Noémi

by S. Baring-Gould

  CHAPTER X.

  BY FIRE.

  A STRANGE stillness came over the Vezere valley that evening at sundown.Hardly a man was about, not a sound was heard save the barking of a dogin a farm on one side of the river, and the answer of another dog in oneon the further side. There was, however, a mysterious hiss in the airabout every dwelling and cluster of habitations. Now and then a womanwas seen, but it was to call in her children who had run out, and,forgetful of all that had passed, had begun to play.

  The sun went down in the west, painting the rocks on the left bank ofthe Vezere a daffodil yellow, and then slowly a cold, death-like greystole over the landscape. With the sun the life had gone; and yet,strange to say, no sooner had this dead glaze come over the face ofNature than the human beings woke to activity and began to issue fromtheir houses, cautiously at first, then with greater boldness as theshadows thickened. The men bore their reaping-hooks, theirpruning-knives strapped to the end of poles, converting them intoformidable weapons. Others had their bills thrust through their leatherbelts; and every bill and knife was fresh sharpened, explaining thesignificance of the strange hiss which had been in the air. It had beencaused by the grindstones and the files in every house.

  Presently the men who had been standing in knots were marshalled intotwo distinct parties or bands. One, armed with their extemporisedhalberds and lances, remained in Ste. Soure under Ogier, whereas theother division, laden with sacks, with casks, with loads of faggots,passed over the river, were joined by a contingent from the left bank ofthe Vezere, and proceeded to ascend the hills. Behind this party, borneby four men, was Rossignol, lying on his bed. His wife desired tofollow, and was with difficulty restrained and sent back to take care ofher children. Silently, patiently, the men ascended the steep flanks ofthe hillside, each bearing his burden; even the wounded Rossignolendured the inevitable jerking without a murmur.

  A word must here be given to explain the salient character of thecountry. Originally a vast region in Perigord--the Black Perigord, as itwas called from its sombre woods and deep cleft ravines, was one plateauof hard chalk, raised from six hundred and fifty to nine hundred feetabove the sea. At some geologic period difficult to define an immenserush of water passed over the plain and tore every rent formed by theupheaval of the chalk into gorge and gully, down which the furiouswaters poured, scooping out the sides and tearing themselves away. Thecourse taken by the flood is easily recognisable by this fact--that ithas left its wash on the tops of the plateau, where to the present daylies a film of caoline, that is to say of feldspathic clay, the produceof the granite ranges to the north and north-east; and this caoline liesin some places in considerable pockets, white as chalk, and onlydistinguishable from chalk by the experienced eye, and lies insufficiently important beds to be worked and exported to porcelainfactories. Nay, more than this: on the top of these great plateaux ofchalk are strewn boulders and pebbles of volcanic production, that werederived unmistakably from the far away Auvergne mountains.

  The flood that swirled over the chalk plains not only tore them intoislets, and ate out paths through every chink, but also left thesurfaces undulating, having washed away what beds were soft and leftthose which were hard.

  These plateaux are more or less untenanted by human beings, because moreor less soilless. They are given over to forest or to baldness.

  The ravines, the river-valleys, are walled in by precipices with gulfshere and there in their sides where the rock has crumbled away, orcaverns have collapsed, and which allow, as lateral combes, access tothe riverside. Up such a combe did the peasants now toil, zigzagging,corkscrewing their way, far to the rear of the headland of l'EgliseGuillem, and wholly invisible from it.

  The Captain had so far paid attention to the challenge conveyed by thescorched glove as to give the sentinel on the gate-tower warning to beon the alert, but he had neglected to post anyone on the top of thecliff that overhung his eagle nest. He anticipated no danger from thatquarter, for his castle was inaccessible thence, unless, what wasinconceivable, assailants should descend on him like spiders from above,at the end of ropes.

  "Bah!" scoffed the Chieftain; "a boor! What is Del' Peyra but a countryclown? I will teach him such a lesson in a day or two as will make himskip. There is not a Seigneur in the land will lend him half-a-dozenhorsemen."

  There was, however, an incident in the past that had entirely escapedthe memory of Guillem, even if he had heard of it.

  At the end of the twelfth century, a carpenter, Durand by name, hadroused the peasants to free themselves of their oppressors. What theking could not, what the nobles would not do, that they had done. Theyhad assembled in great multitudes, assumed a white linen hood, calledthemselves "The Brotherhood of Peace," and hoped to initiate an era oftranquillity by massacring without mercy every _routier_ in the land.They had butchered many thousands, had defeated them in pitched battles,but had themselves been quelled by a combination of the nobles when theyattempted to interfere with their turbulence.

  That was a matter of two centuries ago, and was not likely to berepeated. Two hundred years of the scourge had whipped every vestige ofindependence out of the peasants. The Free Companion of the fourteenthand fifteenth century no more feared a combination against him among thepeasants than the latter anticipated a revolt in his henroost whence hegathered his eggs. But something had occurred in the north of theland--in France proper--the rumour of which had travelled throughout thecountry, and which, dimly, feebly, had brought out the idea of nationalfeeling in the south--that was the great success of the French under theMaid of Orleans. Heaven had interfered; the Saints had interestedthemselves for the afflicted people, for the humbled Crown. The Spiritof God, as in the days of old, had raised up a deliverer--and thatdeliverer a woman.

  The advent of the Maid of Domremi was of the past, but not forgotten.There was something in the story of Joan to rouse the imagination of alively and excitable people, and to make them believe that the time wascome when Heaven would interfere to assist their feeble arms.

  The outrage committed at Ste. Soure on Rossignol, the threat hangingover seven others, had served to rouse the peasantry of theneighbourhood, and as one man they placed themselves under the directionof Ogier, a Seigneur indeed, but in so small a way, as to be but a stepremoved from the peasant; a man whom they could almost consider as oneof themselves, and yet sufficiently raised above them to be able tocommand obedience, and not incur their jealousy.

  As the train of laden men toiled up the ascent, they were joined bycharcoal-burners from the coppice with their forks, who fell in,relieved some of the most heavily burdened and said no word. Oneresolution, one hate, animated the whole mass, combined to make oneeffort to shake off the detested incubus. It was marvellous how rapidlyand how quietly the conjuration had been formed.

  When the body of men had reached the top of the hill and were on theplain, they found men there awaiting them from villages beyond, animatedby the same spirit, ready to move in the same direction, and to carryout the warfare in the same way, for they also were laden like thosefrom Ste. Soure.

  The whole troop now advanced through the brushwood to the bare spaceabove the precipice where trees were scanty.

  The night had become very obscure. It was hard to distinguish where thefoot could be placed in safety. The very dearth of trees, moreover,warned the men to advance with extreme caution.

  Jean del' Peyra had drawn a white sleeve over his right arm, and thiswas visible in the murkiness of ever-deepening darkness. With this whitearm he gave the signals. Orders were communicated in whispers. Behind,under the coppice, at no great distance, was a charcoal-burner's heap.The men who attended to the steaming pile stood by it with their spadesand prongs.

  Jean raised his white arm. At once those behind him in a chain did thesame. At the signal a charcoal-burner drove his fork into the fumingmass, made an opening, and a flame shot up. Next moment a sod was caston the gap and the flame exti
nguished.

  One, two, three, four--to twenty-five, counted Jean. Again he liftedhis white arm. Again the signal was telegraphed back to thecharcoal-burners, and again was an opening made and a tongue of fireshot up, to be again instantly extinguished.

  One, two, three, four--to twenty-five. A third time Jean raised his arm,and a third time the gleam of flame mounted and was blotted out.

  A pause of expectation.

  Then from the valley--from the further side of the Vezere--a flash.

  One, two, three, four--to twenty-five.

  A second flare.

  One, two, three, four--to twenty-five.

  A third gleam.

  "My father is ready," whispered Jean. "Now we must find the exact spot."

  It is one thing to know where is a cave or, indeed, any object markingthe face of a cliff when seen from below and quite another to discoverthat same cave, to find out when and where you are immediately above itas you walk on the summit of the precipice. Every feature that marks asite as seen from below fails when you stand above.

  If this be the case in broad daylight what must it be by night?

  There was but one way in which Jean del' Peyra could discover the exactposition of the Church of Guillem, and that was by being held by thefeet and extending himself, lying prostrate, over the edge of the cliff.Leaning over the abyss he looked below and to the right and left in thedarkness, then signed to be withdrawn.

  "Too much to the left!" he said.

  He walked cautiously along the edge till he came to what he believed tobe the right spot. Again he was extended over the brink, and was againout in his reckoning.

  A third attempt was more successful. With a rapid wave of his hand hesigned, and was drawn back.

  "I have looked down their chimney," he said, "and heard their laughtercome up with the reek, and seen the glow of their hearth. Here! build ithere!"

  At once a hundred hands were engaged in piling up faggots, heaping caskson them and emptying the sacks over the wood. These sacks had beenfilled with mutton fat. Stones also were planted on the extreme edge.The process was slow. Caution had to be used lest any of the combustiblematter should fall over before set alight, and, dropping on theprojecting roof or galleries, give the alarm.

  The wall of stones erected outside the faggots served a double purpose.In the first place it contained the masses of pine-wood and othercombustibles, and preserved them from lapse, but the main object aimedat was, when overthrown, to break in the tiles of the roof so as toallow the molten pitch from the barrels and the flaming tallow to run inamong the woodwork and set it on fire. But for this, there would be noassurance of success.

  Considerable time was allowed to pass. It was thought advisable not toprecipitate action, but to allow the freebooters to retire to rest.

  The men seated themselves in perfect stillness on the grass and onstones. On the inner face of the enormous pile of combustibles layRossignol on his bed.

  The night was without wind. Not a leaf stirred--there was not even awhisper among the short grass--only the continuous twitter of thecrickets and, now and then from far below, yet audible at that height,the croak of a bullfrog in a backwater of the Vezere.

  The sky had been overspread with clouds, which had rendered the nightone of pitch blackness; but these dissolved. Whither they went wasinexplicable--they were not rolled away by the wind, but appeared toevaporate, and let the stars shine through. Then, in the starlight, thevalley below became visible, and the river gleamed up, reflecting thefeeble light in the sky.

  A low-lying fog formed in the valley of the Beune, and lay upon thespongy level, like a fall of sleet.

  Jean made a sign; he was again thrust forward over the edge of thecliff, and remained for some minutes looking down and listening.

  Then slowly, with upraised hand, he made the requisite signal. He washastily drawn back.

  "All is still," he said. "The fire is nearly out."

  "Then the other fire shall be kindled!" said one of the men.

  "Nicole!" said Jean. "A brand."

  The man addressed went to the charcoal-burner's heap. A thrill ranthrough the throng. All rose to their feet; even the mutilated man onthe mattress lifted himself to a sitting posture.

  Silently the men moved between the faggots and the wall of loose stonesthey had raised, each armed with a stout pole.

  Jean put a cow-horn to his mouth and blew a blast that rang into thenight as the blast of Judgment. Instantly the rocks and stones werelevered over the edge, and instantly the brand, spluttering and blazing,was put into the hand of Rossignol.

  It was fitting that he should light the pyre--he who had most suffered.That was why he had been borne to the head of the cliff.

  Rossignol drove the flaming torch into the mass of vine-faggots, andinstantly up leaped the flame. It ran aloft in the mass, licked andlighted the tallow, it caressed, then exploded the casks of tar, and thewhole pyre roared as a beast ravening for its prey.

  And its prey was given it.

  With their forks, with staves, the whole flaming, raging mass was castover the edge after the avalanche of stones had been discharged.[3]

  [3] The rock castles on the Vezere and the Dordogne all bear traces of having been burnt. History is silent, but tradition among the peasantry is very precise. They state that it was they who, at the close of the Hundred Years' War, ridded themselves of the Free Companies, and that they did it by the means described in this chapter.