Urbaine and Martin sat together on that night which followed the sunny afternoon when they had been alone together on the promontory, in one of the smaller caverns that opened out of the large one--a cavern which, of late, Cavalier had used as that in which they ate their meals--Roland, who shared with him the position of chief of the Camisards (and indeed claimed to be the absolute chief), being rarely in this part of the mountains. To-night, however, Cavalier was absent too, he having gone on one of those terribly dangerous visits to the valleys which he periodically made, sometimes to spy into what the following of Baville were doing, or what the king's troops; or to head some sanguinary raid upon a place where arms or ammunition, food or clothes, were likely to be obtained.
But to-night he had gone forth on a different mission: to precede Martin on his way to Nîmes, to see if all the mountain passes were free of their enemies and, should such be the case, to conduct him into the city, there to have an interview with the English agent.
Therefore Urbaine and Martin were alone together, save for the Camisard woman who waited upon them at their meal, and who did not obtrude herself more than was necessary into the cavern they were in.
As with the larger one and with those which each of them used as their sleeping apartment, its furnishing and surroundings would have created intense astonishment to any of the outside world who should have been able to observe it. Hung with skins in some places, with rich and costly tapestry and arras in others, all of which were the results of successful forays upon châteaux andmanoirswhich, a few hours after the raids, were nothing but smoking ruins, the onlooker might well have believed that, instead of a natural vault originally fashioned by Nature's own hands, he stood within the hall of some ancient feudal castle, such as the De Rohans or the Ruvignys had once possessed in the vicinity. Also he might have thought that the table at which those two sat was one prepared for the reception of guests at Versailles.
A table covered with the whitest napery, on which sparkled many pieces of the prizedvaissellesof thenoblesseand thehaut-monde, so prized, indeed, that laws and edicts had been passed preventing the sale of such things or their transposition from one family to another; adorned as well withverres-fins, and with silver-handled knives and silver forks. Also for provisions there were upon this table apoulardeand the remains of a choice ham, a bottle of Ginestoux and another of Lunel, a silver basketful of delicate, white chipped bread, and a crystal bowl of mountain fruit. Yet the glass and the silver bore no two crests alike. The arms that were broidered on the napery represented still a third family. All was spoil torn from half a dozen ruined and sacked mansions.
"I pray God, mademoiselle," Martin said, after having in vain pressed his companion to eat more than the shred ofpoulardeshe had trifled with, and to drink at least one glass of the Ginestoux, "that this task on which I go may end all your grief. You know that Cavalier promises on my return, our object accomplished, to allow me to take you away from here, to return you in safety to your father's--to M. Baville's arms."
"Yes," she answered, looking up at him, "yes, to return me to my father's arms."
"You will pray, therefore, for my success? It means all you can most desire, all that you can hope for till these troubles are past. Once back in his house, no further harm can come near you; you are safe with him. Nay, even though he were in danger through any further success of theirs, you are still safe. They deem you one of themselves."
"I will pray," she said, "for your success, your prosperity, now and forever--for all that you may undertake. Yet--yet--do you know?--I have almost ceased to pray at all now."
"Oh, oh, God forbid!" he exclaimed, his heart wrung by her words.
"To whom am I to pray? What am I, how am I to approach Him? If I am a Protestant I must pray for his, my father's, downfall; if a Catholic, for the destruction of what I----" She did not finish her sentence, but added instead: "Best never utter prayer at all; forget that from my childhood I have been taught to worship humbly and to never know a petition unheard. Oh," she said, thrusting her hands through the great coils of golden hair that adorned her head, "oh, that I had died on the day you saved my life, that the bullet which pierced my poorgouvernante'sbreast had found mine instead!"
Profoundly touched, moved to the deepest pity and sympathy by her words--the words of one so young and fair, yet, alas! so distraught--he moved nearer to her and, unaware even, perhaps, of his action, took her hand.
"Why," he said, speaking very low, yet with a voice that seemed as music in her ears, "why feel thus, suffer thus? In spite of all the dissensions between our faiths--grant even that you are no Protestant--we worship the same God though we see him with different eyes. Urbaine," he whispered, forgetting as he spoke that he had broken down the barrier of formality which had been between them until now, "if you can not pray for me to-night, can not pray that my efforts may meet with success, how can I depart and leave you here? How go, knowing that your heart is not with me?"
"Not with you?" she whispered in her turn. "Not with you? Alas----" and again broke off, saying no more.
"Urbaine," he continued, emboldened now to repeat softly her name, and perhaps not understanding her repetition of his words, deeming, it may be, that the repetition confirmed them, "Urbaine, your heart, your wishes must go with me, with the cause I undertake. It is the cause of peace and reconciliation, of strengthening your king's hands by winning back his subjects to him. For if this fleet can but get a foothold for its men on shore, Louis must make terms with all who are now beating him down; not only in this fair Languedoc, but over all Europe a lasting peace may ensue. A peace," he continued, still gently yet impressively, "between your land and mine. Yours and mine," he repeated, dwelling, it seemed to her, pleasantly on the coupling of their interests together--"yours and mine."
For answer she only sighed, then she said a moment later:
"Yet to go on this mission may mean death to you. If Montrevel or Julien caught you--O God! it sickens me to think of your peril. They might not know, might not even believe, all that you have done for me. The end would be awful."
"Yet remember also that they would not know, can not know, that I am a Protestant--worse than all else within their eyes, an Englishman. And, not knowing, nothing would be suspected."
"Still I fear," she answered. "Am overcome with horror and anxiety. Oh!" she exclaimed again, "oh! if your reward for your noble chivalry to me should be nothing but disaster. If--if we should never meet again."
"Fear not," he said. "We shall meet again. I know it; it is borne in upon me. We shall meet again. I shall restore you to your father's arms."
Yet, even as he spoke, he remembered the words that Cavalier had uttered under the seal of confidence, the words: "When she has heard what is to be told, it may be she will never seek to return to him, to set eyes on her beloved Intendant again." Remembered them and wondered what they might portend.
As he did so there came into the cavern one of the Camisards, a man who had been deputed to lead him at a given time to where Cavalier was to await his coming. A guide who said briefly that the horses were prepared and ready to set forth at monsieur's pleasure, then went outside to wait for him.
"Farewell, Urbaine," Martin said. "Adieu. Nay, do not weep. All will, all must be, well with you, otherwise I would not leave you. And, remember, once my task is accomplished you are free. It is for that, as for other things, in other hopes, that I go. Bid me Godspeed."
It seemed, however, as if she could not let him depart. Weeping, she clung to his arm, her cheeks bedashed with the tears that ran down them, her hands clasping his. And then, overmastered by her misery, he said that to her which he had never meant to say until, at least, happier days had dawned for both--if, as he sometimes thought, he should ever dare to say it.
"Urbaine," he whispered, "Urbaine, be brave; take heart; pray for me. Listen, hear my last words ere I go. I love you--have loved you since that night we sat beneath the acacias after I had saved you. I shall love you ever--till I die."
* * * * * * *
The moon shone out through deep inky clouds that scurried swiftly beneath her face as Martin and the guide set forth to descend to the spot where Cavalier was to await them. Up here there were no precautions necessary to be taken, since to the higher portions of the Cévennes it was impossible that any enemy could have penetrated from below. The paths that led up to the caves which formed the barracks and dwelling places of the two thousand men who now kept all Languedoc in dread and two of Louis' armies at check were of so narrow and impassable a nature that Thermopylæ itself might have acknowledged them as worthy rivals; and, even had they been less close and tortuous, were so guarded at intervals by pickets of Camisards that none could have surmounted them. Also in many places the route had been made to pass specially over terrible chasms and ravines, since, by so doing, it enabled the defenders of the passes to construct drawbridges which could be lowered or raised at their own pleasure, or, in case of necessity, destroyed altogether.
Yet one precaution had been taken for their journey--a precaution never neglected by those dwellers of the mountains, in case they were forced to take to flight and desired to leave no trace behind them--their animals were shodbackwardon their fore feet, a method which, in conjunction with the usual shoeing of the hind feet, was almost certain to baffle those who should endeavour to follow their tracks.
Beneath that moon which shone fitfully from the deep masses of rain-charged clouds the two men paced in Indian file down the narrow passes, seeing as they went that which, for now many weeks, had been visible to all eyes in the province--namely, the flames of villages on fire at different points of the compass; hearing, too, as they were borne on the winds, the distant ringing of alarm bells and tocsins from many a beleaguered church and monastery. For not only did those flames spring from edifices wherein the old faith was still maintained, but also from the villages and hamlets where some Protestants continued to dwell and worship in their own manner, hoping ever for better, happier days. Already it was calculated that more than forty Romish churches had been destroyed, with, in many cases, the bourgs in which they stood; ere all was over the number was doubled. And already, also, more than that number of Protestant places of worship, with the villages around them, had been pillaged, sacked, and burned by Montrevel and Julien, while, in their case, ere all was over the number was almost trebled.
Thinking of his newly declared love for Urbaine, thinking, too, of how, in whispered words, she had declared her love for him in return, of how in their last hasty embrace, which had been also their first, they had sworn deathless fidelity to each other, Martin took but little heed of those midnight sights telling of happy homes ruined forever which he had now been forced so often to gaze upon from the heights where the Camisards dwelt. He had grown accustomed to these beacons of horror, in spite of the unhappiness they caused him.
But now he saw a new phase of stern justice and punishment at which he could not fail to shudder.
High up upon three gibbets at the wayside by which they passed--gibbets so placed that, when their ghastly burdens should rot from the chains which held them now, they would fall down and down until they reached the bottom of the ravine a thousand feet below--there hung three corpses; swung waving to the mountain air, while ever and anon upon their white but blood-stained faces the moon glinted now and again, making those faces look as though they perspired in her rays, were clammy with sweat. And two grinned hideously in those rays, a bullet wound which had shattered the mouth of one giving to his face the appearance of a man convulsed with laughter, while the smirk of the other face was, in truth, the last grimace of the death agony. The features of the third told naught, since, from a wound in his forehead, there had run out the blood which was now caked and hardened to a mask, hiding all below.
"My God!" exclaimed Martin, with a shiver, "who are they? Men caught here and executed as spys, troopers made prisoners and done to death by the avengers?"
"Nay," replied the man, while he made a contemptuous gesture at the loathsome things that at the moment executed a weird fantastic movement in unison as a fresh gust of wind swept down from the mountains above, making them sway and dance to its cold breath, "nay, vagabonds,marauds. Murderers these, not soldiers. Those men are of our number--were of our number--Protestants--ourselves."
"What, traitors?"
"Ay, traitors--to humanity. Listen! They caught one, a good woman, Madame de Miramand, a Papist, yet a kindly creature who succoured all alike. Also she was young, not twenty, and beautiful. She wasen voyage"--again Martin shuddered, thinking of another woman young and beautiful who had also beenen voyage, and almost caught--"had with her her jewels, also hervaisselles. Well they slew her even as she knelt before them, stabbed her, left her to die, left her thus as she prayed God to pardon them."
"Go on," Martin said, seeing that he paused.
"God may pardon them," the guide said. "One, however, would not. Cavalier! We caught them, tried them; you see the sentence. It is not womenwewar upon."
As he finished, again the loathsome figures swung to the breeze, again they danced and pirouetted in their chains, while from behind a rock Cavalier himself strode forward.
It was the spot that had been the meeting place appointed with the guide.
"It is true," he said. "We war not with women. Let Montrevel or Julien do that. Or their master--Louis!"
With the rapidity of wildfire the news had run over all Languedoc at this time--was known, too, and shared by Catholics as well as Protestants--that the English, who once they drew the sword never sheathed it until its work was done, meditated an attack on France in a fresh place, that place being her Mediterranean seaboard, the one spot still free from their assaults up to now, also a spot more vulnerable, since there were scarce any troops to defend it, the armies of Montrevel and Julien being sufficiently occupied in endeavouring, without success, to prevent the terrible reprisals the Camisards were at last making.
And now indeed the desolation of Languedoc was supreme; now, like a torch that flareth in the night, was visible an awful terror upon all of the old faith, as well as the adherents of Louis, who dwelt therein. Men of that old faith barricaded themselves in their houses, refusing to either quit them or let any of their families do so, or to receive bread into those houses in any other way than by baskets raised by cords, either for fear that they should be stabbed to the heart on their doorsteps or that they should add one more body to the many that hung upon the branches of the trees by the wayside--bodies having affixed to their dead breasts the label bearing the words, "Tous qui tomberont entre les mains des vengeurs seront traités ainsi." Verily, Languedoc was, as its greatest churchman, Fléchier, said, but one vast gaping wound!
Yet not only was it the avengers who caused the wound. Maddened by defeat, by merciless retaliation on their enemies' part, by their fierce determination to never give or ask for quarter, Baville, Montrevel, and Julien enacted more awful cruelties than had ever yet been practised upon those of the Reformed faith. Again the dungeons of the prisons, the vaults of the cathedrals, which living prisoners shared with the coffined dead, re-echoed with the groans of the former;les places publiqueswere foul with the odour of burning flesh and of corpses that rotted on wheels; the very roofs were laden with carrion birds waiting their opportunity to swoop down and plunge their beaks into the dying; even mothers slew the babes in their arms sooner than see them perish slowly before their eyes from the pangs of thirst and hunger. But still the war went on, if such oppression, such retaliation, could be dignified by the name of war. Went on because from Paris the word still came that none should worship God in their own way, or in any other method than the priests of Rome directed--priests who declared with their lips that the God they served was one of love and mercy, yet sowed with full hands the seeds of violence and trouble, of blood and death.
And now to add to all the terrors that the papists felt at last, to all the fierce joys that the Protestants had begun to thrill with, it was rumoured through the country that some great admiral of the accursed English race, backed up by the Duke of Savoy, was about to land an army at one of the ports with the full intention of assisting the Protestants, and of, so those papists said, establishing Protestantism over all the land. No wonder, therefore, that the priests fled from their churches, that the archbishop said (forgetting how he and his had outraged God for years) that "God had deserted them."
Clad like muleteers in some cases, in others like travelling weavers, and in still others like husbandmen and horse-dealers, some scores of Camisards were making their ways by ones and twos at this period toward Cette, avoiding Montpellier and leaving it to the east of them, and threading the low lands that lay between that diocese and the sister one of D'Agde, fortheyknew where the landing was to be attempted; knew likewise when the English assistance was to be expected. Also--though few were aware of it, and Baville alone, on his side, suspected that such was the case--from Holland, from Geneva, from the villages of the Vaud and Valais, from Canterbury and Spitalfields were coming refugees, some making their way by foot and some on horses. They had been summoned from the lands they had fled to, summoned to return and take part in what was now to be done.
Amid a small band which at this moment drew near to Frontignan there rode Martin Ashurst, his companions being some of the noblest Protestant blood of the province. Also by his side there rode the English agent known as Flottard, a Huguenot whose father had escaped long since into England and who spoke that language better than his own, or rather than thelangue d'ocwhich had been his father's.
"And now,mes frères," said one of these companions, Ulson de la Valette, who as a boy had been forced to stand before the scaffold of Greonble holding his fainting mother's hand while they witnessed the decapitation of his elder brotherpour cause d'hérésie, "we must separate, to meet again by Heaven's grace as followers of the English admiral. Monsieur, read the route to our friends," and he turned to a man clad as a monk. He had in truth been one who had but recently been unfrocked at Rome on suspicion of heretic principles, and had now openly avowed Protestantism, while still retaining the gown as a disguise.
"This is the route," the monk answered, producing from his breast a paper which, in the clear light of the dawn, he read from. "You, De la Valette, and you, Fontanes, will pass straight on to Frontignan. You,messieurs les Anglais," and he glanced at Martin and Flottard, "will proceed through La Susc; the rest must distribute themselves and travel through the villages of Sainte Bréze, Collanze, and Le Test. Yet, remember, Baville has warned everyaguet, every watchman, every village consul and river guard. Capture and discovery mean death."
"The meeting-place," said Ulson de la Valette, "of all of us is the plain of Frontignan, 'twixt that and the great port. The signal will be the landing of the first English troops, the entry of the first ship of war. The password is 'God and his children.' My friends, farewell; yet, as you ride, forget not to pray for success. If God is on our side now we are avenged and Louis beaten down under our feet. We shall triumph."
A moment later all had parted, dispersing quietly after a hand-shake round, and each going alone, Martin and Flottard remaining behind for some little while so as not to follow too hurriedly upon the footsteps of the others.
"Yet," said Flottard in English, which he spoke like a native, "we must part too, Monsieur Martin. I have to enter Bouziques if I can; 'tis full of disguised Savoyards and some of your--our--land. You will, I should suppose, join Sir Cloudesley Shovel?"
"As agent," Martin replied, "not combatant. My mission is to lead his troops if possible to Montpellier and Nîmes, to act as guide."
"It will not save your neck if you are caught," Flottard said with a laugh.
"There is no thought of that," Martin answered, hurt and annoyed that the man should suppose this was his consideration. "But--but--I have other things to do. To me are to be confided the arms, ammunition, and money which the English fleet brings. Also, with the exception of you and me, there is no one who can speak English."
"And," repeated Flottard, "there is no one the French will punish as ferociously as they will punish us--for I am English too now--if we are caught."
"They can do no worse by us than by their own," Martin replied quietly.
Afterward, when they had parted, Flottard taking his way to Bouzique while Martin rode on quietly toward Cette, he, musing deeply on all which might be the outcome of the proposed attack by the English admiral, told himself that, even were it possible for his punishment to be made five thousand times worse than anything which had ever been dealt out to the Protestants, nothing should stop him now but death. He loved Urbaine Ducaire; had loved her, as he had said, since first he saved her life, since they had sat together beneath the sweet-scented blossoms of the acacia trees on that soft summer night amid the desolation of the land; he should love her till the end. And--and Cavalier had promised that, if he helped their cause now, on his return he should lead Urbaine forth a free woman; should return her safe and unharmed to Baville's arms, even though Baville was the most hated name the Camisards knew.
Cavalier would keep his word. That he never doubted. Only there was the future to be thought upon--the afterward. His love for her and hers for him. How was that love ever to be brought to a happy fruition? How? How? How? Would Baville give her to him, a Protestant, even though it were proved, as Cavalier had said it could now be proved beyond all doubt, that Urbaine was herself born in that faith? Give her to him, an Englishman, a native of the land which had wrought much disaster on France through innumerable centuries, that was even now closing its grasp of steel upon France and crushing the very life-blood out of all its pores? Would Baville, the Tiger of Languedoc, ever consent to such a union as they projected, the fulfilment of the troth which they had plighted?
One hope there was, he reflected: a hope that at least the question of faith might not prove an insurmountable object. For though Baville was of the old faith, though in the name of that faith and at the instigation of its chiefs he had wrought innumerable cruelties, had broken countless hearts and driven thousands to despair, religion had been but a war cry with him, a banner under which to march. As a papist he was but an indifferent one. He had said, had owned as much more than once, that it was duty which led him to be severe, to crush down rebellion, to exalt the King's authority. He would have acted in precisely the same manner as he had recently acted had France been Protestant and had theattroupésbeen papists. "Il est plus royaliste que le Roi!" Urbaine had said of him once in speaking to Martin; "and to him the soil of France and the power of Louis are the most sacred things he knows, except one other, his duty. The King made him governor of Languedoc; in his mind Languedoc exists for the King alone. Forgive him all for his loyalty, his obedience to duty."
As he reflected on this, trying to pierce the future, endeavouring to see one glimmering ray of hope amid all the darkness which enveloped that future, he drew near to where the port of Cette was; in the warm autumn air with which these southern plains were suffused, it seemed almost as if he scented the breezes of the great blue sea beyond. Also it seemed as if already the balm of the myriad flowers which adorn its shores was surrounding him, as if, with the bright rays of the sun, a promise was heralded of peace and happiness at last.
It behooved him to be careful how he progressed, for all the countryside was in a state of alarm. The English fleet had been seen out at sea two days before! Also it was known to all the King's followers that a descent was intended, while a regiment of dragoons marching swiftly to the coast had given the information that, from the towers of the cathedral at Montpellier, that fleet had been seen approaching Maqualone. While even a worse cause for alarm was the rumour that Cavalier with six hundred Camisards had passed by a circuitous route toward Cette, and was now waiting on the beach to welcome the English invaders.
Yet, furnished with papers which Flottard had caused to be procured from Paris, not only Martin but most of the refugees who had of late returned to the south of France managed to reach the coast ere night fell, to reach the shore, there to await the coming of those who were to land and succour them--a shore upon which were those Camisards who, setting out with Cavalier long after Martin had departed, had by a forced march contrived to reach Cette ere he and his companions were able to do so, owing to thedétoursthey had made; a sandy, shingly beach, from which, as now the warm night closed in on them, all gazed upon what they saw before them.
Two large ships of war (their names were afterward known to be the Pembroke and the Tartar) which through that night made signals frequently that, none understanding, remained unanswered. Signals arranged by the Earl of Nottingham (who, after many compunctions against assisting rebels in arms, even though in arms against a king hostile to England, had consented to Shovel making the attack), the key to which he had forwarded to Peytaud, a Protestant but recently returned from Holland. But Peytaud had been caught that morning ere he could reach Cette; the signals had been found upon him, and, at the time that the Pembroke and the Tartar were showing their masthead lights, the unfortunate man's body was lying broken all to pieces on a wheel in the crossroads outside Aiguësmortes.
And there were no duplicates! The signals remained unanswered. Later on Cavalier said that he did not know these were the ships of war, but in the darkness took them to be fishermen's boats. Had he known, he averred that he would have swam out to them rather than have missed so great a chance.
In the morning when day broke the topsails of these vessels were seen to fill. Soon they were gone.
The hoped-for chance was lost, and lost forever. The tide no longer served; nothing could have been then landed from the English ships, nor could they have remained where they were. Already the galleys armed to the teeth had put out in dozens to attack them. On the horizon there rose the topmasts of a great French fleet coming swiftly from Toulon.
And by Martin's side upon the desolate shore stood Cavalier, the picture of despair.
"The opportunity is gone," he said; "gone also our last chance for making peace. It is war now to the end. Yet had your countrymen but got ashore the struggle would have been over; hampered on all sides, Louis must have yielded, have made terms. God help us all!" and he turned away to bid his followers disperse and make their way back by the routes and by-paths which they knew of to the mountains.
As he did so there came through the crowd of Camisards one whom Martin had seen before, a gaunt, haggard man, with an arm missing--an arm which, it was said, had withered under the cruelties the Abbé du Chaila had practised on this Cévenole while he had him in his power at Montvert, so that, when at last the man was freed, it had to be removed.
"Cavalier," he said, "Cavalier, friend and leader, bid them also hasten on their way; lose no time. You have heard the news?"
"No! What?"
"Montrevel and Julien have forced the passes, taking advantage of our absence. Roland, too, is away. The caverns are besieged. All in them are lost."
"Lost! Pshaw! They will stand a siege of all Louis' armies."
"Ay, they will. But it is not for siege that thebattueis arranged. Those in the caverns are caught in ablocus; they can make nosortie. Outside, fires have been made. Hurry! or you will find nothing but smoke-dried corpses when you return."
As he spoke there fell upon his ears a heartbroken gasp. Turning his eyes, they lighted upon Martin--Martin who, white to the lips and palsied with horror, could only mutter, "Urbaine! Urbaine. And she is there!"
"Ay!" said Cavalier fiercely, "she is there. The blow falls as heavily on Baville as on us----" Then paused in his speech. Paused to say in an altered, gentle tone a moment later to Martin, "I see! See all! You love her?"
"Love her! My God," Martin replied, "beyond all thought! And she is there!"
Through the fair, sweet land known as theDépartement HéraultMartin rode north, toward where the mountains lay, in the darkness of the autumn night, like purple shadows hovering over the earth; rode recklessly, as though caring little whether he or the horse he bestrode found death at the next step. Recklessly, as it seemed to the startled shepherds guarding their flocks of Narbonne sheep in their huts of reeds and clay, and peering out as the horseman dashed by, the moon illuminating his pale face so that, but for the clatter of the creature's hoofs, they would scarcely have known whether 'twas a spectre or a living thing which flew past. Recklessly, too, as it seemed to peasants sleeping in their cottages, and aroused by that clatter only to turn on their beds and sleep again. Recklessly, threateningly, as perhaps it may have seemed to startled fawns and timorous hares and rabbits, fleeing helter-skelter into vineyards where grew the luscious Lunel and Genistoux grapes, or into underbush where lurked the famed and dreaded viper of the south.
But reckless as that hurried course might seem, wild and furious as the ride of Gary from London to Edinburgh, to tell James that the great Queen was dead and he was King of England as well as of Scotland, it was not so in truth, and, though swift and unhalting, was neither foolhardy nor rashly impetuous. He was too good a horseman, also too kindly-hearted a man, to spur a willing beast above its best endeavours. Yet he knew well enough that beyond breathing spells in cool copses, where the moon flung down on to the thick grass the shadowy lacery of leaves which quivered in the night breezes, and beyond halts at trickling rivulets so that the panting creature might drink and be refreshed, there must be no delay. None if he would reach Montrevel or Julien ere the worst had fallen; if he would be in time to tell them that, amid those whom they sought to murder and burn in the caves they had surrounded, was the fairest woman in all Languedoc, the child of Baville's heart, Urbaine Ducaire.
Also he knew the dangers that lurked in his path; knew how, all along the road he went, were countless soldiers out seeking forattroupés; men who, not knowing what his mission was and perceiving that he bore no signs about him of royal scarlet, or lace, or accoutrements, would send a dozen bullets at his back, any one of which would hurl him from his saddle to the ground a corpse. Nay, once such had almost been the case. Refusing to halt at the village of St. Jean le Bon, from a tavern had come a shower of such missiles, which, by God's mercy, had only hissed harmlessly past, though by the shock he felt beneath him he knew that his saddle had been struck.
The dawn was nigh as at last he neared Lunel. He knew it by the deeper chill of the air, by the changing lividness of the summits of the distant mountains, and by the vanishing of the purple darkness from their caps and spurs and ridges. If the horse he rode could reach that town he might get a change of animal and so ride on and on, and on again, until he was within the outlines of Montrevel and Julien.
"Away!" Cavalier had said to him as, after weary waiting, the evening fell over Cette and he was free at last to commence his journey. All day he had fretted and stormed at having to remain until the night came, though forced to do so, since to have started on that wild ride by daylight would have been, in the state of the locality, simply to invite destruction. "Away! God grant you may be in time! If they spare her they must spare the others, as, if they slay them, they must slay her. And--and--we shall be close behind you. If Montrevel and Julien have got into our mountains, may the devil, their master, help them! They will never get out again; we have them in a trap."
And he laughed bitterly while repeating aloud the word "Away!" Also he added, "If you can but induce them to hold their hands for twenty-four hours we will do the rest."
Lunel came nearer and nearer now. He thanked God again and again that still the horse beneath him did not falter, still swept on in an even, easy stride. Already he could see in the morning air, now clear and bright, the great wooden spire of its church, which up to now had escaped destruction. And he remembered how Cavalier had told him to have no fear in entering it, since neither papists nor Protestants had made any attack upon it because it was principally inhabited by Jews from Marseilles, who, from the days of Philip of Valois, had been permitted to dwell within it, they taking, as was natural, no share in the troubles with which the province was torn.
Nearer and nearer, close now, its one peaked,calotte-roofed tower, which faced to the south, standing up like an arrow pointing to the sky in the cool light of the swift advancing dawn.
Close now, and hammering on the great gray storm-beaten door of the ramparts, against which for centuries themistraland thebisehad howled and flung themselves on winter nights and days; on which all through the summer the southern sun had glared. Hammering with pistol-butt and clenched hand, loud enough to arouse the dead, and calling:
"Awake! Open! Open! In God's name open!"
"Hola!" a voice shouted answeringly from within. "No more. Cease. I come! 'In God's name.' Good! You give the password. 'Tis well!" the utterance being mingled with the grating of a key in a lock and the rumbling of a bar. And Martin divined that by a chance, a miracle, he had uttered the royalist sign.
A moment later the gate was open wide. Before it stood a lean, gray-haired warder, the very counterpart of Cervante's hero, fastening the tags of his jacket with one hand as he threw back the door with the other.
"Monsieur rides in haste," he said, seeing that he had a gentleman to do with, though no soldier clad inbleu royalor scarlet, as he had expected. "What is the news you carry? Have the accursed English landed, the vile Protestants captured the port?"
"Nay," answered Martin, "but I ride on an errand of life or death. I must reach Baville; above all, Montrevel or Julien. They know not what they do."
"What they do! What is't? I have heard they barricade themselves in Uzès and Alais, yet thousands strong! Soldiers! Bah! Tosspots andvauriens, afraid of a beggarly set of goatherds.Dieu des Dieux!'twas not so when I rode behind Condé."
"You are mistaken. They are in the mountains, putting all to fire and sword. Above all, to fire. And among those whom they will slay--they know her not--is Baville's child. Friend, as you have loved ones of your own, help me to a fresh horse. This one is spent."
"It is," the warder said, all action now and regarding the smoking flanks of the poor beast. "Antoine,petit," he called, "out of your bed,dindon. A bucket of water, quick. And for you, monsieur, a sup," whereon he ran into his lodge and came back carrying a greatoutre, from out of which he poured a flask of amber-coloured liquor. "'Tis of the best," he said, and winked as he did so. "Hein! 'tis Chastelneuf. Three years in vat. Down with it."
"Another horse, another horse!" Martin exclaimed after he had swallowed the wine and thanked the man. "In Heaven's name put me in the way of that. I must on--on."
"Off!" said the man to a boy who had now come from his lodge, half dressed, as though he had but just tumbled out of his bed; a boy who was by now holding a bucket to the horse's thirsty mouth. "Off, Antoine, to the Jew. He has the cattle. If you have money," he added to Martin. "Without it you will get naught from any of his tribe."
"I have enough. Fifty gold pistoles."
"Show them not to him, or he will want all. Bargain, traffic,marchandise. 'Tis the only way."
Led by the boy and leading now the steed, with the warder calling after him that it was strange he had heard naught of what he related, "for his part, he believed he was misinformed, and that Montrevel and Julien were doing nothing but eating and drinking up all in the land like locusts," Martin went down the street, none of the inhabitants seeming yet awake. It was as silent and empty as a deserted city.
In front of a cross in a market place--a cross which the fiery Anjou had caused to be erected there to remind the Jews of their fathers' sins, as he said--the boy paused and, pointing to a house with large, capacious stables by its side, observed:
"'Tis there that Elie lives. Beat him up, monsieur, beat him up," and Martin, following his advice, seized the great copper knocker and hammered with it as lustily as, some minutes earlier, he had hammered to arouse the warder.
Because strange, fantastic thoughts and memories come to us even in our most bitter moments, so to Martin there came now the thought that the face, which a moment later appeared at a window above, might well have served Nokes, the comedian, whom he had often supped with at Pontac's, for a model of the apothecary in Mantua. A face lean and hatchet-nosed, fleshless almost as the face of one dying of starvation, the eyes deep sunken above the beak-like nose.
"What is't?" this man asked. "What does monsieur desire at such an hour?"
"A horse. A horse at once that will carry me to----"
"Horses are dear just now. The army needs all."
"I will pay well. Come down and supply me. Quick, every moment is precious."
"So are horses. Yet I will descend. I have a good animal, but it cost me much."
A moment later he appeared at his door, a thick cudgel in his hand as though to guard against any sudden attack that might be made upon him, and said:
"The animal I have is worth a hundred gold pistoles."
"Bah! I have not so much about me."
"How much have you?"
"Twenty."
"Twenty for such an animal! Father of Abraham and Isaac! Twenty gold pistoles for such a creature!" and he made as though he would re-enter his house.
"Let him go, monsieur," whispered the boy with a grin, "he will come back.N'ayez pas peur. Oh!avec ça, we know him."
The lad spoke truly, for even as Martin, cursing himself for trafficking thus at such a moment, resolved to fling his purse of fifty pieces down before the man and bid him bring out the horse, the Jew's vulpine beak and pendulous underlip appeared again from behind the door.
"Will you give twenty-five?"
"Show me the horse."
A little later, in accordance with some whispered instructions to another person behind the door, a Jewish maiden was seen leading a horse from out the stable yard at the side, an animal of an ordinary type, yet looking sturdy and as though quite capable of carrying Martin to Alais and the mountains beyond.
"Twenty-five?" the Jew asked, leering.
"Yes, twenty-five. Help me"--to the boy--"to change saddle and bridle," which the lad did willingly enough. But the Hebrew's instincts were stronger than aught else. As they began to do this he shrieked:
"Ah, mother of Moses, the girl is mad. She has brought the wrong beast. Oh! Oh! Oh! This can not go under fifty pistoles."
"It is too late to change," Martin said grimly. "The beast is mine," and he produced his purse and told out twenty-five pistoles. Then, tossing the boy a crown, he said: "Keep my horse for me until I come this way again or send for it, and I will reward you well. Treat it carefully. Farewell. The road to Nîmes and Alais? Where is the gate?"
The boy indicated it amid the shrieks of the Jew, who now yelled he was robbed; that he meant twenty-five gold pistoles with the other's horse thrown in; how else could he part with such an animal for a beggarly twenty-five? And amid a tussle between the lad on one side and the Abrahamite and the girl on the other, in which the former seemed quite able to hold his own and retain his charge, Martin rode down the street to the Nîmes gate.
Once more he was upon the road. Nearer to his love, to her who had dawned a star above his life--the woman in deadly peril for whom, as he tightened rein and pressed flank, he prayed God's mercy. Prayed also that he might not be too late, not too late.
The autumn sun beat down upon his head, fierce as July suns in more northern lands. The skies were like brass. There was no air to fan his cheek except that which his own swift passage caused. Yet he never felt or heeded the former, nor missed the latter; there was but one thought in his mind--Urbaine! Urbaine! Urbaine!
Lunel was left behind him, had dwindled to a spot. He cursed the leagues ofdétourhe had to make to reach Nîmes first, find Baville, and warn him of the awful danger of the girl if still she lived--oh, God! if still she lived!--procure his order to those battue-making butchers to hold their hands, possess himself of it, and hurry on to the mountains, That, that was all he could do, yet he would accomplish it or reel from his saddle to the road--dead.
Through Vergese he went, seeing the cool wooden slopes of Les Vaquerolles on his left, shouting the password he had by Heaven's grace learned so opportunely to all who endeavoured to arrest his flight; on, on to Milbaud and Saint Cesare. And at last Nîmes was ahead of him. He saw it now. The Temple of Diana rose before his eyes, solitary and majestic as the Romans had left it two thousand years before; rose, too, beneath the brassy shimmer, the white marble columns of Agrippa's sons and the city walls.
Yet also arose something else toward the heavens which startled, amazed him.
Stealing up into the yellow haze, a spiral column twined snakily until it seemed to be merged in the sky, a column white and fleecy at first, then black at its base, and, later, black up all its length. Next, tinged flame-colour--soon flame itself. Flame which leaped up in countless tongues as though with its great flecks and flickers it aspired to lick the canopy above, flame in which now were mixed black specks and daubs borne up upon its fiery breath.
Nîmes was burning. It was impossible to doubt it.
Set on fire by whom? Camisards descending from the mountains, or perchance, though that seemed impossible, by Camisards returning from Cette. Or by the King's forces. Yet, why that? It was the royalist stronghold, the royalist base. It could scarce be that.
Spurring his horse, he urged it to its fullest speed through the last remaining half-league of road running through fields of crimson-flowered sainfoin and beneath the yellow-green, sweet-scented limes. On, while now above the broadleaved trees the smoke rose thicker and thicker. On, scarce knowing why he rode thus or what he had to do in Nîmes except to find Baville if he were there; to tell him no burning city mattered one jot to him in comparison with what was doing, might be done by now, up in those mountains five leagues off which lay bathed in the golden haze of the noontide heat.
He saw the great southern gate open before him, no warders by it. Doubtless they were in the city trying to save it from the flames; from the gate itself he saw people issuing, running. Some--among others two old gray-haired people, man and woman--wringing their hands; also a great burlycordelier, his fat face suffused with an oily smile.
"What--what is it?" he cried, reining in his horse. "What fresh horror now?"
"Murder! Cruelty unparalleled!" the old gray-haired man said, his look of terror awful to behold. "Wickedness extreme! Montrevel is there, Julien is there; they have caught the Protestants in the great mill, have barred them in, they can not escape. And they are burning it. All, all must perish."
"Montrevel--Julien--there! It is impossible. They are in the mountains burning the Protestantsthere!" Martin exclaimed.
"Nay, nay, my son," the greasy monk exclaimed, chiming in, "that was but a heaven-inspired ruse to catch the others in the trap. They are here. They slaughter the heretics,par le fer et par le feu, as Montrevel says. Here! Here! My son, make your way in. Join the good work."