"Sir" (here followed a cabalistic sign such as physicians were in the habit of using to impose on the vulgar). "After paying a visit in the Corraterie, where I have an appointment on Saturday evening next between late and early, I will be with you. But the mixture with the necessary directions shall be sent to you twelve hours in advance, so that before my visit you may experience its good effects. As surely as the wrong potion in the case you wot of deprived of reason, so surely (as I hope for salvation) will this potion have the desired effect."The Physician of Aleppo."
"Sir" (here followed a cabalistic sign such as physicians were in the habit of using to impose on the vulgar). "After paying a visit in the Corraterie, where I have an appointment on Saturday evening next between late and early, I will be with you. But the mixture with the necessary directions shall be sent to you twelve hours in advance, so that before my visit you may experience its good effects. As surely as the wrong potion in the case you wot of deprived of reason, so surely (as I hope for salvation) will this potion have the desired effect.
"The Physician of Aleppo."
"Saturday next, between late and early!" Blondel muttered, gazing at the words with fascinated eyes. "It is for the day after to-morrow! The day after to-morrow!" And in his thoughts he passed again over the road he had travelled since his first visit to Basterga's room, since the hour when the scholar had unrolled before him the map of the town he called "Aurelia," and had told him the story of Ibn Jasher and the Physician of Aleppo.
"No, I am not well," he answered. He sat, warmly wrapped up, in the high chair in his parlour, his face so drawn with want of sleep that Captain Blandano of the city guard, who had come to take his orders, had no difficulty in believing him. "I am not well," he repeated peevishly. "It is the weather." He had some soup before him. Beside it stood a tiny phial of medicine; a phial strangely shaped and strange looking, containing something not unlike the green cordial of the Carthusians.
"It troubles me a good deal, too," Blandano said. "There are seven men absent in the fourth ward. And two men, whose wives are urgent with me that they should have leave."
"Leave?" the Syndic cried. "Do they think naught"—leaning forward in a passion—"of the safety of the city? If I were not ill, I would take service on the wall myself to set an example!"
"There is no need of that," the Captain answered respectfully, "if I might have permission to withdraw a few men from the west side so as to fill the places on the east——"
"Ay, ay!"
"From the Rhone side of the town——"
"From the Corraterie? That is least open to assault."
"Yes, from that part perhaps would be best," Blandano assented, nodding. "Yes, I think so. If I might do that, I think I could manage."
"Well, then do it," Blondel answered. "And make a note that I assented to your suggestion to take them from the Corraterie and put them on the lower part of the wall. After all, the nights are very bitter now, and there are limits. Do the men grumble much?"
"It is as much as I can do to make them go the rounds," Blandano answered. "Some plead the weather; and some argue that, with President Rochette, whoseword is as good as his bond, on the point of coming to an agreement with us, the rounds are a farce!"
The Syndic shrugged his shoulders. "Well!" he muttered, rubbing his chin and looking thoughtfully before him, "we must not wear the men out. There is no moon now, is there?"
"No."
"And the enemy can attempt nothing without light," Blondel continued, thinking aloud. "See here, Blandano, we must not put too heavy a burden on our people. I see that. As it is so cold, I think you may pass the word to pretermit the rounds to-night—save two. At what hours would you suggest?"
Blandano considered his own comfort—as the other expected he would—and answered, "Early and late, say an hour before midnight and an hour before dawn".
"Then let be it as you suggest. But see"—with returning asperity—"that those rounds go, and at their hours. Let there be no remissness. I will make a note," he continued, "of the hours fixed. An hour before midnight and an hour before dawn".
He extended his arm and drew the ink-horn towards him. Midway in the act, whether it was that his hand shook by reason of his illness, or that he was in a hurry to close an interview which tried him more severely than appeared, his sleeve caught the little phial of green water that stood beside the soup on the table. It reeled an instant on its edge, toppled on its side, and rolling, in one-tenth of the time it takes to tell the tale, to the verge of the table—fell over.
Messer Blondel made a strange noise in his throat.
But the Captain had seen what was happening. Dexterously he caught the bottle in his huge palm, and with an air of modest achievement was going to set it on the table, when he saw that the Syndic had fallenback in his chair, his face ghastly. Blandano was more used to death in the field than in the house; and in a panic he took two steps towards the door to call for help. Before he could take a third, Blondel gasped, and made an uncertain movement with his hand, as if he would reassure him.
Blandano returned and leant over him. "You are ill, Messer Syndic," he said anxiously. "Let me call some one."
The Syndic could not speak, but he pointed to the table. And when Blandano, unable to make out what he wanted, and suspecting a stroke of a mortal disease, turned again to the door, persisting in his intention of getting aid, the Syndic found strength to seize his sleeve, and almost instantly regained his speech. "There!" he gasped, "there! The phial! Put it down!"
Captain Blandano placed it on the table, wondering much. "I was afraid you were ill, Messer Blondel," he said.
"I was ill," the Syndic answered; and he pushed his chair back so that no part of him was in contact with the table. He looked at the little bottle with fascinated eyes, and slowly, as he looked, the colour returned to his face. "I—was ill," he repeated, with a sigh that seemed to relieve his breast. "I had a fright!"
"You thought it was broken?" Blandano said, wondering much, and looking in his turn at the phial.
"Yes, I thought that it was broken. I am much obliged to you. Much, very much obliged to you," the Syndic repeated, with a deep sigh, his hands still moving nervously about his dress. Then, after a moment's pause, "Will you ring the bell?" he said.
The Captain, marvelling much, rang the hand-bell which lay on a neighbouring table. He marvelled stillmore when he heard Messer Blondel order the servant to place six bottles of his best wine in a basket and take them to the Captain's lodging.
Blandano stared. He knew the wine to be choice and valuable; and he eyed the tiny phial respectfully. "It is something rare, I expect?" he said.
The Syndic nodded.
"And costly too, I doubt not?" with an admiring glance.
"Costly?" Messer Blondel repeated the word, and when he had done so turned on the other a look that led the Captain to think that he was going to be ill again. Then, "It cost me—it will cost me"—again a spasm contorted the Syndic's face—"I don't know what it will not have cost me before it is paid for, Messer Blandano!"
Thelong day during which the lovers had drained a cup at once so sweet and so bitter, and one of the two had felt alike the throb of pain and the thrill of kisses, came to an end at last; and without further incident. Encouraged by the respite—for who that is mortal does not hope against hope—they ventured on the following morning to lower the shutters, and this to a great extent restored the house to its normal aspect. Anne would have gone so far as to attend the morning preaching at St. Pierre, for it was Friday; but her mother awoke low and nervous, the girl dared not quit her side, and Claude had no field for the urgent dissuasions which he had prepared himself to use.
The greater part of the day she remained above stairs, busied in the petty offices, and moving to and fro—he could hear her tread—upon the errands of love, to see her in the midst of which might well have confuted the slanders that crept abroad. But there were times in the day when Madame Royaume slept; and then, who can blame Anne, if she stole down and sat hand in hand with Claude on the settle, whispering sometimes of those things of which lovers whisper, and will whisper to the world's end; but more often of the direr things before these two lovers, and so of faith and hope and the love that does not die. For the most part it was she who talked. She had so much to tell him of the long nightmare,the nightmare of months, that had oppressed her; of her prayers, and fears and fits of terror; of Basterga's discovery of the secret and the cruel use he had made of it; of the slow-growing resignation, the steadfast resolve, the onward look to something, beyond that which the world could do to her, that had come to be hers. With her face hidden on his breast she told him of her thoughts upon her knees, of the pain and obloquy through which, if the worst came, she knew she must pass, and of her trust that she would be able to bear them; speaking in such terms, so simply, so bravely, and with so lofty a contemplation, that he who listened, and had been but a week before a young man as other young men, grew as he listened to another stature, and thought for himself thoughts that no man can have and remain as he was, before the tongues of fire touched his heart.
And then again, once—but that was in the darkening of the Friday evening when the wound in her cheek burned and smarted and recalled the wretched moment of infliction—she showed him another side; as if she would have him know that she was not all heroic. Without warning, she broke down; overcome by the prospect of death, she clung to him, weeping and shuddering, and begging him and imploring him to save her. To save her! Only to save her! At that sight and at those sounds, under the despairing grasp of her arms about his neck, the young man's heart was red-hot; his eyes burned. Vainly he held her closer and closer to him; vainly he tried to comfort her. Vainly he shed tears of blood. He felt her writhe and shudder in his arms.
And what could he do? He strove to argue with her. He strove to show her that accusation of her mother, condemnation of her mother, dreadful as they must be to her, so dreadful that he scarcely dared speak ofthem, need not involve her own condemnation. She was young, of blameless life, and without enemies. What could any cast up against her, what adduce in proof of a charge so dark, so improbable, so abnormal?
For answer she touched the pulsing wound in her cheek.
"And this?" she said. "And the child that I killed?"—with a bitter laugh unlike her own. "If they say so much already, if they say that to-day, what will they say to-morrow? What will they say when they have heard her ravings? Will it not be, the old and the young, the witch and her brood—to the fire? To the fire?"
The spasm that shook her as she spoke defied his efforts to soothe her. And how could he comfort her? He knew the thing to be too likely, the argument too reasonable, as men reasoned then; strange and foolish as their reasoning seems to us now. But what could he do. What? He who sat there alone with her, a prisoner with her, witness to her agony, scalded by her tears, tortured by her anguish, burning with pity, sorrow, indignation—what could he do to help her or save her?
He had wild thoughts, but none of them effectual; the old thoughts of defending the house, or of escaping by night over the town wall; and some new ones. He weighed the possibility of Madame Royaume's death before the arrest; surely, then, he could save the girl, and they two, young, active and of ordinary aspect, might escape some whither? Again, he thought of appealing to Beza, the aged divine, whom Geneva revered and Calvinism placed second only to Calvin. He was a Frenchman, a man of culture and of noble birth; he might stand above the common superstition, he might listen, discern, defend. But, alas, he was so old as to be bed-ridden and almost childish. It was improbable, nay, it was most unlikely, that he could be induced to interfere.
All these thoughts Anne drove out of his head by begging him, in moving terms of self-reproach, to forgive her her weakness. She had regained her composure as abruptly, if not as completely, as she had lost it; and would have had him believe that the passion he had witnessed was less deep than it seemed, and rather a womanish need of tears than a proof of suffering. A minute later she was quietly preparing the evening meal, while he, with a sick heart, raised the shutters and lighted the lamp. As he looked up from the latter task, he found her eyes fixed upon him, with a peculiar intentness: and for a while afterwards he remarked that she wore an absent air. But she said nothing, and by-and-by, promising to return before bed-time, she went upstairs to her mother.
The nights were at their longest, and the two had closed and lighted before five. Outside the cold stillness of a winter night and a freezing sky settled down on Geneva; within, Claude sat with sad eyes fixed on the smouldering fire. What could he do? What could he do? Wait and see her innocence outraged, her tenderness racked, her gentle body given up to unspeakable torments? The collapse which he had witnessed gave him as it were a foretaste, a bitter savour of the trials to come. It did not seem to him that he could bear even the anticipation of them. He rose, he sat down, he rose again, unable to endure the intolerable thought. He flung out his arms; his eyes, cast upwards, called God to witness that it was too much! It was too much!
Some way of escape there must be. Heaven could not look down on, could not suffer such deeds in a Christian land. But men and women, girls and young children had suffered these things; had appealed and called Heaven to witness, and gone to death, and Heaven had not moved, nor the angels descended! But it couldnot be in her case. Some way of escape there must be. There must be.
Why should she not leave her mother to her fate? A fate that could not be evaded? Why need she, whose capacity for suffering was so great, who had so much of life and love and all good things before her, remain to share the pains of one whose span in any case was nearing its end? Of one who had no longer power—or so it seemed—to meet the smallest shock, and must succumb before she knew more of suffering than the name. One whom a rude word might almost extinguish, and a rough push thrust out of life? Why remain, when to remain was to sacrifice two lives in lieu of one, to give and get nothing, to die for a prejudice? Why remain, when by remaining she could not save her mother, but, on the contrary, must inflict the sharpest pang of all, since she destroyed the being who was dearest to her mother, the being whom her mother would die to save?
He grew heated as he dwelt on it. Of what use to any, the feeble flickering light upstairs, that must go out were it left for a moment untended? The light that would have gone out this long time back had she not fostered it and cherished it and sheltered it in her bosom? Of what avail that weak existence? Or, if it were of avail, why, for its sake, waste this other and more precious life that still could not redeem it?
Why?
He must speak to her. He must persuade her, press her, convince her; carry her off by force were it necessary. It was his duty, his clear call. He rose and walked the room in excitement, as he thought of it. He had pity for the old, abandoned and left to suffer alone; and an enlightening glimpse of the weight that the girl must carry through life by reason of this desertion. But no doubt, no hesitation—he told himself—no scruple.To die that her mother might live was one thing. To die—and so to die—merely that her mother's last hours might be sheltered and comforted, was another, and a thing unreasonable.
He must speak to her. He would not hesitate to tell her what he thought.
But he did hesitate. When she descended half an hour later, and paused at the foot of the stairs to assure herself that her passage downstairs had not roused her mother from sleep, the light fell on her listening face and tender eyes; and he read that in them which checked the words on his lips; that which, whether it were folly or wisdom—a wisdom higher than the serpent's, more perfect than the most accurate calculation of values and chances—drove for ever from his mind the thought that she would desert her charge. He said not a word of what he had thought; the indignant reasoning, the hot, conclusive arguments fell from him and left him bare. With her hands in his, seeking no more to move her or convince her, he sat silent; and by mute looks and dumb love—more potent than eloquence or oratory—strove to support and console her.
She, too, was silent. Stillness had fallen on both of them. But her hands clung to his, and now and again pressed them convulsively; and now and again, too, she would lift her eyes to his, and gaze at him with a pathetic intentness, as if she would stamp his likeness on her brain. But when he returned the look, and tried to read her meaning in her eyes, she smiled. "You are afraid of me?" she whispered. "No, I shall not be weak again."
But even as she reassured him he detected a flicker of pain in her eyes, he felt that her hands were cold; and but that he feared to shake her composure he would not have rested content with her answer.
This sudden silence, this new way of looking at him,were the only things that perplexed him. In all else, silent as they sat, their communion was perfect. It was in the mind of each that the women might be arrested on the morrow; in the mind of each that this was their last evening together, the last of few, yet not so few that they did not seem to the man and the girl to bulk large in their lives. On that hearth they had met, there she had proved to him what she was, there he had spoken, there spent the clouded never-to-be-forgotten days of their troubled courtship. No wonder that as they sat hand in hand, their hair almost mingling, their eyes on the red glow of the smouldering log, and, not daring to look forward, looked back—no wonder that their love grew to be something other than the common love of man and maid, something higher and more beautiful, touched—as the hills are touched at sunset—by the evening glow of parting and self-sacrifice.
Silent amid the silence of the house; living moments never to be forgotten; welcoming together the twin companions, love and death.
But from the darkest outlook of the mind, as of the eye, morning dispels some shadows; into the most depressing atmosphere daylight brings hope, brings actuality, brings at least the need to be doing. Claude's heart, as he slipped from his couch on the settle next morning, and admitted the light and turned the log and stirred the embers, was sad and full of foreboding. But as the room, its disorder abated, took on a more pleasant aspect, as the fire crackled and blazed on the hearth, and the flush of sunrise spread over the east, he grew—he could not but grow, for he was young—more cheerful also. He swept the floor and filled the kettle and let in the air; and had done almost all he knew how to do, before he heard Anne's foot upon the stairs.
She had slept little and looked pale and haggard;almost more pale and wan than he had ever seen her look. And this must have sunk his heart to zero, if a certain item in her aspect had not at the same time diverted his attention. "You are not going out?" he cried in astonishment. She wore her hood.
"I am not going to defend myself again," she answered, smiling sadly. "Have no fear. I shall not repeat that mistake. I am only going——"
"You are not going anywhere!" he answered firmly.
She shook her head with the same wan smile. "We must live," she said.
"Well?"
"And to live must have water."
"I have filled the kettle."
"And emptied the water-pot," she retorted.
"True," he said. "But surely it will be time to refill it when we want it."
"I shall attract less attention now," she answered quietly, "than later in the day. There are few abroad. I will draw my hood about my face, and no one will heed me."
He laughed in tender derision. "You will not go!" he said. "Did you think that I would let you run a risk rather than fetch the water from the conduit."
"You will go?"
"Where is the pot?"
He fetched the jar from its place under the stairs, snatched up his cap, and turning the key in the lock was in the act of passing out when she seized his arm. "Kiss me," she murmured. She lifted her face to his, her eyes half closed.
He drew her to him, but her lips were cold; and as he released her she sank passively from his embrace, and was near falling. He hesitated. "You are not afraid to be left?" he said. "You are sure?"
"I am afraid of nothing if I know you safe," she answered faintly. "Go! go quickly, and God be with you!"
"Tut! I run no danger," he rejoined. "I have a strong arm and they will leave me alone." He thought that she was overwrought, that the strain was telling on her; his thoughts did not go beyond that. "I shall be back in five minutes," he continued cheerfully. And he went, bidding her lock the door behind him and open only at his knock.
He made the more haste for her fears, passed into the town through the Porte Tertasse, and hastened to the conduit. The open space in front of the fountain, which a little later in the day would be the favourite resort of gossips and idlers, was a desert; the bitter morning wind saw to that. But about the fountain itself three or four women closely muffled were waiting their turns to draw. One looked up, and, as he fancied, recognised him, for she nudged her neighbour. And then first the one woman and then the other, looking askance, muttered something; it might have been a prayer, or a charm, or a mere word of gossip. But he liked neither the glance nor the action, nor the furtive, curious looks of the women; and as quickly as he could he filled his pot and carried it away.
He had splashed his fingers, and the cold wind quickly numbed them. At the Tertasse Gate, where the view commanding the river valley opened before him, he was glad to set down the vessel and change hands. On his left, the watch at the Porte Neuve, the gate in the ramparts which admitted from the country to the Corraterie—as the Tertasse admitted from the Corraterie to the town proper—was being changed, and he paused an instant, gazing on the scene. Then remembering himself, and the need of haste, he snatched up his jar and, turning to the right, hurried to the steps before theRoyaumes' door, swung up them and, with his eyes on the windows, set down his burden.
He knocked gently, sure that she would not keep him waiting. But she did not come at once; and by-and-by, seeing that a woman at an open door a little farther down the Corraterie was watching him with scowling eyes—and that strange look, half fear, half loathing, which he was growing to know—he knocked more loudly, and stamped to warm his feet.
Still, to his astonishment, she did not come; he waited, and waited, and she did not come. He would have begun to feel alarmed for her, but, what with the cold and the early hour, the place was deserted; no idle gazers such as a commotion leaves behind it were to be seen. The wind, however, began to pierce his clothes; he had not brought his cloak, and he shivered. He knocked more loudly.
Perhaps she had been called to her mother? That must be it. She had gone upstairs and could not on the instant leave her charge. He clothed himself in reproaches; but they did not warm him, and he was beginning to stamp his feet again when, happening to look down, he saw beside the water-can and partly hidden by its bulge, a packet about the size of a letter, but a little thicker. If he had not mounted the steps with his eyes on the windows, searching for her face, he would have seen it at once, and spared himself these minutes of waiting. He took it up in bewilderment, and turned it in his numbed hands; it was heavy, and from it, leaving only a piece of paper in his grasp, his purse fell to the ground. More and more astonished, he picked up the purse, and put it in his pocket. He looked at the window, but no one showed; then at the paper in his hand. Inside the letter were three lines of writing.
His face fell as he read them. "I shall not admit you,"they ran. "If you try to enter, you will attract notice and destroy me. Go, and God bless and reward you. You cannot save me, and to see you perish were a worse pang than the worst."
The words swam before his eyes. "I will beat down the door," he muttered, tears in his voice, tears welling up in his heart and choking him. And he raised his hand. "I will——"
But he did nothing. "You will attract notice and destroy me." Ah, she had thought it out too well. Too well, out of the wisdom of great love, she had known how to bridle him. He dared not do anything that would direct notice to the house.
But desert her? Never; and after a moment's thought he drew off, his plans formed. As he retired, when he had gone some yards from the door, he heard the window closed sharply behind him. He looked back and saw his cloak lying on the ground. Tears rose again to his eyes, as he returned, took it up, donned it, and with a last lingering look at the window, turned away. She would think that he had taken her at her word; but no matter!
He walked along the Corraterie, and passing the four square watch-towers with pointed roofs that stood at intervals along the wall, he came to the two projecting demilunes, or bastions, that marked the angle where the ramparts met the Rhone; a point from which the wall descended to the bridge. In one of these bastions he ensconced himself; and selecting a place whence he could, without being seen, command the length of the Corraterie, he set himself to watch the Royaumes' house. By-and-by he would go into the town and procure food, and, returning, keep guard until nightfall. After dark, if the day passed without event, he would find his way into the house by force or fraud. In a rapture of anticipation hepictured his entrance, her reluctant joy, her tears and smiles, and fond reproaches. As he loved her, as he must love her the more for the trick she had played him, she must love him the more for his return in her teeth. And the next day was Sunday, when it was unlikely that any steps would be taken. That whole day he would have with her, through it he would sit with her! A whole day without fear? It seemed an age. He did not, he would not look beyond it!
He had not broken his fast, and hunger presently drove him into the town. But within half an hour he was at his post again. A glance at the Royaumes' house showed him that nothing had happened, and, resuming his seat in the deserted bastion, he began a watch that as long as he lived stood clear in his memory of the past. The day was cold and bright, and frosty with a nipping wind. Mont Blanc and the long range of snow-clad summits that flanked it rose dazzlingly bright against the blue sky. The most distant object seemed near; the wavelets on the unfrozen water of the lake gave to the surface, usually so blue, a rough, grey aspect. The breeze which produced this appearance kept the ramparts clear of loiterers; and even those who were abroad preferred the more sheltered streets, or went hurriedly about their business. The guards were content to shiver in the guardrooms of the gate-towers, and if Claude blessed once the kind afterthought which had dropped his cloak from the window, he blessed it a dozen times. Wrapt in its thick folds, it was all he could do to hold his ground against the cold. Without it he must have withdrawn or succumbed.
Through the morning he watched the house jealously, trembling at every movement which took place at the Tertasse Gate; lest it herald the approach of the officers to arrest the women. But nothing happened, and as theday wore on he grew more hopeful. He might, indeed, have begun to think Anne over-timid and his fears unwarranted, if he had not seen, a little before sunset, a thing which opened his eyes.
Two women and some children came out of a house not far from the bastion. They passed towards the Tertasse Gate, and he watched them. Before they came to the Royaumes' house, the children paused, flung their cloaks over their heads, and, thus protected, ran past the house. The women followed, more slowly, but gave the house a wide berth, and each passed with a flap of her hood held between her face and the windows; when they had gone by they exchanged signals of abhorrence. The sight was no more than of a piece with the outrage on Anne; but, coming when it did, coming when he was beginning to think that he had been mistaken, when he was beginning to hope, it depressed Claude dismally.
For comfort he looked forward to the hour when it would be dark. "By hook or by crook," he muttered, "I shall enter then."
He had barely finished the sentence, when he observed moving along the ramparts towards him a figure he knew. It was Grio. There was nothing strange in the man's presence in that place, for he was an idler and a sot; but Claude did not wish to meet him, and debated in his mind whether he should retreat before the other came up. Pride said one thing, discretion another. He wanted no fracas, and he was still hanging doubtful, measuring the distance between them, when—away went his thoughts. What was Grio doing?
The Spaniard had come to a stand, and was leaning on the wall, looking idly into the fosse. The posture would have been the most natural in the world on a warm day. On that day it caught Claude's attention; and—was hemistaken, or were the hands that, under cover of Grio's cloak, rested on the wall busy about something?
In any case he must make up his mind whether he moved or stayed. For Grio was coming on again. Claude hesitated a moment. Then he determined to stay. The next he was glad he had so determined, for Grio after strolling on in seeming carelessness to a point not twenty yards from him, and well commanded from his seat, leant again on the wall, and seemed to be enjoying the view. This time Claude was sure, from the movement of his shoulders, that his hands were employed.
"In what?" The young man asked himself the question; and noted that beside Grio's left heel lay a piece of broken tile of a peculiar colour. The next moment he had an inspiration. He drew up his feet on the seat, drew his cloak over his head and affected to be asleep. What Grio, when he came upon him, thought of a man who chose to sleep in the open in such weather he did not learn, for after standing a while—as Claude's ears told him—opposite the sleeper, the Spaniard turned and walked back the way he had come. This time, and though he now had the wind at his back, he walked briskly; as a man would walk in such weather, or as a man might walk who had done his business.
Claude waited until his coarse, heavy figure had disappeared through the Porte Tertasse; nay, he waited until the light began to fail. Then, while he could still pick out the red potsherd, he approached the wall, leant over it, and, failing to detect anything with his eyes, passed his fingers down the stones.
They alighted on a nail; a nail thrust lightly into the mortar below the coping stone. For what purpose? His blood beginning to move more quickly Claude asked himself the question. To support a rope? And so to enable some one to leave the town? The nail, barelypushed into the mortar, would hardly support the weight of a dozen yards of twine.
Perhaps the nail was there by chance, and Grio had naught to do with it. He could settle that doubt. In a few moments he had settled it. Under cover of the growing darkness, he walked to the place at which he had seen Grio pause for the first time. A short search discovered a second nail as lightly secured as the other. Had he not been careful it would have fallen beneath his touch.
What did the nails there? Claude was not stupid, yet he was long in hitting on an explanation. It was a fanciful, extravagant notion when he got it, but one that set his chilled blood running, and his hands tingling, one that might mean much to himself and to others. It was unlikely, it was improbable, it was out of the common; but it was an explanation. It was a mighty thing to hang upon two weak nails; but such as it was—and he turned it over and over in his mind before he dared entertain it—he could find no other. And presently, his eyes alight, his pulses riotous, his foot dancing, he walked down the Corraterie—with scarce a look at the house which had held his thoughts all day—and passed into the town. As he passed through the gateway he hung an instant and cast an inquisitive eye into the guard-room of the Tertasse. It was nearly empty. Two men sat drowsing before the fire, their boot-heels among the embers, a black jack between them.
The fact weighed something in the balance of probabilities: and in growing excitement, Claude hurried on, sought the cookshop at which he had broken his fast—a humble place, licensed for the scholars—and ate his supper, not knowing what he ate, nor with whom he ate it. It was only by chance that his ear caught, at a certain moment, a new tone in the goodwife's voice; and that he looked up, and saw her greet her husband.
"Ay!" the man said, putting off his bandoleer, and answering the exclamation of surprise which his entrance had evoked. "It's bed for me to-night. It's so cold they will send but half the rounds."
"Whose order is that?" asked a scholar at Claude's table.
"Messer Blondel's."
"Shows his sense!" the goodwife cried roundly. "A good man, and knows when to watch and when to ha' done!"
Claude said nothing, but he rose with burning cheeks, paid his share—it was seven o'clock—and, passing out, made his way back. It should be said that in addition to the Tertasse Gate, two lesser gates, the Treille on the one hand and the Monnaye on the other, led from the town proper to the Corraterie; and this time he chose to go out by the Treille. Having ascertained that the guard-room there also was almost denuded of men, he passed along the Corraterie to his bastion, hugging the houses on his right, and giving the wall a wide berth. Although the cold wind blew in his face he paused several times to listen, nor did he enter his bastion until he had patiently made certain that it was untenanted.
The night was very dark: it was the night of December the 12th, old style, the longest and deadest of the year. Far below him in the black abyss on which the wall looked down, a few oil lamps marked the island and the town beyond the Rhone. Behind him, on his left, a glimmer escaping here and there from the upper windows marked the line of the Corraterie, of which the width is greatest at the end farthest from the river. Near the far extremity of the rampart a bright light marked the Porte Neuve, distant about two hundred yards from his post, and about seventy or eighty from the Porte Tertasse, the inner gate which correspondedwith it. Straight from him to the Porte Neuve ran the rampart a few feet high on the inner side, some thirty feet high on the outer, but shrouded for the present in a black gloom that defied his keenest vision.
He waited more than an hour, his ears on the alert. At the end of that time, he drew a deep breath of relief. A step that might have been the step of a sentry pacing the rampart, and now pausing, now moving on, began to approach him. It came on, paused, came on, paused—this time close at hand. Two or three dull sounds followed, then the sharper noise of a falling stone. Immediately the foot of the sentry, if sentry it was, began to retreat.
Claude drove his nails into the palms of his hands and waited, waited through an eternity, waited until the retreating foot had almost reached, as he judged, the Porte Tertasse. Then he stole out, groped his way to the wall, and passed his hand along the outer side until he came to the nail. He found it. It had been made secure, and from it depended a thin string.
He set to work at once to draw up the string. There was a small weight attached to it, which rose slowly until it reached his hand. It was a stone about as large as the fist, and of a whitish colour.
Afterthe wave, the trough of the wave; after action, passion. Not to sink a little after rising to the pitch of self-sacrifice, not to shed, when the deed is done, some bitter tears of regret and self-pity, were to be cast in a mould above the human.
When the cloak—dear garment!—had slipped from her hands and the head bent that its owner might raise the cloak had passed from sight—when Anne had fled to the farther side of the room, to the farther side of the settle, and had heard his step die away, she would have given the world to see him again, to feel his arm about her, to hear the sound of his voice. The tears streamed down her face; in vain she tried to stay them with her hands, in vain she chid herself for her weakness. "It is for him! for him!" she moaned, and hid her face in her hands. But words stay no tears; and on the hearth which his coming had changed for her, standing where she had first seen him, where she had heard his first words of love, where she had tried him, she wept bitter tears for him.
The storm died away at last—for after every storm falls a calm—but it left the empty house, the empty heart, silence. Her mother? She had still her mother, and with lagging footsteps she went upstairs to her. But she found her in a deep sleep, and she descended again, and going to his room began to put together his fewbelongings, the clothes he had worn, the books he had read; that if the house were entered they might not be lost to him. She buried her face in his garments and kissed them, fondly, tenderly, passionately, lingering over the task, and at last putting the things from her with reluctance. A knot of ribbon which she had seen him wear in the neck of his shirt on holidays she took and hid in her bosom, and fetching a length of her own ribbon she put it in place of the other. This she thought she could do without fear of bringing suspicion on him, for he alone would discern the exchange. Would he notice it? Would he weep when he found the ribbon as she wept now? And fondle it tenderly? At the thought her tears gushed forth.
The day wore on. Supported by the knowledge that even a slight shock might cast her mother into one of her fits, Anne hid her fears from her, though the effort was as the lifting of a great weight. On the pretext that the light hurt the invalid's sight, she shaded the window, and so hid the hollows under her eyes and the wan looks that must have betrayed the forced nature of her cheerfulness. As a rule Madame Royaume's eyes, quickened by love, were keen; but this day she slept much, and the night was fairly advanced when Anne, in the act of preparing to lie down, turned and saw her mother sitting erect in the bed.
The old woman's eyes were strangely bright. Her face wore an intent expression which arrested her daughter where she stood.
"Mother, what is it?" she cried.
"Listen!" Madame Royaume answered. "What is that?"
"I hear nothing," Anne said, hoping to soothe her. And she approached the bed.
"I hear much," her mother retorted. "Go! Goand see, child, what it is!" She pointed to the door, but, before Anne could reach it, she raised her hand for silence. "They are crossing the ditch," she muttered, her eyes dilated. "One, two, many, many of them! Many of them! They are throwing down hurdles, and wattles, and crossing on them! And there is a priest with them——"
"Mother!"
"A priest!" Her voice dropped a little. "The ladders are black," she whispered. "Black ladders! Ay, swathed in black cloth; and now they set them against the wall. The priest absolves them, and they begin to mount. They are mounting! They are mounting now."
"Mother!" There was sharp pain in Anne's voice. Who does not know the heartache with which it is seen that the mind of a loved one is wandering from us? And yet she was puzzled. She dreaded one of those scenes in which her young strength was barely sufficient to control and soothe the frail form before her. But they did not begin as a rule in this fashion; here, though the mind wandered, was an absence of the wildness to which she had become inured. Here—and yet as she listened, as she looked, now at her mother, now into the dimly lighted corners of the room, where those dilated eyes seemed to see things unseen by her, black things, she found this phase no less disquieting than the other.
"Hush!" Madame Royaume continued, heeding her daughter's interruption no farther than by that word and an impatient movement of the hand. "A stone has fallen and struck one down. They raise him, he is lifeless! No, he moves, he rises. They set other ladders against the wall. They mount now by tens and twenties—and—it is growing dark—dark, child. Dark!" She seemed to try to put away a curtain with her hands.
"Mother!" Anne cried, bending over the bed andtaking her mother's hand. "Don't, dear! Don't! You frighten me."
The old woman raised her hand for silence, and continued to gaze before her. Anne's arm was round her; the girl marked with astonishment, almost with awe, how strongly and stiffly she sat up. She marvelled still more when her mother murmured in the same tone, "I can see no more," sighed, and sank gently back. Anne bent over her. "I can—see no more," Madame Royaume repeated; "I can——" She was asleep!
Anne bent over her, and after listening a while to her easy breathing, heaved a deep sigh of relief. Her mother had been talking in her sleep; and she, Anne had alarmed herself for nothing. Nevertheless, as she turned from the bed she looked nervously over her shoulder. The other's wandering or dream, or what it was, had left a vague disquiet in her mind, and presently she took the lamp and, opening the door, passed out, and, with her hands still on the latch, listened.
Suddenly her heart bounded, her startled eyes leapt upward to the ceiling. Close to her, above her, she heard a sound.
It came from a trap-door that led to the tiles; a trap that even as her eyes reached it, lifted itself with a rending sound. Save for the bedridden woman, Anne was alone in the house; and for one instant it was a question whether she held her ground or fled shrieking into the room she had left. For an instant; then the instinct to shield her mother won the day, and with fascinated eyes she watched the legs of a man drop through the aperture, watched a body follow, and—and at last a face!
Claude's face! But changed. Even while she sank gasping against the wall—for the surprise was too much for her—even while he took the lamp from her shakinghand and supported her, and relief and joy began to run like wine through her veins, she knew it. The forceful look, the tightened lips, the eyes gleaming with determination—all were new to her. They gave him an aspect so old, so strange, that when he had kissed her once she put him from her.
"What is it?" she said. "Oh, Claude! What is it? What has happened?"
Letting a smile appear—but such a smile as did not reassure her—he signed to her to go before him downstairs. She complied; but at the foot of the first flight she stopped, unable to bear the suspense longer. She turned to him again. "What is it?" she cried. "Something has happened?"
"Something is happening," he answered. His eyes shone, exultant. "But it is a matter for others! We may be easy!"
"What is it?"
"The Savoyards are in Geneva."
She started incredulously. "In Geneva? Here?" she exclaimed. "The enemy?"
He nodded.
"Here? In Geneva?" she repeated. She could not have heard aright.
"Yes."
But she still looked at him; she could not reconcile his words with his manner. This, the greatest calamity that could happen, this which she had been brought up to fear as the worst and most awful of catastrophes—could he talk of it, could he announce it after this fashion? With a smile, in a tone of pleasantry? He must be playing with her. She passed her hand over her eyes, and tried to be calm. "But all is quiet?" she said.
"All is quiet now," he answered. "After midnight the trouble will begin."
Still she could not understand him. His face said one thing, his voice another. Besides, the town was quiet: no sound of riot or disturbance, no clash of steel, no tramp of feet penetrated the walls. And the house stood on the ramparts where the first alarm must be given. "Do you mean," she asked at last, her eyes fixed steadfastly on him, "that they are going to attack the town after midnight?"
"They are here now," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "They scaled the wall after the guard had gone round at eleven, and they are lying by tens and twenties along the outer side of the Corraterie, waiting for the hour and the signal."
She passed her hand across her closed eyes, and looked again, perplexedly. "And you," she said, "you? I do not understand. If this be so, what are you doing here?"
"Here?"
"Ay, here! Why have you not given the alarm in the town?"
"Why should I give the alarm?" he retorted coolly. "To save those who hounded you through the streets two days ago? To save those who to-morrow may put you to the torture and burn you like the vilest of creatures? Save them?" with a grim smile. "No, let them save themselves!"
"But——"
"I would save you! not them! I would save your mother! not them! And it is done. Let the Grand Duke triumph to-night, let Savoy take Geneva, and our good townsfolk will have other matters to occupy their thoughts to-morrow! Ay, and through many and many a morrow to come! Save them?" with a grim note in his voice; "no, I save you. Let them save themselves! It is God's mercy on us, and His judgment on them!Or why happens it to-night? To-night of all nights in the year?"
She was very pale, and for a moment remained silent: whether she felt the temptation to which he had succumbed, or was seeking what she should say to move him, is uncertain. At last, "It is impossible," she murmured, in a low voice. "You have not thought of the women and children, of the fathers and mothers who will suffer."
"And your mother!"
"Is one. God forbid that I should save her at the expense of all! God forbid!" she wailed, as if she feared her own strength, as if the temptation almost overcame her. And then laying her hand on his arm and looking up to him—his face was set so hard—"You will not do this!" she said. "You will not do this! Could we be happy after? Could we be happy with blood on our heads, and on our hands, and on our hearts! Happy, oh no! Claude, dear heart, dear husband, we cannot buy happiness so, or life so, or love so! We cannot save ourselves—so! We cannot play God's part—so!"
"It is not we who do it," he answered stubbornly.
"It is we who may prevent it!" she answered, leaning more heavily on his arm, looking up to him more earnestly; with pleading eyes which it was hard to refuse. "Would you, to save us, have betrayed Geneva?"
He groaned—she had moved him. "God knows!" he answered. "To save you—I think I would!"
"You would not! You would not!" she repeated. "Neither must you do this! Honour, faith, duty, all forbid it!"
"And love?" he cried.
"And love!" she answered. "For who would love dishonoured? Who would love in shame? No; go asyou have come, and give the alarm! And do, and help! Go, as you have come! But how"—with a startled look as she thought of the trap-door—"did you come?"
"By the Tertasse Gate," he explained. "There were but two men on guard, and they were asleep. I passed them unseen, climbed the stairs to the leads—I have been up twice before—and crossed the roofs. I knew I could come this way unseen, and if I had come by the door——"
She understood and cut him short. "Then go as you came and rouse the watch in the gate!" she cried feverishly. "Rouse them and all, and Heaven grant you be not too late! Go, Claude, for the love of me, for the love of God, go quickly!" Her hands on his arm shook with eagerness. "So that, if there be treachery here——"
"There is treachery!" he said darkly. "Grio——"
"We at least shall have no part in it! You will go? You will go?" she repeated, clinging to his arm, trembling against him, looking up to him with eyes which he could not resist. Love wrestled here, on the higher, the nobler, the unselfish side, and came the stronger out of the contest. There were tears in his eyes as he answered.
"I will go. You are right, Anne. But you will be alone."
"I run no greater risk than others," she answered. He held her to him, and their lips met once. And in that instant, her heart beating against his, she comprehended to what she was sending him, into what peril of life, into what a dark hell of force and fire and blood; and her arms clung to him as if she could not let him go. Then, "Go, and God keep you!" she murmured in a choked voice. And she thrust him from her.
A moment later he was on the roof, and she waskneeling where he had left her, bowed down, with her face on the bare stairs in an agony of prayer for him. But not for long; she had her part to do. She hurried down to the living-room and made sure that the strong shutters were secured; then up to Basterga's room and to Grio's, and as far as her strength went she piled the furniture against the iron-barred casements that looked on to the ramparts. While she worked her ears listened for the alarm, but, until she had finished and was ascending with the light to her mother's room she heard nothing. Then a distant cry, a faint challenge, the drum-drum of running feet, a second cry—and silence. It might be his death-cry she had heard; and she stood with a white face, shivering, waiting, bearing the woman's burden of suspense. To lie down by her mother was impossible; rapine, murder, fire, all the horrors, all the perils of a city taken by surprise, crowded into her mind. Yet they moved her not so much as the dangers he ran, whom she had sent forth to confront them, whom she had plucked from her own breast that he might face them!
Meanwhile, Claude, after gaining the tiles, paused a moment to consider his next step. Far below him, on the narrow, black triangle of the Corraterie, lay the Savoyards, some three hundred in number, who had scaled the wall. Out of the darkness of the plain, beyond and below them, rose the faint, distant quacking of alarmed ducks, proving that others of the enemy moved there. Even as he listened, the whirr of a wild goose winging its flight over the city came to his ear. On his left, with a dim oil lamp marking, here or there, the meeting of four ways, the town slept unsuspicious, recking nothing of the fate prepared for it.
It was a solemn moment, and Claude on the roof under the night sky, felt it to be so. Restored to his higher self, he breathed a prayer for guidance and forher, and was as eager now as he had before been cold. But not the less for that did he ply the wits that, working freely in this hour of peril, proved him one of those whom battle owns for master. He had gathered enough, lying on his face in the bastion, to feel sure that the forlorn hope which had gained a footing on the wall would not move until the arrival of the main body whom it was its plan to admit by the Porte Neuve. To carry the alarm to the Porte Neuve, therefore, and secure that gate, seemed to be the first and most urgent step; since to secure the Tertasse and the other inner gates would be of little avail, if the main body of the enemy were once in possession of the ramparts. The course that at first sight seemed the most obvious—to enter the town, give the alarm at the town hall, and set the tocsin ringing—he rejected; for while the town was arming, the three hundred who had entered might seize the Porte Neuve, and so secure the entrance of the main body.
These calculations occupied no more than a few seconds: then, his mind made up to the course he must pursue, he crawled as quickly, but also as quietly, as he could along the dark parapets until he gained the leads of the Tertasse. Safe so far, he proceeded, with equal or greater caution, to descend the narrow cork-screw staircase, that led to the guard-room on the ground floor.
He forgot that it is more easy to ascend without noise than to descend. With all his care he stumbled when he was within three steps of the bottom. He tried to save himself, but fell against the half-open door, flung it wide, and, barely keeping his feet, found himself face to face with the two watchmen, who, startled by the noise, had sprung to their feet, thinking the devil was upon them. One, with an oath upon his lips, reached for his half-pike; his fellow, less sober, steadied himself by resting a hand on the table.
If they gave the alarm, his plan was gone. The enemy, finding themselves discovered, would seize the Porte Neuve. "One minute!" he cried breathlessly. "Let me explain!"
"You!" the more sober retorted, glaring fiercely at him. "Who the devil are you? And where have you been?"
"Quiet, man, quiet!"
"What is it?"
"Treason!" Claude answered, imploring silence by a gesture. "Treason! That is what it is! But for God's sake, no noise! No noise, man, or our throats are as good as cut! Savoy has the wall!"
The man stared, and no wonder. "You are mad," he said, "or drunk! Savoy——"
"Fool, it is so!" Claude cried, beside himself with impatience.
"Savoy?"
"They are under the trees on the ramparts within a few yards of us now! Three hundred of them! A word and you will feel their pikes in your breast! Listen to me!"
But with a laugh of derision the drunken man cut him short. "Savoy here—on the wall!" he hiccoughed. "And we on guard!"
"It is so!" Claude urged. "Believe me, it is so! And we must be wary."
"You lie, young man! And I'll—hic—I'll prove it! See here! Savoy on the wall, indeed! Savoy? And we on guard?"
He lurched in two strides to the outer door, seized it, and supported himself by it. Claude leant forward to stop him, but could not reach, being on the other side of the table. He called to the other to do so. "Stop him!" he said. "Stop him!"
The man might have done so, but he did not stir; and "Stop him?" the sot answered, his hand on the door. "Not—two of you—will stop him! Now, then! Savoy, indeed! On the wall? I'll show you!"
He let the door go, and reeled three paces into the darkness outside, waving his hands as if he drove chickens. "Savoy! Savoy!" he cried; but whether in drunken bravado, in derision, or in pure disbelief, God only knows! For the word had barely passed his lips the second time before a gurgling scream followed, freezing the hearts of the two listeners; and, before the second guard could close the door or move from his place on the hearth, four men sprang in out of the darkness, and bore him back. Before he had struck a blow they had pinned him against the wall.
Claude owed his escape to his position behind the door. They did not see him as they sprang in, intent on the one they did see. He knew resistance to be futile, and a bound carried him into the darkness of the cork-screw staircase. Once there, he dared not move. Thence he saw and heard what followed.
The man pinned against the wall, with the point of a knife flickering before his eyes, begged piteously for his life.
"Then silence!" Basterga answered—for the foremost who had entered was he. "A word and you die!"
"Better let me finish him at once!" Grio growled. The prisoner's face was ashen, his eyes were starting from his head. "Dead men give no alarms."
"Mercy! Mercy!" the man gasped.
"Ay, ay, let him live," Basterga said good-naturedly. "But he must be gagged. Turn your face to the wall, my man!"
The poor wretch complied with gratitude. In atwinkling the Paduan's huge fingers closed round his neck, and over his wind-pipe. "Now strike," the big man hissed. "He will make no noise!"
With a sickening thud Grio's knife sank between the shoulders, a moment the body writhed in Basterga's herculean grip, then it sank lifeless to the floor. "Had you struck him, fool," Basterga muttered wrathfully, wiping a little blood from his sleeve, "as you wanted to strike him, he had squealed like a pig! Now 'tis the same, and no noise. Ha! Seize him!"
He spoke too late. Claude had seen his opportunity, and as the treacherous blow was struck had crept forth. At the moment the other saw him he bounded over the threshold. Even as his feet touched the ground a man who stood outside lunged at him with a pike but missed him—a chance, for Claude had not seen the striker. The next moment the young man had launched himself into the darkness and was running for his life across the Corraterie in the direction of the Porte Neuve.
He knew that his foes were lying on every side of him, and the cry of "Seize him! Seize him!" went with him, making every step a separate peril. He could not see a yard, but he was young and fleet and active; and the darkness covering him, the men were confused. Over more than one black object he bounded like a deer. Once a man rising in front of him brought him heavily to the ground, but by good fortune it was his foot struck the man, and on the head, and the fellow lay still and let him rise. A moment later another gripped him, but Claude and he fell together, and the younger man, rolling nimbly sideways, got clear and to his feet again, made for the wall on his right, turned left again, and already thought himself over the threshold of the Porte Neuve. The cry "Aux Armes! Aux Armes!" was already on his lips, he thought he had succeeded, when between hiseyes and the faintly lighted gateway a dozen forms rose as by magic and poured in before him—so near to him that, unable to check himself, he jostled the hindmost.
He might have entered with them, so near was he. But he saw that he was too late; he guessed that the outcry behind him had precipitated the attack, and, arresting himself outside the ring of light, but within a few paces of the gateway, he threw himself on the ground and awaited the event. It was not long in declaring itself. For a few seconds a dull roar of shots and shouts and curses filled the gate. Then out again, helter-skelter, with a flash of exploding powder and a whirl of steel and blows, came defenders and assailants in a crowd, the former bent on escaping, the latter on cutting them off from the Porte Tertasse and the town. For an instant after they had poured out the gate seemed quiet, and with his eyes upon it, Claude rose, first to his knees and then to his feet, paused a moment in doubt, then darted in and entered the guard-room.
The firelight—the other lights in the small, dingy chamber had been trampled under foot—showed him two wounded men groaning on the floor, and the body of a third who lay apparently dead. Claude bent over one, found what he wanted—a half-pike—and glided to the door of the stairs that led to the roof. It was in the same position as in the Tertasse. He opened it, passed through it, mounted two steps, and in the darkness came plump against some one who seized him by the throat.
The man had no weapon—at any rate he did not strike; and Claude, taken by surprise, could not level his pike in the narrow stairway. For a moment they wrestled, Claude striving to bring his weapon to bear on his foe, the latter trying to strangle him. But the advantage of the stairs lay with the first comer, who wasthe uppermost, and gradually he bore Claude back and back. The young man, however, would not let go such hold as he had, and both were on the point of falling out on the floor of the guard-room when the light disclosed Claude's face.
"You are of us!" his opponent panted. And abruptly he released his grip.
"Geneva!"
"I know you!" The man was one of the guard who, in the alarm, had escaped into the stairway. "I know you! You live in the Corraterie!"
Claude wasted not a second. "Up!" he cried. "We can hold the roof! Up, man, for your life! For your life! It is our only chance!"
With the fear of death upon him, the other needed no second telling. He turned, and groped upwards in haste; and Claude followed, treading on his heels; nor a moment too soon. While they were still within the staircase, which their elbows rubbed on either side, they heard the enemy swarm into the room below. Cries of triumph, of "Savoy! Savoy!" of "Ville gagnée! gagnée!" hummed dully up to them, and proclaimed the narrowness of their escape. Then the night air met their faces, they bent their heads and passed out upon the leads; they had above them the stars, and below them all the world of night, with its tramp of hidden feet, its swaying lights so tiny and distant, and here and there its cry of "Savoy! Savoy!" that showed that the enemy, relying on their capture of the Porte Neuve, were casting off disguise.
Claude heard and saw all, but lost not a moment. He had not made this haste for his life only: before he had risen to his knees or set foot in the gate, he had formed his plan. "The Portcullis!" he cried. "The Portcullis! Where are the chains? On this side?" Less than aweek before he had stood and watched the guard as they released it and raised it again for practice.
The soldier, familiar with the tower, should have been able to go to the chains at once. But though he had struggled for his life and was ready to struggle for it again, he had not recovered his nerve, and he shrank from leaving the stairs, in holding which their one chance consisted. He muttered, however, that the winch was on such and such a side, and, with his head in the stairway, indicated the direction with his hand. Claude groped his way to the spot, his breath coming fast; fortunately he laid his hand almost at once on the chains and felt for the spike, which he knew he must draw or knock out. That done, the winch would fly round, and the huge machine fall by its own weight.
On a sudden, "They are coming!" the soldier cried in a terrified whisper. "My God, they are coming! Come back! Come back!" For Claude had their only weapon, and the guard was defenceless. Defenceless by the side of the stairs up which the foe was climbing!
The hair rose on Claude's head, but he set his teeth; though the man died, though he died, the portcullis must fall! More than his own life, more than the lives of both of them, more than lives a hundred or a thousand hung on that bolt; the fate of millions yet unborn, the freedom and the future of a country hung on that bolt which would not give way—though now he had found it and was hammering it. Grinding his teeth, the sweat on his brow, he beat on it with the pike, struck the iron with the strength of despair, stooped to see what was amiss—still with the frenzied prayers of the other in his ears—saw it, and struck again and again—and again!
Whirr! The winch flew round, barely missing his head. With a harsh, grinding sound that rose with incredible swiftness to a scream, piercing the night, theponderous grating slid down, crashed home and barred all entrance—closed the Porte Neuve. It did more, though Claude did not know it. It cut off the engineer from the outer gate, of which the keys were at the Town Hall, and against which in another minute, another sixty seconds, he had set his petard. That set and exploded, Geneva had lain open to its enemies. As it was, so small was the margin, so fatally accurate the closing, that when the day rose, it disclosed a portent. When the victors came to examine the spot they found beneath the portcullis the mangled form of one of the engineers, and beside him lay his petard.