Over all Languedoc there was an awful terror at this time--the terror that is born of successful rebellion, and that rebellion the outcome of a religious strife.
An awful terror which filled now the breasts of those who had erstwhile been the persecutors, even as, not long before, it had filled the breasts of those whom they had persecuted.
In truth there were none in all that fair province, none--from those who dwelt on its southern borders washed by the sapphire-hued waters of the Mediterranean, to those who, on its northern boundary, gazed toward the fertile provinces of Linois and Auvergne, or, looking west, saw the rich rolling lands of golden Guienne stretched out before them--but felt, and feeling, dreaded, the threatening horror that at any moment might engulf them. For now no longer were the dungeons of the cities filled with Protestants moaning for water, food, or air; no longer did Huguenot women offer their jailers the few miserable coins they had about them so that their babes might taste a drop of milk; no longer did men of the Reformed Faith offer their little bags of secreted livres and tournois to their warders, so that thereby they might be allowed to sleep one hour--only one little hour!--without disturbance; without horns being blown at their dungeon doors to awaken them, or blank charges fired from musketoons and fusils with a like intent; without their bodies being pricked and stirred up by point of lance or sword at the moment that a heartbroken slumber fell upon them.
A change had come! Some of the jails were emptied now; in the smaller towns and villages they existed no longer. Some of those towns and villages were themselves erased from off the face of the earth. Down from their mountain homes the Camisards had stolen, creeping like phantoms through the night, like panthers on the trail of those whom they track to their doom, like adders gliding through the grass. One by one these men of vengeance mustered outside doomed bourgs or hamlets till all were assembled in a compact mass, sometimes to lay violent and open siege to the places, sometimes to be admitted silently at dead of night, or in early dawn, by those who, disguised, had already stolen in. Then the massacre took place, the jails gave up their victims who were not already dead, the hateful gibbets and the iron-bound wheels helped to light the fires that consumed the villages, and in the morning there was no sign left either of avenger or of victim. Of the former, all had stolen back into their impenetrable fastnesses; of the latter, nothing remained but burning houses and crumbling walls, a church destroyed, an altar shattered, and at its base a slaughtered priest.
Even in the greater cities--in Montpellier and Nîmes, Alais and Uzès--the haunting fear, the terror, the horror was there, even though those cities were fortified and garrisoned, full of soldiers andmilices. Yet of what use were these? Of what use dragoons who had fought in close ranks and knee to knee against William of Orange's own English and Dutch troopers? Of what use infantry who had stood a solid phalanx of steel under Bouflers and Luxembourg? Of what use a homely militia, when the enemy was unseen and intangible--an enemy which crept in man by man through gates and barriers, disguised as peasant and farmer bringing in produce, or sometimes, in bitter mockery of their foes, as Catholic priest or Catholic seigneur? It was not strange that against such a foe as this all Baville's plans were unavailing, all Julien's military knowledge helpless. And the question which every man asked his neighbour was, Would Montrevel, the new field marshal now on his way from Paris with an enormous army, be able to succeed against such crafty and resolute enemies any better than his predecessors had done?
Baville asked himself the same question now, as he sat where he had sat a month or two before, on that morning when across the room had fallen the shadow of Urbaine as she came in from the garden, her hands full of freshly gathered, dew-sprinkled flowers--his loved Urbaine. Yet he told himself, even as thus he meditated and doubted, that if force could do it, it should be done.
Upon his face as he sat alone in his cabinet there was a look which none could perhaps have interpreted, yet which none could have failed to observe; a look that had brought an appearance of age to his face which his fifty years of life should not have placed there; also a look of deep, fierce determination which, cruel as he had ever been, had not hitherto been perceptible upon his handsome features. On the table before him there lay a great chart of the whole Cévennes district; attached to the chart by a silken string was a paper referring to it; on the back of that chart was written in a bold, sprawling hand, the words, "Mon plan pour la grande battue des attroupés que je projete," and signed "Julien."
"Bah," Baville exclaimed, after throwing down these papers angrily, "sa grande battue! Son plan!What will come of it? What? Nothing. These dogs are as slippery as snakes. No battue will surround, entrap them. And--and--even though they, though this swashbuckler, who thinks more of the bouquet of his Celestin or the aroma of his white Frontignan than of our province's safety, should prevail, it will not bring her back to me."
And Baville, on whose soul there lay heavy the slaughter of countless innocent women--their only fault their faith--buried his face in his hands and moaned. "Urbaine, Urbaine," he whispered, "Ma mignonne, ma petite rose blanche, to think of you in their hands, you whom we have nurtured so soft and warm, you who, I swore to your father, should be my life's charge, the star of my existence! Fool! fool! fool! to ever let you go thus. Though God he knows," he whispered still, "I did it for the best; did it, knowing the dangers that threatened, that were surely coming, that must above all else strike at Baville and his. Deemed I could save you, send you away to peace and safety."
And still he sat on there, his head in his hands, while from between his fingers the tears trickled as he muttered still, "Urbaine, Urbaine!"
"She is dead," he said after a pause. "She must be dead. Of all, they would not spare her--my lamb. That is enough--to belong to me! O God!" he cried, springing from his chair and clasping his hands above his head, "nothing can give her back to me. Yet one thing thou canst give me: Vengeance! vengeance! vengeance! On him, above all, on that treacherous Huguenot, that viper who, when there was still a chance left, dragged her from the carriage, gave her up to his accursed brethren. Give me that! Place him but once in my hands and I ask no more. Urbaine can never come back, but at least she shall lie in her grave--where is it?"--and he shuddered--"lie in her grave avenged. Why did I ever trust him--kinsman of the de Rochebazons as he is--why not execute him that night at Montvert?"
After the rout of Poul's escort and of De Broglie's soldiers in an adjacent place by the Camisards, some half dozen of the dragoons of Hérault had managed to escape from the former slaughter, as well as many more from the latter. As has been said, they fled to Nîmes, where Baville was at the time, bringing with them the full account of what had happened to both detachments, and in their dismay and confusion making the disaster none the less in the telling. Now, among those who had thus escaped was one, a youngporte-guidon, or cornet, who had by chance ridden also with De Peyre's detachment to Montvert when in attendance on Baville and the abbé's nephew. And there this lad had seen Martin upon the bridge with Buscarlet, had heard something of the conversation which ensued; knew, too, that he had returned to Alais with them. Therefore he was acquainted with Martin's appearance so well that, when the distracted Intendant had demanded from those who had escaped where his child was, he was very well able to inform him.
"My God!" Baville exclaimed, sitting in his rooms in the old Roman city, with the lad before him and surrounded by half the councillors of the place, sitting there white to the lips, "you saw it, saw him drag her out of the carriage, ride away with her."
"I saw it, your Excellency, beyond all doubt. And had it not been that I dared not take my eyes off these Camisards who were attacking me--one of the villains was armed with a reaping hook--I would have made a stroke to save mademoiselle; have hamstrung his horse, run him through. But, your Excellency sees," and he pointed to his hand, a mass of rags and bandages, "two fingers are gone; cut off as I wrested the brutal weapon from the man."
"Which road did he take?--yet, why ask?" Baville had said. "Which road would he go but one--that toward their accursed mountain dens? And he--he was of their faith."
A moment later he interrogated the young dragoon again.
"Can you by no chance be mistaken about this man? Think, I beseech you! Of all, she could have fallen into no worse hands than his."
"It is impossible, your Excellency. It is the man who sat on the bridge with the curé when we rode into Montvert--the man who returned to Alais with us. Also, I have spoken with him in Montpellier when your Excellency made him welcome at the Intendancy."
Beneath his lips Baville muttered a bitter imprecation as the young officer recalled this fact. It was, he saw now, a fatal error to have committed. Yet--yet he had done it of set purpose, for a reason. No, he would dwell no more on that. And now weeks had passed since Urbaine's disappearance. She must be dead, he and his wife had told each other a thousand times by night and day.
"Every hope is gone," he said to her more than once, "every hope. She was mine--known to a hundred mountain refugees from Montpellier to be ours. They would not spare her. There is nothing left but vengeance, if he, that kinsman of the de Rochebazons, ever falls into our hands, as he must, as he must. They can not triumph forever. Can not win in the end."
Madame l'Intendante came in to him now as he sat in his room, a gentle, handsome woman on whose face the grief she felt within was very plainly apparent; came in, and, touching his forehead softly with her hand, sat down by his side.
"Nicole," she said, "a thought has come to me that--that--my God that I should have to say it!--if Urbaine is still alive, might lead to her rescue."
"A thought!" he exclaimed, his face brightening. "A thought! What thought? Yet what can a thousand thoughts avail? She is Baville's. That dooms her."
"Mon mari, suppose--only suppose--they have not slain her--nay, deny me not," as her husband made an impatient movement, "suppose they have not slain her yet. Remember, she would be a great hostage, and they, these rebels, boast they seek not warfare, but only peace--concessions; offer to lay down their arms if--if--all they ask for their unhappy, mistaken religion is granted."
"Well," Baville replied, yet looking eagerly at her, "well, what then?"
"To bring about a truce, obtain those concessions. They may have spared her life, if only for a time, if only for a time," she repeated, sobbing now.
"Even though they have done so," her husband replied, "concessions are impossible, though I myself desired them. Julien is maddened at his total failure; he will grant none. Montrevel comes full of pride at gaining his long-desiredbâton. It is not to make peace, grant concessions, that he is on his way. Rather to cause more slaughter, extermination. And forher--there," and his eyes wandered toward the direction where, hundreds of leagues away, Paris and the great white palace of Versailles lay, "will she grant any?"
Madame l'Intendante knew well enough to whom he referred--tola femme funeste et terrible--and shook her head sadly, while Baville continued:
"She bars all, blocks all, Alice," and he lowered his voice instinctively. "Alice, it is she who has lit this torch of rebellion through all Languedoc. Chamillart writes me that Louis has known nothing until now of what has been happening. She has kept him in ignorance until forced by my demand for a great army and the services of Montrevel to tell him."
"My God! What duplicity!"
"It is true. She holds him in the hollow of her hand, winds him round her finger as a child winds a silken thread. Will she grant concessions, do you think?"
"But, Nicole, listen. If she, Urbaine, lives, there may be still time. Montrevel is not yet here. His great army moves slowly. Time, still."
"For what?"
"Have you forgotten? Her real father--that friend of yours--Monsieur Ducaire--have you not often told me he was himself of their faith--a Huguenot?"
"Mon Dieu!" Baville exclaimed, "it is so. He was. Yet, again, what then?"
"If--if she does still live, and it could be communicated to them, they would perhaps spare her. Surely, among the old of those refugees--even among those who are now but elderly--there may be some who would remember her father, could recall this Monsieur Ducaire----"
She paused, alarmed at the strange effect of her words, for Baville's face had turned an ashen hue as she spoke. Almost it seemed to his wife as though his handsome features were convulsed with pain as he, repeating those words, whispered:
"Recall Ducaire? Remember her father? Oh! Dieu des Dieux, if they should do that, if there should be one among those who surround her, if she still lives, who could do so! If there is but one who should tell her----"
"What, Baville?"
"No, no, no!" he whispered. "No, no! If so--yet it can not be!--but if it is, if there is any still living to tell her that, then better she be dead. Better dead than bear it."
"Husband," Madame l'Intendante said, "I know now, something tells me--alas! alas! ever have I suspected it, feared it," and she wrung her hands; "you have deceived me, trifled with me from the first. Baville, is it you? Are you in solemn truth her father? Is Ducaire another name, known once in the far-off past, for Baville? Would she be better dead than alive to learn that? Answer me."
"No," he said, "no; you do not understand, can not understand; must not know yet. But I am innocent of that wrong to you. I swear it. And Alice, my wife," he continued as he bent over her and kissed her brow, "Alice, my love, if you knew all you would pity me. Alice, I swear it to you--swear that it is not what you think."
Then, as again he kissed her, he murmured the old French proverb:
"Tout savoir c'est tout pardonner," adding, "Oh, believe in me, counsel me, my wife."
The swallows were gone--a month earlier in this mountainous region than in the rest of the golden south of France. Below, the corn had fallen ungathered from its stalks, since of those who remained in the valleys, and faithful to the iron rule of Baville, none dared reap it, for fear that, while doing so, from its midst might spring up a body of the dreaded Camisards. Already, too, high up in the mountains, the first flurries of snow had sprinkled the ground; autumn had come. And still Baville was no nearer to finding Urbaine, or to gathering news of whether she was alive or dead, than he had been before. Neither did he know what had become of the man who, he deemed, had betrayed her into his enemies' hands; who, he believed, had sent her to her death.
Meanwhile, Montrevel had arrived. Montrevel, the general and newly created field marshal, second only to Tallard, who next year lost Blenheim, and to Villars, who was ordained later to bring peace to the distracted land. Montrevel, of whom it was said that he fought like a Paladin of old, made love like a Troubadour, and had the air of a hero of the stage or the leader of a chorus in the newly invented operas.
With him came a vast army--one which, to any other rebels but the all-triumphant Protestants, harbouring defiantly in the mountain deserts on high and in the inaccessible caverns, would have brought fear and terror. To them, however, this army brought none. "Nous sommes les rochers que les vents combattants en vaine," they cried, and even as they so taunted their late persecutors they stole down by night and by unknown paths, sacked a fresh village, provided themselves with fresh food, more arms and more ammunition, seized on costly uniforms and laces, and, when possible, horses and cattle, while once more like phantoms they vanished quietly afterward from human sight. Vanished as the crawling Indians whom some of their adversaries had encountered on the Mississippee or the St. Lawrence; vanished, after devastating lonely settlements and townships; disappeared as disappears the snowflake which falls on the bosom of the ocean, is seen a moment, and then is gone forever.
In that army, sent to destroy the men whose retaliation of half a century's persecution was now so terrible, came soldiers who had never yet known defeat. From Italy the Marquis de Firmacon brought back the men of a regiment of cuirassiers who had fought like victorious tigers at Cremona and had even driven back the fiery Eugene and his soldiers before their rush; in that army also were the guards of Tarnaud, De Saulx, and Royal Comtois; marines who had faced Russel's and Shovel's squadrons; dragoons of Saint-Sernin who had seen Marlborough ride all along the line giving orders to the great English force to advance, and had observed, but a year or two before, the consumptive invalid, William of England and Holland, stand undismayed beneath a hailstorm of bullets while superintending the siege of some great fortress in the Netherlands. Also there came the brigade of Lajonquiére which had followed Turenne in victory and defeat, and that of Marsilly which had stood shoulder to shoulder awaiting the orders of Condé to charge. And still there were others who might have struck more terror to any mountain rebels than these trained battalions; a regiment of men, themselves mountaineers, whose fierceness and brutality were a byword through all the South.
These were the Miquelets, a body of six hundred Pyrenean soldiers under the command of a rough one-armed free lance named De Palmerolles. From sunny Roussillon and Foix these men came, their faces burned black, their bodies half clad in red shirts and trousers, resembling sailors' slops in vastness,espardillos, or shoes of twisted cord, upon their feet, in their belts two pistols on one side, a scimitar dagger on the other, while in their hands they bore the long-barrelledgyspepeculiar to the Pyrenean. Also, to render greater Montrevel's chance of defeating those who were termed rebels to the king, he brought with him twenty large brass cannons, five thousand bullets, four thousand muskets, and fifty thousand pounds of powder--enough, in truth, to defeat all the rebels in the Cévennes, if they could only be got at.
From far up on the height of La Lozère, sheltered in a small copse of wind-swept firs, Jean Cavalier, looking down on the road which wound from Genoillac to Alais, laughed lightly as he turned to the companions by his side--his comrade, Roland, and his prisoner, Martin Ashurst.
"In truth," he said, "'tis a brave array of men. Yet what will they do against us? They can never get up here in spite of Baville's recently constructed roads, while as for us we can get down and back again as we choose." Then, turning to Martin, he said politely, and with that attempt at gracious ease and condescension which he never forgot to assume:
"Monsieur, I know we are safe with you. When you and your charge, Mademoiselle Ducaire, have left us you will betray no secrets."
"No more," replied Martin, "than I should betray any of Monsieur Baville's to you. You know now that, though I am of your religion, I am no partisan of either side. I pray God the day may come when all of our faith may be free, happy."
"We pray so, too," both chiefs answered, while Cavalier continued:
"'Tis what we seek. Peace--peace above all! And we are no rebels to the king. Let him but give us leave to worship in our own way and unmolested, earn our bread undisturbed, pay no taxes that go to support his own Romish church--the other taxes we will willingly pay--and he will find he has no more loyal subjects than the Cévenoles. Nay, have we not offered our services to him against his enemies, offered to furnish a Protestant regiment to aid him in Spain against the Austrian claimant, to fight against all his foes except the English, our brother Protestants? Yet he will not consent that it shall be so, or, rather, those who dominate him in his old age will not let him listen to us."
"Therefore," said Roland, "let him look to himself. See--hearken to those Miquelets who tread the plains now, shrieking their barbaric songs. Do you know what their war-cry is? 'Tis 'war to the knife.' So be it; 'tis ours too. And ere we cease to shout it Louis will have given in to us. While one Protestant remains in these mountains we shall never yield. The king may conquer Europe, drive back all his enemies; us he will never conquer."
* * * * * * *
After La Grande Marie had uttered these words of hers, "Those whom you would slay are of our faith," there had fallen a great silence on all within the vast vaulted cavern--a silence begotten of wonderment, yet a wonderment which had in it no element of disbelief; for of all the prophetesses, she it was who was most believed in by the Camisards, her inspiration the one which they had never yet known to be at fault. She had advised the descent to Montvert, fortelling how, on that night, the abbé should atone for his crimes at their avenging hands in spite of their not seeking his death. She also it was who had bidden them attack the convoy of Urbaine under the hated command of Poul, and the detachment under the equally hated command of De Broglie. Had prophesied, too, that in that convoy should be found one whose capture and death would wring the heartstrings of the tyrant Baville as nothing else could wring them, would beat him down to misery, might even force him in his despair to abandon all further cruelties toward those of his creed.
And what she had prophesied had all come to pass. Baville's daughter, as most of them supposed Urbaine to be, was in their hands, her death assured. Therefore now, also, they believed her prophetic visions and utterances, though, in believing, a victim thereby escaped them. Even the women--whose bitterness, born of the horrors practised on their own helpless babes and their old back-bowed mothers and fathers, as well as on themselves, was more intense than that of the men who, in their hearts, felt for the white delicate girl who stood a prisoner before them--even the women paused, wondering, amazed.
"Of our faith," they muttered, "of our faith. Yet the wolf's own cub, the persecutor's own blood. Marie, sister, think again of what you say. Pause and reflect."
"I know what I say," La Grande Marie murmured, the misty eyes still fixed upon the girl before her, her hand half raised. "God has entered my heart, given me the power of divination. She and he, this man by her side, are of our faith. Is it not so, little one?" and she leaned forward to a child near her upon whom also the gift of prophecy was reported to have fallen.
"It is so, Marie," the child lisped.[3]
"What is the mystery?" Cavalier asked, standing before Urbaine, his voice expressing the surprise he felt at the turn matters had assumed, expressing also his awe, for he, too, was sometimes visited with the impulse of prophecy. "In God's name explain, mademoiselle."
"There is no explanation to offer. Your prophetess is wrong. Since my father adopted me I have known no faith but the true one."
"Adopted you!" he repeated, while all round them stood listening eagerly. "Ah! yes, I have heard; remember you said such was the case at the Château de Servas, yet had forgotten. Mademoiselle, what is your name since it can not be Baville?"
"Urbaine Ducaire."
"Ducaire?" he repeated, "Ducaire? There is no name such as that in the lists of our unhappy brethren. Mademoiselle,wasyour father of our religion?"
"I know not," the girl replied, while in her manner, in her eyes, too, was the haughty indifference to her captor which had surprised Cavalier from the first. "I know not. Yet, since he was M. de Baville's friend, it scarce seems possible he should have been."
"Listen," cried the Camisard chief, addressing all those who stood around, "listen, my brethren. Among you are many no longer young, many who can cast their memories back to the years ere this--this demoiselle--could have been born. Some, too, who come from far and wide, from where the waters of the sea lap our southern shores; from where, also, Guienne on one side, Dauphiné on the other, touch our border. Heard ever any of you of a Huguenot named Ducaire?" and as he spoke he cast his eyes around all within the cavern.
But there came no affirmative answer. Only the repetition of that name and the shaking of heads, and glances from eyes to eyes as each looked interrogatively at the other.
"There must be some who, at least, have heard this name if--if La Grande Marie divines truly--if this lady is in truth of our faith. Yet--yet--the gift may have failed her now, have misled her."
"Test that gift, Cavalier," La Grande Marie exclaimed from where she stood now among the others, and speaking in a clear voice, while her filmy eyes, which seemed ordinarily to be peering into far-off space, rested on him. "Test that gift. The woman is not the only one named as being of our faith. Ask of the man."
As she spoke the eyes of Urbaine and Martin met, the minds of each filled with the same thought. The knowledge that whereas hitherto to have declared himself of their captors' faith would have led to his being set free and no longer able to share her doom, his doing so now would almost beyond all doubt prevent that doom from falling on her.
The acknowledgment that La Grande Marie had divined justly in his case would cause them to believe that she had also done so in Urbaine's.
And knowing this--as she too, he felt, must know it--he did not hesitate.
"She has pronounced justly," he said. "I am of the Reformed faith. A Protestant."
Amid the murmurs that arose from all who surrounded those two prisoners, amid their cries, in some cases exultant ones, that La Grande Marie had never yet been mistaken and was not, could not be so now; amid, too, their strongly expressed opinion that, since she had been right as regards the man, therefore also she must be so as regards the woman, Cavalier exclaimed:
"In heaven's name why not say so before? Also why risk your life as you have done at the Château de Servas and here?"
"She was alone and defenceless," Martin exclaimed. "I desired to protect her."
"Knowing that she too is a Protestant, by birth at least?"
"Nay, knowing only that she was a woman."
"Yet Baville's cherished ward?"
"Yes, his cherished ward."
Cavalier shrugged his shoulders and turned away. Perhaps the bitter sufferings of all of his, of their, faith were too present to his mind to make that mind, young as it was--he being not twenty--capable of understanding such magnanimity. Also he did not know that the man before him belonged to a land where, for now nearly fifteen years, none had suffered for their religious opinions as over all France they suffered horribly and were to suffer for still some years to come, and that, consequently, he could not feel as strongly as they themselves felt.
Whatever Cavalier might think, however, of the motives which had prompted a man who avowed himself a Protestant to protect the worshipped idol of the Protestant's greatest persecutor in the most persecuted part of France, one thing was very certain: neither would be put to death--the one because he was undoubtedly of their faith, the other because, not being the actual child of Baville, she might in truth have been born a Huguenot, as La Grande Marie had had revealed to her. La Grande Marie! in whose auguries and predictions they believed for the simple reason that, until now, all that she had foretold, all that she had uttered as prophetic inspiration, had come to pass.
They were safe so far!
"When you and your charge, Mademoiselle Ducaire, have left us you will betray no secrets," Cavalier had said to Martin, as they stood side by side watching the army of Montrevel on its way through the province? Yet some weeks passed, and still they remained in the hands of the Camisards, well treated, yet still there.
For their accommodation two large caverns had been prepared as sleeping rooms; prepared, too, in such a manner as would indeed have astonished the Camisards' enemies, the dwellers in the valleys below, had they been able to observe them. To observe that Urbaine's chamber--if such a name could be given to the vault in which she slept--was furnished not only with comfort, but indeed luxury, her bed, which had been constructed expressly for her by one of theattroupéswho was a carpenter, being covered with fine white linen and made soft with skins and rugs. Also the sides of the vault were hung with tapestry and brocade; the ewer from which she poured water was solid silver; the floor on which she trod was covered with carpets made at Aubusson. Yet the girl shuddered as, nightly, daily, she glanced round this luxuriously furnished cavern, knowing full well, or at least being perfectly able to divine, whence all these things came; for none who had ever knelt, as Urbaine had done since her earliest recollection, at the altar of any church of the Ancient Faith could doubt that that silver jug had been torn from some such altar which had been devastated with the edifice itself; none who had seen the luxurious fittings and adornments of thenoblesseof Languedoc could doubt that the tapestries and hangings and rich fine linen had once adorned the château of Catholic noblemen or gentlemen. Everything which surrounded her, all--even to the choice plate off which they both ate their meals, and the crystal glass from which they drank the Ginestoux and Lunel placed before them--told the same story; the story of robbery and pillage, of an awakened vengeance that spared nothing and hesitated at nothing.
Both, too, were free now, free to wander on the mountain slopes, no parole being demanded, since escape was impossible through those closely guarded paths and defiles, a little mule being at the girl's service when she chose to use it, an animal which had been captured from Julien's forces during a defeat sustained by him and while bearing on its back two mountain guns. Now those guns guarded, with other captured cannon, one of the approaches from the valley, and the mule was given over entirely to her service. Yet she rarely rode it, preferring, indeed, to sit upon a high promontory whence, at sunset, she could see the spires of distant cathedrals or churches sparkling far down in the valley, sometimes with Martin by her side, sometimes alone.
"Monsieur," she said to him now one crisp, sunny October afternoon as together they strolled toward this promontory to watch the sunset, "monsieur, why do you not go away, return to your own land? You will have the chance soon to escape out of France forever. You heard what the chief said last night, that an English agent was at Nîmes endeavouring to discover what chance the fleet in the Mediterranean will have of invading us there."
"You forget, mademoiselle. I am in their power; you forget that----"
"Nay," she exclaimed, "why speak thus? I know that you are free to go to-morrow, to-night; that you might have gone long since had you chosen. That you remain here only because you will not leave me alone in their power. I know, I understand," and the soft, clear eyes stole a glance into his.
"I saved you once, by God's mercy," he said. "I shall not leave you now. Not until I return you to your father's arms. And take heart! It will not be long. Whether Montrevel or my countrymen effect a landing from the sea, you will be soon free. If the former happens, it will be a rescue; if the latter, you will be detained no longer, since they deem you beyond all doubt a Protestant."
"The woman was mistaken," she answered. "It is impossible."
"Yet Cavalier thinks he has confirmation of the fact. You know that he has been in the valleys lately, even in Montpellier, disguised. He has met one, an old woman, who knew Monsieur Ducaire, your real father. You know that?"
"She has said so, yet I deem it impossible. Who is this woman?"
"She will not say. But he seems confident. And--and--even though my religion is so hateful to you--think, think, I beseech you, of what advantage to you it is to be deemed here one of our faith. Mademoiselle, if that strange seer, that prophetess whose knowledge astounds, mystifies me, had not proclaimed you one of them and a Protestant, you would have been dead by now," and he shuddered as he spoke.
"You wrong me," she said, "when you say that the Protestant--that your--faith is hateful to me. It is only that I have been taught from my earliest days to believe so strongly in my own, to regard nothing as true but that. Also," she continued, "because it is yours, the religion of you who have saved me, it could never be hateful to me."
And as she spoke the soft rose-blush came to her cheek and her eyes fell. To her, and to Cavalier, Martin Ashurst had given a full account of himself, concealing nothing, and at last not even hesitating to avow himself an Englishman, a fact which, if known in any other part of Louis' dominions but this Protestant and rebel stronghold, would have led to his instant destruction. For England was pressing France sorely now, trampling her under the iron heel of the vast armies headed by Marlborough, attacking her on every coast she possessed, even now sending a fleet under Sir Cloudesley Shovel to attempt a landing at Cette and Toulon to succour and aid the Huguenots. Also it was to her principally that France's cruelly-used subjects had been fleeing for years, by her that they had been warmly welcomed and humanely treated. What hopes of anything short of a swift and awful death could an Englishman hope for at this time if caught in France?
Yet that he was safe in telling Urbaine Ducaire who and what he was he never doubted, even though she, in her turn, should tell Baville; for, since he meant himself to restore her to Baville's arms, it was not too much to suppose that this restoration would cancel the awful crime, in the eyes of the man who cherished this girl so, of being a British subject.
Also he had told both of what had brought him to Languedoc--his quest for the last of the de Rochebazons--and of how that quest had failed up to now, must fail entirely, since it was impossible that any investigations could be carried on in the distracted state of the province at the present time. Nor did Cavalier, whose mind would have better become a man of forty than one of twenty, give him any encouragement to hope that he would ever find the man he sought.
"For,figurez vous," he remarked, "this land, this sweet, fair Languedoc, has been a prey to dissension, slaughter, upon one side only up till now" (and he laughed grimly as he spoke, perhaps at the change which had come about), "to misery and awful wrongs for how long? Long before this present king--thisDieudonné, thisRoi Soleil--came to the throne, and when his fatherLe Justewas harrying our fathers.Le Juste!" he repeated with bitter scorn, "Le Juste!A man who had a hundred virtues that became a valet--witness his love for shaving his courtiers, for larding his own fillets of veal, for combing hismignon'swigs--and not one that became a master, a king, except dissimulation! My God! he had that royal gift, at least. You know what he and that devil incarnate, Richelieu, did here in the south, did at Rochelle?"
"I know," Martin replied. "Alas! all the world knows. Yet it must have been after his time that Cyprien de Beauvilliers, as he then was, came here."
"If he came," said Cavalier, "he came under another guise, a mask; under another name. And it is long ago; you will never find him."
"I fear not."
"Moreover, even should you do so, of what avail to you, to him? Will Louis disgorge the de Rochebazon wealth, will the Church of Rome release one dernier of what she has clutched? Monsieur, you have flung your fortune away for a shadow, a chimera, since you yourself will never get it now. Better have taken it, have got back to your own land, have enjoyed it in peace."
"It would have been treachery to the dead--to her who believed in me and died deeming that I was a true child of her own faith. And," he added, "she was a good woman in spite of that faith."
Cavalier glanced at him, then shrugged his shoulders. Yet as he turned away he muttered:
"I begin to understand why your country is so great, so prosperous. Understand! if all Englishmen are like you."
That conversation was not to end thus, however, with a delicate compliment to Martin's honour, since, ere Cavalier had strode many paces from him, he came back and, taking a seat by his side in the great cavern where they then were, began to talk to him about the future hopes of the Protestant cause, in Languedoc especially. "We shall win," he said, "we shall win! What we want, which after all is not much for Louis to grant, we must have: Freedom to worship as we choose, freedom from paying taxes for a Church we have revolted from, freedom to come and go out of France as we desire. Let Louis grant that and I will place at his disposal so fine a regiment that none of his dragoons orchevaux-légersshall be our superiors. None! He shall say to me what he said to Jean Bart, the sailor."
"What did he say to him?"
"He sent for Jean Bart one day at Versailles, received him among all his grinning, shoulder-shrugging courtiers, and, looking on Jean and his rough, simple comrades, said, 'Bart,mon ami, you have done more for me than all my admirals.' And I love Bart for his reply when, casting his eyes round on all the admirals and captains who stood in the throng, he answered, 'Mon Dieu! je crois bien. Without doubt! That is, if thesepetits crevésare your admirals and captains.'"
Martin smiled at the little story, then he said:
"I would to God your cause, my own faith, could prosper here. We have gone through much stress ourselves to make it secure and safe in England. Discarded our king, who was of the family more dearly loved in England than any that have ever sat on her throne, yet we were forced to do it. But the Protestants of England can make a stronger boast than those of your land, Monsieur Cavalier. They alone have suffered; they never retaliated as you have done."
"As we were forced to retaliate," he exclaimed, striking the table in his excitement. "My God! think of what we have suffered. And not our men alone, but our wives, our sisters, our old mothers. Have you ever seen a gray-haired woman stripped and beaten in a market place? Have you ever seen a young innocent girl stretched naked on a wheel, the shame of her exposure even more frightful than the blows ofla massue?Have you ever stood on board a galley laden with Protestant slaves or smelled the burning flesh of old men at the stake? We have, we of these mountain deserts, and--and--my God!" while even as he spoke he wept, brushing the tears from his eyes fiercely, "I wonder that that girl, Urbaine Ducaire, is still alive, Protestant though she be. Wonder she is spared, since she is the loved treasure of that tiger, Baville."
"Protestant though she be!" Martin repeated. "You know that? From some surer source than the divinations, the revelations of La Grande Marie?"
"I know it," Cavalier said, facing round suddenly on him, "I know it now for certain. Ducaire was a Protestant living at Mont Joyre. I have discovered all. And I curse the discovery! For otherwise we would have repaid Baville a thousandfold for all his crimes, wrung his heartstrings as he has wrung ours for years, slaughtered his pet lamb as he has slaughtered hundreds of ours. But she is a Protestant, therefore safe."
"When will you release her, let her return to him?"
"Ho!la, la!" the other replied. "That must be thought upon. Even now she is a great hostage in our hands, a card that may win the trick. And--and--you and she are very intimate; yet can I tell you something without fear of its being repeated to her?"
"I will respect any confidence you place in me so long as it thrusts not against her welfare."
"It will not do that. Yet listen. Ere she leaves us there is something to be told her as regards Baville's friendship for her father, Ducaire. And, when she has heard that, it may be she will never wish to return to him, to set eyes on her beloved Intendant again."
"My God! What is to become of her then?"
For reply Cavalier only laughed. Then he said:
"There is always a home for any Protestant here, and she can not complain of how we have treated her. I think myself she will elect to stay with us, unless----"
"Unless?"
"Something more tempting offers," and again he laughed. "She might, monsieur will understand, fall in love. With--say--some hero."
For a moment Martin wondered if Cavalier alluded to himself; in another heknewthat he did so. There was no mistaking the glance in the Camisard's eyes. But he gave him no opportunity of saying anything further on the subject, asking instead if he might be confided in with regard to the strange story which, when told to Urbaine, was to quench every spark of love and affection in her heart for Baville, the man who, with all his faults, had cherished and loved her so fondly.
"No, monsieur," Cavalier replied. "That can not be--as yet. Later you will doubtless know all, know the reason why Urbaine Ducaire should change her love for him to an undying hate. Meanwhile I have to ask a favour of you."
"A favour? What is there in my power to do?"
"This: The power to help us end this war--you, a Protestant, an Englishman."
"I can not understand. God knows I desire nothing better."
"Soit!Then aid us. Thus: The English agent is at Nîmes, disguised. He passes under the name of Flottard, and has plans for the use of your admiral, who will bring his fleet to Cette or Toulon when the time is ripe. Unfortunately, however, this man, thissoi-disantFlottard, has not the French very clearly. As for us--poor weavers, carders, husbandmen--what should we know of other tongues? We can not speak a word of your language. Monsieur Martin, you are a Protestant, an Englishman. Before God I think you English the greatest of all. Help us, help us to be free without more bloodshed, to worship the Almighty as we see fit, to bow our necks no more before the Scourge of God. Help us! Help us!" he repeated, "us of your own faith."
Stirred to the heart's core by the man's appeal, though he scarce needed such impulse, every fibre in him, every drop of blood in his veins, tingling for those of his own faith, of his own loved religion, he answered quietly, saying again:
"What I can do I will," and adding, also quietly, "or die in the attempt."