“Oh, if I could but do something for you!” he exclaimed. “If I could do something for you!”
“You can, then. Lie down on that straw and go to sleep.”
“And to think that I sneered at you! I! Oh, you have had your revenge!”
“For the Lord’s sake, lie down and go to sleep!” By persuasions and a little pushing he got his delighted companion on to his couch again, and heaped the straw over him to serve as a blanket. De Catinat was wearied out by the excitements of the day, and this last great reaction seemed to have absorbed all his remaining strength. His lids drooped heavily over his eyes, his head sank deeper into the soft straw, and his last remembrance was that the tireless American was seated cross-legged in the moonlight, working furiously with his long knife upon one of the billets of wood.
So weary was the young guardsman that it was long past noon, and the sun was shining out of a cloudless blue sky, before he awoke. For a moment, enveloped as he was in straw, and with the rude arch of the dungeon meeting in four rough-hewn groinings above his head, he stared about him in bewilderment. Then in an instant the doings of the day before, his mission, the ambuscade, his imprisonment, all flashed back to him, and he sprang to his feet. His comrade, who had been dozing in the corner, jumped up also at the first movement, with his hand on his knife, and a sinister glance directed towards the door.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said he, “I thought it was the man.”
“Has some one been in, then?”
“Yes; they brought those two loaves and a jug of water, just about dawn, when I was settling down for a rest.”
“And did he say anything?”
“No; it was the little black one.”
“Simon, they called him.”
“The same. He laid the things down and was gone. I thought that maybe if he came again we might get him to stop.”
“How, then?”
“Maybe if we got these stirrup leathers round his ankles he would not get them off quite as easy as we have done.”
“And what then?”
“Well, he would tell us where we are, and what is to be done with us.”
“Pshaw! what does it matter since our mission is done?”
“It may not matter to you — there’s no accounting for tastes — but it matters a good deal to me. I’m not used to sitting in a hole, like a bear in a trap, waiting for what other folks choose to do with me. It’s new to me. I found Paris a pretty close sort of place, but it’s a prairie compared to this. It don’t suit a man of my habits, and I am going to come out of it.”
“There’s no help but patience, my friend.”
“I don’t know that. I’d get more help out of a bar and a few pegs.” He opened his coat, and took out a short piece of rusted iron, and three small thick pieces of wood, sharpened at one end.
“Where did you get those, then?”
“These are my night’s work. The bar is the top one of the grate. I had a job to loosen it, but there it is. The pegs I whittled out of that log.”
“And what are they for?”
“Well, you see, peg number one goes in here, where I have picked a hole between the stones. Then I’ve made this other log into a mallet, and with two cracks there it is firm fixed, so that you can put your weight on it. Now these two go in the same way into the holes above here. So! Now, you see, you can stand up there and look out of that window without asking too much of your toe joint. Try it.”
De Catinat sprang up and looked eagerly out between the bars.
“I do not know the place,” said he, shaking his head.
“It may be any one of thirty castles which lie upon the south side of Paris, and within six or seven leagues of it. Which can it be? And who has any interest in treating us so? I would that I could see a coat of arms, which might help us. Ah! there is one yonder in the centre of the mullion of the window. But I can scarce read it at the distance. I warrant that your eyes are better than mine, Amos, and that you can read what is on yonder escutcheon.”
“On what?”
“On the stone slab in the centre window.”
“Yes, I see it plain enough. It looks to me like three turkey-buzzards sitting on a barrel of molasses.”
“Three allurions in chief over a tower proper, maybe. Those are the arms of the Provence De Hautevilles. But it cannot be that. They have no chateau within a hundred leagues. No, I cannot tell where we are.”
He was dropping back to the floor, and put his weight upon the bar.
To his amazement, it came away in his hand.
“Look, Amos, look!” he cried.
“Ah, you’ve found it out! Well, I did that during the night.”
“And how? With your knife?”
“No; I could make no way with my knife; but when I got the bar out of the grate, I managed faster. I’ll put this one back now, or some of those folks down below may notice that we have got it loose.”
“Are they all loose?”
“Only the one at present, but we’ll get the other two out during the night. You can take that bar out and work with it, while I use my own picker at the other. You see, the stone is soft, and by grinding it you soon make a groove along which you can slip the bar. It will be mighty queer if we can’t clear a road for ourselves before morning.”
“Well, but even if we could get out into the courtyard, where could we turn to then?”
“One thing at a time, friend. You might as well stick at the Kennebec because you could not see how you would cross the Penobscot. Anyway, there is more air in the yard than in here, and when the window is clear we shall soon plan out the rest.”
The two comrades did not dare to do any work during the day, for fear they should be surprised by the jailer, or observed from without. No one came near them, but they ate their loaves and drank their water with the appetite of men who had often known what it was to be without even such simple food as that. The instant that night fell they were both up upon the pegs, grinding away at the hard stone and tugging at the bars. It was a rainy night, and there was a sharp thunder-storm, but they could see very well, while the shadow of the arched window prevented their being seen. Before midnight they had loosened one bar, and the other was just beginning to give, when some slight noise made them turn their heads, and there was their jailer standing, open-mouthed in the middle of the cell, staring up at them.
It was De Catinat who observed him first, and he sprang down at him in an instant with his bar; but at his movement the man rushed for the door, and drew it after him just as the American’s tool whizzed past his ear and down the passage. As the door slammed, the two comrades looked at each other. The guardsman shrugged his shoulders and the other whistled.
“It is scarce worth while to go on,” said De Catinat.
“We may as well be doing that as anything else. If my picker had been an inch lower I’d have had him. Well, maybe he’ll get a stroke, or break his neck down those stairs. I’ve nothing to work with now, but a few rubs with your bar will finish the job. Ah, dear! You are right, and we are fairly treed!”
A great bell had begun to ring in the chateau, and there was a loud buzz of voices and a clatter of feet upon the stones. Hoarse orders were shouted, and there was the sound of turning keys. All this coming suddenly in the midst of the stillness of the night showed only too certainly that the alarm had been given. Amos Green threw himself down in the straw, with his hands in his pockets, and De Catinat leaned sulkily against the wall, waiting for whatever might come to him. Five minutes passed, however, and yet another five minutes, without anyone appearing. The hubbub in the courtyard continued, but there was no sound in the corridor which led to their cell.
“Well, I’ll have that bar out, after all,” said the American at last, rising and stepping over to the window. “Anyhow, we’ll see what all this caterwauling is about.” He climbed up on his pegs as he spoke, and peeped out.
“Come up!” he cried excitedly to his comrade. “They’ve got some other
game going on here, and they are all a deal too busy to bother their heads about us.”
De Catinat clambered up beside him, and the two stood staring down into the courtyard. A brazier had been lit at each corner, and the place was thronged with men, many of whom carried torches. The yellow glare played fitfully over the grim gray walls, flickering up sometimes until the highest turrets shone golden against the black sky, and then, as the wind caught them, dying away until they scarce threw a glow upon the cheek of their bearer. The main gate was open, and a carriage, which had apparently just driven in, was standing at a small door immediately in front of their window. The wheels and sides were brown with mud, and the two horses were reeking and heavy-headed, as though their journey had been both swift and long. A man wearing a plumed hat and enveloped in a riding-coat had stepped from the carriage, and then, turning round, had dragged a second person out after him. There was a scuffle, a cry, a push, and the two figures had vanished through the door. As it closed, the carriage drove away, the torches and braziers were extinguished, the main gate was closed once more, and all was as quiet as before this sudden interruption.
“Well!” gasped De Catinat. “Is this another king’s messenger they’ve got?”
“There will be lodgings for two more here in a short time,” said Amos
Green. “If they only leave us alone, this cell won’t hold us long.”
“I wonder where that jailer has gone?”
“He may go where he likes, as long as he keeps away from here. Give me your bar again. This thing is giving. It won’t take us long to have it out.” He set to work furiously, trying to deepen the groove in the stone, through which he hoped to drag the staple. Suddenly he ceased, and strained his ears.
“By thunder!” said he, “there’s some one working on the other side.”
They both stood listening. There were the thud of hammers, the rasping of a saw, and the clatter of wood from the other side of the wall.
“What can they be doing?”
“I can’t think.”
“Can you see them?”
“They are too near the wall.”
“I think I can manage,” said De Catinat. “I am slighter than you.” He pushed his head and neck and half of one shoulder through the gap between the bars, and there he remained until his friend thought that perhaps he had stuck, and pulled at his legs to extricate him. He writhed back, however, without any difficulty.
“They are building something,” he whispered.
“Building!”
“Yes; there are four of them, with a lantern.”
“What can they be building, then?”
“It’s a shed, I think. I can see four sockets in the ground, and they are fixing four uprights into them.”
“Well, we can’t get away as long as there are four men just under our window.”
“Impossible.”
“But we may as well finish our work, for all that.” The gentle scrapings of his iron were drowned amid the noise which swelled ever louder from without. The bar loosened at the end, and he drew it slowly towards him. At that instant, however, just as he was disengaging it, a round head appeared between him and the moonlight, a head with a great shock of tangled hair and a woollen cap upon the top of it. So astonished was Amos Green at the sudden apparition that he let go his grip upon the bar, which, falling outwards, toppled over the edge of the window-sill.
“You great fool!” shrieked a voice from below, “are your fingers ever to be thumbs, then, that you should fumble your tools so? A thousand thunders of heaven! You have broken my shoulder.”
“What is it, then?” cried the other. “My faith, Pierre, if your fingers went as fast as your tongue, you would be the first joiner in France.”
“What is it, you ape! You have dropped your tool upon me.”
“I! I have dropped nothing.”
“Idiot! Would you have me believe that iron falls from the sky? I say that you have struck me, you foolish, clumsy-fingered lout.”
“I have not struck you yet,” cried the other, “but, by the Virgin, if I have more of this I will come down the ladder to you!”
“Silence, you good-for-naughts!” said a third voice sternly. “If the work be not done by daybreak, there will be a heavy reckoning for somebody.”
And again the steady hammering and sawing went forward. The head still passed and repassed, its owner walking apparently upon some platform which they had constructed beneath their window, but never giving a glance or a thought to the black square opening beside him. It was early morning, and the first cold light was beginning to steal over the courtyard, before the work was at last finished and the workmen had left. Then at last the prisoners dared to climb up and to see what it was which had been constructed during the night. It gave them a catch of the breath as they looked at it. It was a scaffold.
There it lay, the ill-omened platform of dark greasy boards newly fastened together, but evidently used often before for the same purpose. It was buttressed up against their wall, and extended a clear twenty feet out, with a broad wooden stair leading down from the further side. In the centre stood a headsman’s block, all haggled at the top, and smeared with rust-coloured stains.
“I think it is time that we left,” said Amos Green.
“Our work is all in vain, Amos,” said De Catinat sadly.
“Whatever our fate may be — and this looks ill enough — we can but submit to it like brave men.”
“Tut, man; the window is clear! Let us make a rush for it.”
“It is useless. I can see a line of armed men along the further side of the yard.”
“A line! At this hour!”
“Yes; and here come more. See, at the centre gate! Now what in the name of heaven is this?”
As he spoke the door which faced them opened and a singular procession filed out. First came two dozen footmen, walking in pairs, all carrying halberds, and clad in the same maroon-coloured liveries. After them a huge bearded man, with his tunic off, and the sleeves of his coarse shirt rolled up over his elbows, strode along with a great axe over his left shoulder. Behind him, a priest with an open missal pattered forth prayers, and in his shadow was a woman, clad in black, her neck bared, and a black shawl cast over her head and drooping in front of her bowed face. Within grip of her walked a tall, thin, fierce-faced man, with harsh red features, and a great jutting nose. He wore a flat velvet cap with a single eagle feather fastened into it by a diamond clasp, which gleamed in the morning light. But bright as was his gem, his dark eyes were brighter still, and sparkled from under his bushy brows with a mad brilliancy which bore with it something of menace and of terror. His limbs jerked as he walked, his features twisted, and he carried himself like a man who strives hard to hold himself in when his whole soul is aflame with exultation. Behind him again twelve more maroon-clad retainers brought up the rear of this singular procession.
The woman had faltered at the foot of the scaffold, but the man behind her had thrust her forward with such force that she stumbled over the lower step, and would have fallen had she not clutched at the arm of the priest. At the top of the ladder her eyes met the dreadful block, and she burst into a scream, and shrunk backwards. But again the man thrust her on, and two of the followers caught her by either wrist and dragged her forwards.
“Oh, Maurice! Maurice!” she screamed. “I am not fit to die! Oh, forgive me, Maurice, as you hope for forgiveness yourself! Maurice! Maurice!” She strove to get towards him, to clutch at his wrist, at his sleeve, but he stood with his hand on his sword, gazing at her with a face which was all wreathed and contorted with merriment. At the sight of that dreadful mocking face the prayers froze upon her lips. As well pray for mercy to the dropping stone or to the rushing stream. She turned away, and threw back the mantle which had shrouded her features.
“Ah, sire!” she cried. “Sire! If you could see me now!”
And at the cry and at the sight of that fair pale face, De Catinat, looking down from the
window, was stricken as though by a dagger; for there, standing beside the headsman’s block, was she who had been the most powerful, as well as the wittiest and the fairest, of the women of France — none other than Francoise de Montespan, so lately the favourite of the king.
CHAPTER XIX.
IN THE KING’S CABINET.
On the night upon which such strange chances had befallen his messengers, the king sat alone in his cabinet. Over his head a perfumed lamp, held up by four little flying Cupids of crystal, who dangled by golden chains from the painted ceiling, cast a brilliant light upon the chamber, which was flashed back twenty-fold by the mirrors upon the wall. The ebony and silver furniture, the dainty carpet of La Savonniere, the silks of Tours, the tapestries of the Gobelins, the gold-work and the delicate chinaware of Sevres — the best of all that France could produce was centred between these four walls. Nothing had ever passed through that door which was not a masterpiece of its kind. And amid all this brilliance the master of it sat, his chin resting upon his hands, his elbows upon the table, with eyes which stared vacantly at the wall, a moody and a solemn man.
But though his dark eyes were fixed upon the wall, they saw nothing of it. They looked rather down the long vista of his own life, away to those early years when what we dream and what we do shade so mistily into one another. Was it a dream or was it a fact, those two men who used to stoop over his baby crib, the one with the dark coat and the star upon his breast, whom he had been taught to call father, and the other one with the long red gown and the little twinkling eyes? Even now, after more than forty years, that wicked, astute, powerful face flashed up, and he saw once more old Richelieu, the great unanointed king of France. And then the other cardinal, the long lean one who had taken his pocket-money, and had grudged him his food, and had dressed him in old clothes. How well he could recall the day when Mazarin had rouged himself for the last time, and how the court had danced with joy at the news that he was no more! And his mother, too, how beautiful she was, and how masterful! Could he not remember how bravely she had borne herself during that war in which the power of the great nobles had been broken, and how she had at last lain down to die, imploring the priests not to stain her cap-strings with their holy oils! And then he thought of what he had done himself, how he had shorn down his great subjects until, instead of being like a tree among saplings, he had been alone, far above all others, with his shadow covering the whole land. Then there were his wars and his laws and his treaties. Under his care France had overflowed her frontiers both on the north and on the east, and yet had been so welded together internally that she had but one voice, with which she spoke through him. And then there was that line of beautiful faces which wavered up in front of him. There was Olympe de Mancini, whose Italian eyes had first taught him that there is a power which can rule over a king; her sister, too, Marie de Mancini; his wife, with her dark little sun-browned face; Henrietta of England, whose death had first shown him the horrors which lie in life; La Valliere, Montespan, Fontanges. Some were dead; some were in convents. Some who had been wicked and beautiful were now only wicked. And what had been the outcome of all this troubled, striving life of his? He was already at the outer verge of his middle years; he had lost his taste for the pleasures of his youth; gout and vertigo were ever at his foot and at his head to remind him that between them lay a kingdom which he could not hope to govern. And after all these years he had not won a single true friend, not one, in his family, in his court, in his country, save only this woman whom he was to wed that night. And she, how patient she was, how good, how lofty! With her he might hope to wipe off by the true glory of his remaining years all the sin and the folly of the past. Would that the archbishop might come, that he might feel that she was indeed his, that he held her with hooks of steel which would bind them as long as life should last!
Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) Page 379
