The Scourge of God. John Bloundelle-Burton
last words were scarce those of peace. Instead, the words of one whose end was not peaceful; of one who wandered-was distraught-or revealed in her dying moments a secret that should have been divulged long, years ago."
The ivory of his listener's face did not become whiter as he spoke, neither to her cheeks did any blood mantle. There was no sign that in the mind of this, woman, marble alike in look and heart, was any knowledge of what the revealed secret was, or only one such sign. A duller glance from the deep sunken eyes, as though a film had risen before them and hidden them from him who gazed at her. Then she said:
"Doubtless she wandered. Was distraught, as you say."
"Nay, madame. For she left behind her proofs-letters-testifying-"
"What?"
"That my aunt was not the Princesse de Rochebazon. That, instead, she and her husband usurped a position which was never theirs. That a deep wrong had been done which must, which shall be, righted."
"By whom?"
"By me, with God's grace."
The night was falling as he rode back to Paris and entered the city by the western gate, making his way to the Rue Champfleury.
Yet neither the challenge of the guet at the barrier nor the noise inside it when once he was within the city, nor the crowd waiting outside a theatre to witness a revival of L'Écolier de Salamanque, which was the production of the poor decayed creature who had been the first husband of the inscrutable woman he had visited that day, had power to rouse him from his thoughts, nor to drive from out his memory her last words:
"Even if all this were true you will never find him. Even though he lives you will never succeed."
CHAPTER VII
THE HOUSE BY THE BRIDGE
"Come," said Martin to the trembling pastor, "come. We may do something, avert some awful calamity. You are of their faith. They will listen to you," and he arranged his porte épée and motioned to the old man to follow him.
"Not you! Not you!" the other whispered, shuddering. "Not you! You know not what will befall you if you take part in this."
"Yes, I. I must go too. I am a Protestant as much as they. I tell you, Pastor Buscarlet, I will wear the mask no longer. Come. Hark! There is firing. Come. We can do nothing here. Help neither Huguenot nor Papist."
"On my knees I beseech you to stop," the old man said, flinging himself upon them before Martin, "on my knees. You know not what you do. Think, think! If these men have risen it is at the worst but Frenchmen against Frenchmen. But with you-you are English. And we are at war again. Oh! I sicken with dread that it should be known."
"It can never be known. I have the French as well as you, or they-better than they, for mine is the speech of Paris and theirs of the mountains. Hark! they sing of Judah once more-also there is firing. Come with me or let me go alone." And he tore himself from the hands of the other.
Yet he did not go alone; even as he stepped into the garden the pastor went with him, running by his side to keep pace with his eager strides, whispering, entreating as he did so.
"Promise me, promise me, Martin," he said, "that you will take no part in any fray that is happening, will not to-night proclaim yourself. Oh, promise me! Remember," and he sunk his quavering voice even still lower, "Cyprien de Beauvilliers."
Recalled to himself by that name, recollecting the atonement of many years that had yet to be made, the wrong that had to be righted, as he himself had said, he too sunk his own voice, saying: "I promise. To-night I do nothing."
Down the street they went, therefore, together, Buscarlet's hand in Martin's, both glancing at the closed windows of the thatched houses and seeing the lights in them, with white faces against the mica panes and dark eyes gleaming from behind curtains, yet with no head showing. The orders to keep within doors were being followed.
In all the street (there was but one) no form was visible; if it had not been for the uproar at the end of it, where Le Tarn rolled under the three small bridges, and for the spits and tongues of flame that belched forth out of musketoons and carabines from the windows of the "house by the bridge," beneath the deeper, denser flames that rolled from under the eaves of that house, they might have deemed it was a deserted village or one peopled only with the dead.
Yet again the solemn chant uprose as they drew close to that house, but mingled now with something deeper than itself-the hammering of great trees, or tree trunks, on doors, the rumbling of flames escaping from the burning house, the firing from the windows, the loud shrieks from within the house itself.
"What are you?" cried a huge man as they entered the crowd, "Papist or Protestant? Child of God or Devil? Answer, or-" then ceased, seeing Buscarlet still holding Martin's hand; ceased and murmured, "Pardon, reverend; I did not see or know in the darkness. Yet begone; seek a safer place. The villain has his house full of De Broglie's fusileers to fire on us and help him. Oh, Lord of Hosts, wilt thou let them help such as he?"
"What will you-they-do?" Martin asked.
"Release the prisoners. If he resists, slay him. We have suffered too long."
"Nay, nay," said Buscarlet, "that must not be. Murder must not be done; or, if done, not by our side. Let the shedding of blood be theirs-"
"It has been for too long," the Cévenole answered sternly, his eyes glittering. "It has been. Now it is our turn. What saith the Scriptures? 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' So be it! The Papists have shed blood-our blood-like water; now let them look to themselves. You know, father, that the downtrodden have risen. At last!"
"God help us all!" Buscarlet exclaimed, wringing his hands.
"Ay, God help us all! Yet even he can not give us back our dead-those who have hung in chains on the bridges of Montpellier, Nîmes, Anduse, even here upon this bridge of Montvert. What balm is there for our daughters whipped to death through the streets, our sons sent to the galleys without trial, our pastors-your brethren-broken on the wheel, burnt at the stake? We have risen; it will not end here. That great evil king still sits in his great white palace, his reformed wanton by his side; she is old now, yet she shall not es-"
He staggered as he spoke, flung out his arms, then fell heavily to the ground to the sound of a fresh discharge of musketry. The fusileers of De Broglie had fired another volley from the windows of the abbé's house, and a bullet had found the man's heart.
"Come," said Martin, "come. We can do naught here. I may not draw my sword. No use to be mowed down here. Let us gain the bridge; there are no windows which give on that."
Half supporting, wholly leading the unhappy old man, he made his way through the besiegers who remained outside the house, some still singing their psalms and hymns of praise, while amid them moved the inspired ones, the prophets-men who were crazed with religious fervour and maddened with persecution until they did, in truth, believe that they were appointed by Heaven to direct and guide the others.
Also among this mass of infuriated peasants, some of whom fell or staggered away as fresh discharges came from the house, were three persons who had been brought from out of it. One, bent double from long confinement in the stocks, was Masip, of whom Buscarlet had spoken. The second was a girl not over sixteen, who screamed, "My back, my back, O God, my back!" if any touched her. She had been thrashed daily, because she would not be converted, by thongs steeped in pitch which had been allowed to harden ere the abbé used the whip. The third was an old man who could not stand, and with an arm broken.
Gaining the bridge, Martin and Buscarlet saw a fresh sight of horror.
The roof of the house was alight now. From between the walls and where the eaves of thatch hung over, bubbles and puffs of flame burst out and leaped toward the thatch itself, each tongue flickering higher until at last the ends of straw glowed and sparkled, then caught and began to burn. And on the sloping roof was a man crouching, his heels dug tight into the dried straw and reeds to prevent him from slipping down and over into the garden beneath, while with his hands he frantically twisted round a chimney stack a coil of white rope which another man, clinging himself