They had met again. Were together, never more to part unless parted by one thing, Death! Death that was imminent at any moment, that might overtake them that very night, or to-morrow, or the next day; for Cavalier was on his way down to the plains to make those reprisals of which Montbonneux had spoken. God only knew what might be the end of all.
She, riding on the captured little mule and enveloped in costly furs--as usual, part of a spoil of a successful foray made by the Camisards on a more or less unprotectedmanoir--had seen him as the large body of Cavalier's followers had rounded a point in the mountain pass, and, springing from the animal's back, had thrown herself into his outstretched arms, unheeding those who came behind her and the Cévenole chief, thinking of naught at the moment but that he was safe and with her again, deeming all else insignificant beside that one supreme mercy vouchsafed by God. For she knew in what awful danger he had stood not many hours before; knew that, not more for the purpose of exacting vengeance than for that of rescuing him, was this descent from the mountains being made. And now he was safe, by her side again.
He drew her apart from where Cavalier stood with all his followers behind him; drew her apart and whispered words of love and thankfulness at seeing her once more. Then suddenly, observing on the fair young face and in the clear, pure eyes a look that he had never seen before, he murmured:
"What--what is it, Urbaine, my sweet?"
But she would not answer him, only contenting herself with saying, "Not now, not now," while even as she did so he saw beneath the light of the full moon that her eyes were full of tears. Felt, too, the warm hand which he held quiver in his grasp.
And as he noticed those symptoms of unhappiness he wondered if she had learned while among these Camisards that secret which one at least of them knew--that secret which, to prevent her from ever learning, had caused Baville to bid him fly with her out of France, away, anywhere, so that she might never know it. Never know that her father's death lay at his door.
"Come," said Cavalier, approaching them and speaking very quietly, after having carried on a hurried conversation for some moments with Montbonneux and the other two men, "come, we must move forward. Thank God, you are free, out of the tiger's claws; for your sake and ours as well, if what my followers report of the news you bring is true.Isit?" and he looked piercingly at the other in the moonbeam's light.
"It is true if they have told you that a large force is making its way toward these mountains. They must have left Nîmes some time before me, since I followed them a considerable distance before coming up with their rear, and I have outstripped them by perhaps two hours, though not longer, I think."
Then he told Cavalier that Baville had himself released him.
"Baville released you! Because of my threat?"
"Because of----" yet since Urbaine was by his side he paused and told no more, or only with a look which Cavalier understood sufficiently well, for he also now knew of the Intendant's part in the death of Urbain Ducaire, understood that his love for Urbaine had grown out of his remorse.
"Come," he said shortly, after meditating for a moment with his eyes fixed on the ground, "come, we must go forward now. Best meet this force and check it, or part of it. How many strong are they, do you suppose?"
"At least a thousand. Perhaps more. Composed of dragoons,chevaux-légers, and Miquelets. Can you cope with those?"
"If we are united, yes. But Roland is away, ahead, with half our men; yet, stay. We have to meet at the Tour de Bellot. If we can join them before these soldiers reach that, then we can win. If not, if they catch Roland's force alone, then God help Roland!"
As he spoke, from afar off there came a sound that none in all the vast band which had descended from the mountains could have mistaken, unless it were Urbaine alone. A sound deep, muffled, roaring. That of cannons firing. Heard first down in the valley, then reverberating high up amid the clouds that capped the summits of the cold mountain tops.
"You hear?" he said. "You hear? We must on at once. On, on! What will you do with the lady? She is yours now. You see, I remembered my promise. I was bringing her to you, knowing full well that either by threats or siege we would have you out of the hands of Baville. Yet I thought not you could have been free to-night, so soon."
"My place is by her side forever now. Where she is, there am I."
"Be it so. Will you go back with her? Yet I know not, if they gain the passes, the caverns will be surrounded and--and--if they succeed we shall not be there to help or succour. God, he knows what is best!"
"Can they do that, gain the summits?"
"Scarce can I say. Yet now at last I fear. The prophets see visions, speak of rebuffs at last. Theextasées, the woman seers, the female children--all foretell disaster. Even I, who have ere now believed that I could read the future, am shaken, not in my courage, but my hopes."
His last words were lost, or almost lost, in the dead muffled roar that rose once more from far down in the valley, and as the sound was heard again Cavalier started.
"We must not tarry, even for her. Decide, therefore, and decide quickly," while, as he spoke, he gave orders briefly to all who surrounded them and commanded that they should be transmitted along the line of Camisards which stretched far behind and up to where the great plateau was.
"I have decided," Martin answered. "That firing is some distance off, some five or six miles at least. At the foot of the mountains there are many side-paths leading east and west. I can convey her by one of those to some haven of shelter, out of harm. Let us accompany you to the valley; then, Cavalier, we part."
"Do as you will," the other answered. "I gave you my word that all should be as you desired when you returned from Cette. I keep it to the last. We part to-night forever. Remember me in years to come as one who was an honourable man."
Then, as though he wished no more said, he gave another order for the band under his command to set forth again upon its descent, and, quitting Martin, went forward and placed himself at its head.
And now Martin took his place by the side of her he loved, walking by the little mule, holding her hand in his beneath the richly-furred cloak. Also he told her what was decided on as best for her safety. Once, too, he asked, after he had informed her of the arranged plan:
"You do not fear? Are content?"
"Content! To be with you!"
And the glance that rested on him, and plainly to be seen beneath the ray of the moon, told more than further words could have done.
"We shall be together forever and always now," he continued, speaking clearly though low, so that she might catch his words above the deep thud of the Camisards' tread as they swept down the mountain road. Above, too, the roar of the cannon that grew louder as they approached nearer and nearer to the spot whence it proceeded. "Forever and always, once we are across the frontier and in the Duke of Savoy's dominions. Man and wife,ma mie, in a week's time if we escape to-night. Will that suffice?"
And once more she answered with a glance.
They were descending fast now toward the plain, yet, as they neared it, it almost seemed as though the booming of the cannon grew less continuous, as if the pauses were longer between each roar. What did it mean? the Camisards asked each other. Was the cannon becoming silent because Julien and his detachments had been caught in some trap, or had the royalist troops been driven back again as they had been so often driven back before? Were the outcasts, theattroupés, again successful, still invincible? Above all else, above that thud of mountaineers' heavy feet and the clatter of musketoon and fusil shifted from shoulder to shoulder; above, too, sword scabbards clanging on the ground, Cavalier's voice arose now.
"Down to meet them!" he cried. "Down! Down! Faster and faster, to join Roland and sweep the tyrant's soldier from out our land, or perish beneath their glaives. On, my brethren, on!" and as he spoke the tramp of the men was swifter and heavier, the march of the band more swinging.
The plain was reached. They poured out upon it, no longer a long, thin line, but a compact body now which marched not only on the straight, white road that gleamed a thread beneath the moon's rays, but spread itself over the sodden marshy lands bordering that road; went on swift and fast, while as they almost ran they saw to the priming of their firelocks, and buckled rough goatskin baudriers and bandoleers, wrenched from many a dying royalist, tighter round them, and loosened swords and knives in their sheaths.
Yet, as they went, the firing ceased or rather rolled farther away from them, sounded now as if coming from where, beneath the moonlit sky, the cathedral spire of Nîmes lifted its head. Surely, all thought, the enemy must be driven back. Otherwise the booming of the cannon would not have ceased altogether; at least would not become more distant, farther off.
And now they were near the Tour de Bellot, the rendezvous, the spot where Roland was to have joined forces with them, if all was well. So near that the solitary and lofty structure--once the round tower of an ancient feudal castle that had stood many a siege in days as far off as those of the Albigensian crusade, but on to which, in later years, had been built a farmhouse, now a ruin also--could be seen rising clear and pointed to the heavens; clearer than the more distant spire of Nîmes itself.
And Roland was not there, nor any of his force. One glance showed that, long ere they reached it, the battle which had been going on for now more than two hours was farther off than they had at first supposed.
The place was deserted, except for the shepherd who dwelt within it, a man holding the creed of the outcasts, one who had also at that time two sons in their ranks.
"Where is Roland?" demanded Cavalier of this man as they all streamed into the place, leaping over the stone walls which surrounded the pasturage and rushing hastily into grange and granary, there to snatch some rest, even though but half an hour's, ere they might have to set forth again. "Where? Where?"
"Forward toward Nîmes," the fellow answered, speaking stolidly and, as it seemed to Martin, who stood by, stupidly; "toward Nîmes. He has driven them back."
"God be praised!" exclaimed Cavalier and many who stood around. Then the former asked: "And followed them toward Nîmes? Is that so?"
"Nay, I know not," the other replied, seeming even more stupid than before. "I know not. They are not here. The battle was afar. I did but hear it."
"We can do nothing as yet," Cavalier said, "nothing. Can but wait and abide events. Yet 'tis strange, strange that of all his force he could not send back one messenger to tell me of his doings, his whereabouts. Our rendezvous was to be ten of the clock; 'tis past that now. Strange!" he repeated, "strange!" And his eyes followed the shepherd searchingly as he moved about preparing rough, coarse food for as many of the band as he could supply. He had been warned that the descent was to be made that night from the mountains, and also to prepare as much bread and wine as possible; and now he produced all that he had, he said, been able to obtain without arousing suspicions.
At this time Martin was standing beside Urbaine, she having been placed in a rude armchair possessing neither pillow nor covering, which had been set in front of the fire for her; and to them Cavalier now addressed himself, saying:
"For you to go forward now would be madness; nay, madness even to quit this house and seek any road either to right or left. For--for--Heaven forgive me if I am wrong, yet I misdoubt me of this man, one of us as he is and the father of two others."
"I have Baville's pass; they would respect that. Would not harm her. Even though the men in command have never seen her, they would understand. And--and--it is imperative that I convey her across the frontier to Savoy without loss of time." Then, drawing the banished chief away from the close neighbourhood of Urbaine, he said in a lower tone, "He dreads that she should learn from any here that he caused her father, Urbain Ducaire's death!"
With a swift glance the other looked up into Martin's face, far above his own; looked up with a glance that was almost a mocking one.
"He dreads that, does he?" Cavalier replied. "Malheureusement pour lui!he dreads too late. He should have taken steps bef----"
"What?"
"She knows it."
"Great God! 'Tis from that her fresh sorrow springs. How--how did she----?"
But ere he could finish his question there came an interruption which prevented it from ever being answered.
Across the broken flags of the farmhouse kitchen there came a man, one of the prophets, known asLe Léopard, because of his fierce staring eyes, a man in whose belt there was a long knife, the hilt of which he fingered savagely, and on whose back was strapped a long military carabine, another spoil of the enemy. And, reaching Cavalier's side, he muttered hoarsely from beneath his ragged, dishevelled mustache:
"We are betrayed. There has been no battle. Roland is not within leagues of this spot. The cannon was a snare, a lure. And--and--come forth into the moonlight and see what is without."
From that old, dismantled farmhouse, built on to the tower, there sloped down, toward where a small stream ran some four hundred yards away, a long stretch of bare land, covered sometimes in the summer heat by short, coarse grass, while in the winter time it was, if any of it were left uneaten by the sheep, frost-bound or snow-covered. It was so now on this clear, cold winter night, its surface being dotted by innumerable folds and pens into which those sheep had once been driven, but which, since the mountaineers had been forced into revolution and had raided the place, were empty. They were so on this night, of sheep. Yet not of other living things, unless the moon played strange tricks with the eyes of those regarding the pens. Instead, were being filled rapidly with human forms creeping like Indians or painted snakes toward them, wriggling their bodies beneath the hurdles they were composed of, entering by that way into the ready-found ambush--the forms of the Miquelets, the most hated by the Camisards of all the troops which had been sent against them; the men whose extermination was more vowed and determined than the extermination of either dragoon,chevau-léger, ormilice.
"You see?" whispered Le Leopard to Cavalier and Montbonneux as they stood together sheltering themselves from observation behind the great stone posts of the farmhouse's antique stoop, "you see? They first, then next the cavalry. Observe, beyond the stream; look through the trunks of the trees across it. The moon sparkles on breast and back and the splints of the gorgets. You see?" Then added, "And hear?"
For from down toward whereLe Léopardhad directed the other's attention there rang that which told beyond all doubt that the foe was lurking there; discovered them to the surrounded, hemmed-in Camisards. The neigh of a horse, long, loud, and shrill, taken up a moment later by others in their company and answered.
After that no need for further disguise or hiding. The presence of the enemy was made known. An instant later the trumpets rang out the "Advance!" Across the stretch of bare land the cavalry of Montrevel were seen riding fast.
"To arms! To arms!" sounded Cavalier's voice on the night air, it rivalling almost in distinctness the clear sounds of the royal trumpeters. "To arms! The tyrants are upon us. To arms! I say," and ere, with one wild shriek in unison from the throats of the Miquelets, the latter sprang from their ambush, the Protestants had leaped from the floors where they had flung themselves and were in the open, face to face with the Pyrenean wolves.
Instantly the whole surface of the earth beneath the bright rays of the moon was changed. Soon no moon was seen. The smoke from countless firelocks covered, obscured her. Smoke dispelled for an instant now and again by volleys of flame belched forth from fusil and carabine, flame that showed Miquelets dashing at huge mountaineers' throats, their long knives in their hands or 'twixt their teeth as they so sprang and clutched; that showed, too, these savage creatures forced to release their grasp, hurled to the earth, their brains clubbed out by butt and stock. Showed also the dragoons in the midst of all, sabring, thrusting, cutting down, overriding ally and foeman indiscriminately, reeling back themselves over their chargers' haunches as, from the windowless apertures of the tower, came hail after hail of bullets from Camisards ensconced therein.
But still the battle raged. Still from the Protestants' throats rang their war cry, "For God and his children!" from those of the royalists, "For God and the King!" from those of the Miquelets, in their hideous shrieking falsetto, "Guerra al Culchielo!" "Guerra al Morté!"
"Save yourself and her," cried Cavalier, rushing back for a moment to the farmhouse kitchen and stumbling over the dead body of the treacherous peasant, Guignon, who had been poniarded byLe Léopardthe moment he was certain that the man had betrayed them, "save yourself--and her. There is a backway by the fosse to an ancient passage 'neath the old castle; save yourselves. We are lost, lost! Outnumbered! Save yourselves!"
Then in a moment he saw that neither Martin nor Urbaine were there. Gone! either to destruction or safety, he knew not which, yet gone. And he rushed back to his doomed band; rushed back to see that the tower was in flames, that all of his men who were in it were beyond earthly salvation. Already it seemed to rock beneath the great spouting flames that leaped forth from roofless summit and openings where windows might once have been. Doomed!
Le Léopardcame near him at this moment, an awful spectacle--bleeding from a dozen wounds, his vast and iron-gray beard crimson, yet with his eyes glaring as ever. Came near, staggering, reeling, yet able to gasp:
"To the fosse, to the fosse! You can save some that way. To the fosse!"
"Come you also," muttered Cavalier, "Come----"
"Icome!"Le Léopardexclaimed. "Nay, never more. See!" and he tore open his rough coat, showing on his breast a hideous gaping wound. And as he did so he reeled more heavily than before, then fell across the body of a dragoon lying close by.
But still, all around, the fight went on; the sabres swung and the volleys rattled, while from the tower there rose now the death song of those within it. Above all else that was heard a hymn of praise to the God of Battles, the God also of the outcasts--a hymn blessing and magnifying his name. And as it rolled through the fumes and the grime there came next an awful roar, a vast uprising of a monstrous sheet of fresh flame, and, with a crash, the tower came to earth, burying beneath its ruins not only those within it, but also many others around, Camisards and royalists.
"They are bringing their culverins," cried one now above all the tumult, "to play upon the house," and in answer there rang out now another voice which all knew, the voice of Cavalier, the words he shouted being: "Disperse, disperse, my brethren! Children of the mountains and the clouds, disperse as do the clouds themselves. Not to-night is our triumph, yet it will come. It must come."
He spoke truly. The triumph was to come ere long now. The Camisards were to gain their cause at last, but it was not to be to-night, nor by the sword. Instead, by the gentle mediation and mercy of one whose name is still spoken gently in the Cévennes--the name of the great and good Villars.
"You can go no farther?" Urbaine said an hour later to Martin Ashurst, "no farther. Oh, my God, my God, that it should come to this! And for me, for my sake!"
"Nay, dear one, what matter? We are together to the last. And you love me. What more is there to ask?"
"Alas! Alas! I can not live without you, stay behind alone. My love, my love, you must not leave me. Shall not go before. If you die, then must I die too."
And as she spoke she loosened his vest and sought for the wound in his shoulder which had brought him to this pass.
They had found the fosse the Camisards knew of in the old farmhouse. Even as the attack began, Martin, seeking for a place of refuge for her, had thrust open a door at the back of the great old kitchen in which they were, and had led her out of the dangerous room that gave upon the spot where the conflict had begun. Had led her on through a passage sloping down into the earth from behind the house, until, by following it, they found themselves in a place which none could have supposed would have been there; a place like a crypt, stone-flagged, the stones themselves roughly hewn, the pillars dwarfed, yet strong enough to bear a vast fabric above them; a place so old, so long since built, that it may have been some Roman sepulchre, or hiding-place of Albigenses in long-forgotten days, or secret chapel of worship beneath the old feudal castle that had once existed.
Yet there it was, calm and quiet. Even the sounds of the battle now waging in all its fury without came gently to their ears, was scarce heard more strongly than the murmur in a shell or the breaking of the ocean on a far-off shore. Calm and quiet, with, through a recess in the farther wall, perhaps once a niche or shrine, a moonbeam streaming brightly and making the dull flame of the lantern Martin had brought with him, snatching it off the nail where it hung, burn dull and rustily.
And Urbaine, entering with him this haven into which they had penetrated--surely none of those soldiers knew of it, would find it, surely God in his mercy would not permit that--flung herself on her lover's breast sobbing that they were saved again; again were saved by him whom she so loved with her whole heart and soul.
Then started back, a look of terror on her face--a look of awful fear and apprehension--seeing what she did see in her lover's eyes as she sought them.
"My God!" she half whispered, half shrieked, shuddering, "what--what is it? Martin, my love? Oh, what--what has happened?"
For his lips were cold, there was no answering warmth in them as they met hers; his face was white as death, his eyes dull and filmy.
"It--it--is not much. But--I--am struck. As we left the place above, a bullet--through the window--struck me. I--I--can go no farther. Alas, I can not stand," while as he spoke he swayed heavily against the middle pillar of the crypt, then slid, clutching at it, to the earth.
Even as he did so, even, too, as she a moment later undid his vest to seek for the wound, there came to her ears, though perhaps not to his as he lay there faint and almost insensible, the sound of many rushing feet, a heavy trampling; then, next, men passing swiftly by and farther on through the fosse--men whose smoke-grimed faces (sometimes, too, their wounded faces) she recognised as the moonbeams flickered on them. Camisards fleeing hastily, dispersing as Cavalier had said. The Camisards in whose power she had once been, in whose company she had but a few hours ago descended from the mountains.
"O God!" she moaned, "are they pursued by Montrevel's troops? If so, and he, my love, is found here by those troops!"
But he was not all unconscious; he could still hear, and, hearing, understood that moan.
"Nay, dearest," he whispered back, "even so it matters not. The Protestants, these men, are our friends. Baville's pass, the packet he bade me give you on our wedding morn--alas, our wedding morn!--will hold us safe from the soldiers. Fear not,ma mie."
Baville! The name stung her like an adder's fang. Baville! The man who had slain her father, and then endeavoured by a false, pretended love, to take that father's place! The man she would never see again, had vowed, as deeply as one so gentle as she could vow, never to see or know again.
Baville! And he had written to her, sent her a packet. Her lover had it about him at this moment. What could such a thing mean? What import? Yet, yet she upbraided herself for thinking of her own griefs and sorrows now at such a time as this. Baville! Faugh! Baville! Yet if he knew to what a pass they had come, knew that this man whose life might be ebbing slowly from him now, was ebbing slowly, was here? If he knew that he who had saved her was dying? Baville! The man whom once she had loved with a daughter's love.
Again the hurrying feet passed, again the gaunt fugitives went by, yet she heeded them not. Her whole soul was in what she was endeavouring to do--to staunch that gaping wound. Then suddenly one, an old, white-faced, terror-stricken man with long gray hair, stopped, seeing those forms; stopped, peering through the moonbeam that slanted down upon their faces; stopped, then advanced toward them.
"'Tis he," he whispered, bending toward the wounded man. "Martin! Martin! O Martin, my friend!"
"You know him? Your friend? You know him?" she whispered back. "Who are you?"
"His friend, Buscarlet, the inhibitedpasteurof Montvert. Driven to the mountains at last, forced to abide with these unhappy outcasts, but, thank God, not yet to draw the sword. No, no, not that! Never, never! Only to pray upon my knees to them by morn and night to shed no blood, to bear, to suffer all. To do that, I followed them here. Only they will not listen. Oh, Baville, Baville, has not your tiger's fury been glutted yet?" And he gazed down upon the almost senseless form of Martin lying there, muttering, "If I could save you!"
Then, a moment later, he spoke again.
"Who," he said very gently now, "are you? Not his wife or sister, I know. But what?"
For a moment she did not answer, looking up at him, instead, with wide, clear eyes so full of sorrow that her glance struck him to the heart.
"I was to have been his, am his, affianced wife. And--and--God help me!--I am Baville's, that tiger's, adopted child!"
"You!Hisadopted child, and Martin's affianced wife!"
"Even so." And she bent her head and wept.
For a moment there was silence in that deserted place, deserted now since all the fugitive mountaineers had passed through the fosse; silent because no longer was heard the distant sound or hum of shot or cry of combatants. Then he bent over Martin, looked to his wound, touching it very gently and afterward replacing the hasty bandages she had made from some of her own linen, and said:
"He is exhausted from his loss of blood. But, though he dies, it will not be yet. The cold is to be feared, however. If that reaches the wound--I know somewhat of surgery--he can not live. Now I go to seek succour, help!"
"Succour! Help! Where can it be obtained? In Heaven's mercy, where? Nîmes is three leagues off."
"I will do my best. Pray God I am not too late."
And so he left her.
Coming to himself, Martin, lying there, wondered where he was. He felt no pain in the wounded shoulder, only, instead, an awful weakness. Also he felt no cold. Knew too that around him was wrapped some soft warm garment, yet knew not that it was the great fur cloak in which the woman whom he had loved had been muffled up as she descended from the mountains, and in which she had long since enveloped him. Long since to her, watching, waiting there for succour to come, through two, three, four hours, and then another, but to him no length of time whatsoever. And he did not know--he was indeed even still in a half-unconscious state--how those hours had been spent by her, heedless of the cold which pierced through and through her, spent in sitting on the ground by his side, soothing him when he moaned painfully, holding his hand, kissing his hot brow. Attending also to his wound, and going even some distance farther along the fosse in the hope of discovering water, yet without success.
He knew nothing; had forgotten how he came there, that she had been with him, that there was such a woman, and that they loved each other madly.
Then suddenly a voice broke in upon his unconsciousness--a voice that seemed to recall him back to the world--the voice of Urbaine, yet, as she spoke, stifled now and again by sobs.
"Better," it seemed to him that he heard her say, "better have slain me with him, upon his desolate hearth, than have spared me to learn this at last. Of you, you whom I worshipped, whom I so reverenced."
If he had doubted whether he lived or was already in the shades leading to another world, or in that world itself, he doubted no longer, when through that old crypt a second voice sounded, one known to him as well as Urbaine's was known--a voice deep, solemn, beautiful. Broken, too, as hers had been, yet sweet as music still.
"If," that voice said, "you had escaped with your lover to some far-distant land as I hoped, ay, as even such as I dared to pray that you might do, you would have learned all. In those papers I sent by him you love, you would have known all on the morning you became his wife. Now I must tell you with my own lips. Urbaine, in memory of the happy years gone by, the years when you grew from childhood to womanhood by my side, at my knee, hear my justification, let me speak."
It was Baville.
Baville! Her father's murderer there! Face to face with Urbaine once more!
For a moment the silence was intense, or broken only by the woman's sobs. Then from her lips he heard the one word "Speak" uttered.
"Urbaine, your father died through me, though not by my will, not by my hands."
"Ah!"
"I loved Urbain Ducaire," the rich, full voice went on. "Loved him, pitied him too, knowing something, though not all, of his past life. Knew that he, a Huguenot, was doomed if he stayed here in Languedoc, stranger though he was, for his nature was too noble to conceal aught; he was a Catholic who had renounced his ancient faith, anouveau converti, yet of the wrong side for his future tranquility. And he boasted of it loudly, openly. He was doomed."
Again there was a pause broken only by the weeping of Urbaine. Then once more Baville continued:
"I beseeched him to go, to leave the neighbourhood, to depart in peace. Provided him with safe conducts, implored him to seek an asylum in England or Holland where those of his newly adopted creed were safe. He refused. Your mother, a woman of the province, had died in giving birth to you. He swore he would not leave the place where her body lay. He defied me, bade me do my worst."
"And--and----" Urbaine sobbed.
"And the orders came from Paris. From Louvois, then alive, and Madame de Maintenon. 'Saccagez tous!' they wrote. 'Those who will not recant must be exterminated.'
"Then I sent to him by a trusty hand a copy of those orders. I bade him fly at once, since even I could not save him. Told him that on a fixed night--great God! it was the night ere Christmas, the night when the priests bid us have our hearts full of love and mercy for each other--Imustbe at his cottage with my Cravates. He was a marked man; also I was known to favour him. If I did so now, spared him and imprisoned others, all the south would be in a tumult."
Again Baville paused. Again went on:
"I never deemed I should find him; would have sworn he must be gone ere I reached his house. Yet went there, knowing that I dared not omit him. Went there, praying, as not often I have prayed, that it would be empty, forsaken. Alas! Alas! Alas! he had ignored my warning, my beseechings. Hewasthere, reading his Bible. He defied me. By his hand he had a pistol. Seeing the Cravates behind me, their musketoons ready, it seemed as though he was about to use it. Raised it, pointed it at me, covered my breast."
The pause was longer now. Martin, hearing, understanding all, his mind and memory returned to him, thought Baville dreaded to continue. Yet it was not so. The full clear tones reached his ear again:
"I could not deem him base enough to do that, to shoot me down like a dog, since I had drawn no weapon of my own. It was, I have divined since, the soldiers whom he defied. Yet in my contempt for what I thought his idle threat, I cried scornfully 'Tirez donc.' Alas, ah, God! the fatal error that has forever darkened your life and mine! Those words were misunderstood. The Cravates misunderstood them, believed the exclamation an order given to them by me; a moment later they had fired. O Urbaine! my love, my child--I--I--what more is there to tell?"
And as he ceased, hers were not the only sobs Martin heard now.
Then, as they too ceased somewhat, another voice was heard by the listener--the voice of Buscarlet.
"You hear? The wrong, that was in truth no wrong, is atoned. Has never been. Your way is clear before you. The evil he has wrought has not come nigh you or yours. Woman, as his heart has ever cherished you, I, a pastor of your rightful faith, bid you give back your love to him."
The dawn was coming as the old man spake these words. In the thin light of that new morning which crept in from where the moon's ray had shone through the night, Martin, his fur covering tossed from off him long since, saw Urbaine fall on Baville's breast, heard her whisper, "My father, oh, my father!" Knew, too, that they were reconciled, the past forgotten. And thanked God that it was so.
Yet once again Buscarlet spoke, his white hair gleaming in the light of the coming day, his old form erect and stately before the other.
"You are absolved by her," he said; "earn absolution, too, for your past cruelty by greater mercy to others of her faith. I charge you, I, a priest of that persecuted faith, that henceforth you persecute no more. God has given you back your child's love. Be content."
* * * * * * *
A little later and those three were gathered round the spot where Martin lay, with, in the background, a fourth figure, that of Baville's own surgeon. He had been brought by the Intendant after Buscarlet had told the latter all that he had ridden hastily to Nîmes to inform him of, and when the pastor had declared that if surgical aid was not at once forthcoming the wounded man must surely die. And, seeing him, the surgeon had said that his life still hung in the balance; that if what Baville desired was to be done, it had best be done at once.
"It will make you happy?" Urbaine whispered, her lips close to her lover's, her arms about him.
"Passing happy," he murmured, "beyond all hope. Now, now, at once."
"You can do it?" the Intendant asked, turning to the pastor.
"I can do it now."
"So! Let it be done."
"Stay there by his side," Buscarlet said then to Urbaine, "upon your knees.--Take you her hand," to Martin.
And in whispered tones he commenced the marriage ceremony of the Huguenots as prescribed by their Church.
"Repeat after me that you take Urbaine Ducaire to be your wedded wife"
"Nay, nay," said Baville, interposing. "Nay, I had forgotten. Not that. Not that. The packet would have told what both must have learned ere they had been married elsewhere. Now I must tell it myself. Her name is not Urbaine Ducaire."
"Not Urbaine Ducaire?" all exclaimed, looking up at him. "Not Urbaine Ducaire?"
"Nay. Nor her father's Urbain Ducaire. Instead, this," and he produced hastily his tablets from his pocket and wrote on them for some few moments, muttering as he did so, "I knew it not till lately, until I communicated with those in Paris, though I suspected. Also," he repeated, "the packet would have told all."
Then, thrusting the tablets into the pastor's hands, while all around still gazed incredulously at him, he said aloud: "Marry her in those names and titles. Hers by right which none can dispute, and by the law of Richelieu passed through the Parliament of Paris in the last year of his life. The right of sole daughters where no male issue exists."
"These titles are lawfully hers?" Buscarlet asked, reading in astonishment that which Baville had written, while Urbaine clung closer still to her lover, wondering what further mystery surrounded her birth, and Martin, no light breaking in on him as yet, deeming Baville demented. "Lawfully hers?"
"Lawfully, absolutely hers. Proceed."
And again Buscarlet commenced:
"Repeat after me that you take Cyprienne, Urbaine Beauvilliers----"
"My God!" whispered Martin faintly ere he did so. "My God! that my quest ends here!" Then he repeated the words that Buscarlet read from Baville's tablets as he had been bidden.
"Baronne de Beauvilliers," the pastor continued, "Comtesse de Montrachet, Marquise du Gast d'Ançilly, Princesse de Rochebazon, daughter of Cyprien, Urbain Beauvilliers, former bearer of those titles, to be your wedded wife--to----"
* * * * * * *
It was finished. They were married. The union blessed by a pastor of their own Church and attested by him who had so persecuted the members of that Church by order of the man, if indeed it was by his orders, whom they called "The Scourge of God."
And Martin, gazing up into the eyes of his wife, murmured:
"I have not failed, my love, in what I sought. But, ah, that my search should bring me to such perfect peace, should end with you! Now, if I die, I die happy."
But even as she held him close to her, his head upon her shoulder, he knew, felt sure, that he would not die; that God would restore him to a new life, to be passed as long as it lasted by her side.
Postscript.--The historical incidents in the foregoing story have necessarily, for obvious purposes in one or two instances, been altered from their exact sequence. With this exception they are described precisely as they occurred, each description being taken from the best authorities, and especially the best local ones. Exclusive of the names of Ashurst, Ducaire, and all pertaining to that of De Rochebazon and of De Rochebazon itself, the others are, in almost every case, authentic.
Footnote 1: Baville judged accurately. Of all who are descended from those great Protestant houses, there is not one now who is not of the Roman Catholic faith.
Footnote 2: Doubtless the Prophet's visions foresaw the Battle of Almanza, whereon many hundreds of Camisards fell fighting for England and the allies against France. A strange battle this! in which the French were led by an Englishman, the Duke of Berwick, and the English by a Frenchman, Ruvigny, afterward the Earl of Galloway.
Footnote 3: Among the inspired prophets of the Cévennes, none were supposed to be more penetrated with this gift than the youngest children. In their histories there are recorded instances, or perhaps I should say beliefs, of babes at their mothers' breasts who had received it, and were by signs and motions supposed to direct the actions of their seniors.