CHAPTER VIII.
GARGOUF.
Some called for silence, while others stared at me stupidly, orpointed me out to their fellows; but the greater part took up thewoman's cry, and, enraged by my presence, shook their fists at me, andshouted vile threats and viler abuse. For a minute the air rang with"_A bas les Seigneurs! A bas les tyrans!_" And I found this badenough. But, presently, whether they caught sight of the steward, ormerely returned to their first hatred, from which my appearance hadonly for the moment diverted them, the cry changed to a sullen roar of"Gargouf! Gargouf!" A roar so full of the lust for blood, and coupledwith threats so terrible, that the heart sickened and the cheek grewpale at the sound.
"Gargouf! Gargouf! Give us Gargouf!" they howled. "Give us Gargouf!and he shall eat hot gold! Give us Gargouf, and he shall need no moreof our daughters!"
I shuddered to think that Mademoiselle heard; shuddered to think ofthe peril in which she stood. The wretches below were no longer men;under the influence of this frenzied woman they were mad brute beasts,drunk with fire and licence. As the smoke from the burning buildingeddied away for a moment across the crowd and hid it, and still thathoarse cry came out of the mirk, I could believe that I heard not men,but maddened hounds raving in the kennel.
Again the smoke drifted away; and some one in the rear shot at me. Iheard the glass splinter beside me. Another, a little nearer, flung upa burning fragment that, alighting on the ledge, blazed and splutteredby my foot. I kicked it down.
The act, for the moment, stilled the riot, and I seized theopportunity. "You dogs!" I said, striving to make my voice heard abovethe hissing of the flames. "Begone! The soldiers from Cahors are onthe road. I sent for them this hour back. Begone, before they come,and I will intercede for you. Stay, and do further mischief, and youshall hang, to the last man!"
Some answered with a yell of derision, crying out that the soldierswere with them. More, that the nobles were abolished, and their housesgiven to the people. One, who was drunk, kept shouting, "_A bas laBastille! A bas la Bastille!_" with a stupid persistence.
A moment more and I should lose my chance. I waved my hand! "What doyou want?" I cried.
"Justice!" one shouted, and another, "Vengeance!" A third, "Gargouf!"And then all, "Gargouf! Gargouf!" until Petit Jean stilled the tumult.
"Have done!" he cried to them, in his coarse, brutal voice. "Have wecome here only to yell? And do you, Seigneur, give up Gargouf, and youshall go free. Otherwise, we will burn the house, and all in it."
"You villain!" I said. "We have guns, and----"
"The rats have teeth, but they burn! They burn!" he answered, pointingtriumphantly, with the axe he held, to the flaming buildings. "Theyburn! Yet listen, Seigneur," he continued, "and you shall have aminute to make up your minds. Give up Gargouf to us to do with as weplease, and the rest shall go."
"All?"
"All."
I trembled. "But Gargouf, man?" I said. "Will you--what will you dowith him?"
"Roast him!" the smith cried, with a fearful oath; and the wretchesround him laughed like fiends. "Roast him, when we have plucked himbare."
I shuddered. From Cahors help could not come for another hour. FromSaux it might not come at all. The doors below me could not standlong, and these brutes were thirty to one, and mad with the lust ofvengeance. With the wrongs, the crimes, the vices of centuries toavenge, they dreamed that the day of requital was come; and the dreamhad turned clods into devils. The very flames they had kindled gavethem assurance of it. The fire was in their blood. _A bas la Bastille!A bas les tyrans!_
I hesitated.
"One minute!" the smith cried, with a boastful gesture--"one minute wegive you! Gargouf or all."
"Wait!"
I turned and went in--turned from the smoky glare, the circlingpigeons, the grotesque black figures, and the terror and confusion ofthe night, and went in to that other scene scarcely less dreadful tome; though only two candles, guttering in tin sockets, lit thelanding, and it borrowed from the outside no more than the ruddyreflection of horror. The women had ceased to scream and sob, andcrowded together silent and panic-stricken. The old men and the ladmoistened their lips, and looked furtively from the arms they handledto one another's faces. Mademoiselle alone stood erect, pale, firm. Ishot a glance at the slender little figure in the white robe, then Ilooked away. I dared not say what I had in my mind. I knew that shehad heard, and----
She said it! "You have answered them?" she muttered, her eyes meetingmine.
"No," I said, looking away again. "They have given us a minute todecide, and----"
"I heard them," she answered shivering. "Tell them."
"But, Mademoiselle----"
"Tell them never! Never!" she cried feverishly. "Be quick, or theywill think that we are dreaming of it."
Yet I hesitated--while the flames crackled outside. What, after all,was this rascal's life beside hers? What his tainted existence, whoall these years had ground the faces of the poor and dishonoured thehelpless, beside her youth? It was a dreadful moment, and I hesitated."Mademoiselle," I muttered at last, avoiding her eyes, "you havenot thought, perhaps. But to refuse this offer may be to sacrificeall--and not save him."
"I have thought!" she answered, with a passionate gesture. "I havethought. But he was my father's steward, Monsieur, and he is mybrother's; if he has sinned, it was for them. It is for them to paythe penalty. And--after all, it may not come to that," she continued,her face changing, and her eyes seeking mine, full of sudden terror."They will not dare, I think. They will never dare to----"
"Where is he?" I asked hoarsely.
She pointed to the corner behind her. I looked, and could scarcelybelieve my eyes. The man whom I had left full of a desperate courage,prepared to sell his life dearly, now crouched a huddled figure in thedarkest angle of the tapestry seat. Though I had spoken of him in alow voice, and without naming him, he heard me, and looked up, andshowed a face to match his attitude; a face pallid and sweating withfear; a face that, vile at the best and when redeemed by hardihood,looked now the vilest thing on earth. _Ciel!_ that fear should reducea man to that! He tried to speak as his eyes met mine, but his lipsmoved inaudibly, and he only crouched lower, the picture of panic andguilt.
I cried out to the others to know what had happened to him. "What isit?" I said.
No one answered; and then I seemed to know. While he had thought allin danger, while he had felt himself only one among many, the commoncourage of a man had supported him. But God knows what voices, onlytoo well known to him, what accents of starving men and wronged women,had spoken in that fierce cry for his life! What plaints from thedead, what curses of babes hanging on dry breasts! At any rate,whatever he had heard in that call for his blood, _his_ blood--it hadunmanned him. In a moment, in a twinkling, it had dashed him back intothis corner, a trembling craven, holding up his hands for his life.
Such fear is infectious, and I strode to him in a rage and shook him.
"Get up, hound!" I said. "Get up and strike a blow for your life; or,by heaven, no one else will!"
He stood up. "Yes, yes, Monsieur," he muttered. "I will! I will standup for Mademoiselle. I will----"
But I heard his teeth chatter, and I saw that his eyes wandered thisway and that, as do a hare's when the dogs close on it; and I knewthat I had nothing to expect from him. A howl outside warned me at thesame moment that our respite was spent; and I flung him off and turnedto the window.
Too late, however; before I could reach it, a thundering blow on thedoors below set the candles flickering and the women shrieking; thenfor an instant I thought that all was over. A stone came through thewindow; another followed it, and another. The shattered glass fellover us; the draught put out one light, and the women, terrifiedbeyond control, ran this way and that with the other, shriekingdismally. This, the yelling of the crowd outside, the sombre light andmore sombre glare, the utter confusion and panic, so distracted me,that for
a moment I stood irresolute, inactive, looking wildly aboutme; a poltroon waiting for some one to lead. Then a touch fell on myarm, and I turned and found Mademoiselle at my side, and saw her faceupturned to mine.
It was white, and her eyes were wide with the terror she had so longrepressed. Her hold on me grew heavier; she swayed against me,clinging to me.
"Oh!" she whispered in my ear in a voice that went to my heart. "Saveme! Save me! Can nothing be done? Can nothing be done, Monsieur? Mustwe die?"
"We must gain time," I said. My courage returned wonderfully, as Ifelt her weight on my arm. "All is not over yet," I said. "I willspeak to them."
And setting her on the seat, I sprang to the window and passed throughit. Outside, things at a first glance seemed unchanged. The waveringflames, the glow, the trail of smoke and sparks, all were there. But asecond glance showed that the rioters no longer moved to and fro aboutthe fire, but were massed directly below me in a dense body round thedoors, waiting for them to give way. I shouted to them frantically,hoping still to delay them. I called Petit Jean by name. But I couldnot make myself heard in the uproar, or they would not heed; and whileI vainly tried, the great doors yielded at last, and with a roar oftriumph the crowd burst in.
Not a moment was to be lost. I sprang back through the window,clutching up as I did so the gun Gargouf had given me; and then Istood in amazement. The landing was empty! The rush of feet across thehall below shook the house. Ten seconds and the mob, whose screams oftriumph already echoed through the passages, would be on us. But wherewas Mademoiselle? Where was Gargouf? Where were the servants, thewaiting-maids, the boy, whom I had left here?
I stood an instant paralysed, like a man in a nightmare; brought upshort in that supreme moment. Then, as the first crash of heavy feetsounded on the stairs, I heard a faint scream, somewhere to my right,as I stood. On the instant I sprang to the door which, on that side,led to the left wing. I tore it open and passed through it--not amoment too soon. The slightest delay, and the foremost rioters musthave seen me. As it was I had time to turn the key, which,fortunately, was on the inside.
Then I hurried across the room, making my way to an open door at thefarther end, from which light issued; I passed through the roombeyond, which was empty, then into the last of the suite.
Here I found the fugitives; who had fled so precipitately that theyhad not even thought of closing the doors behind them. In this lastrefuge--Madame's boudoir, all white and gold--I found them crouchingamong gilt-backed chairs and flowered cushions. They had brought onlyone candle with them; and the silks and gew-gaws and knick-knacks onwhich its light shone dimly, gave a peculiar horror to their whitefaces and glaring eyes, as, almost mad with terror, they huddled inthe farthest corner and stared at me.
They were such cowards that they put Mademoiselle foremost; or it wasshe who stood out to meet me. She knew me before they did, therefore,and quieted them. When I could hear my own voice, I asked whereGargouf was.
They had not discovered that he was not with them, and they cried out,saying that he had come that way.
"You followed him?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
This explained their flight, but not the steward's absence. Whatmatter where he had gone, however, since his help could avail little.I looked round--looked round in despair; the very simpering Cupids onthe walls seemed to mock our danger. I had the gun, I could fire oneshot, I had one life in my hands. But to what end? In a moment, at anymoment, within a minute or two at most, the doors would be forced, andthe horde of mad brutes would pour in upon us, and----
"Ah, Monsieur, the closet staircase! He has gone by the closetstaircase!"
It was the boy who spoke. He alone of them had his wits about him.
"Where is it?" I said.
The lad sprang forward to show me, but Mademoiselle was before himwith the candle. She flew back into the passage, a passage of four orfive feet only between that room and the second of the suite; in thewall of this she flung open a door, apparently of a closet. I lookedin and saw the beginning of a staircase. My heart leapt at the sight.
"To the floor above?" I said.
"No, Monsieur, to the roof!"
"Up, up, then!" I cried in a frenzy of impatience. "It will give ustime. Quick. They are coming."
For I heard the door at the end of the suite, the door I had locked,creak and yield. They were forcing it, at any moment it might give;where I stood waiting to bring up the rear, their hoarse cries andcurses came to my ears. But the good door held; it held, long enoughat any rate. Before it gave way we were on the stairs and I had shutthe door of the closet behind me. Then, holding to the skirts of thewoman before me, I groped my way up quickly--up and up throughdarkness with a close smell of bats in my nostrils--and almost beforeI could believe it, I stood with the panting, trembling group on theroof. The glare of the burning outhouses below shone on a great stackof chimneys beside us and reddened the sky above, and burnished theleaves of the chestnut trees that rose on a level with our eyes. Butall the lower part of the steep roofs round us, and the lead guttersthat ran between them, lay in darkness, the denser for the contrast.The flames crackled below, and a thick reek of smoke swept up past thecoping, but the noise alike of fire and riot was deadened here. Thenight wind cooled our brows, and I had a minute in which to think, tobreathe, to look round.
"Is there any other way to the roof?" I asked anxiously.
"One other, Monsieur!"
"Where? Or do you stay here, and guard this door," I said, pressing mygun on the man who had answered. "And let the boy come and show me.Mademoiselle, stay there if you please."
The boy ran before me to the farther end of the roof, and in a leadwalk, between two slopes, showed me a large trap-door. It had nofastening on the outside, and for a moment I stood nonplussed; then Isaw, a few feet away, a neat pile of bricks, left there, I learnedafterwards, in the course of some repairs. I began to remove them asfast as I could to the trap-door, and the boy saw and followed myexample; in two minutes we had stacked a hundred and more on the door.Telling him to add another hundred to the number, I left him at thetask and flew back to the women.
They might burn the house under us; that always, and for certain, andit meant a dreadful death. Yet I breathed more freely here. In thewhite and gold room below, among Madame's mirrors and Cupids, andsilken cushions, and painted Venuses, my heart had failed me. Theplace, with its heavy perfumes, had stifled me. I had pictured thebrutish peasants bursting in on us there--on the screaming women,crouching vainly behind chairs and couches; and the horror of thethought overcame me. Here, in the open, under the sky, we could atleast die fighting. The depth yawned beyond the coping; the weakesthad here no more to fear than death. Besides we had a respite, for thehouse was large, and the fire could not lick it up in a moment.
And help might come. I shaded my eyes from the light below, and lookedinto the darkness in the direction of the village and the Cahors road.In an hour, at furthest, help might come. The glare in the sky must bevisible for miles; it would spur on the avengers. Father Benoit, too,if he could get help--he might be here at any time. We were notwithout hope.
Suddenly, while we stood together, the women sobbing and whimpering,the old man-servant spoke.
"Where is M. Gargouf?" he muttered under his breath.
"Ah!" I exclaimed; "I had forgotten him."
"He came up," the man continued, peering about him. "This door wasopen, M. le Vicomte, when we came to it."
"Ah! then where is he?"
I looked round too. All the roof, I have said, was dark, and not allof it was on the same level; and here and there chimneys broke theview. In the obscurity, the steward might be lurking close to uswithout our knowledge; or he might have thrown himself down indespair. While I looked, the boy whom I had left by the bricks cameflying to us.
"There is some one there!" he said. And he clung to the old man interror.
"It must be Gargouf!" I answered. "Wait here!" And, disregarding thewomen's prayers that
I would stay with them, I went quickly along theleads to the other trap-door, and peered about me through the gloom.For a moment I could see no one, though the light shining on the treesmade it easy to discern figures standing nearer the coping. Presently,however, I caught the sound of some one moving; some one who wasfarther away still, at the very edge of the roof. I went oncautiously, expecting I do not know what; and close to a stack ofchimneys I found Gargouf.
He was crouching on the coping in the darkest part, where the end wallof the east wing overlooked the garden by which I had entered. Thisend wall had no windows, and the greater part of the garden below itlay it darkness; the angle of the house standing between it and theburning buildings. I supposed that the steward had sneaked hither,therefore, to hide; and set it down to the darkness that he did notknow me, but, as I approached, he rose on his knees on the ledge, andturned on me, snarling like a dog.
"Stand back!" he said, in a voice that was scarcely human. "Standback, or I will----"
"Steady, man," I answered quietly, beginning to think that fear hadunhinged him. "It is I, M. de Saux."
"Stand back!" was his only answer; and, though he cowered so lowthat I could not get his figure against the shining trees, I saw apistol-barrel gleam as he levelled it. "Stand back! Give me a minute!a minute only"--and his voice quavered--"and I will cheat the devilsyet! Come nearer, or give the alarm, and I will not die alone! I willnot die alone! Stand back!"
"Are you mad?" I said.
"Back, or I shoot!" he growled. "I will not die alone."
He was kneeling on the very edge, with his left hand against thechimney. To rush upon him in that posture was to court death; and Ihad nothing to gain by it. I stepped back a pace. As I did so, at themoment I did so, he slid over the edge, and was gone!
I drew a deep breath and listened, flinching and drawing backinvoluntarily. But I heard no sound of a fall; and in a moment, with anew idea in my mind, I stepped forward to the edge, and looked over.
The steward hung in mid-air, a dozen feet below me. He was descending;descending foot by foot, slowly, and by jerks; a dim figure, growingdimmer. Instinctively I felt about me; and in a second laid my hand onthe rope by which he hung. It was secured round the chimney. Then Iunderstood. He had conceived this way of escape, perhaps had storedthe rope for it beforehand, and, like the villain he was, had kept thethought to himself, that his chance might be the better, and that hemight not have to give the first place to Mademoiselle and the women.In the first heat of the discovery, I almost found it in my heart tocut the rope, and let him fall; then I remembered that if he escaped,the way would lie open for others; and then, even as I thought this,into the garden below me, there shone a sudden flare of light, and astream of a dozen rioters poured round the corner, and made for thedoor by which I had entered the house.
I held my breath. The steward, hanging below me, and by this timehalf-way to the ground, stopped, and moved not a limb. But he stillswung a little this way and that, and in the strong light of thetorches which the new-comers carried, I could see every knot in therope, and even the trailing end, which, as I looked, moved on theground with his motion.
The wretches, making for the door, had to pass within a pace of therope, of that trailing end; yet it was possible that, blinded by thelights they carried, and their own haste and excitement, they mightnot see it. I held my breath as the leader came abreast of it; Ifancied that he must see it. But he passed, and disappeared in thedoorway. Three others passed the rope together. A fifth, then threemore, two more; I began to breathe more freely. Only one remained--awoman, the same whose imprecations had greeted me on my appearance atthe window. It was not likely that she would see it. She was runningto overtake the others; she carried a flare in her right hand, so thatthe blaze came between her and the rope. And she was waving the lightin a mad woman's frenzy, as she danced along, hounding on the men tothe sack.
But, as if the presence of the man who had wronged her had over hersome subtle influence--as if some sense, unowned by others, warned herof his presence, even in the midst of that babel and tumult--shestopped short under him, with her foot almost on the threshold. I sawher head turn slowly. She raised her eyes, holding the torch aside.She saw him!
With a scream of joy, she sprang to the foot of the rope, and began tohaul at it as if in that way she might get to him sooner; while shefilled the air with her shrieks and laughter. The men, who had goneinto the house, heard her, and came out again; and after them others.I quailed, where I knelt on the parapet, as I looked down and met thewolfish glare of their upturned eyes; what, then, must have been thethoughts of the wretched man taken in his selfishness--hanging therehelpless between earth and heaven? God knows.
He began to climb upwards, to return; and actually ascended hand overhand a dozen feet. But he had been supporting himself for someminutes, and at that point his strength failed him. Human musclescould do no more. He tried to haul himself up to the next knot, butsank back with a groan. Then he looked at me. "Pull me up!" he gaspedin a voice just audible. "For God's sake! For God's sake, pull me up!"
But the wretches below had the end of the rope, and it was impossibleto raise him, even had I possessed the strength to do it. I told himso, and bade him climb--climb for his life. In a moment it would betoo late.
He understood. He raised himself with a jerk to the next knot, andhung there. Another desperate effort, and he gained the next; though Icould almost hear his muscles crack, and his breath came in gasps.Three more knots--they were about a foot apart--and he would reach thecoping.
But as he turned up his face to me, I read despair in his eyes. Hisstrength was gone; and while he hung there, the men began, with shoutsof laughter, to shake the rope this way and that. He lost his grip,and, with a groan, slid down three or four feet; and again got holdand hung there--silent.
By this time the group below had grown into a crowd--a crowd ofmaddened beings, raving and howling, and leaping up at him as dogsleap at food; and the horror of the sight, though the doomed man'sfeatures were now in shadow, and I could not read them, overcame me. Irose to draw back--shuddering, listening for his fall. Instead, beforeI had quite retreated, a hot flash blinded me, and almost scorched myface, and, as the sharp report of a pistol rang out, the steward'sbody plunged headlong down--leaving a little cloud of smoke where Istood.
He had balked his enemies.
The Red Cockade Page 8
