidious sniff, indicated.
"That's your bed! A softer one than you would have had but for the Lady Elise!"
The prisoner returned no answer, and in the voice of a man whose humor was not of the best, the commandant uttered a brief command. A moment or two the light continued to pass fitfully about the stable; then it and the moving shadows vanished; a key grated in the door, and the sound of the officer's receding footsteps was followed by the diminishing clatter of men's heels on the flagging stone. Not until both had fairly died away in the distance and the silence was broken only by certain indications of restiveness from the stall, did the prisoner move.
First, to the door, which he tried and shook; then, avoiding the pile of fodder, to the wall, where, feeling about the rough masonry with the energy of one who knew he had no time to spare, his hands, ere long, encountered the frame of a small window. Any gratification, however, he might have experienced thereat found its offset in the subsequent discovery that the window had heavy iron blinds, closed and fastened, and was further guarded by a single strong bar set in the middle, dividing the one inconsiderable aperture into two spaces of impassable dimensions. But as if spurred by obstacles to greater exertions, fiercely the man grasped the metallic barrier, braced himself, and put forth his strength. In its setting of old masonry, the rod moved slightly; then more and more, and the prisoner, breathing a moment hard, girded himself anew. A wrench, a tug, and the bar, partly disintegrated, snapped in the middle, and holding the pieces, the prisoner fell somewhat violently back. Armed now with an implement that well might serve as a lever, he, nevertheless, paused before endeavoring to force the formidable fastenings of the blinds; paused to tear off the tight-fitting clown's cap; to doff the costume of the mountebank covering the rough, dark garments beneath, and vigorously to rub his face with some mixture he took from his pocket. He had made but a few passes to remove the distinguishing marks of paint and pigment, when a sound without, in the distance, caused him to desist.
Footsteps, that grew louder, were coming his way, and, gripping his bar tighter the prisoner grimly waited; but soon his grasp relaxed. The sound was that of a single person, who now paused before the entrance; fumbled at the lock, and, with an impatient exclamation, set something down. At the same time the prisoner dropped his weapon and stooped for the discarded garments; in the dark, they escaped him and he was still searching, when the bolt, springing sharply back, caused him to straighten.
"Are you there, Monsieur Mountebank?" The door swung open; an uncertain light cast sickly rays once more within, and beneath the lantern, raised above his head, innocent of the danger he had just escaped, the round visage of the good-natured soldier who had escorted the mountebank to theauberge des voleurslooked amicably and inquiringly into the darksome hovel.
"Yes; what do you want?" the answer came more curt than courteous.
"What do I want?" the fellow repeated with a broad smile. "Now that's good! Perhaps it would be more to the point to ask what do you want? And here," indicating a loaf and jug in his hand, "I've got them, though why the commandant should have cared, and ordered them brought—"
"He did?" said the prisoner, with a flash of quick surprise. "Well, I'm not hungry, but you can leave them."
"Not hungry?" And the soldier, who seemed a little the worse for liquor, but more friendly in consequence, walked in. "I don't wonder, though," he went on, closing the door, hanging his lantern above and placing the jug on the ground; "in such a foul hole! What you need, comrade, is company, and," touching significantly his breast, "something warmer than flows from the spring of St. Aubert."
"I tell you," began the mountebank, when the soldier, staring, got a fair look at the other for the first time and started back.
"Eh? What's this?"
"Oh, I took them off! You don't suppose I'd sleep in my white clothes in such a dirty—"
"Right you are, comrade!" returned the other, seating himself before the door on a three-legged stool he found in a corner. "But for the moment you gave me a start. I thought you some other person."
"What—person?"
"No one in particular. You might," unbuttoning his coat to draw forth a bottle, "have been any one! But I dare say you have had them off in worse places than this—which, after all, is not bad, compared to some of the rooms for guests at the Mount!"
"You mean?" The mountebank looked first at the closed blinds; then at the door, and a sudden determination came to his eyes.
"Those especially prepared for the followers of the Black Seigneur, taken prisoners near Casque, for example!"
"They are dungeons?"
"With Jacques for keeper! The little sexton, we call him, because the prisoners go generally from the cells to the pit, and the quicklime is the hunchback's graveyard!"
"This Jacques—" A growing impatience shone ominously from the prisoner's glance; his attention, that of a man straining to catch some expected sound without, focused itself on the speaker. "This Jacques—what sort of quarters has he?"
"Oh, he lives anywhere; everywhere! Sometimes at the thieves' inn; again in one of the storehouses near the wheel. They say, though, he is not a great hand to sleep, but passes most of his time like a cat, prowling in and out the black passages and tunnels of the Mount. But," abruptly breaking off, "the play—that's what I want to know about! The end! How did it end?"
"I'm in no mood for talking."
"Take the bottle, an' it'll loosen your tongue!"
"No."
"What! you refuse?"
"Yes."
"Then," philosophically, "must I drink alone."
"Not here!"
"Eh?"
"Will you get out, or—" and the mountebank stepped toward the other with apparently undisguised intention.
"So that's your game?" Quickly the soldier sprang to his feet. "I must teach you a little politeness, my friend—how we deal with uncivil people in the army!" And throwing off his coat, as ready for a bout at fisticuffs as for an encounter of words, the soldier confronted the clown. "When I'm done, you'll sing that song of the stick out of the other side of the mouth, and think your wicked peasant received a coddling from his master in comparison!"
But the mountebank did not answer—with words—and the soldier was still threatening, and painting dire prophetic pictures of what he intended doing, when a strong arm closed about him; fingers like iron gripped his throat, and, for some moments thereafter, although of unusual size and vigor, the man was more concerned in keeping his feet than in searching his vocabulary for picturesque imagery. Then, in spite of his struggles and best endeavors to free himself, he felt his head forced backwards; the grasp on his neck tightened. Still he could not shake off that deadly hold, and, aware that consciousness was gradually leaving him, his efforts relaxed. After that, for an interval, he remembered nothing; but with returning realization and a vague sense of stiffness in his throat, in a rough sort of way was prepared to accept defeat; acknowledge the other's supremacy, and seal that acknowledgment over the bottle.
Only the mountebank afforded him no opportunity thus to toast the "best man"; with a long strap of leather snatched from one of the pegs, he had already bound the hands and feet of his bulky antagonist, and was just rising to survey his handiwork, when the other opened his eyes.
"Here! What do you mean?" exclaimed the soldier, when even the power vocally to express further surprise or indignation was denied him, in consequence of something soft being thrust between his teeth; and mute, helpless, he could but express in looks the disgusted inquiry his lips refused to frame.
"No! it's no joke," answered the mountebank, rapidly passing an end of the strap, binding the soldier, about a post of the stall and securing it, sailor-wise. "A poor return for hospitality, yet needs must, when the devil drives!" quickly seizing a handful of marsh grass from the ground and rubbing it over his face. "Anyhow, you'll be none the worse on the morrow," stepping toward the lantern, "while I—who can say? He laughs best—" About to blow out the flame, he stopped, attracted by something his foot had thrust aside; a garment; the soldier's! A moment he surveyed it; stooped; picked it up. "Unless I am mistaken," casting aside his own coat, slipping on that of the soldier, and then donning the latter's cap, which had fallen in the struggle, "we are about of a size. And this sword," unfastening the belt from the prostrate jailer, "should go with the coat." A moment his words, tense, reckless, continued to vibrate in the soldier's ears, then: "I'll leave you the lantern!" And darkness fell over the place.
Boldly, a little uncertainly, as the soldier had walked, the mountebank, now, to all appearance, a man of the ranks in the service of his Excellency, the Governor, strode down the wide, stone-paved way separating the outhouses and a number of desultory ancient structures from the officers' quarters, hard against the ramparts. In the sky's dome the stars still shone, although a small mottled patch of cloud obscured the moon; on either side no lights appeared in windows, and friendly shadows favored him, until he approached at the end of the way the broad, open entrance between the soldiers' barracks and the officers' row. There, set in the stone above the key of the time-worn arch, flared a smoky lamp, dimly revealing the surrounding details; but the young man did not stop; had drawn quite close to the medieval structure, when unexpectedly another tread, on the soldiers' side of the entrance, mingled with his own; rang for a moment in unison; then jingled out of time. He who approached came to a sudden standstill; cast a quick glance over his shoulder, only to be brought to an abrupt realization that it was now too late to retreat. A black silhouette, suddenly precipitated across the pavement, preceded a dark figure that stepped quickly out and barred the way, while at the same time, a voice, loud and incisive, challenged.
The stillness of the moment that followed was tense; then thickly the young man answered something irrelevant about a clown, a bottle and a loaf; with cap drawn down and half-averted face, he lurched a little forward in the darkness, and the sentinel's weapon fell. "Oh, that's you, is it, Henri?" he said in a different tone, stepping back. "How did you leave the fellow?"
"Eating the bread and calling for more!" As he spoke, the other stopped, swaying uncertainly; above the arch, the wick, ill-trimmed, brightened and darkened to the drafts of air through break and slit of the old lamp; and briefly he awaited a favorable moment, when the flame blew out until almost extinguished; then with hand near sword-hilt, somewhat over-briskly, but in keeping with the part, he stepped toward the arch; through it, and quickly past the sentinel.
"You seem to have been feasting and drinking a little yourself, to-night, comrade?" called out the latter after him. "I noticed it when you went in, and— But aren't you taking the wrong way?" As the other, after starting toward the barracks, straightened, and then abruptly wheeled into the road, running up the Mount.
"Bah!" A moment the young man paused. "Can't a soldier," articulating with difficulty, "go to see his sweetheart without—"
"Eh bien!" The sentinel shrugged his shoulders. "It isn't my business. I think, though, I know where they'll put you to-morrow, when they find out through the guard at the barracks."
To this ominous threat the other deigned no response, only, after the fashion of a man headstrong in insobriety, as well as in affairs of gallantry, continued his upward way; at first, speedily; afterward, when beyond hearing of the man below, with more stealth and as little noise as possible, until the road, taking a sudden angle, brought him abruptly to an open space at the foot of a great flight of stone stairs.
Broad, wide, broken by occasional platforms, these steps, reaching upward in gradual ascent, had designedly, in days gone by, been made easy for broken-down monarchs or corpulent abbots. Also they had been planned to satisfy the discerning eye, jealous of every addition or alteration at the Mount. My lord, the ancient potentate, leisurely ascending in ecclesiastical gown, while conscious of an earthly power reaching even into England, could still fancy he was going up a Jacob's ladder into realms supernal. Saint Louis, with gaze benignly bent toward the aërialescalier de dentelleof the chapel to the left, might well exclaim no royal road could compare with this inspiring and holy way; nor is it difficult to understand a sudden enchantment here, or beyond, that drew to the rock on three pilgrimages that other Louis, more sinner than saint, the eleventh of his name to mount the throne of France.
But those stones, worn in the past by the footsteps of the illustrious and the lowly, were deserted now, and, for the moment, only the moon, which had escaped from the cloud, exercised there the right of way; looking squarely down to efface time's marks and pave with silver from top to bottom the flight of stairs. It played, too, on façades, towers and battlements on either side, and, at the spectacle—the disk directly before him—the Black Seigneur, about to leave the dark and sheltering byway, involuntarily paused. Angels might walk unseen up and down in that effulgence, as, indeed, the old monks stoutly averred was their habit; but a mortal intrusion on the argent way could be fraught only with visibility.
To reach the point he had in mind, however, no choice remained; the steps had to be mounted, and, lowering his head and looking down, deliberately he started. As he proceeded his solitary figure seemed to become more distinct; his presence more obtrusive and his echoing footsteps to resound louder. No indication he had been seen or heard, however, reached him; to all appearances espionage of his movements was wanting, and only the saint with the sword at the top of the steeple—guardian spirit of the rock—looked down, as if holding high a gleaming warning of that unwonted intrusion.
Yet, though he knew it not, mortal eye had long been on him, peering from a window of the abbot's bridge spanning the way and joining certain long unused chambers, next to the Governor's palace, with my lady's abode. Against the somber background of that covered passage of granite, the face looking out would still have remained unseen, even had the young man, drawing near, lifted his glance. This, however, he did not do; his eyes, with the pale reflections dancing in them, had suddenly fastened themselves lower; toward another person, not far beyond the bridge; some one who had turned in from a passage on the other side of the overhead architectural link, and had just begun to come down. An old man, with flowing beard, from afar the new-comer looked not unlike one of the ancient Druids that, in days gone by, had lighted and watched the sacred fires of sacrifice on the rock. He, too, guarded his light; but one set in the tall, pewter lamp of the medieval watchman.
"Twelve o'clock and all's—" he began when his glance, sweeping down, caught sight of the ascending figure, and, pausing, he leaned on his staff with one hand and shaded his eyes with the other.
A half-savage exclamation of disappointment was suppressed on the young man's lips; had he only been able to attain that parallelogram of darkness, beneath the abbot's passage, he would have been better satisfied, his own eyes, looking ahead, seemed to say; then gleamed with a bolder light.
"A sword and bladeA drab and a jade;All's one to the King's men of the army!"
he began to hum softly, as with a more reckless swing, quickly he went up in the manner of a man assigned some easy errand. At the same time the patriarch slowly and rather laboriously resumed his descent, and just below the bridge, without the bar of shadow, the two came together.
"Think you it is too late for his Excellency, the Governor, to receive a message?" at once spoke up the younger, breaking off in that dashing, but low-murmured, song of the barracks.
"That you may learn from the guard at the palace," was the deliberate answer, as, raising his lamp, the watchman held it full in his questioner's face.
"Thanks! I was going to inquire." As he answered, at the old abbot's window in the bridge above, the face, looking out, bent forward more intently; then quickly drew back. "Good night!"
But the venerable guardian of the inner precinct was not disposed thus lightly to part company. "I don't seem to know you, young man," he observed, the watery, but keen and critical eyes passing deliberately over the other's features.
"No?" Unflinching in the bright glare of the lamp, the seeming soldier smiled. "Do you, then, knowallat the Mount—even the soldiers?"
"I should remember even them," was the quiet reply.
"Those, too, but lately brought from St. Dalard?"
"True, true! There may be some of those—" uncertainly.
"No doubt! So if you will lower your lamp, which smells rather vilely—"
"From the miscreants it has smelled out," answered the old man grimly, but obeyed; stood as if engrossed in the recollections his own response evoked; then turned; walked on, and, a few moments later, his call, suddenly remembered, rang, belated, in the drowsy air: "Twelve o'clock and all's well! A new day, and St. Aubert guard us all!"
"A sword and a blade;A drab and a jade—"
The words, scarcely begun, above his breath, died away on the seeming soldier's lips, as the watcher on the bridge, looking down to follow first the departing figure of the old custodian, crossed quickly to the opposite window, and, from this point of vantage, gazed up after the young man rapidly vanishing in the track of the moonlight. A moment the onlooker stood motionless; then, ere the figure, so vividly defined in shine and shimmer, had reached the top of the stairway, made an abrupt movement and swiftly left the window and the passage.
At the head of the steps, which without further incident or interruption, he reached, the Black Seigneur, stepping to the shadow of a small bush against the wall, glanced about him; with knit brows and the resolute manner of one who has come to some definite conclusion, he left the spot for observation, almost the apex of the Mount, and plunged diverging to the right. From glint and shimmer to darkness unfathomable! For some time he could only grope and feel his way, after the fashion of the blind; fortunately, however, was the path narrow; although tortuous, fairly well paved, and no serious mishap befell him, even when he walked forward regardlessly, in feverish haste, beset with the conviction that time meant all in all, and delay the closing of the toils and the failure of a desperate adventure. Several times he struck against the stones; once fell hard, but picked himself up; went on the faster, only, after what seemed an interminable period, to stop.
"Am I, can I be mistaken?"
But the single star he could see plainest from the bottom of the deep alley, and to which he looked up, answered not the fierce, half-muttered question; coldly, enigmatically it twinkled, and, half running, he continued his way, to emerge over-suddenly into a cooler well of air, and—what was more to be welcomed!—an outlook whereof the details were in a measure dimly shadowed forth.
On one side the low wall obscured not the panorama below—a ghost-like earth fading into the mist, and nearer, the roof of theauberge des voleurs, a darkened patch on the slope of the rock; but in this direction the man hardly cast a glance. Certain buildings ahead, austere, Norman in outline, absorbed his attention to the exclusion of all else, and toward them, with steps now alert and noiseless, he stole; past a structure that seemed a smallsalle des gardeswhose window afforded a view of four men nodding at a table within; across a space to another passage, and thence to a low door at the far corner of a little triangular spot, alongside the walk and near a great wall. At once the young man put out his hand to the door; tried it; pushed it back and entered. Before him a wide opening looked out at the sky, framing a multitude of stars, and from the bottom of this aperture ran a strand, or rope, connecting with an indistinct object—a great wheel, which stood at one side!
As old as church or cloister, the massive wheel of the Mount had, in the past, played prominent part in the affairs of succeeding communities on the rock. It, or the hempen strand it controlled, had primarily served as a link between the sequestered dwellers, and the flesh-pots and material comforts of the lower world. Through its use had my lord, the abbot, been ever enabled to keep full the mighty wine-butts of his cellars; to provide good cheer for the tables of the brethren, and to brighten his cold stone interiors with the fresh greens of Flemish tapestry, or the sensuous hues of rugs and fabrics from seraglio or mosque. Times less ancient had likewise claimed its services, and even in recent years, by direction of his Excellency, the Governor, had it occasionally been used for the hoisting of goods, wares, or giant casks, overcumbersome for men or mules.
Toward this simple monkish contrivance, the summit's rough lift, or elevator, wherein serfs or henchmen had walked like squirrels in a cage to bring solace to generations of isolated dwellers, the Black Seigneur had at first stepped impetuously; then stopped, hardly breathing, to look over his shoulder at the door that had been left unfastened. An involuntary question flashing through his brain—the cause of this seeming carelessness—found almost immediate answer in his mind, and the certainty that he stood not there alone—a consciousness of some one else, near, became abruptly confirmed.
"What are you doing, soldier?" A voice, rough, snarling, drew swiftly his glance toward a presence, intuitively divined; an undersized, grotesque figure that had entered the place but a few moments before and now appeared from behind boxes and casks where he had been about to retire to his mattress in a corner.
"What do you want?" repeated this person, the anger and viciousness on his distorted features, revealed in the moonlight from the large opening, like that of some animal unwarrantedly disturbed.
"You, landlord of the thieves' inn!" And inaction giving way to movement on the intruder's part, a knife that had flashed back in the hand of the hunchback, with his query, was swiftly twisted from him and kicked aside, while a scream of mingled pain and rage became abruptly suppressed. Struggling and writhing like a wildcat, Jacques proved no mean antagonist; with a strength incredible for one of his size, supplemented by the well-known agility of his kind, he scratched, kicked, and had managed to get the other's hand in his mouth, when, making an effort to throw off that clinging burden, the Black Seigneur dashed the dwarf's head violently against the wooden support of the place. At once all belligerency left the hunchback, and, releasing his hold, he sank to the ground.
An instant the intruder regarded the inert form; then, going to the door, latched and locked it with a key he found inside. Having thus in a measure secured himself from immediate interruption without—for any one trying the door would conclude the wheel-room vacant, or that the dwarf slept there or in the store-house beyond—the Black Seigneur walked to the aperture, and reaching up, began to pay out the rope from a pulley above. As he did so, with feet braced, he leaned over to follow in its descent a small car along the almost perpendicular planking from the mouth of the wheel-room to the rocks, several hundred feet below.
A sudden slackening of the rope—assurance that the car, at the end of the line, had reached the loading-spot below without the fortifications—and the young man straightened; in an attitude of attention, stood listening. But the stillness, impregnated only with a faint underbreath, the far-away murmur of water, or the just audible droning of insects near the fig-trees on the rocks, continued unbroken. An impatient frown gathered on his brow; more eagerly he bent forward to gaze down, when through the air a distant sound—the low, melancholy hoot of an owl—was wafted upward.
Upon him at the aperture, this night-call, common to the Mount and its environs, acted in magical manner, and swiftly had he stepped toward the wheel, when an object, intervening, stirred; started to stagger to its feet. At once was the young man's first impelling movement arrested; but, thus forcibly drawn from his purpose, he did not long pause to contemplate; his hand, drawing the soldier's sword, held it quickly at the hunchback's throat.
"A sound, and you know what to expect!"
With the bare point at his flesh, Jacques, dully hearing, vaguely comprehending, could, indeed, guess and the fingers he had involuntarily raised to push the bright blade aside, fell, while at the same time any desire to attempt to call out, or arouse the guard, was replaced by an entirely different emotion in his aching brain. Never before had he actually felt that sharp touch—the prelude to the final thrust. At the sting of it, a tremor ran through him, while cowardice, his besetting quality, long covered by growl and egotism in his strength and hideousness to terrify, alone shone from his unprepossessing yellow features.
"You were brave enough with the soldiers at your beck!" went on a determined voice whose ironical accents in no wise served to alleviate his panic. "When you had only a mountebank to deal with! But get up!" contemptuously. "And," as the hunchback obeyed, his crooked legs shaking in the support of his misshapen frame, "into the wheel with you!"
"The wheel!" stammered the dwarf. "Why—what—"
"To take a little of your own medicine!Pardi! What a voluble fellow! In with you, or—"
With no more words the hunchback, staggering, hardly knowing what he did, entered the ancient abbot's machine for hoisting. But as he started to walk in the great wheel at the side of his captor, a picture of the past—the times he, himself, had forced prisoners to the wheel, stimulating with jeer and whip—arose mockingly before him, and the incongruous present seemed, in contrast, like a black waking dream.
That it was no dream, however, and that the awakening would never occur, he well knew, and malevolently though fearfully he eyed the rope, coming in over the pulley at the aperture; to be wound around and around by a smaller wheel, attached to the larger, and—drawing up what?
An inkling of the sort of merchandise to be expected, under the circumstances, could but flash through his mind, together with a more vivid consciousness of the only course open for him—to cry out, regardless of consequences! Perhaps he might even have done so, but at that instant—as if the other had read the thought—came the cold touch of a bare blade on his neck; and with a sudden chill, the brief heroic impulse passed.
More stealthily now he began to study his companion in the wheel, while a question, suddenly occurring, reiterated itself in his brain. This man—who was he? And what did he know of the mountebank, or his, Jacques', dealings with the clown? That his captor was no soldier of the rock, or belonged there, the hunchback felt by this time assured, and a growing suspicion of the other's identity brought home with new force to the dwarf the thankless part chance, perhaps, had assigned to him in that night's work. And at the full realization of the consequences, should his surmise prove correct—what must ultimately happen to himself in that event, when unwilling coöperation at the wheel should become known—almost had he again reached the desperate point of calling out; but at that moment a turn in the wheel brought to the level of the aperture, the car. In it, or clinging thereto, were a number of figures who, as soon as the rope stopped, sprang noiselessly to the platform.
"Seigneur, we hardly dared hope—"
"We obeyed orders, but—"
Gazing through the spokes of the wheel, and listening to their whispered exclamations, any lingering doubt as to who his captor was could no longer be entertained by the hunchback. These new-comers took no pains to conceal it; even when the dwarf's presence became known to them and unceremoniously was he dragged forth—they displayed a contemptuous disregard of him as a factor to interfere, not calculated to dull the edge of his apprehension! Too late now might he regret that pusillanimity that had caused him to draw back from an immortal rôle; already was the car again descending!
It came up loaded; went down once more, reappeared. On the little platform now were more than a dozen men assembled, but to Jacques this force looked multiplied. Amid the confusion of his thoughts, vaguely could he hear orders given; caught something about the need for quiet, haste, overpowering the guard; then saw the door open, and the men, like shadows, go out; leaving him alone. No; with two black figures; ominous; armed. He could see the glitter of their weapons, and ventured to move his thick tongue, when, fiercely silenced, he crouched down; waited, with hands clenched, an interminable period; until faintly from afar sounded the note of a night-bird.
Roughly jerked to his feet, between them he walked to the door; heard it close; stepped out into the night. Many times had he made his way between wheel-room and guard-house, but now the route seemed strange, and, looking around near the structures at the entrance to his dungeons Jacques shook his head as if to rid his brain of some fantasy. But the scene did not change; the guard-house remained—familiar; unlike, with unknown faces peering from it, and an imperious voice issuing commands to him, once unquestioned commander here!
And comprehending what was being said, he struck his breast violently; with curses would have answered that the keys were his own; the dungeons, too, and what they held, and that he would never lead them there; never open those doors! But this grim, savage, determined band beat down his arms, and his courage; and, with the shadow of the grave again before him, the dwarf walked on; past the stable into the guard-house, where familiar forms once had been seated, and into the passage leading to the dungeons beyond.
The footfall of the Black Seigneur, near the guard-house of the dungeons, was measured, yet noiseless, as he stepped on the soft earth, alongside the stone walk, now toward the passage in the direction of the wheel-room, then back into the little square. That his thoughts, however, moved not in accord with that deliberate stride, the brows impatiently knit, and the quick glances he continued to cast over his shoulder, bore testimony.
Stopping at length near the Tour Bernard, he looked fixedly down at the town, wrapped in a stillness that should have reassured him. Nevertheless he appeared not satisfied; and had stepped out into the court again, when some sound he heard, or fancied, sent him quickly to an embrasure in the wall. From this opening—formerly for cannon in defense of thefenils, and thepoulain, or planking for the hoisting of goods—he leaned far out, his glance instinctively turning toward the barracks, some distance to the right and far below. As he stood thus, that which had first attracted his attention—the sound of a voice giving orders—was repeated; at the same time where had been only darkness now shone many windows, while to the left, near the entrance he had passed after leaving the stable, lights began to dance like fireflies.
At these signs of activity and the sounds breaking the general quietude, an exclamation fell from his lips; then, pausing only a moment to listen and observe, he sprang toward the guard-house. Crossing the threshold, defined by a faint glimmer from a distant corner, he made his way past several motionless forms, into a low passage beyond. Here he called out impatiently; but from those depths, leading down into the dungeons where his comrades had gone, no answer was returned. His voice, hollow, mocking, seemed stifled in a tomb; more loudly he shouted; walked farther in, when an indistinct response was followed by a pin-point of light, and, ere long, by the bearer of a little lamp, Sanchez.
"The others?" At the head of a dark stairway into which he would inadvertently have plunged, had he gone farther, the Black Seigneur confronted the man, as he approached.
"They will soon be here," said the old servant, springing up the steps and walking after his master, who had already turned back toward the guard-room. "Jacques—curse him!"—putting out his light in obedience to a gesture from the other—"fumbled with the keys; pretended he couldn't find the right ones! So it took longer to open the doors."
"The prisoners?"
"I left our men working at the last dungeon to come on ahead—to let you know you might soon expect them."
"Soon," ironically, "may be too late."
"You mean—?"
"The hue and cry is out! I have long been expecting it; I do not understand why it didn't come before; unless a mountebank, locked up, was considered safe enough for the night—"
"Then some one knew—?"
"Some one?" A bitter laugh was quickly suppressed on the young man's lips. "Hark! Listen!"
"Sounds below! the soldiers!" exclaimed Sanchez, and started toward the window to look out, only to fall quickly back.
"What is it?" With his hand on the other's shoulder, the Black Seigneur whispered the question.
"A face! At the window!"
"So soon? The hounds are quicker than I thought! Or," drawing his sword, "it may be only one or two in advance. In that case—"
But no enemy, single or plural, met their view, either in front, or at the side of the guard-house; only the darkness, void, empty, and the bare rampart wall winding around the head of the Mount like a monster guardian dragon, asleep at his post.
"Here is no one!"
"No one! Yet am I sure I saw—"
"A shadow!" answered the other. "And we have nothing worse to fight!"
"Some one was there, Seigneur," stubbornly, "and fled!"
"Eh bien! He's gone!"
"He? It looked like a—"
"Back with you, quick! Is this a time for talk? Call those who can come—if they would save their necks!"
"Here they are now," exclaimed the servant, and, as he spoke, the first of their men, blowing out the light he carried, ran quickly across the guard-chamber and into the open air. Others hastily followed, until the gathering, swelled by those brought with them from the dungeons, stood expectantly before the little stone structure.
"All the prisoners are here?"
"All!"
"To the wheel-house, then!"
But as they hastened across the square and into the narrow way, the Black Seigneur again spoke to the man just ahead:
"The hunchback?"
"We left him below, locked up in the Devil's Cage!"
"The Devil's Cage!Quelle bonne plaisanterie! Although," looking back, "it may cost us dear!"
And indeed, behind the sound of pursuit came nearer; the clatter of soldiers' feet grew louder, until, reaching the little square and the guard-house, all tumult suddenly ceased. A momentary silence, strange, ominous, was broken by a din of voices, as the flaring here and there of torches threw grotesque reflections high against the grim background of black masonry.
To those now within the wheel-room, the cause of that abrupt clamor was not difficult to divine; his Excellency's soldiers had found the sentinels overpowered in the guard-house! Would the former stop to investigate; search first those subterranean passages? Already had the prisoners, the weaker of the Black Seigneur's men, filled the car, or hung clinging to the rope above; already was the wheel turning—almost before the key had turned in the lock at the entrance.
"Seigneur!"
"Sanchez?"
"When we left the wheel-room, we closed the door."
"When we got back, it—"
A footfall without interrupted, followed by the sound of a hand at the door, and other steps drawing near.
"Jacques!" An expectant voice spoke; waited; called louder. Then those outside listened; some one exclaimed, and hurried footsteps retreated toward the guard-house.
As they died away, in the wheel-room the car came up for the second time empty, and inquiringly the men there looked from one to the other; but, even in that moment of danger, not one of them moved, or made sign of impatience. Some must go; others remain, and stoically they awaited the word of their leader.
"Down with all of you! I'll let you out the line," taking a turn with the rope around a stanchion near the wall, "and then come down myself."
The command was unexpected; for the first time those that had never questioned their leader's authority, hesitated, and more sharply was the order repeated; whereupon they obeyed; all save one.
"I'll let it out myself," said Sanchez.
"Get in!"
"No!" was the obdurate reply, when the Black Seigneur made a sign; hands reached up, seized Sanchez, and a moment later the car started down. The line strained; as it played out, now running free about the stanchion, then stopping with jerks, the man in the wheel-house almost looked to see it part. The hempen strand, however, proved sound; held its human freight; but another danger pressed near.
Scarcely had the car begun its downward journey than an attack, indications of whose approach had not been wanting, manifested itself without. Beneath a sudden, savage assault, the door shook; yet engrossed at the line, every muscle strained, the man at the stanchion heeded not. Swiftly, mechanically he worked, apparently as unconscious of the clamorous soldiers without as of a silent presence within—some one that had been concealed in the little store-room adjoining, opening into the wheel-house, and now peered out; but at once drew back, as, with a crash, the door fell in.
At first, in the comparative darkness, with only the sky at the aperture staring them in the face, the in-rushing black figures paused, uncertain; lights soon were pushed forward, however, and then could they see the great wheel going round, unwinding the rope; the man at the stanchion.
"The prisoners! He's letting them down."
"Cut the line!"
Some one with a knife rushed forward, severed the strand; but at that moment the car touched the bottom. Then did the solitary man at the rope for the first time awaken to his own situation; with a backward sweep of the arm he struck so fiercely the foremost of those to rush at him that the fellow fell, hitting hard the stone floor. Those nearest stumbled, and drawing his sword, with a thrust of point or blow of hilt, the Black Seigneur, for a moment withstood the first confused on-coming; then extricated himself and leaped to the narrow space behind the wheel. Here was he protected behind by the wall; at one end, by the masonry jutting out, while, at the other, only one or two could attack at the same time. But in front, through the spokes of the broad wheel, they might well hope to reach him.
At once the soldiers sprang forward, when, seizing the wheel, the man behind, with a savage jerk, set it in motion. The swords thrust at him were turned aside, one or two of his assailants were caught in the ponderous mechanism, and, before those attacking him had recovered from their surprise, the blade of the Black Seigneur shot in and out; to the right, to the left. Those ahead fell back upon their comrades; two, however, were unable to withdraw, and sank to the ground before the wheel. A third, with his hand to his throat and making strange sounds, staggered back to the wall.
Momentarily disconcerted, the others hesitated. "In the fiend's name, fear ye one man?" shouted an authoritative voice.
"A devil!"
"'Tis the Black Seigneur! I had a good sight of him."
"Beat! beat!'Mid marsh-muck and mire—"
came in mocking tones from behind the wheel.
"The mountebank!"
"Sacre tonnerre! But mountebank, or outlaw, you shall pay! This way!" And at the unprotected side of the wheel the commandant sought to bring the issue to a conclusion. One blade the Black Seigneur struck down, while his own weapon retorted with more effect, though as it did so, another soldier made a lunge, and his sword entered the shoulder of the man behind the wheel. A shout of triumph that fell from the lips of the Governor's trooper was, however, abruptly checked; lurching forward with the stroke, ere he could recover, something heavy—a brass hilt—beat like a hammer on his head and he dropped to his knees. The others pressed closer; but with the desperation of a man resolved to sell his life dearly, the Black Seigneur fought on; regardless of cut and thrust, was holding the narrow entrance, when from the rear, somewhere, came the report of a firearm.
"Back! Stand back!"
Those nearest the wheel, not unwilling, perhaps, to desist, drew away; other detonations followed and smoke filled the place, obscuring the gaze. In the yellow fog they waited; until first it was swept aside close to the opposite wall by a draft of air from the aperture of the adjoining store-room, and the commandant, in an effort to see, moved impatiently forward. Ere, however, he could reach the wheel, near the threshold of the store-room, he felt his arm suddenly seized.
"Look, listen!"
The warning cry—a girl's voice—rang through the wheel-room; but the commandant did not at once heed it; at that abrupt touch he had involuntarily wrested his arm away; he stared, not in the direction she who had called out pointed, but at her! The white, drawn face, the eyes dilated—
"You, my Lady! Here?" he stammered. But she only made a wild movement; again grasped, drew him forward.
"Quick, or—" And suddenly was he brought to a realization of what she wished him to see: a figure drawing itself along, slowly, painfully, toward the verge—
"Don't you see? Rather than be taken, he's going to throw himself over!"
The excited, admonishing sound of her voice aroused the commandant. He gave a sharp order and the soldiers sprang forward; laid roughly hold of the prostrate form; drew it back. The Black Seigneur yet struggled, but not for long! A moment, and his eyes turned to the Governor's daughter.
"Ma foi! I must needs yield—to your Ladyship! Yet, what matter, since I have done what I came to do!"
His gaze, darkly glowing, seemed to envelope the shrinking figure whose cloak only partly concealed the gay, rich gown beneath; lifted to the brilliant affrighted brown eyes. "Your Ladyship has bright eyes, forsooth!" An ironical laugh burst from his lips. "But sharper than their swords!" He strove to speak further, when a hand holding a weapon fell heavily. At that a cry escaped the girl's lips.
"No, no; you shall not!"
The Black Seigneur lay still.
"Ciel! It's fortunate we got him," ruefully the commandant gazed around. "It would have made a pretty tale, if—" he turned to the Governor's daughter, "I have your Ladyship to thank—" he began, and stopped.
My lady's figure had at that moment relaxed and fallen to the ground!