CHAPTER XXIII.
IN TWO CHARACTERS.
After the wave, the trough of the wave; after action, passion. Not tosink a little after rising to the pitch of self-sacrifice, not to shed,when the deed is done, some bitter tears of regret and self-pity, wereto be cast in a mould above the human.
When the cloak--dear garment!--had slipped from her hands and the headbent that its owner might raise the cloak had passed from sight--whenAnne had fled to the farther side of the room, to the farther side ofthe settle, and had heard his step die away, she would have given theworld to see him again, to feel his arm about her, to hear the sound ofhis voice. The tears streamed down her face; in vain she tried to staythem with her hands, in vain she chid herself for her weakness. "It isfor him! for him!" she moaned, and hid her face in her hands. But wordsstay no tears; and on the hearth which his coming had changed for her,standing where she had first seen him, where she had heard his firstwords of love, where she had tried him, she wept bitter tears for him.
The storm died away at last--for after every storm falls a calm--but itleft the empty house, the empty heart, silence. Her mother? She hadstill her mother, and with lagging footsteps she went upstairs to her.But she found her in a deep sleep, and she descended again, and going tohis room began to put together his few belongings, the clothes he hadworn, the books he had read; that if the house were entered they mightnot be lost to him. She buried her face in his garments and kissed them,fondly, tenderly, passionately, lingering over the task, and at lastputting the things from her with reluctance. A knot of ribbon which shehad seen him wear in the neck of his shirt on holidays she took and hidin her bosom, and fetching a length of her own ribbon she put it inplace of the other. This she thought she could do without fear ofbringing suspicion on him, for he alone would discern the exchange.Would he notice it? Would he weep when he found the ribbon as she weptnow? And fondle it tenderly? At the thought her tears gushed forth.
The day wore on. Supported by the knowledge that even a slight shockmight cast her mother into one of her fits, Anne hid her fears from her,though the effort was as the lifting of a great weight. On the pretextthat the light hurt the invalid's sight, she shaded the window, and sohid the hollows under her eyes and the wan looks that must have betrayedthe forced nature of her cheerfulness. As a rule Madame Royaume's eyes,quickened by love, were keen; but this day she slept much, and the nightwas fairly advanced when Anne, in the act of preparing to lie down,turned and saw her mother sitting erect in the bed.
The old woman's eyes were strangely bright. Her face wore an intentexpression which arrested her daughter where she stood.
"Mother, what is it?" she cried.
"Listen!" Madame Royaume answered. "What is that?"
"I hear nothing," Anne said, hoping to soothe her. And she approachedthe bed.
"I hear much," her mother retorted. "Go! Go and see, child, what itis!" She pointed to the door, but, before Anne could reach it, sheraised her hand for silence. "They are crossing the ditch," shemuttered, her eyes dilated. "One, two, many, many of them! Many of them!They are throwing down hurdles, and wattles, and crossing on them! Andthere is a priest with them----"
"Mother!"
"A priest!" Her voice dropped a little. "The ladders are black," shewhispered. "Black ladders! Ay, swathed in black cloth; and now they setthem against the wall. The priest absolves them, and they begin tomount. They are mounting! They are mounting now."
"Mother!" There was sharp pain in Anne's voice. Who does not know theheartache with which it is seen that the mind of a loved one iswandering from us? And yet she was puzzled. She dreaded one of thosescenes in which her young strength was barely sufficient to control andsoothe the frail form before her. But they did not begin as a rule inthis fashion; here, though the mind wandered, was an absence of thewildness to which she had become inured. Here--and yet as she listened,as she looked, now at her mother, now into the dimly lighted corners ofthe room, where those dilated eyes seemed to see things unseen by her,black things, she found this phase no less disquieting than the other.
"Hush!" Madame Royaume continued, heeding her daughter's interruption nofarther than by that word and an impatient movement of the hand. "Astone has fallen and struck one down. They raise him, he is lifeless!No, he moves, he rises. They set other ladders against the wall. Theymount now by tens and twenties--and--it is growing dark--dark, child.Dark!" She seemed to try to put away a curtain with her hands.
"Mother!" Anne cried, bending over the bed and taking her mother'shand. "Don't, dear! Don't! You frighten me."
The old woman raised her hand for silence, and continued to gaze beforeher. Anne's arm was round her; the girl marked with astonishment, almostwith awe, how strongly and stiffly she sat up. She marvelled still morewhen her mother murmured in the same tone, "I can see no more," sighed,and sank gently back. Anne bent over her. "I can--see no more," MadameRoyaume repeated; "I can----" She was asleep!
Anne bent over her, and after listening a while to her easy breathing,heaved a deep sigh of relief. Her mother had been talking in her sleep;and she, Anne had alarmed herself for nothing. Nevertheless, as sheturned from the bed she looked nervously over her shoulder. The other'swandering or dream, or what it was, had left a vague disquiet in hermind, and presently she took the lamp and, opening the door, passed out,and, with her hands still on the latch, listened.
Suddenly her heart bounded, her startled eyes leapt upward to theceiling. Close to her, above her, she heard a sound.
It came from a trap-door that led to the tiles; a trap that even as hereyes reached it, lifted itself with a rending sound. Save for thebedridden woman, Anne was alone in the house; and for one instant it wasa question whether she held her ground or fled shrieking into the roomshe had left. For an instant; then the instinct to shield her mother wonthe day, and with fascinated eyes she watched the legs of a man dropthrough the aperture, watched a body follow, and--and at last a face!
Claude's face! But changed. Even while she sank gasping against thewall--for the surprise was too much for her--even while he took the lampfrom her shaking hand and supported her, and relief and joy began torun like wine through her veins, she knew it. The forceful look, thetightened lips, the eyes gleaming with determination--all were new toher. They gave him an aspect so old, so strange, that when he had kissedher once she put him from her.
"What is it?" she said. "Oh, Claude! What is it? What has happened?"
Letting a smile appear--but such a smile as did not reassure her--hesigned to her to go before him downstairs. She complied; but at the footof the first flight she stopped, unable to bear the suspense longer. Sheturned to him again. "What is it?" she cried. "Something has happened?"
"Something is happening," he answered. His eyes shone, exultant. "But itis a matter for others! We may be easy!"
"What is it?"
"The Savoyards are in Geneva."
She started incredulously. "In Geneva? Here?" she exclaimed. "Theenemy?"
He nodded.
"Here? In Geneva?" she repeated. She could not have heard aright.
"Yes."
But she still looked at him; she could not reconcile his words with hismanner. This, the greatest calamity that could happen, this which shehad been brought up to fear as the worst and most awful ofcatastrophes--could he talk of it, could he announce it after thisfashion? With a smile, in a tone of pleasantry? He must be playing withher. She passed her hand over her eyes, and tried to be calm. "But allis quiet?" she said.
"All is quiet now," he answered. "After midnight the trouble willbegin."
Still she could not understand him. His face said one thing, his voiceanother. Besides, the town was quiet: no sound of riot or disturbance,no clash of steel, no tramp of feet penetrated the walls. And the housestood on the ramparts where the first alarm must be given. "Do youmean," she asked at last, her eyes fixed steadfastly on him, "that theyare going to attack the town after midnight?"
"They are here now," he replied, sh
rugging his shoulders. "They scaledthe wall after the guard had gone round at eleven, and they are lying bytens and twenties along the outer side of the Corraterie, waiting forthe hour and the signal."
She passed her hand across her closed eyes, and looked again,perplexedly. "And you," she said, "you? I do not understand. If this beso, what are you doing here?"
"Here?"
"Ay, here! Why have you not given the alarm in the town?"
"Why should I give the alarm?" he retorted coolly. "To save those whohounded you through the streets two days ago? To save those whoto-morrow may put you to the torture and burn you like the vilest ofcreatures? Save them?" with a grim smile. "No, let them savethemselves!"
"But----"
"I would save you! not them! I would save your mother! not them! And itis done. Let the Grand Duke triumph to-night, let Savoy take Geneva, andour good townsfolk will have other matters to occupy their thoughtsto-morrow! Ay, and through many and many a morrow to come! Save them?"with a grim note in his voice; "no, I save you. Let them savethemselves! It is God's mercy on us, and His judgment on them! Or whyhappens it to-night? To-night of all nights in the year?"
She was very pale, and for a moment remained silent: whether she feltthe temptation to which he had succumbed, or was seeking what she shouldsay to move him, is uncertain. At last, "It is impossible," shemurmured, in a low voice. "You have not thought of the women andchildren, of the fathers and mothers who will suffer."
"And your mother!"
"Is one. God forbid that I should save her at the expense of all! Godforbid!" she wailed, as if she feared her own strength, as if thetemptation almost overcame her. And then laying her hand on his arm andlooking up to him--his face was set so hard--"You will not do this!" shesaid. "You will not do this! Could we be happy after? Could we be happywith blood on our heads, and on our hands, and on our hearts! Happy, ohno! Claude, dear heart, dear husband, we cannot buy happiness so, orlife so, or love so! We cannot save ourselves--so! We cannot play God'spart--so!"
"It is not we who do it," he answered stubbornly.
"It is we who may prevent it!" she answered, leaning more heavily on hisarm, looking up to him more earnestly; with pleading eyes which it washard to refuse. "Would you, to save us, have betrayed Geneva?"
He groaned--she had moved him. "God knows!" he answered. "To save you--Ithink I would!"
"You would not! You would not!" she repeated. "Neither must you do this!Honour, faith, duty, all forbid it!"
"And love?" he cried.
"And love!" she answered. "For who would love dishonoured? Who wouldlove in shame? No; go as you have come, and give the alarm! And do, andhelp! Go, as you have come! But how"--with a startled look as shethought of the trap-door--"did you come?"
"By the Tertasse Gate," he explained. "There were but two men on guard,and they were asleep. I passed them unseen, climbed the stairs to theleads--I have been up twice before--and crossed the roofs. I knew Icould come this way unseen, and if I had come by the door----"
She understood and cut him short. "Then go as you came and rouse thewatch in the gate!" she cried feverishly. "Rouse them and all, andHeaven grant you be not too late! Go, Claude, for the love of me, forthe love of God, go quickly!" Her hands on his arm shook with eagerness."So that, if there be treachery here----"
"There is treachery!" he said darkly. "Grio----"
"We at least shall have no part in it! You will go? You will go?" sherepeated, clinging to his arm, trembling against him, looking up to himwith eyes which he could not resist. Love wrestled here, on the higher,the nobler, the unselfish side, and came the stronger out of thecontest. There were tears in his eyes as he answered.
"I will go. You are right, Anne. But you will be alone."
"I run no greater risk than others," she answered. He held her to him,and their lips met once. And in that instant, her heart beating againsthis, she comprehended to what she was sending him, into what peril oflife, into what a dark hell of force and fire and blood; and her armsclung to him as if she could not let him go. Then, "Go, and God keepyou!" she murmured in a choked voice. And she thrust him from her.
A moment later he was on the roof, and she was kneeling where he hadleft her, bowed down, with her face on the bare stairs in an agony ofprayer for him. But not for long; she had her part to do. She hurrieddown to the living-room and made sure that the strong shutters weresecured; then up to Basterga's room and to Grio's, and as far as herstrength went she piled the furniture against the iron-barred casementsthat looked on to the ramparts. While she worked her ears listened forthe alarm, but, until she had finished and was ascending with the lightto her mother's room she heard nothing. Then a distant cry, a faintchallenge, the drum-drum of running feet, a second cry--and silence. Itmight be his death-cry she had heard; and she stood with a white face,shivering, waiting, bearing the woman's burden of suspense. To lie downby her mother was impossible; rapine, murder, fire, all the horrors, allthe perils of a city taken by surprise, crowded into her mind. Yet theymoved her not so much as the dangers he ran, whom she had sent forth toconfront them, whom she had plucked from her own breast that he mightface them!
Meanwhile, Claude, after gaining the tiles, paused a moment to considerhis next step. Far below him, on the narrow, black triangle of theCorraterie, lay the Savoyards, some three hundred in number, who hadscaled the wall. Out of the darkness of the plain, beyond and belowthem, rose the faint, distant quacking of alarmed ducks, proving thatothers of the enemy moved there. Even as he listened, the whirr of awild goose winging its flight over the city came to his ear. On hisleft, with a dim oil lamp marking, here or there, the meeting of fourways, the town slept unsuspicious, recking nothing of the fate preparedfor it.
It was a solemn moment, and Claude on the roof under the night sky, feltit to be so. Restored to his higher self, he breathed a prayer forguidance and for her, and was as eager now as he had before been cold.But not the less for that did he ply the wits that, working freely inthis hour of peril, proved him one of those whom battle owns for master.He had gathered enough, lying on his face in the bastion, to feel surethat the forlorn hope which had gained a footing on the wall would notmove until the arrival of the main body whom it was its plan to admit bythe Porte Neuve. To carry the alarm to the Porte Neuve, therefore, andsecure that gate, seemed to be the first and most urgent step; since tosecure the Tertasse and the other inner gates would be of little avail,if the main body of the enemy were once in possession of the ramparts.The course that at first sight seemed the most obvious--to enter thetown, give the alarm at the town hall, and set the tocsin ringing--herejected; for while the town was arming, the three hundred who hadentered might seize the Porte Neuve, and so secure the entrance of themain body.
These calculations occupied no more than a few seconds: then, his mindmade up to the course he must pursue, he crawled as quickly, but also asquietly, as he could along the dark parapets until he gained the leadsof the Tertasse. Safe so far, he proceeded, with equal or greatercaution, to descend the narrow cork-screw staircase, that led to theguard-room on the ground floor.
He forgot that it is more easy to ascend without noise than to descend.With all his care he stumbled when he was within three steps of thebottom. He tried to save himself, but fell against the half-open door,flung it wide, and, barely keeping his feet, found himself face to facewith the two watchmen, who, startled by the noise, had sprung to theirfeet, thinking the devil was upon them. One, with an oath upon his lips,reached for his half-pike; his fellow, less sober, steadied himself byresting a hand on the table.
If they gave the alarm, his plan was gone. The enemy, finding themselvesdiscovered, would seize the Porte Neuve. "One minute!" he criedbreathlessly. "Let me explain!"
"You!" the more sober retorted, glaring fiercely at him. "Who the devilare you? And where have you been?"
"Quiet, man, quiet!"
"What is it?"
"Treason!" Claude answered, imploring silence by a gesture. "Treason!That is what
it is! But for God's sake, no noise! No noise, man, or ourthroats are as good as cut! Savoy has the wall!"
The man stared, and no wonder. "You are mad," he said, "or drunk!Savoy----"
"Fool, it is so!" Claude cried, beside himself with impatience.
"Savoy?"
"They are under the trees on the ramparts within a few yards of us now!Three hundred of them! A word and you will feel their pikes in yourbreast! Listen to me!"
But with a laugh of derision the drunken man cut him short. "Savoyhere--on the wall!" he hiccoughed. "And we on guard!"
"It is so!" Claude urged. "Believe me, it is so! And we must be wary."
"You lie, young man! And I'll--hic--I'll prove it! See here! Savoy onthe wall, indeed! Savoy? And we on guard?"
He lurched in two strides to the outer door, seized it, and supportedhimself by it. Claude leant forward to stop him, but could not reach,being on the other side of the table. He called to the other to do so."Stop him!" he said. "Stop him!"
The man might have done so, but he did not stir; and "Stop him?" the sotanswered, his hand on the door. "Not--two of you--will stop him! Now,then! Savoy, indeed! On the wall? I'll show you!"
He let the door go, and reeled three paces into the darkness outside,waving his hands as if he drove chickens. "Savoy! Savoy!" he cried; butwhether in drunken bravado, in derision, or in pure disbelief, God onlyknows! For the word had barely passed his lips the second time before agurgling scream followed, freezing the hearts of the two listeners; and,before the second guard could close the door or move from his place onthe hearth, four men sprang in out of the darkness, and bore him back.Before he had struck a blow they had pinned him against the wall.
Claude owed his escape to his position behind the door. They did not seehim as they sprang in, intent on the one they did see. He knewresistance to be futile, and a bound carried him into the darkness ofthe cork-screw staircase. Once there, he dared not move. Thence he sawand heard what followed.
The man pinned against the wall, with the point of a knife flickeringbefore his eyes, begged piteously for his life.
"Then silence!" Basterga answered--for the foremost who had entered washe. "A word and you die!"
"Better let me finish him at once!" Grio growled. The prisoner's facewas ashen, his eyes were starting from his head. "Dead men give noalarms."
"Mercy! Mercy!" the man gasped.
"Ay, ay, let him live," Basterga said good-naturedly. "But he must begagged. Turn your face to the wall, my man!"
The poor wretch complied with gratitude. In a twinkling the Paduan'shuge fingers closed round his neck, and over his wind-pipe. "Nowstrike," the big man hissed. "He will make no noise!"
With a sickening thud Grio's knife sank between the shoulders, a momentthe body writhed in Basterga's herculean grip, then it sank lifeless tothe floor. "Had you struck him, fool," Basterga muttered wrathfully,wiping a little blood from his sleeve, "as you wanted to strike him, hehad squealed like a pig! Now 'tis the same, and no noise. Ha! Seizehim!"
He spoke too late. Claude had seen his opportunity, and as thetreacherous blow was struck had crept forth. At the moment the other sawhim he bounded over the threshold. Even as his feet touched the ground aman who stood outside lunged at him with a pike but missed him--achance, for Claude had not seen the striker. The next moment the youngman had launched himself into the darkness and was running for his lifeacross the Corraterie in the direction of the Porte Neuve.
He knew that his foes were lying on every side of him, and the cry of"Seize him! Seize him!" went with him, making every step a separateperil. He could not see a yard, but he was young and fleet and active;and the darkness covering him, the men were confused. Over more than oneblack object he bounded like a deer. Once a man rising in front of himbrought him heavily to the ground, but by good fortune it was his footstruck the man, and on the head, and the fellow lay still and let himrise. A moment later another gripped him, but Claude and he felltogether, and the younger man, rolling nimbly sideways, got clear and tohis feet again, made for the wall on his right, turned left again, andalready thought himself over the threshold of the Porte Neuve. The cry"Aux Armes! Aux Armes!" was already on his lips, he thought he hadsucceeded, when between his eyes and the faintly lighted gateway adozen forms rose as by magic and poured in before him--so near to himthat, unable to check himself, he jostled the hindmost.
He might have entered with them, so near was he. But he saw that he wastoo late; he guessed that the outcry behind him had precipitated theattack, and, arresting himself outside the ring of light, but within afew paces of the gateway, he threw himself on the ground and awaited theevent. It was not long in declaring itself. For a few seconds a dullroar of shots and shouts and curses filled the gate. Then out again,helter-skelter, with a flash of exploding powder and a whirl of steeland blows, came defenders and assailants in a crowd, the former bent onescaping, the latter on cutting them off from the Porte Tertasse and thetown. For an instant after they had poured out the gate seemed quiet,and with his eyes upon it, Claude rose, first to his knees and then tohis feet, paused a moment in doubt, then darted in and entered theguard-room.
The firelight--the other lights in the small, dingy chamber had beentrampled under foot--showed him two wounded men groaning on the floor,and the body of a third who lay apparently dead. Claude bent over one,found what he wanted--a half-pike--and glided to the door of the stairsthat led to the roof. It was in the same position as in the Tertasse. Heopened it, passed through it, mounted two steps, and in the darknesscame plump against some one who seized him by the throat.
The man had no weapon--at any rate he did not strike; and Claude, takenby surprise, could not level his pike in the narrow stairway. For amoment they wrestled, Claude striving to bring his weapon to bear on hisfoe, the latter trying to strangle him. But the advantage of the stairslay with the first comer, who was the uppermost, and gradually he boreClaude back and back. The young man, however, would not let go such holdas he had, and both were on the point of falling out on the floor of theguard-room when the light disclosed Claude's face.
"You are of us!" his opponent panted. And abruptly he released his grip.
"Geneva!"
"I know you!" The man was one of the guard who, in the alarm, hadescaped into the stairway. "I know you! You live in the Corraterie!"
Claude wasted not a second. "Up!" he cried. "We can hold the roof! Up,man, for your life! For your life! It is our only chance!"
With the fear of death upon him, the other needed no second telling. Heturned, and groped upwards in haste; and Claude followed, treading onhis heels; nor a moment too soon. While they were still within thestaircase, which their elbows rubbed on either side, they heard theenemy swarm into the room below. Cries of triumph, of "Savoy! Savoy!" of"Ville gagnee! gagnee!" hummed dully up to them, and proclaimed thenarrowness of their escape. Then the night air met their faces, theybent their heads and passed out upon the leads; they had above them thestars, and below them all the world of night, with its tramp of hiddenfeet, its swaying lights so tiny and distant, and here and there its cryof "Savoy! Savoy!" that showed that the enemy, relying on their captureof the Porte Neuve, were casting off disguise.
Claude heard and saw all, but lost not a moment. He had not made thishaste for his life only: before he had risen to his knees or set foot inthe gate, he had formed his plan. "The Portcullis!" he cried. "ThePortcullis! Where are the chains? On this side?" Less than a weekbefore he had stood and watched the guard as they released it and raisedit again for practice.
The soldier, familiar with the tower, should have been able to go to thechains at once. But though he had struggled for his life and was readyto struggle for it again, he had not recovered his nerve, and he shrankfrom leaving the stairs, in holding which their one chance consisted. Hemuttered, however, that the winch was on such and such a side, and, withhis head in the stairway, indicated the direction with his hand. Claudegroped his way to the spot, his breath coming fast; fortunately
he laidhis hand almost at once on the chains and felt for the spike, which heknew he must draw or knock out. That done, the winch would fly round,and the huge machine fall by its own weight.
On a sudden, "They are coming!" the soldier cried in a terrifiedwhisper. "My God, they are coming! Come back! Come back!" For Claude hadtheir only weapon, and the guard was defenceless. Defenceless by theside of the stairs up which the foe was climbing!
The hair rose on Claude's head, but he set his teeth; though the mandied, though he died, the portcullis must fall! More than his own life,more than the lives of both of them, more than lives a hundred or athousand hung on that bolt; the fate of millions yet unborn, the freedomand the future of a country hung on that bolt which would not giveway--though now he had found it and was hammering it. Grinding histeeth, the sweat on his brow, he beat on it with the pike, struck theiron with the strength of despair, stooped to see what was amiss--stillwith the frenzied prayers of the other in his ears--saw it, and struckagain and again--and again!
Whirr! The winch flew round, barely missing his head. With a harsh,grinding sound that rose with incredible swiftness to a scream, piercingthe night, the ponderous grating slid down, crashed home and barred allentrance--closed the Porte Neuve. It did more, though Claude did notknow it. It cut off the engineer from the outer gate, of which the keyswere at the Town Hall, and against which in another minute, anothersixty seconds, he had set his petard. That set and exploded, Geneva hadlain open to its enemies. As it was, so small was the margin, so fatallyaccurate the closing, that when the day rose, it disclosed a portent.When the victors came to examine the spot they found beneath theportcullis the mangled form of one of the engineers, and beside him layhis petard.
The Long Night Page 23
