"Morbleu! Here's a madman!" Ere the Black Seigneur could unsheathe his sword, that of the Marquis had pierced slightly his shoulder. "Put up your blade, my Lord!" As quickly springing back and drawing his own, he held himself in an attitude of defense. "In this matter are we, or should we be—of a mind!"
"We!" My lord's weapon played in fierce curves and flashes; he laughed derisively.
"I am here to serve her ladyship—if I can!"
"You!" A rapidcoup de tiercewas the Marquis' reply. "You! Whose outlaws carried her off before! You are pleased to jest, Monsieur Bandit!"
"No jest, my Lord!" coolly. "Moreover, it is you who serve her ladyship ill at such a moment in—"
"Mon dieu! You instruct!"
"I have no wish for this combat, Monsieur le Marquis!" As he spoke, the Black Seigneur retreated slowly toward the door. "But if you press too close—"
"Ma foi! You talk very brave, but I notice your legs take you backward. However, it will not serve; you shall not escape."
"No?" His back now against the door, the Black Seigneur defended himself with his right hand, the while his left felt behind for a bolt which it found; shot into place. "Then let us remove temptation by locking the door!"
"What! You did not, then, intend—"
A sudden fierce pounding from without on the door, interrupted.
"It was necessary to keepthemout—but it will be only for the moment. So put up your blade!" peremptorily. "There is no time to lose."
"You are right!" The Marquis' face expressed scorn and unreasoning anger; his sword leaped to an accelerated tempo. "There is no time to lose. I shall honor you! The Marquis de Beauvillers will stoop to cheat thefourches pâtibulaires!" And my lord lunged, a dangerous and clever thrust that was met; answered. From the Marquis' hand the blade flew; struck the pavement; at the same time, a rending and tearing of wood came from the door.
The Black Seigneur leaped forward; but the stroke his adversary, now disarmed, expected, fell not on him; directed toward a lamp overhead, sole source of illumination of the corridor, the weapon struck hard. Shattered by the blow, the ornamental contrivance crashed to the floor; the place was plunged in darkness.
"Save yourself, my Lord!" said a calm voice, and my lady, standing now as it were, in the center of a vortex of wildly rushing figures, felt her waist suddenly clasped; herself swept on! Once or twice she struggled; resisted, hardly knowing what she did; but the sound of a low, determined voice, not unfamiliar to her, and the consciousness of a physical force—or was it all physical?—that seemed to beat down her will, left no choice but to obey.
Darkness gave way to waves of light; reflections of flame surrounded them; black trails of smoke coiled around. The girl's strength went; her breath came faster. A thick cloud choked her; she wished only to stop, when arms closed about her.
Upward! Still upward! By winding stairs, through passages and doorways, vaguely she felt herself borne, until a cold breath of air, blowing suddenly in her face, revived her; awoke her to a confused realization of the place they had at last reached—the upper platform at the head of the long, open stairway of granite. And with that consciousness, she again sought to free herself; but, for an instant the arms held her tighter, while a dark face bent close, scanning her features, then abruptly he released her.
"Your Ladyship is uninjured?"
"Yes: yes!"
"One moment!" Turning, he left her, and walking to the verge of that open space, searched quickly the waste of darkness below, far out to sea. The girl's glance followed him; wavered; her first apprehension awoke anew. Her father! Where was he? She clasped her hands despairingly as she gazed down the Mount; then around her. Suddenly, a bright patch of light—open doorway to the church—caught her eye and she started. At the picture, framed by the masonry, which the glow revealed, a low exclamation fell from her lips, and crossing the platform, and descending a few steps, she ran to the entrance of the sacred edifice.
"Eh, your Excellency; has your Excellency any orders?" sounded a voice.
There, before an altar, in the dim flicker of candles and the variegated gleaming from the ancient stained-glass windows, she saw at last him she sought; in one of the chapels, near the white marble monument to her mother, was his Excellency; but, not alone! Before him stood, or half crouched, the man Sanchez, who now was speaking.
"Shall I ring for your Excellency's servants and have the noise stopped?" Grotesquely he bowed, the while watching like an animal studying its prey. "Beppo! Where are you—fat rascal? Consign these swine to the gibbets! What! You can't obey because your ears have been cut off and your throat slit? That's too bad!" Fiercely the man laughed; then waved his arm toward the window, as if calling the Governor's attention to the sounds of demolition; the abrupt breaking of glass! "Patter! Patter! Merry little bullets, presents from the people, your Excellency!Métayage, your Highness!"
Still the other said no word; a figure, so motionless and white, it seemed but a wraith pausing at the side of its own "narrow house." A louder clamor without; a more vivid brightness of the red, yellow and purple hues, like a sudden wealth of strange flowers strewn on the marble floor, and again Sanchez laughed.
"Too bad! But 'tis I who must pay first! Who owe so much! Has your Excellency his strong box with him? Ah, he leans on it! Such a fine one, all of marble! Not easily broken into—or out of! Eh, your Excellency?" Swinging back something bright. "Full payment, this time! Not coppers, or round bits of lead, but steel, beautiful steel!"
Held to the spot by the abrupt terror and fascination of the scene, the Governor's daughter had made no sound, fearful of hastening the inevitable; but at the moment the man, with a last taunting word, launched forward, a cry, half articulate, burst from her lips. It was drowned by another voice, loud and commanding, which rang out from the entrance to the church.
"Sanchez!"
Perhaps the call disconcerted him; robbed the old servant's eye of its certitude; his arm of its sureness, for the blow aimed at his Excellency the latter was enabled to evade. At the same time, as with singular agility he moved aside to save himself, the hand the Governor had been holding to his breast, shot out like an adder. It struck viciously; stung deep—full in the side of his tormentor.
"That for yourmétayage!"
But a momentary expression of satisfaction was, however, permitted his Excellency; the petty tragedy became overshadowed by the greater!
"The Bastille! Our Bastille!"
And again a shower of bullets, directed in hatred, fell upon the church, because its windows were priceless; shone with saints of inestimable value! In the chapel, anaumbryand apiscinawere struck; around the Governor, glass began to clatter and break into bits on the pavement, when suddenly he wavered; his hand sought his heart, then felt for and clung to the monument, as if abruptly seeking support.
"Why did you do it, Seigneur?" As my lady, exclaiming wildly, ran to her father, Sanchez, from where he lay, looked up to his master.
"Call out, I mean? Not that it matters much now!" His implacable glance, swerving to the Governor, lighted with satisfaction. "The people have paid. And 'twas I—showed them the way!"
"It was you, then—who broke faith in the negotiations for the exchange of prisoners?"
A smile came to the face of the old servant. "I had to," he said simply. "I alone am to blame. No one knew; except, perhaps, the poet, who may have surmised! It was treachery for treachery!" with sudden fierceness. "You could not have done it, nor your father, nor any of the seigneurs before him!" The young man seemed scarcely to hear; his glance had again sought my lady. "But I am only a servant—-and in dealing with a viper I used its own tricks! Did you think I had forgotten those stripes? Or the blow he gave your father—in the back?" A moment Sanchez's hand fumbled at his coat; drew out a bag of oilskin. "Here is something that belonged to your father. I took it from his breast the day he died, thinking some time—I can't tell what—only it contains a letter from the former lady of the Mount! When my master got it, he told me to pack a few belongings—that we were going—never to return!"
Sanchez's voice broke off; again he strove to speak; could not; put out his hand. Mechanically the Black Seigneur's closed on that of the old servant; even as it did so, the latter's fingers clutched suddenly; ceased to move. In the church now all was silent, but without arose discordant sounds, cries, harsh and vengeful, for the Governor!
Starting, the Black Seigneur gazed about, toward him they were clamoring for, now lying still, at the base of the monument. Then releasing the fingers, that seemed yet to hold him, the young man sprang forward, as my lady threw herself wildly, protectingly, over her father. At that touch, the Governor's eyes opened; met hers; the Black Seigneur's!
Nearer the door, now rang the shouts. His Excellency seemed to listen; to realize what they meant; to him—his daughter—
"The Governor! The Governor!"
"Trembles tyrans!Trembles!"
An ironical flash lit up, for an instant, the dying eyes. He, soon, would be beyond reach of these dogs—canaille! But she? His gaze again rested on the Black Seigneur; in that tense, fleeting second, seemed reading his very soul!
"Et la belle comtesse, sa fille!" cried the menacing voices.
A tremor crossed the Governor's face; his pale lips moved. "Forget! Save her!" An instant his eyes lingered persistently on the young man; then passed to his daughter; as they did so, slowly the light, more human and appealing than any that had ever shone there before, went out of them. My lady's fair head drooped until it lay on her father's breast; unconscious, she seemed yet to shield him with figure inert. But only for a moment!
"Et la belle comtesse!"
Stooping, the Black Seigneur snatched the slender form to his breast; ran back to the altar. There, looking around him, as one who made himself familiar with the place, his glance apparently found what it sought—a small stairway, entrance to the crypt. At the same time he started to descend, the people swept into the church.
A man, bearing in his arms the motionless form of a woman, paused later that night in the shadow of a low stone hovel, near the lower gate of the Mount. As he crouched beneath the thatch projecting like the rim of an old hat above him his eyes, eager, fierce, studied the distance he had yet to traverse from the end of the narrow alley, where he had stopped, to the open entrance at the base of the rock to the sands. The goal was not far; but a few moments would have sufficed to reach it; only between him and the point he had so long been striving to attain, an obstacle, or group of obstacles, intervened. Before a bonfire of wreckage of stuff—furniture and household goods—several ragged, dissolute fellows sat with bottles before them, drinking hard and quarreling the while over a number of glittering gems, gold snuff-boxes and trinkets of all kinds.
"This bit of ivory for the white stone!"
"Add the brooch!"
"Not I! Look at the picture! Her ladyship, perhaps!"
"They have not found her?"
"No; for all the searching! But she is somewhere; can't have escaped from the Mount. And when the drabs and trulls lay hands on her!"
"Ay, when!" casting the dice.
The man, peering from the alley, hesitated no longer; behind sounded the footsteps of others, and gathering his burden more firmly, he strode boldly forth toward the group and the gate. At his approach, their talk—a jargon of "thieves' Latin" that smacked more of the cabarets of Paris than those of the coast—momentarily ceased; beneath lowering brows, they stared hard.
"What have you there, comrade?" said one.
"Look and see!" answered the man in a rough tone.
"Poor booty! A woman!" quoted another with a harsh laugh. "You're easily pleased. As if wenches were not plentiful enough on other occasions, without wasting time on a night like this, when diamonds and gold are to be had for the searching!"
"And silver plates and watches and rare liquors!" cried a third in knaves'argot. "Every one, however, to his taste! An you prefer a light-of-love to light such as these have," juggling with the gems, "you but stamp yourself a fool."
"You're welcome to your opinion, my friend!" The man with the burden spoke bruskly. "Good night!"
"Stay; why such haste? You seem not a bad fellow. Set the wench down. We'll have sight of her, and, perhaps," with coarse expletives, "if she's a pretty face, and a taste for this fiery liquor the old monks laid down, we'll find a gewgaw or two to her liking!"
But the man made no answer; was about to pass on, when the speaker noticed for the first time the woman's hand, white and small, hanging limply. "What's this? More jewels?" His exclamation was caught up by the others. "Not so fast, comrade! This puts a different face to the matter. Set down the booty, and," springing to his feet, "we'll see what it's worth."
"I'll not stop!" The man looked at him steadily. "On the Mount is, or should be, plenty for all! Go seek for yourself!"
"Pardi!" softly. "Here's one dares speak his mind!"
"I speak plainly," in a tone of authority, "and you would do well to heed!"
"Perhaps," interposing. "What say you, comrades?"
Evil smiles illumined evil faces; they, who had just been on the point of blows among themselves, now regarded one another with common understanding. One weighed tentatively that delicate weapon, a spontoon; a second stroked his halberd, as liking to feel the smoothness of the shaft, while a third reached for a gleaming "Folard's Partizan." And in the glare of the fire every implement showed sign it had been used that night. The point of the spontoon was as steel crusted o'er; the ax of the halberd might have come from aboucherie; the blade of the "Partizan" resembled a great leaf at autumn-time. This last wavered perilously near the unconscious burden; had the man made a movement to resist, would have struck; but the black eyes, only, combated—held the blood-shot ones. Though not for long; again the weapon seemed about to dart forth; the man about to hurl himself and his burden desperately aside, when, from above, came the sound of hoarse laughing and singing, and simultaneously a number of peasants, Bretons by their dress, burst into view.
"Eh, cockatoo, what now!"
Many of these new-comers were hurt; few free from cuts; but none thought of stanching their wounds. Their principal concern seemed for articles they carried—heavy, light; valuable, paltry—spoils from the high! Two staggered beneath a great chest stamped with the arms of the Mount and its motto, and appeared anxious to hurry—perchance toward the forest on the shore where they might bury their treasure. Others had in their arms imposing pieces of silver; vases and a massivesurtout de tablethat had once belonged to the Cardinal Dubois. A woman, gaunt, toothless, wore a voluminous bonnetà l'Argus, left at the Mount by one of the ladies of the court; and waved before her a fan, set with jewels. She it was who called out:
"Eh, cockatoo!" shrilly. "Who would you be killing?"
"A selfish fellow that refuses to share!" answered he of the halberd, as if little pleased at the interruption.
"Refuses to share, does he?" she repeated, and, swaggering down, peered forward; only to start back. "The Black Seigneur!"
"The Black Seigneur!"
Those who accompanied her—a rough rabble from field and forest—gazed, not without surprise, or uncouth admiration, at one whose name and fame were well-known on that northern coast; but these evidences of rough approval were not shared by the alien rogues. On my lady's finger the gem still sparkled: held their eyes like a lure. Black Seigneur, or not, they muttered sullenly, what knew they of her he had with him; whose hand was not that of cinder-wench or scullery maid? Let them look at her face! She might be a great lady—she might even be the Governor's daughter herself!
"The Governor's daughter!" All, alike, caught at the word.
"An if she were!" fiercely the Black Seigneur confronted them.
While, hesitating, they sought for a reply, quickly he went on. Who had a better right to her? The Black Seigneur! The Lady Elise! Harshly he laughed. Was it not fair spoil? His Excellency's enemy; his Excellency's daughter. Did they think treasure sweeter than revenge? Let them try to rob him of it! As for the ring? Contemptuously he took it from my lady's hand; threw it among them.
A few scrambled, others were still for finishing the tragedy then. The peopleversusthe lords and their spawn. "Kill at once!" the injunction had gone forth from Paris.
As he spoke, one of the fiercest put out his hand; touched my lady, when the fingers of the Black Seigneur gripped hard his throat; hurled him so violently back, he lay still. Companions sprang to his aid; certain of the peasants interfered.
"Let him alone!"
"He speaks fair!"
"Bah! To-night are all equal."
"Your Black Seigneur no better than others!"
"You lie!" In a high tone the woman with the great lady's hat broke in. "At them, my chickens! Beat well these Paris rogues, who come only for the picking!"
"Yes; beat them well!"
But the runagates of the great city were not of a kind to submit lightly; curses and blows were exchanged; knives gleamed and swords flashed. Amid a scene of confusion, the cause of it stayed not to witness the outcome; running down the sloping way, soon found himself on the sands; then keeping to the shadows, passed around the corner of the wall.
Here, for the time concealed was he safe; none followed, and, leaning against the damp blocks of masonry, breathing hard, as a man weak from fatigue, loss of blood, he sought to recover his strength. It returned only too slowly; the passing lassitude annoyed him; for the moment he forgot he had but recently come from the dungeon and the hardships that sap elasticity and vigor. He was impatient to move on; looked at my lady—and a sudden fear smote him! How white she appeared! Had she— His hand trembled at her heart; a blank dismay overcame him; then joy— At that instant he thought not of the gulf between them; was conscious only he held her—slender, beautiful—in his arms; that she seemed all his own, with her breath on his cheek, her soft lips so close. Above sounded the madness of the night; the crackling of flames; the intemperate voices! In the angle of the wall, with darkness a blanket around them, he pushed back the hair from her clear brow, bent over, closer—suddenly straightened.
"Pardi!" he muttered, a flush on his face. "Am I, then, like the others—pillagers, thieves?"
Several moments he yet stood, breathing deep; then, starting away, set himself to the task of crossing the vast stretch of beach between the Mount and the distant lights of a ship.
The sandy plain had never seemed so interminable; before him, his shadow and that of my lady danced ever illusively away; behind, the great rock gave forth a hundred shooting flames, while, as emblematic of the demolition of so much that was beautiful, higher than saint with helpless sword on cathedral top, a cloud of smoke belched up; waved sidewise like a monstrous funeral plume. A symbol, it seemed to fill the sky; to move and nod and flaunt its ominous blackness from this majestic outpost of the land. Walking in a vivid crimson glow, the Black Seigneur gazed only ahead, where now, on that monotonous desert, the rim of the sea on a sudden obtruded. As he advanced, sparkles red as rubies—laughing lights—leaped in the air; at the same time a seething murmur broke upon the stillness.
Toward those leaping bright points and the source of that deep-sounding cadence, the young man stumbled forward more rapidly, less cautiously, also, it may be; for while he was yet some distance from the water's rim, his feet fell on sand that gave way beneath them. He would have sprung back, but felt himself sinking; strove to get out, only to settle the deeper! The edge of thelise, with safety beyond, well he could see, where the satin-like smoothness of the treacherous slough! merged into a welcome silk-like shimmering of the trustworthy sands. That verge, however, was remote; out of reach of effort of his to attain; his very endeavors caused him to become the more firmly imbedded. Had he cast my lady aside, possibly could he have extricated himself; but with her, an additional weight, weighing him down—
Loudly he called out; only the sea answered. Now were the clinging particles at his waist; he lifted my lady higher; clear of them! Once more raised his voice—this time not in vain!
"Mon capitaine! Where are you?"
"Here!"
"We don't see you."
"You won't soon, unless—"
The end of a line struck the sand.
The night had almost passed; its last black hour, like a pall, lay over the sea, where, far from the Mount, a ship swayed and tossed. In the narrow confines of her master's cabin, the faint glimmering of a lamp revealed a man bending over a paper, yellow and worn; the lines so faint and delicate, they seemed almost to escape him!
"How strange, after all these years, the sight of your handwriting!—and now, to be writing you! Yet is it meet—to say farewell! For that which you have heard,mon ami, is true. I am going to die. You say, you heard I was not well; I answer what really you heard; the question,mon ami, beneath your words! ... And, dying, it is well with me. I have wronged no soul on earth—except you, my friend, and you forgive me.... I had hoped the years would efface that old memory. You say they have not.... It is wise you are going away."
The reader paused; listened to the sea; the moaning and sighing, like voices on the wings of the storm.
"You speak in your letter about 'trickery'—used to estrange us! Think no more of it, I beg you. What is past, is gone—as I, part of that past, when we were boy and girl together—soon shall be. And come not near the Mount. There can be no meeting for us on earth. I send you my adieu from afar.... It is only a shadow that speaks ...mon ami."
The little Norman isle, home of Pierre Laroche, so wild and bleak-looking many months of the year, resembles a flowering garden in the spring; then, its lap full of buds and blossoms, smiling, redolent, it lifts itself from the broad bosom of the deep. And all the light embellishments of the golden time it sets forth daintily; fringing the black cliffs with clusters of sea campion, white and frothy as the spray, trailing green ivy from precipitous heights to the verge of the wooing waters, whose waves seem to creep up timorously, peep into the many caves, bright with sea-anemones, and retreat quickly, as awed by a sudden glimpse of fairyland.
Near the entrance of one of these magical chambers, abloom with strange, scentless flowers, sat, a certain afternoon in April, a man and a woman, who, looking out over the blue sea, conversed in desultory fashion.
"From what your father tells me, Mistress Nanette," the man, an aged priest, was speaking, "the Seigneur Desaurac should be here to-day?"
"My father had a letter from him a few days ago to that effect," answered the young woman somewhat shortly.
"Let me see," apparently the old man did not notice the change in his companion's manner, "he has been away now about a year? It was in July he brought the Governor's daughter to the island one day and sailed the next!" Nanette made a movement. "How time flies!" he sighed. "Let us hope it assuages grief, as they say! You think she is contented here?"
"The Lady Elise? Why not? At least, she seems so; has with her, her old nurse, my aunt, who fortunately escaped from the Mount—"
"But the death of her father? It must have been a terrible blow—one not easy to forget!"
"Of course," said Nanette slowly, "she has felt his loss."
The old man gazed down. "I have sometimes wondered what she knows about the causes of the enmity that existed between his Excellency and the Black Seigneur?"
The other's eyes lifted keenly. "When last did you see her, Father?"
"She comes often to my cottage to walk and—"
"Talk?"
"Well, yes!" The fine spiritual face expressed a twinge of uneasiness.
"About the past?"
The priest shifted slightly. "Sometimes! An old man lives much in the past and it is natural to wander on a bit aimlessly at times, and—"
"Confess, Father, she has learned much from you?" Nanette laughed.
"No, no; I trust—"
"Surmised, then!" said the girl. "She is one not easily deceived. Clever is my lady! And you talk, she says nothing, but leads you on! If there's aught she wishes to learn that you know, be assured she's found out from your lips."
"Nay; I'll not believe—'tis true once or twice I've let a word slip. But she noticed not—"
"No doubt!" The island girl's voice expressed a fine scorn. "However, it matters little. Speaks she ever of the Black Seigneur?" suddenly.
"No. Why?"
"Why not?" Nanette's tone was enigmatic.
"I don't understand."
"At any rate, she is better off here than yonder in France, if tidings be true," said the other irrelevantly.
"Ah,ma belle France!" murmured the old man regretfully. "How she is torn within—threatened from without! But fortunately she has her defenders," his voice thrilled, "brave men who have thronged to her needs. I suppose," he continued abruptly, "it's to arrange about the new ship that brings the Seigneur once more to the island?"
"I suppose so," assented the other briefly.
"A true Frenchman, Pierre Laroche, your father, has shown himself, in giving one of his best ships to the cause! Although perhaps he would not have been so ready," thoughtfully, "had not the Paris Assembly seen fit to appoint André Desaurac in command of all the vessels to guard the coast against the intrigues of the French royalists with foreign powers and aliens! Well, well, he will find here many old friends!"
"Yourself, for example, Father, who helped him in the courts to establish his right to his name," said the young woman quickly.
"And you, Mistress Nanette," the kindly eyes lighting with a curious, indulgent look, "who went to the Mount alone, unaided, to—"
A frown gathered on the dark, handsome face of the girl. "Unaided?" she said, staring at the sparkles on the waves before her.
"Oh, the people never weary of talking about it! and how you—"
"Yon's a sail!" Abruptly the young woman rose; with skirts fluttering behind her, gazed out to sea.
Several hours later, just before dusk, a ship ran into the harbor, dropped anchor, and sent a boat to the shore. In the small craft sat a number of men, and the first of these to spring to the beach and mount the stone stairway to the inn, was met at the top; warmly greeted, by old Pierre himself!Mon dieu! To see the new-comer was like old times! Only now, the landlord observed jestingly, the profits would be small! But a fig to parsimony, in these days when men's patriotism should be large; do what he, the Black Seigneur, would with the new ship, even if he sunk her, provided it was in good company, and he went not down with her himself! To which protestations the other answered; presented his companions, and greeted the assembled company within.
Busy at a great board, laden with comestibles interspersed with flagons of wines, Nanette welcomed him briefly, and again his glance—keen and assured, that of a man the horizon of whose vision had widened, since last he stood there—swept the gathering. But apparently, one he looked for was not present, and he had again turned to the young woman, a question on his lips, when on the garden side of the house a door opened. It revealed a flowering background, a plateau, yellow in the last rays of the sun; it framed, also, the slender, black-clad figure of a girl, above whose white brow the waving hair shone like threads of gold.
"An old friend of yours, my Lady!" called out blunt Pierre.
A moment the clear, brown eyes seemed to waver; then became steady, as schooled to some purpose. She came forward composedly; gave the Black Seigneur her hand.
"I—am always glad to see old friends!" said my lady, with a lift of the head, over-conscious, perhaps, of the concentrated gaze of the company.
He looked at her; made perfunctory answer; she seemed about to speak again, when the hand he let fall was caught by another.
"Elise!" From among those who had come ashore, a man in fashionable attire sprang forward, a little thinner than when last she had seen him, and more cynical-looking, as slightly soured by world-contact and the new tendencies of society.
"My Lord!" Certainly was my lady taken unawares; a moment looked at the Marquis as if a little startled; then at the Black Seigneur:
"A pleasant surprise for you, my Lady!" said the latter. "But you owe me no thanks! An order from the chief of the Admiralty, properly signed and countersigned, directing me to transport the Marquis de Beauvillers hither, was not to be disregarded!"
"A somewhat singular dispensation of Providence, nevertheless!" observed the nobleman dryly. "After our—what shall we call it?—little passage of arms? You must acknowledge, however, that in truth the Lady Elise and myself had some reason to discredit your assurances that night—"
"Far be it from me to dispute it, my Lord," and the Black Seigneur turned, while the Marquis, slightly shrugging his shoulders, addressed my lady.
Half blithely, then half bitterly, relapsing occasionally from the old, debonair manner he had assumed, he spoke of his escape from the Mount; months of hiding in foul places, amid fields and forest, with no word of her; his success, at last, in reaching Paris, and, through rumor, learning where she was, and hastening to her—
A bluff voice interrupted further explanations and avowals; the steaming flesh-pots, it informed the company, awaited not soft words and honied phrases; monarch in his own dining-room, ostentatiously conscious, perhaps, of his own unwonted prodigality, Pierre Laroche waved them to their places—where they would!—so that they waited not!
Quizzically my lord lifted his brow; truly here was a Republican fellow who appreciated not an honor when it was bestowed upon him, nor saw anything unusual in a Marquis' presence beneath that humble roof. Something of this he murmured to my lady, in a tone others might have heard; but she answered not; took her place, with red lips the firmer, as if to conceal some weakness to which they sought to give way.
Not without constraint the meal passed; the host, desirous to learn the latest political news, looked at the Marquis and curbed a natural curiosity, until a more favorable moment when he and the Black Seigneur should be alone. My lady, although generally made to feel welcome and at home there, seemed now, perhaps, to herself, a little out of place, like a person that has wandered from a world of her own and strayed into another's. Cross-currents, long at strife in her breast, surged and flowed fast; the while she seemed to listen to my lord, who appeared now in lighter, more airy humor. And as she sat thus, with fair head bent a little, she could but hear, at times, above the medley of tones and the sound of servants' footsteps in clattering wooden shoes, the voice of the Black Seigneur—now pledging a toast to old Pierre; anon discussing winds, tides, or ships! A free reckless voice, that seemed to vibrate from the past—to stir anew bright, terrible flames.
Daylight slowly waned; lights were brought in, and, the meal over, old Pierre pushed back in his chair. My lady rose quickly; looked a little constrainedly at the company, at the Marquis, then toward the door. Anticipating her desire, attributing to it, perhaps, a significance flattering to his vanity, the young nobleman expressed a wish for a stroll; a sight of the garden. At once she assented; a slight tint now on her cheeks, she moved to the door, and my lord followed; as they disappeared, the Black Seigneur laughed—at one of Pierre's jokes!
"Have I not told it before?" said the host.
"Have you?" murmured the Black Seigneur. "Well, a good jest, like an excellent dish, may well be served twice."
"Humph!" observed the landlord doubtfully.
After a pause: "I suppose he will be taking her away soon?"
"Her?" The young man rose.
"The Lady Elise!"
"I suppose so," shortly.
"We shall miss her!" grumbled the landlord as he, too, got up and walked over to the fireplace. "I, who never thought to care for any of the fine folk—I, bluff old Pierre Laroche!—say we shall miss her."
"Knows she how it fared with his Excellency's—her father's—estate? That little, or nothing, is left?"
"Aye."
"And she will agree to the promise I wrote you about?" quickly.
"That you—now that the right to your name has been vindicated—are content to accept half the lands in dispute; her ladyship to retain the other half?"
"Yes; in consideration of that which his Excellency expended in taxes—no small sum!—and what it would cost to carry on vexatious litigation!"
"You are strangely faint-hearted to pursue your advantage," said old Pierre shrewdly. "But," as the other made a gesture, "I put it to her ladyship as you desired me to, and—"
"She consented?" eagerly.
Pierre shook his head. "No,mon capitaine! She will have none of them. And you had heard her: 'A great wrong was unintentionally,' she accented the word, 'done the Seigneur Desaurac by my father, which has now been set right!' 'It has,' I assented, and would have urged further your proposal, when she stopped me. 'Speak no more of this matter!' 'Twas all she said; but—you should have seen her face, and how her eyes shone!"
The young man, looking down, made no answer. "An you are not satisfied," continued Pierre, "broach the question to my lady, yourself."
"I?" A look, half bitter, crossed the other's dark face. "Her father's enemy! Through whose servant, all her misfortunes came about! To revive anew what must so often pass in her mind?"
"Well, well; no doubt you know best, and,certes, now you remind me, she did turn cold and distant when I spoke of your coming. But let idle prejudices enter into practical concerns—it's on a par—of all improvidence! Why, 'twas not long ago, she brought me a jewel or two; Marie, it seems, had foresight enough to snatch them before fleeing from the Mount, and begged me to take them for our kindness, she said; which I did, seeing she would not have it otherwise—nor let herself be regarded as one who could not pay. But to business,mon capitaine!"
And thereafter, for some time, they, or rather, Pierre, talked; the others, save the Marquis, returned to the ship, and only Nanette, busy putting everything to rights, lingered in the room. At length, after papers had been signed and changed hands, the conversation of the host began to wane; frequently had he sipped from a bottle of liqueur at his elbow and now found himself nodding; leaned back more comfortably in the great chair and suffered his head to fall. The clock ticked out the seconds; the young man continued to sit motionless.
"'A mon beau'—" Nanette's voice, lightly humming, caused him to look up; with the old mocking expression on her face, the inn-keeper's daughter paused near his chair.
"It was kind of you,mon capitaine, to bring to my lady her Marquis!" As she spoke, she looked toward the garden.
"Why not?" he asked steadily. "The passport and orders were correct."
"Were they, indeed?" she said, tapping the floor with her foot. "You remain with us a few days; or, as of old, must we be content with a brief visit?" she went on.
"We leave to-morrow."
"To-morrow?" The girl's eyes wore a tentative expression. "Late?"
"Early!"
"Oh! In that case, perhaps I shan't have time," Nanette paused; looked at her father; old Pierre's slumbers were not to be broken.
"For what?" asked the Black Seigneur shortly.
"To tell you something!"
"Why not—now?"
"You—are inquisitive?"
"No!"
"Even if it were about—" she looked toward the door that led to the garden.
"The Lady Elise?" he said quickly.
"Oh, youareinterested? 'A mon beau'—" a moment she hummed. "You do not urge me?"
"Wherefore," laconically, although his eyes flashed, "when you have made up your mind to tell!"
"You are right!" She threw back her head. "I have made up my mind! How well you understand women! Almost as well," she laughed mockingly, "as a ship!" He made no response. "When you thanked me once,mon capitaine, for all it pleased you to say I did for you, you may remember," her voice was defiant, "I did not once gainsay you!" More curiously he regarded her. "Perhaps it pleased me," her hand on her hip, "to be thought such a fine heroine. But now," her tone grew a little fierce, "I am tired of hearing people say: 'Nanette risked so much!' 'Nanette did this!—did that!'—when it was she who risked—did it all, one might say."
"She? What do you mean?" The black eyes probed hers now with sudden, fierce questioning.
"That 'twas the Lady Elise saved you. Went knowingly—willingly—as hostage—"
"The Lady Elise!" he cried, an abrupt glow on the dark face.
Nanette's eyes noted and fell, but she went on hurriedly: "She knew of the ambush in the forest; saw part of the note I dropped on the beach—it was brought to her by my aunt who warned her." And in a quick rush of words, as if desirous to be done with it, Nanette told all that had transpired at the Mount.
Incredulously, eagerly, he listened; when, however, she had finished, he said nothing; sat like a man bewildered.
"Well?" said the girl impatiently. Still he looked down. "Well?" she repeated, so sharply old Pierre stirred; lifted his head.
"Eh, my dear?"
She went to the mantel; took from it a candle.
"The Seigneur finds you such poor company," she said, "he desires a light to retire!"
The dawn smote the heavens with fiery lashes of red; from the east the wind began to blow harder, and on the sea the waves responded with a more forcible sweep. At a window in the inn, the Black Seigneur a moment looked out on the gay flowers and the sea and the worn grim face of the cliff; then left his room and made his way downstairs. No one was yet, apparently, astir; an hour or so must elapse ere the time set for departure, and, pending the turn of the tide and adieu to old Pierre, the young man stepped into the garden, through the gate, and, turning into a rocky path, strode out over the cliffs. The island was small; its walks limited, and soon, despite a number of difficulties in the way he had chosen, he found himself at its end—the verge of a great rock that projected out over the blue, sullen sea. For some moments he stood there, listening to the sounds in caverns below, watching the snow-capped waves, the ever-shifting spots on a vast map, and then, shaking off his reverie, started to return.
"A brisk wind to take us back to France," he said to himself; but his thoughts were not of possible April storms, or of his ship. His eyes, bright, yet perplexed, as if from some problem whose solution he had not yet found, were bent downward, only to be raised where the path demanded his closer attention. As he looked up, he became suddenly aware of the figure of a girl, who approached from the opposite direction.
A quick glint sprang to the young man's eyes, and, pausing, he waited; watched. At that point, the way ran over a neck of rock, almost eaten through by the hungry sea, and she had already started to cross when he first saw her. The path was not dangerous; nor was it easy; only it called for certainty and assurance on the part of the one that elected to take it. My lady's light footstep was sure; although the wind swept rather sharply there, she held herself with confident poise, while from the brown eyes shone a clear, steady light.
"I saw you leave the inn," she said, drawing near the comparatively sheltered spot, where he stood, "and knowing you would soon sail, followed. There is something I wanted to say, and—and felt I should have no other chance to tell you!"
Had she read what was passing in his brain, she would not have faced him, so confident; but, ignorant of what he had learned, the cause of varying lights in his dark eyes, the tender play of emotion on his strong features, she broached her subject with steadfastness of purpose.
"You went away so suddenly the last time, I had no opportunity, then, to thank you for all that you did; and so, I do now—thank you, I mean! Also," a touch of prouder constraint in her tone, "I appreciate your over-generous proposal through Pierre Laroche; although, of course," her figure very straight, "I could not—it was impossible—to entertain it. But I am glad you were able to prove. You will understand—and," my lady ended quickly, "I thank you!"
He looked at her long. "It is I who am in your debt!"
"You?" Her brows lifted.
"Yes."
"I—don't think I quite understand." In spite of herself and her resolution, the proud eyes seemed to shrink from a nameless something in his gaze.
"Nor I! Nanette was talking with me last night!"
"Nanette!"
In words, direct, unequivocal, he told her what he had learned; and although my lady laughed, as at something absurd, and strove to maintain an unvarying mien, his eyes challenged evasion; demanded truth! At that moment the space where they stood seemed, perhaps, too small; to hem her very closely in—too closely—as, drawing back, she touched the hard rocky wall!
"Why?" Still endeavoring to regard him as if the charge could only be preposterous, too unreasonable to answer, she was, nevertheless, conscious of the flame on her face—tacit refutation of the denials in her eyes! "Why?" she repeated.
"That is just what I was asking myself when I saw you, my Lady."
"And, of course, knowing there could be no—that it was too senseless—" The words she was searching for failed her; she looked toward the path over the neck of rock, but he continued to stand between it and her.
"I have heard the story in all its details; all that passed at the Mount, while Nanette was there. And," instead of having undermined his belief, she felt she had only strengthened it, "I am sure you went to the Monastery St. Ranulphe, knowing—"
"You are sure!" she interrupted quickly. "It wasn't long ago you were sure it was I who betrayed you, and—"
"I was wrong, then; but," his eyes continued to meet hers, "I am not wrong now."
Behind her, my lady's hand closed hard on the rock.
"Deny it!" his voice went on. "In so many words!"
"Why should I?" She caught her breath quickly. "I denied something to you once, and you did not believe."
"I'll believe you now!"
"I should feel very much flattered, I am sure; but after—" A spark of defiance began to gleam in her eyes. "You are sure one moment, and not, the next! You are ready to believe, or not to believe!" More certain now, she lifted her head; she, whose assurance and wit had never failed her at court, would not be put to confusion by him!
His answer was unexpected; to her; to himself. Perhaps it was the peasant—the untamed half-peasant—in his blood that caused it; that made a sudden, unceremonious act, his reply! He caught both her hands; drew her to him. He knew she could never care for him—she, the beautiful lady! But he forgot himself for the moment; thought only of what she had done; her courage, her fineness, her delicate loveliness! Her life for his. To pay a fancied debt, perhaps? And all the while he had thought— Self-reproaches fell from his lips; were followed by bolder, more daring words. All he would have said the night on the beach, when he had borne her from the fiery rock to the ship, now burst from him; all he had felt when he had held her in his arms—motionless, unresisting, the still, white face upturned, offering itself freely to his gaze!
At the neck of the rock, beneath his feet, the waves thundered; near them, wild birds circled, wheeled and were borne on by the strong breath of the wind. Had he spoken; what had he said? A gradual consciousness of the beating of the sea smote his senses, as with rhythmical regularity it arose. He listened; slowly in his eyes that light that demanded—claimed, as it were, its own—was replaced by another; his hands released hers. My lady made no sound; her proud lips trembled. Very pale, she leaned back.
So silence lengthened. "Pardon, my Lady!" he said at last, very humbly. "It had not occurred to me my secret was not safe; that I, master of ships and men, should not be master of myself! But I had not expected to be alone with your Ladyship, and," a shadow of a smile crossed the strong, reckless face, "your Ladyship can weigh the provocation! If the excuse will not serve, I have none other to offer. Certainly, will I retract nothing. What's said, is said, and—no lies will unsay it!"
He looked at the water; the tide was nearly in; he turned. She would never see him again, for which she would be very glad, since the sight of him must always have been hateful to her. Had not fate decreed—bitterly—she should look upon him only as an enemy? It might be, in time, she would condone his presumption, when his presence would no longer vex her! He was going one way; she, another, soon, with—
"You—you are mistaken, Monsieur!" My lady's tone was tremulous.
"Mistaken?"
"The—Marquis de Beauvillers left last night, on a fishing bark."
"Left!" abruptly he wheeled. "Why?" She did not answer. "You mean?" Before the sudden swift question that shone from his eyes, hers fell.
"Speak!" He seized her hand; his dark, eager face was near hers now. "You have sent him away? He will never return?" She lifted her head; answered not in words; but a new light in her eyes met the flash of his. "My Lady!" he cried, bewildered for the moment at what that glance revealed. An instant she seemed once more striving to combat him, when, drawing her gently toward him, he bent lower; kissed softly her lips.