Title: The Seats of the Mighty, Volume 3
Author: Parker, Gilbert
Language: English
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THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY

BEING THE MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN ROBERT MORAY,
SOMETIME AN OFFICER IN THE VIRGINIA REGIMENT,
AND AFTERWARDS OF AMHERST'S REGIMENT

By Gilbert Parker



Volume 3.

    XIV   Argand Cournal
     XV   In the chamber of torture
    XVI   Be saint or imp
   XVII   Through the bars of the cage
  XVIII   The steep path of conquest
    XIX   A Danseuse and the Bastile



XIV

ARGAND COURNAL


The most meagre intelligence came to me from the outer world. I
no longer saw Gabord; he had suddenly been with drawn and a new
jailer substituted, and the sentinels outside my door and beneath
the window of my cell refused all information. For months I had no
news whatever of Alixe or of those affairs nearest my heart. I
heard nothing of Doltaire, little of Bigot, and there was no sign
of Voban.

Sometimes I could see my new jailer studying me, if my plans were
a puzzle to his brain. At first he used regularly to try the bars
of the window, and search the wall as though he thought my devices
might be found there.

Scarrat and Flavelle, the guards at my door, set too high a
price on their favours, and they talked seldom, and then with
brutal jests and ribaldry, of matters in the town which were not
vital to me. Yet once or twice, from things they said, I came to
know that all was not well between Bigot and Doltaire on one hand,
and Doltaire and the Governor on the other. Doltaire had set the
Governor and the Intendant scheming against him because of his
adherence to the cause of neither, and his power to render the
plans of either of no avail when he chose, as in my case.
Vaudreuil's vanity was injured, and besides, he counted Doltaire
too strong a friend of Bigot. Bigot, I doubted not, found in Madame
Cournal's liking for Doltaire all sorts of things of which he never
would have dreamed; for there is no such potent devilry in this
world as the jealousy of such a sort of man over a woman whose
vanity and cupidity are the springs of her affections. Doltaire's
imprisonment in a room of the Intendance was not so mysterious as
suggestive. I foresaw a strife, a complication of intrigues, and
internal enmities which would be (as they were) the ruin of New
France. I saw, in imagination, the English army at the gates of
Quebec, and those who sat in the seats of the mighty, sworn to
personal enmities--Vaudreuil through vanity, Bigot through cupidity,
Doltaire by the innate malice of his nature--sacrificing the
country; the scarlet body of British power moving down upon a
dishonoured city, never to take its foot from that sword of France
which fell there on the soil of the New World.

But there was another factor in the situation which I have not
dwelt on before. Over a year earlier, when war was being carried
into Prussia by Austria and France, and against England, the ally
of Prussia, the French Minister of War, D'Argenson, had, by the
grace of La Pompadour, sent General the Marquis de Montcalm to
Canada, to protect the colony with a small army. From the first,
Montcalm, fiery, impetuous, and honourable, was at variance with
Vaudreuil, who, though honest himself, had never dared to make open
stand against Bigot. When Montcalm came, practically taking the
military command out of the hands of the Governor, Vaudreuil
developed a singular jealous spirit against the General. It began
to express itself about the time I was thrown into the citadel
dungeon, and I knew from what Alixe had told me, and from the
gossip of the soldiers, that there was a more open show of
disagreement now.

The Governor, seeing how ill it was to be at variance with both
Montcalm and Bigot, presently began to covet a reconciliation with
the latter. To this Bigot was by no means averse, for his own
position had danger. His followers and confederates, Cournal,
Marin, Cadet, and Rigaud, were robbing the King with a daring and
effrontery which must ultimately bring disaster. This he knew, but
it was his plan to hold on for a time longer, and then to retire
before the axe fell, with an immense fortune. Therefore, about the
time set for my execution, he began to close with the overtures of
the Governor, and presently the two formed a confederacy against the
Marquis de Montcalm. Into it they tried to draw Doltaire, and were
surprised to find that he stood them off as to anything more than
outward show of friendliness.

Truth was, Doltaire, who had no sordid feeling in him, loathed
alike the cupidity of Bigot and the incompetency of the Governor,
and respected Montcalm for his honour, and reproached him for his
rashness. From first to last, he was, without show of it, the best
friend Montcalm had in the province; and though he held aloof from
bringing punishment to Bigot, he despised him and his friends,
and was not slow to make that plain. D'Argenson made inquiry of
Doltaire when Montcalm's honest criticisms were sent to France in
cipher, and Doltaire returned the reply that Bigot was the only
man who could serve Canada efficiently in this crisis; that he had
abounding fertility of resource, a clear head, a strong will, and
great administrative faculty. This was all he would say, save that
when the war was over other matters might be conned. Meanwhile
France must pay liberally for the Intendant's services.

Through a friend in France, Bigot came to know that his affairs
were moving to a crisis, and saw that it would be wise to retire;
but he loved the very air of crisis, and Madame Cournal, anxious to
keep him in Canada, encouraged him in his natural feeling to stand
or fall with the colony. He never showed aught but a hold and
confident face to the public, and was in all regards the most
conspicuous figure in New France. When, two years before, Montcalm
took Oswego from the English, Bigot threw open his palace to the
populace for two days' feasting, and every night during the war he
entertained lavishly, though the people went hungry, and their own
corn, bought for the King, was sold back to them at famine prices.

As the Governor amid the Intendant grew together in friendship,
Vaudreuil sinking past disapproval in present selfish necessity,
they quietly combined against Doltaire as against Montcalm. Yet at
this very time Doltaire was living in the Intendance, and, as he
had told Alixe, not without some personal danger. He had before
been offered rooms at the Chateau St. Louis; but these he would
not take, for he could not bear to be within touch of the Governor's
vanity and timidity. He would of preference have stayed in the
Intendance had he known that pitfalls and traps were at every
footstep. Danger gave a piquancy to his existence. I think he did
not greatly value Madame Cournal's admiration of himself; but when
it drove Bigot to retaliation, his imagination got an impulse, and
he entered upon a conflict which ran parallel with the war, and
with that delicate antagonism which Alixe waged against him, long
undiscovered by himself.

At my wits' end for news, at last I begged my jailer to convey a
message for me to the Governor, asking that the barber be let
come to me. The next day an answer arrived in the person of Voban
himself, accompanied by the jailer. For a time there was little
speech between us, but as he tended me we talked. We could do
so with safety, for Voban knew English; and though he spoke it
brokenly, he had freedom in it, and the jailer knew no word of it.
At first the fellow blustered, but I waved him off. He was a man
of better education than Gabord, but of inferior judgment and
shrewdness. He made no trial thereafter to interrupt our talk, but
sat and drummed upon a stool with his keys, or loitered at the
window, or now and again thrust his hand into my pockets, as if
to see if weapons were concealed in them.

"Voban," said I, "what has happened since I saw you at the
Intendance? Tell me first of mademoiselle. You have nothing from
her for me?"

"Nothing," he answered. "There is no time. A soldier come an
hour ago with an order from the Governor, and I must go all at
once. So I come as you see. But as for the ma'm'selle, she is well.
Voila, there is no one like her in New France. I do not know
all, as you can guess, but they say she can do what she will at
the Chateau. It is a wonder to see her drive. A month ago, a
droll thing come to pass. She is driving on the ice with ma'm'selle
Lotbiniere and her brother Charles. M'sieu' Charles, he has
the reins. Soon, ver' quick, the horses start with all their might.
M'sieu' saw and pull, but they go the faster. Like that for a mile
or so; then ma'm'selle remember there is a great crack in the ice a
mile farther on, and beyond the ice is weak and rotten, for there
the curren' is ver' strongest. She see that M'sieu' Charles, he can
do nothing, so she reach and take the reins. The horses go on; it
make no diff'rence at first. But she begin to talk to them so sof',
and to pull ver' steady, and at last she get them shaping to the
shore. She have the reins wound on her hands, and people on the
shore, they watch. Little on little the horses pull up, and stop at
last not a hunder' feet from the great crack and the rotten ice.
Then she turn them round and drive them home.

"You should hear the people cheer as she drive up Mountain
Street. The bishop stand at the window of his palace and smile at
her as she pass, and m'sieu'"--he looked at the jailer and
paused--"m'sieu' the gentleman we do not love, he stand in the
street with his cap off for two minutes as she come, and after she
go by, and say a grand compliment to her, so that her face go pale.
He get froze ears for his pains--that was a cold day. Well, at night
there was a grand dinner at the Intendance, and afterwards a ball in
the splendid room which that man" (he meant Bigot: I shall use names
when quoting him further, that he may be better understood) "built
for the poor people of the land for to dance down their sorrows. So
you can guess I would be there--happy. Ah yes, so happy! I go and
stand in the great gallery above the hall of dance, with crowd of
people, and look down at the grand folk.

"One man come to me and say, 'Ah, Voban, is it you here? Who would
think it!'--like that. Another, he come and say, 'Voban, he can not
keep away from the Intendance. Who does he come to look for? But no,
SHE is not here--no.' And again, another, 'Why should not Voban be
here? One man has not enough bread to eat, and Bigot steals his
corn. Another hungers for a wife to sit by his fire, and Bigot takes
the maid, and Voban stuffs his mouth with humble pie like the rest.
Chut! shall not Bigot have his fill?' And yet another, and voila,
she was a woman, she say, 'Look at the Intendant down there with
madame. And M'sieu' Cournal, he also is there. What does M'sieu'
Cournal care? No, not at all. The rich man, what he care, if he has
gold? Virtue! ha, ha! what is that in your wife if you have gold for
it? Nothing. See his hand at the Intendant's arm. See how M'sieu'
Doltaire look at them, and then up here at us. What is it in his
mind, you think? Eh? You think he say to himself, A wife all to
himself is the poor man's one luxury? Eh? Ah, M'sieu' Doltaire, you
are right, you are right. You catch up my child from its basket in
the market-place one day, and you shake it ver' soft, an' you say,
"Madame, I will stake the last year of my life that I can put my
finger on the father of this child." And when I laugh in his face,
he say again, "And if he thought he wasn't its father, he would cut
out the liver of the other--eh?" And I laugh, and say, "My Jacques
would follow him to hell to do it." Then he say, Voban, he say to
me, "That is the difference between you and us. We only kill men who
meddle with our mistresses!" Ah, that M'sieu' Doltaire, he put a
louis in the hand of my babe, and he not even kiss me on the cheek.
Pshaw! Jacques would sell him fifty kisses for fifty louis. But sell
me, or a child of me? Well, Voban, you can guess! Pah, barber, if
you do not care what he did to the poor Mathilde, there are other
maids in St. Roch.'"

Voban paused a moment then added quietly, "How do you think I bear
it all? With a smile? No, I hear with my ears open and my heart
close tight. Do they think they can teach me? Do they guess I sit
down and hear all without a cry from my throat or a will in my body?
Ah, m'sieu' le Capitaine, it is you who know. You saw what I would
have go to do with M'sieu' Doltaire before the day of the Great
Birth. You saw if I am coward--if I not take the sword when it was
at my throat without a whine. No, m'sieu', I can wait. Then is a
time for everything. At first I am all in a muddle, I not how what
to do; but by-and-bye it all come to me, and you shall one day what
I wait for. Yes, you shall see. I look down on that people dancing
there, quiet and still, and I hear some laugh at me, and now and
then some one say a good word to me that make me shut my hands
tight, so the tears not come to my eyes. But I felt alone--so much
alone. The world does not want a sad man. In my shop I try to laugh
as of old, and I am not sour or heavy, but I can see men do not say
droll things to me as once back time. No, I am not as I was. What am
I to do? There is but one way. What is great to one man is not to
another. What kills the one does not kill the other. Take away from
some people one thing, and they will not care; from others that
same, and there is nothing to live for, except just to live, and
because a man does not like death."

He paused. "You are right, Voban," said I. "Go on."

He was silent again for a time, and then he moved his hand in a
helpless sort of way across his forehead. It had become deeply
lined and wrinkled all in a couple of years. His temples were
sunken, his cheeks hollow, and his face was full of those shadows
which lend a sort of tragedy to even the humblest and least
distinguished countenance. His eyes had a restlessness, anon an
intense steadiness almost uncanny, and his thin, long fingers had a
stealthiness of motion, a soft swiftness, which struck me strangly.
I never saw a man so changed. He was like a vessel wrested from its
moorings; like some craft, filled with explosives, set loose along
a shore lined with fishing-smacks, which might come foul of one,
and blow the company of men and boats into the air. As he stood
there, his face half turned to me for a moment, this came to my
mind, and I said to him, "Voban, you look like some wicked gun
which would blow us all to pieces."

He wheeled, and came to me so swiftly that I shrank back in my
chair with alarm, his action was so sudden, and, peering into my
face, he said, glancing, as I thought, anxiously at the jailer,
"Blow--blow--how blow us all to pieces, m'sieu'?" He eyed me with
suspicion, and I could see that he felt like some hurt animal among
its captors, ready to fight, yet not knowing from what point danger
would come. Something pregnant in what I said had struck home, yet
I could not guess then what it was, though afterwards it came to me
with great force and vividness.

"I meant nothing, Voban," answered I, "save that you look dangerous."

I half put out my hand to touch his arm in a friendly way, but I
saw that the jailer was watching, and I did not. Voban felt what I
was about to do, and his face instantly softened, and his blood-shot
eyes gave me a look of gratitude. Then he said:

"I will tell you what happen next I know the palace very well,
and when I see the Intendant and M'sieu' Doltaire and others leave
the ballroom I knew that they go to the chamber which they call 'la
Chambre de la Joie,' to play at cards. So I steal away out of the
crowd into a passage which, as it seem, go nowhere, and come quick,
all at once, to a bare wall. But I know the way. In one corner of
the passage I press a spring, and a little panel open. I crawl
through and close it behin'. Then I feel my way along the dark
corner till I come to another panel. This I open, and I see light.
You ask how I can do this? Well, I tell you. There is the valet of
Bigot, he is my friend. You not guess who it is? No? It is a man
whose crime in France I know. He was afraid when he saw me here,
but I say to him, 'No, I will not speak--never'; and he is all
my friend just when I most need. Eh, voila, I see light, as I said,
and I push aside heavy curtains ver' little, and there is the
Chamber of the Joy below. There they all are, the Intendant and the
rest, sitting down to the tables. There was Capitaine Lancy, M'sieu'
Cadet, M'sieu' Cournal, M'sieu' le Chevalier de Levis, and M'sieu'
le Generale, le Marquis de Montcalm. I am astonish to see him there,
the great General, in his grand coat of blue and gold and red, and
laces tres beau at his throat, with a fine jewel. Ah, he is not ver'
high on his feet, but he has an eye all fire, and a laugh come quick
to his lips, and he speak ver' galant, but he never let them,
Messieurs Cadet, Marin, Lancy, and the rest, be thick friends with
him. They do not clap their hands on his shoulder comme le bon
camarade--non!

"Well, they sit down to play, and soon there is much noise and
laughing, and then sometimes a silence, and then again the noise,
and you can see one snuff a candle with the points of two rapiers,
or hear a sword jangle at a chair, or listen to some one sing ver'
soft a song as he hold a good hand of cards, or the ring of louis
on the table, or the sound of glass as it break on the floor. And
once a young gentleman--alas! he is so young--he get up from his
chair, and cry out, 'All is lost! I go to die!' He raise a pistol
to his head; but M'sieu' Doltaire catch his hand, and say quite
soft and gentle, 'No, no, mon enfant, enough of making fun
of us. Here is the hunder' louis I borrow of you yesterday. Take
your revenge.' The lad sit down slow, looking ver' strange at
M'sieu' Doltaire. And it is true: he took his revenge out of
M'sieu' Cadet, for he win--I saw it--three hunder' louis. Then
M'sieu' Doltaire lean over to him and say, 'M'sieu', you will
carry for me a message to the citadel for M'sieu' Ramesay, the
commandant.' Ah, it was a sight to see M'sieu' Cadet's face, going
this way and that. But it was no use: the young gentleman pocket
his louis, and go away with a letter from M'sieu' Doltaire. But
M'sieu' Doltaire, he laugh in the face of M'sieu' Cadet, and say
ver' pleasant, 'That is a servant of the King, m'sieu', who live by
his sword alone. Why should civilians be so greedy? Come, play,
M'sieu' Cadet. If M'sieu' the General will play with me, we two
will what we can do with you and his Excellency the Intendant.'

"They sit just beneath me, and I hear all what is said, I see all
the looks of them, every card that is played. M'sieu' the General
have not play yet, but watch M'sieu' Doltaire and the Intendant at
the cards. With a smile he now sit down. Then M'sieu' Doltaire, he
say, 'M'sieu' Cadet, let us have no mistake--let us be commercial.'
He take out his watch. 'I have two hours to spare; are you dispose
to play for that time only? To the moment we will rise, and there
shall be no question of satisfaction, no discontent anywhere--eh,
shall it be so, if m'sieu' the General can spare the time also?' It
is agree that the General play for one hour and go, and that M'sieu'
Doltaire and the Intendant play for the rest of the time.

"They begin, and I hide there and watch. The time go ver' fast,
and my breath catch in my throat to see how great the stakes they
play for. I hear M'sieu' Doltaire say at last, with a smile, taking
out his watch, 'M'sieu' the General, your time is up, and you take
with you twenty thousan' francs.'

"The General, he smile and wave his hand, as if sorry to take so
much from M'sieu' Cadet and the Intendant. M'sieu' Cadet sit dark,
and speak nothing at first, but at last he get up and turn on his
heel and walk away, leaving what he lose on the table. M'sieu' the
General bow also, and go from the room. Then M'sieu' Doltaire and
the Intendant play. One by one the other players stop, and come and
watch these. Something get into the two gentlemen, for both are
pale, and the face of the Intendant all of spots, and his little
round eyes like specks of red fire; but M'sieu' Doltaire's face,
it is still, and his brows bend over, and now and then he make a
little laughing out of his lips. All at once I hear him say, 'Double
the stakes, your Excellency!' The Intendant look up sharp and say,
'What! Two hunder' thousan' francs!'--as if M'sieu' Doltaire could
not pay such a like that. M'sieu' Doltaire smile ver' wicked, and
answer, 'Make it three hunder' thousan' francs, your Excellency.' It
is so still in the Chamber of the Joy that all you hear for a minute
was the fat Monsieur Varin breathe like a hog, and the rattle of a
spur as some one slide a foot on the floor.

"The Intendant look blank; then he nod his head for answer, and
each write on a piece of paper. As they begin, M'sieu' Doltaire
take out his watch and lay it on the table, and the Intendant
do the same, and they both look at the time. The watch of the
Intendant is all jewels. 'Will you not add the watches to the
stake?' say M'sieu' Doltaire. The Intendant look, and shrug a
shoulder, and shake his head for no, and M'sieu' Doltaire smile in
a sly way, so that the Intendant's teeth show at his lips and his
eyes almost close, he is so angry.

"Just this minute I hear a low noise behind me, and then some
one give a little cry. I turn quick and Madame Cournal. She stretch
her hand, and touch my lips, and motion me not to stir. I look down
again, and I see that M'sieu' Doltaire look up to the where I am,
for he hear that sound, I think--I not know sure. But he say once
more, 'The watch, the watch, your Excellency! I have a fancy for
yours!' I feel madame breathe hard beside me, but I not like to
look at her. I am not afraid of men, but a woman that way--ah, it
make me shiver! She will betray me, I think. All at once I feel her
hand at my belt, then at my pocket, to see if I have a weapon; for
the thought come to her that I am there to kill Bigot. But I raise
my hands and say, 'No,' ver' quiet, and she nod her head all right.

"The Intendant wave his hand at M'sieu' Doltaire to say he would
not stake the watch, for I know it is one madame give him; and then
they begin to play. No one stir. The cards go out flip, flip, on the
table, and with a little soft scrape in the hands, and I hear
Bigot's hound much a bone. All at once M'sieu' Doltaire throw down
his cards, and say, 'Mine, Bigot! Three hunder' thousan' francs,
and the time is up!' The other get from his chair, and say, 'How
would you have pay if you had lost, Doltaire?' And m'sieu' answer,
'From the coffers of the King, like you, Bigot' His tone is odd.
I feel madame's breath go hard. Bigot turn round and say to the
others, 'Will you take your way to the great hall, messieurs,
and M'sieu' Doltaire and I will follow. We have some private
conf'rence.' They all turn away, all but M'sieu' Cournal, and leave
the room, whispering. 'I will join you soon, Cournal,' say his
Excellency. M'sieu' Cournal not go, for he have been drinking, and
something stubborn got into him. But the Intendant order him rough,
and he go. I can hear madame gnash her teeth sof' beside me.

"When the door close, the Intendant turn to M'sieu' Doltaire and
say, 'What is the end for which you play?' M'sieu' Doltaire make a
light motion of his hand, and answer, 'For three hunder' thousan'
francs.' 'And to pay, m'sieu', how to pay if you have lost?'
M'sieu' Doltaire lay his hand on his sword sof'. 'From the King's
coffers, as I say; he owes me more than he has paid. But not like
you, Bigot. I have earned, this way and that, all that I might ever
get from the King's coffers--even this three hunder' thousan'
francs, ten times told. But you, Bigot--tush! why should we make
bubbles of words?' The Intendant get white in the face, but there
are spots on it like on a late apple of an old tree. 'You go too
far, Doltaire,' he say. 'You have hint before my officers and my
friends that I make free with the King's coffers.' M'sieu' answer,
'You should see no such hints, if your palms were not musty.' 'How
know you,' ask the Intendant, 'that my hands are musty from the
King's coffers?' M'sieu' arrange his laces, and say light, 'As
easy from the must as I tell how time passes in your nights by the
ticking of this trinket here.' He raise his sword and touch the
Intendant's watch on the table.

"I never hear such silence as there is for a minute, and then the
Intendant say, 'You have gone one step too far. The must on my
hands, seen through your eyes, is no matter, but when you must the
name of a lady there is but one end. You understan', m'sieu', there
is but one end.' M'sieu' laugh. 'The sword, you mean? Eh? No, no,
I will not fight with you. I am not here to rid the King of so
excellent an officer, however large fee he force for his services.'
'And I tell you,' say the Intendant, 'that I will not have you cast
a slight upon a lady.' Madame beside me start up, and whisper to
me, 'If you betray me, you shall die. If you be still, I too will
say nothing.' But then a thing happen. Another voice sound from
below, and there, coming from behind a great screen of oak wood, is
M'sieu' Cournal, his face all red with wine, his hand on his sword.
'Bah!' he say, coming forward--'bah! I will speak for madame. I
will speak. I have been silent long enough.' He come between the
two, and, raising his sword, he strike the time-piece and smash it.
'Ha! ha!' he say, wild with drink, 'I have you both here alone.' He
snap his fingers under the Intendant's nose. 'It is time I protect
my wife's name from you, and by God, I will do it!' At that M'sieu'
Doltaire laugh, and Cournal turn to him, and say, 'Batard!' The
Intendant have out his sword, and he roar in a hoarse voice, 'Dog,
you shall die!' But M'sieu' Doltaire strike up his sword, and face
the drunken man. 'No, leave that to me. The King's cause goes
shipwreck; we can't change helmsman now. Think--scandal and your
disgrace!' Then he make a pass at m'sieu' Cournal, who parry quick.
Another, and he prick his shoulder. Another, and then madame beside
me, as I spring back, throw aside the curtains, and cry out, 'No,
m'sieu'! no! For shame!'

"I kneel in a corner behind the curtains, and wait and listen.
There is not a sound for a moment; then I hear a laugh from M'sieu'
Cournal, such a laugh make me sick--loud, and full of what you call
not care and the devil. Madame speak down at them. 'Ah,' she say,
'it is so fine a sport to drag a woman's name in the mire!' Her
voice is full of spirit. and she look beautiful--beautiful. I never
guess how a woman like that look; so full of pride, and to speak
like you could think knives sing as they strike steel--sharp and
cold. 'I came to see how gentlemen look at play, and they end in
brawling over a lady!'

"M'sieu' Doltaire speak to her, and they all put up their swords,
and M'sieu' Cournal sit down at a table, and he stare and stare
up at the balcony, and make a motion now and then with his
hand. M'sieu' Doltaire say to her, 'Madame, you must excuse
our entertainment; we did not know we had an audience so
distinguished.' She reply, 'As scene-shifter and prompter, M'sieu'
Doltaire, you have a gift. Your Excellency,' she say to the
Intendant, 'I will wait for you at the top of the great staircase,
if you will be so good as to take me to the ballroom.' The
Intendant and M'sieu' Doltaire bow, and turn to the door, and
M'sieu' Cournal scowl, and make as if to follow; but madame speak
down at him, 'M'sieu'--Argand'--like that! and he turn back, and sit
down. I think she forget me, I keep so still. The others bow and
scrape, and leave the room, and the two are alone--alone, for what
am I? What if a dog hear great people speak? No, it is no matter!

"There is all still for a little while, and I watch her face as
she lean over the rail and look down at him; it is like stone, like
stone that aches, and her eyes stare and stare at him. He look up
at her and scowl; then he laugh, with a toss of the finger, and sit
down. All at once he put his hand on his sword, and gnash his teeth.

"Then she speak down to him, her voice ver' quiet. 'Argand,' she
say, 'you are more a man drunk than sober. Argand,' she go on,
'years ago, they said you were a brave man; you fight well, you
do good work for the King, your name goes with a sweet sound to
Versailles. You had only your sword and my poor fortune and me
then--that is all; but you were a man. You had ambition, so had I.
What can a woman do? You had your sword, your country, the King's
service. I had beauty; I wanted power--ah yes, power, that was the
thing! But I was young and a fool; you were older. You talked fine
things then, but you had a base heart, so much baser than mine....
I might have been a good woman. I was a fool, and weak, and vain,
but you were base--so base--coward and betrayer, you!'

"At that m'sieu' start up and snatch at his sword, and speak out
between his teeth, 'By God, I will kill you to-night!' She smile
cold and hard, and say, 'No, no, you will not; it is too late for
killing; that should have been done before. You sold your right to
kill long ago, Argand Cournal. You have been close friends with the
man who gave me power, and you gold.' Then she get fierce. 'Who
gave you gold before he gave me power, traitor?' Like that she
speak. 'Do you never think of what you have lost?' Then she break
out in a laugh. 'Pah! Listen: if there must be killing, why not be
the great Roman--drunk!'

"Then she laugh so hard a laugh, and turn away, and go quick by
me and not see me. She step into the dark, and he sit down in the
chair, and look straight in front of him. I do not stir, and after
a minute she come back sof', and peep down, her face all differen'.
'Argand! Argand!' she say ver' tender and low, 'if--if--if'--like
that. But just then he see the broken watch on the floor, and he
stoop, with a laugh, and pick up the pieces; then he get a candle
and look on the floor everywhere for the jewels, and he pick them
up, and put them away one by one in his purse like a miser. He keep
on looking, and once the fire of the candle burn his beard, and he
swear, and she stare and stare at him. He sit down at the table,
and look at the jewels and laugh to himself. Then she draw herself
up, and shake, and put her hands to her eyes, and 'C'est fini!
c'est fini!' she whisper, and that is all.

"When she is gone, after a little time he change--ah, he change
much, he go to a table and pour out a great bowl of wine, and then
another, and he drink them both, and he begin to walk up and down
the floor. He sway now and then, but he keep on for a long time.
Once a servant come, but he wave him away, and he scowl and talk to
himself, and shut the doors and lock them. Then he walk on and on.
At last he sit down, and he face me. In front of him are candles,
and he stare between them, and stare and stare. I sit and watch,
and I feel a pity. I hear him say, 'Antoinette! Antoinette! My dear
Antoinette! We are lost forever, my Antoinette!' Then he take the
purse from his pocket, and throw it up to the balcony where I am.
'Pretty sins,' he say, 'follow the sinner!' It lie there, and it
have sprung open, and I can see the jewels shine, but I not touch
it--no. Well, he sit there long--long, and his face get gray and
his cheeks all hollow.

"I hear the clock strike one! two! three! four! Once some
one come and try the door, but go away again, and he never stir;
he is like a dead man. At last I fall asleep. When I wake up, he
still sit there, but his head lie in his arms. I look round. Ah,
it is not a fine sight--no. The candles burn so low, and there is
a smell of wick, and the grease runs here and there down the great
candlesticks. Upon the floor, this place and that, is a card, and
pieces of paper, and a scarf, and a broken glass, and something
that shine by a small table. This is a picture in a little gold
frame. On all the tables stand glasses, some full, and some empty of
wine. And just as the dawn come in through the tall windows, a cat
crawl out from somewhere, all ver' thin and shy, and walk across the
floor; it make the room look so much alone. At last it come and move
against m'sieu's legs, and he lift his head and look down at it, and
nod, and say something which I not hear. After that he get up, and
pull himself together with a shake, and walk down the room. Then
he see the little gold picture on the floor which some drunk young
officer drop, and he pick it up and look at it, and walk again.
'Poor fool!' he say, and look at the picture again. 'Poor fool! Will
he curse her some day--a child with a face like that? Ah!' And he
throw the picture down. Then he walk away to the doors, unlock them,
and go out. Soon I steal away through the panels, and out of the
palace ver' quiet, and go home. But I can see that room in my mind."

Again the jailer hurried Voban; There was no excuse for him to
remain longer; so I gave him a message to Alixe, and slipped into
his hand a transcript from my journal. Then he left me, and I sat
and thought upon the strange events of the evening which he had
described to me. That he was bent on mischief I felt sure, but
how it would come, what were his plans, I could not guess. Then
suddenly there flashed into my mind my words to him, "blow us all
to pieces," and his consternation and strange eagerness. It came
to me suddenly: he meant to blow up the Intendance. When? And how?
It seemed absurd to think of it. Yet--yet-- The grim humour of the
thing possessed me, and I sat back and laughed heartily.

In the midst of my mirth the cell door opened and let in Doltaire.



XV

IN THE CHAMBER OF TORTURE


I started from my seat; we bowed, and, stretching out a hand to
the fire, Doltaire said, "Ah, my Captain, we meet too seldom. Let
me see: five months--ah yes, nearly five months. Believe me, I have
not breakfasted so heartily since. You are looking older--older.
Solitude to the active mind is not to be endured alone--no."

"Monsieur Doltaire is the surgeon to my solitude," said I.

"H'm!" he answered, "a jail surgeon merely. And that brings me
to a point, monsieur. I have had letters from France. The Grande
Marquise--I may as well be frank with you--womanlike, yearns
violently for those silly letters which you hold. She would sell
our France for them. There is a chance for you who would serve your
country so. Serve it, and yourself--and me. We have no news yet as
to your doom, but be sure it is certain. La Pompadour knows all,
and if you are stubborn, twenty deaths were too few. I can save you
little longer, even were it my will so to do. For myself, the great
lady girds at me for being so poor an agent. You, monsieur"--he
smiled whimsically--"will agree that I have been persistent--and
intelligent."

"So much so," rejoined I, "as to be intrusive."

He smiled again. "If La Pompadour could hear you, she would
understand why I prefer the live amusing lion to the dead dog. When
you are gone, I shall be inconsolable. I am a born inquisitor."

"You were born for better things than this," I answered.

He took a seat and mused for a moment. "For larger things, you
mean," was his reply. "Perhaps--perhaps. I have one gift of the
strong man--I am inexorable when I make for my end. As a general,
I would pour men into the maw of death as corn into the hopper,
if that would build a bridge to my end. You call to mind how those
Spaniards conquered the Mexique city which was all canals like
Venice? They filled the waterways with shattered houses and the
bodies of their enemies, as they fought their way to Montezuma's
palace. So I would know not pity if I had a great cause. In anything
vital I would have success at all cost, and to get, destroy as I
went--if I were a great man."

I thought for a moment with horror of his pursuit of my dear
Alixe. "I am your hunter," had been his words to her, and I knew
not what had happened in all these months.

"If you were a great man, you should have the best prerogative
of greatness," I remarked quietly.

"And what is that? Some excellent moral, I doubt not," was the
rejoinder.

"Mercy," I replied.

"Tush!" he retorted, "mercy is for the fireside, not for the
throne. In great causes, what is a screw of tyranny here, a bolt of
oppression there, or a few thousand lives!" He suddenly got to his
feet, and, looking into the distance, made a swift motion of his
hand, his eyes half closed, his brows brooding and firm. "I should
look beyond the moment, the year, or the generation. Why fret
because the hour of death comes sooner than we looked for? In the
movement of the ponderous car, some honest folk must be crushed
by the wicked wheels. No, no, in large affairs there must be no
thought of the detail of misery, else what should be done in the
world! He who is the strongest shall survive, and he alone. It is
all conflict--all. For when conflict ceases, and those who could
and should be great spend their time chasing butterflies among the
fountains, there comes miasma and their doom. Mercy? Mercy? No, no:
for none but the poor and sick and overridden, in time of peace; in
time of war, mercy for none, pity nowhere, till the joybells ring
the great man home."

"But mercy to women always," said I, "in war or peace."

He withdrew his eyes as if from a distant prospect, and they
dropped to the stove, where I had corn parching. He nodded, as if
amused, but did not answer at once, and taking from my hand the
feather with which I stirred the corn, softly whisked some off for
himself, and smiled at the remaining kernels as they danced upon
the hot iron. After a little while he said, "Women? Women should
have all that men can give them. Beautiful things should adorn
them; no man should set his hand in cruelty on a woman--after she
is his. Before--before? Woman is wilful, and sometimes we wring
her heart that we may afterwards comfort it."

"Your views have somewhat changed," I answered. "I mind when you
talked less sweetly."

He shrugged a shoulder. "That man is lost who keeps one mind
concerning woman. I will trust the chastity of no woman, yet I will
trust her virtue--if I have her heart. They a foolish tribe, and
all are vulnerable in their vanity. They of consequence to man, of
no consequence in state matters. When they meddle there, we have La
Pompadour and war with England, and Captain Moray in the Bastile of
New France."

"You come from a court, monsieur, which believes in nothing, not
even in itself."

"I come from a court," he rejoined, "which has made a gospel of
artifice, of frivolity a creed; buying the toys for folly with the
savings of the poor. His most Christian Majesty has set the fashion
of continual silliness and universal love. He begets children in
the peasant's oven and in the chamber of Charlemagne alike. And we
are all good subjects of the King. We are brilliant, exquisite,
brave, and naughty; and for us there is no to-morrow."

"Nor for France," I suggested.

He laughed, as he rolled a kernel of parched corn on his tongue.
"Tut, tut! that is another thing. We the fashion of an hour, but
France is a fact as stubborn as the natures of you English; for
beyond stubbornness and your Shakespeare you have little. Down
among the moles, in the peasants' huts, the spirit of France never
changes--it is always the same; it is for all time. You English,
nor all others, you can not blow out that candle which is the spirit
of France. I remember of the Abbe Bobon preaching once upon the
words, 'The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord'; well, the
spirit of France is the candle of Europe, and you English will be
its screen against the blowing out, though in spasms of stupidity
you flaunt the extinguisher. You--you have no imagination, no
passion, no temperament, no poetry. Yet I am wrong. The one thing
you have--"

He broke off, nodding his head in amusement. "Yes, you have, but
it is a secret. You English are the true lovers, we French the true
poets; and I will tell you why. You are a race of comrades, the
French of gentlemen; you cleave to a thing, we to an idea; you love
a woman best when she is near, we when she is away; you make a
romance of marriage, we of intrigue; you feed upon yourselves, we
upon the world; you have fever in your blood, we in our brains; you
believe the world was made in seven days, we have no God; you would
fight for the seven days, we would fight for the danseuse on a
bonbon box. The world will say 'fie!' at us and love us; it will
respect you and hate you. That is the law and the gospel," he
added, smiling.

"Perfect respect casteth out love" said I ironically.

He waved his fingers in approval. "By the Lord, but you are pungent
now and then!" he answered; "cabined here you are less material. By
the time you are chastened unto heaven you will be too companionable
to lose."

"When is that hour of completed chastening?" I asked.

"Never," he said, "if you will oblige me with those
letters."

"For a man of genius you discern but slowly," retorted I.

"Discern your amazing stubbornness?" he asked. "Why should you
play at martyr, when your talent is commercial? You have no gifts
for martyrdom but wooden tenacity. Pshaw! the leech has that.
You mistake your calling."

"And you yours," I answered. "This is a poor game you play, and
losing it you lose all. La Pompadour will pay according to the
goods you bring."

He answered with an amusing candour: "Why, yes, you are partly in
the right. But when La Pompadour and I come to our final reckoning,
when it is a question who can topple ruins round the King quickest,
his mistress or his 'cousin,' there will be tales to tell."

He got up, and walked to and fro in the cell, musing, and his
face grew dark and darker. "Your Monmouth was a fool," he said.
"He struck from the boundaries; the blow should fall in the very
chambers of the King." He put a finger musingly upon his lip. "I
see--I see how it could be done. Full of danger, but brilliant,
brilliant and bold! Yes, yes...yes!" Then all at once he seemed to
come out of a dream, and laughed ironically. "There it is," he
said; "there is my case. I have the idea, but I will not strike; it
is not worth the doing unless I am driven to it. We are brave
enough, we idlers," he went on; "we die with an air--all artifice,
artifice! ... Yet of late I have had dreams. Now that is not well.
It is foolish to dream, and I had long since ceased to do so. But
somehow all the mad fancies of my youth come back. This dream will
go, it will not last; it is--my fate, my doom," he added lightly,
"or what you will!"

I knew, alas, too well where his thoughts were hanging, and I
loathed him anew; for, as he hinted, his was a passion, not a deep
abiding love. His will was not stronger than the general turpitude
of his nature. As if he had divined my thought, he said, "My
will is stronger than any passion that I have; I can never plead
weakness in the day of my judgment. I am deliberate. When I choose
evil it is because I love it. I could be an anchorite; I am, as I
said--what you will."

"You are a conscienceless villain, monsieur."

"Who salves not his soul," he added, with a dry smile, "who will
play his game out as he began; who repents nor ever will repent of
anything; who for him and you some interesting moments yet. Let me
make one now," and he drew from his pocket a packet. He smiled
hatefully as he handed it to me, and said, "Some books which
monsieur once lent Mademoiselle Duvarney--poems, I believe.
Mademoiselle found them yesterday, and desired me to fetch them
to you; and I obliged her. I had the pleasure of glancing through
the books before she rolled them up. She bade me say that monsieur
might find them useful in his captivity. She has a tender
heart--even to the worst of criminals."

I felt a strange churning in my throat, but with composure I
took the books, and said, "Mademoiselle Duvarney chooses
distinguished messengers."

"It is a distinction to aid her in her charities," he replied.

I could not at all conceive what was meant. The packet hung in
my hands like lead. There was a mystery I could not solve. I would
not for an instant think what he meant to convey by a look--that
her choice of him to carry back my gift to her was a final repulse
of past advances I had made to her, a corrective to my romantic
memories. I would not believe that, not for one fleeting second.
Perhaps, I said to myself, it was a ruse of this scoundrel. But
again, I put that from me, for I did not think he would stoop to
little meannesses, no matter how vile he was in great things. I
assumed indifference to the matter, laying the packet down upon my
couch, and saying to him, "You will convey my thanks to Mademoiselle
Duvarney for these books, whose chief value lies in the honourable
housing they have had."

He smiled provokingly; no doubt he was thinking that my studied
compliment smelt of the oil of solitude. "And add--shall I--your
compliments that they should have their airing at the hands of
Monsieur Doltaire?"

"I shall pay those compliments to Monsieur Doltaire himself one
day," I replied.

He waved his fingers. "The sentiments of one of the poems were
commendable, fanciful. I remember it"--he put a finger to his
lip--"let me see." He stepped towards the packet, but I made a sign
of interference--how grateful was I of this afterwards!--and he drew
back courteously. "Ah well," he said, "I have a fair memory; I can,
I think, recall the morsel. It impressed me. I could not think the
author an Englishman. It runs thus," and with admirable grace he
recited the words:

  "O flower of all the world, O flower of all!
    The garden where thou dwellest is so fair,
  Thou art so goodly and so queenly tall,
    Thy sweetness scatters sweetness everywhere,
        O flower of all!

  "O flower of all the years, O flower of all!
    A day beside thee is a day of days;
  Thy voice is softer than the throstle's call,
    There is not song enough to sing thy praise,
        O flower of all!

  "O flower of all the years, O flower of all!
    I seek thee in thy garden, and I dare
  To love thee; and though my deserts be small,
    Thou art the only flower I would wear,
        O flower of all!"

"Now that," he said, "is the romantic, almost the Arcadian
spirit. We have lost it, but it lingers like some rare scent in the
folds of lace. It is also but artifice, yet so is the lingering
perfume. When it hung in the flower it was lost after a day's life,
but when gathered and distilled into an essence it becomes, through
artifice, an abiding sweetness. So with your song there. It is the
spirit of devotion, gathered, it may be, from a thousand flowers,
and made into an essence, which is offered to one only. It is not
the worship of this one, but the worship of a thousand distilled at
last to one delicate liturgy. So much for sentiment," he continued.
"Upon my soul, Captain Moray, you are a boon. I love to have you
caged. I shall watch your distressed career to its close with deep
scrutiny. You and I are wholly different, but you are interesting.
You never could be great. Pardon the egotism, but it is truth. Your
brain works heavily, you are too tenacious of your conscience, you
are a blunderer. You will always sow, and others will reap."

I waved my hand in deprecation, for I was in no mood for further
talk, and I made no answer. He smiled at me, and said, "Well, since
you doubt my theories, let us come, as your Shakespeare says, to
Hecuba.... If you will come with me," he added, as he opened my
cell door, and motioned me courteously to go outside. I drew back,
and he said, "There is no need to hesitate; I go to show you merely
what will interest you."

We passed in silence through the corridors, two sentinels
attending, and at last came into a large square room, wherein stood
three men with hands tied over their heads against the wall, their
faces twitching with pain. I drew back in astonishment, for there,
standing before them, were Gabord and another soldier. Doltaire
ordered from the room the soldier with Gabord, and my two sentinels,
and motioned me to one of two chairs set in the middle of the floor.

Presently his face became hard and cruel, and he said to the
tortured prisoners, "You will need to speak the truth, and
promptly. I have an order to do with you what I will, and I will
do it without pause. Hear me. Three nights ago, as Mademoiselle
Duvarney was returning from the house of a friend living near the
Intendance, she was set upon by you. A cloak was thrown over her
head, she was carried to a carriage, where two of you got inside
with her. Some gentlemen and myself were coming that way. We heard
the lady's cries, and two gave chase to the carriage, while one
followed the others. By the help of soldier Gabord here you all
were captured. You have hung where you are for two days, and now
I shall have you whipped. When that is done, you shall tell your
story. If you do not speak truth, you shall be whipped again, and
then hung. Ladies shall have safety from rogues like you."

Alixe's danger told in these concise words made me, I am sure,
turn pale; but Doltaire did not see it, he was engaged with the
prisoners. As I thought and wondered, four soldiers were brought
in, and the men were made ready for the lash. In vain they pleaded
they would tell their story at once. Doltaire would not listen; the
whipping first, and their story after. Soon their backs were bared,
their faces were turned to the wall, and, as Gabord with harsh
voice counted, the lashes were mercilessly laid on. There was a
horrible fascination in watching the skin corrugate under the
lashes, rippling away in red and purple blotches, the grooves in
the flesh crossing and recrossing, the raw misery spreading from
the hips to the shoulders. Now and again Doltaire drew out a box
and took a pinch of snuff, and once, coolly and curiously, he
walked up to the most stalwart prisoner and felt his pulse, then
to the weakest, whose limbs and body had stiffened as though dead.
"Ninety-seven! Ninety-eight! Ninety-nine!" growled Gabord, and
then came Doltaire's voice:

"Stop! Now fetch some brandy."

The prisoners were loosened, and Doltaire spoke sharply to a
soldier who was roughly pulling one man's shirt over the excoriated
back. Brandy was given by Gabord, and the prisoners stood, a most
pitiful sight, the weakest livid.

"Now tell your story," said Doltaire to this last.

The man, with broken voice and breath catching, said that they
had erred. They had been hired to kidnap Madame Cournal, not
Mademoiselle Duvarney.

Doltaire's eyes flashed. "I see, I see," he said aside to me.
"The wretch speaks truth."

"Who was your master?" he asked of the sturdiest of the
villains; and he was told that Monsieur Cournal had engaged them.
To the question what was to be done with Madame Cournal, another
answered that she was to be waylaid as she was coming from the
Intendance, kidnapped, and hurried to a nunnery to be imprisoned
for life.

Doltaire sat for a moment, looking at the men in silence. "You
are not to hang," he said at last; "but ten days hence, when you
have had one hundred lashes more, you shall go free. Fifty for
you," he continued to the weakest who had first told the story.

"Not fifty nor one!" was the shrill reply, and, being unbound,
the prisoner snatched something from a bench near; there was a
flash of steel, and he came huddling in a heap on the floor,
muttering a malediction on the world.

"There was some bravery in that," said Doltaire, looking at the
dead man. "If he has friends, hand over the body to them. This
matter must not be spoken of--at your peril," he added sternly.
"Give them food and brandy."

Then he accompanied me to my cell, and opened the door. I passed
in, and he was about going without a word, when on a sudden his old
nonchalance came back, and he said:

"I promised you a matter of interest. You have had it. Gather
philosophy from this: you may with impunity buy anything from a
knave and fool except his nuptial bed. He throws the money in your
face some day."

So saying he plunged in thought again, and left me.



XVI

BE SAINT OR IMP


Immediately I opened the packet. As Doltaire had said, the two books
of poems I had lent Alixe were there, and between the pages of one
lay a letter addressed to me. It was, indeed, a daring thing to make
Doltaire her messenger. But she trusted to his habits of courtesy;
he had no small meannesses--he was no spy or thief.

DEAR ROBERT (the letter ran): I know not if this will ever reach
you, for I am about to try a perilous thing, even to make Monsieur
Doltaire my letter-carrier. Bold as it is, I hope to bring it
through safely.

You must know that my mother now makes Monsieur Doltaire welcome to
our home, for his great talents and persuasion have so worked upon
her that she believes him not so black as he is painted. My father,
too, is not unmoved by his amazing address and complaisance. I do
not think he often cares to use his arts--he is too indolent; but
with my father, my mother, and my sister he has set in motion all
his resources.

Robert, all Versailles is here. This Monsieur Doltaire speaks for
it. I know not if all courts in the world are the same, but if so,
I am at heart no courtier; though I love the sparkle, the sharp
play of wit and word, the very touch-and-go of weapons. I am in
love with life, and I wish to live to be old, very old, that I will
have known it all, from helplessness to helplessness again, missing
nothing, even though much be sad to feel and bear. Robert, I should
have gone on many years, seeing little, knowing little, I think, if
it had not been for you and for your troubles, which are mine, and
for this love of ours, builded in the midst of sorrows. Georgette
is now as old as when I first came to love you, and you were thrown
into the citadel, and yet in feeling and experience, I am ten years
older than she; and necessity has made me wiser. Ah, if necessity
would but make me happy too, by giving you your liberty, that on
these many miseries endured we might set up a sure home. I wonder
if you think--if you think of that: a little home away from all
these wars, aloof from vexing things.

But there! all too plainly I am showing you my heart. Yet it is
so great a comfort to speak on paper to you, in this silence here.
Can you guess where is that HERE, Robert? It is not the Chateau
St. Louis--no. It is not the Manor. It is the chateau, dear Chateau
Alixe--my father has called it that--on the Island of Orleans.
Three days ago I was sick at heart, tired of all the junketings
and feastings, and I begged my mother to fetch me here, though it
is yet but early spring, and snow is on the ground.

First, you must know that this new chateau is built upon, and is
joined to, the ruins of an old one, owned long years ago by the
Baron of Beaugard, whose strange history you must learn some day,
out of the papers we have found here. I begged my father not to
tear the old portions of the manor down, but, using the first
foundations, put up a house half castle and half manor. Pictures
of the old manor were found, and so we have a place that is no
patchwork, but a renewal. I made my father give me the old
surviving part of the building for my own, and so it is.

It is all set on high ground abutting on the water almost at the
point where I am, and I have the river in my sight all day. Now,
think yourself in the new building. You come out of a dining-hall,
hung all about with horns and weapons and shields and such bravery,
go through a dark, narrow passage, and then down a step or two.
You open a door, bright light breaks on your eyes, then two steps
lower, and you are here with me. You might have gone outside the
dining-hall upon a stone terrace, and so have come along to the
deep window where I sit so often. You may think of me hiding in the
curtains, watching you, though you knew it not till you touched the
window and I came out quietly, startling you, so that your heart
would beat beyond counting.

As I look up towards the window, the thing first in sight is the
cage, with the little bird which came to me in the cathedral the
morning my brother got lease of life again: you DO remember--is it
not so? It never goes from my room, and though I have come here
but for a week I muffled the cage well and brought it over; and
there the bird swings and sings the long day through. I have heaped
the window-seats with soft furs, and one of these I prize most
rarely. It was a gift--and whose, think you? Even a poor soldier's.
You see I have not all friends among the great folk. I often lie
upon that soft robe of sable--ay, sable, Master Robert--and think
of him who gave it to me. Now I know you are jealous, and I can see
your eyes flash up. But you shall at once be soothed. It is no other
than Gabord's gift. He is now of the Governor's body-guard, and
I think is by no means happy, and would prefer service with the
Marquis de Montcalm, who goes not comfortably with the Intendant
and the Governor.

One day Gabord came to our house on the ramparts, and, asking
for me, blundered out, "Aho, what shall a soldier do with sables?
They are for gentles and for wrens to snuggle in. Here comes a
Russian count oversea, and goes mad in tavern. Here comes Gabord,
and saves count from ruddy crest for kissing the wrong wench. Then
count falls on Gabord's neck, and kisses both his ears, and gives
him sables, and crosses oversea again; and so good-bye to count and
his foolery. And sables shall be ma'm'selle's, if she will have
them." He might have sold the thing for many louis, and yet he
brought it to me; and he would not go till he had seen me sitting
on it, muffling my hands and face in the soft fur.

Just now, as I am writing, I glance at the table where I sit--a
small brown table of oak, carved with the name of Felise,
Baroness of Beaugard. She sat here; and some day, when you hear
her story, you will know why I begged Madame Lotbiniere to give
it to me in exchange for another, once the King's. Carved, too,
beneath her name, are the words, "Oh, tarry thou the Lord's
leisure."

And now you shall laugh with me at a droll thing Georgette has
given me to wipe my pen upon. There are three little circles of
deerskin and one of ruby velvet, stitched together in the centre.
Then, standing on the velvet is a yellow wooden chick, with little
eyes of beads, and a little wooden bill stuck in most quaintly,
and a head that twists like a weathercock. It has such a piquant
silliness of look that I laugh at it most heartily, and I have an
almost elfish fun in smearing its downy feathers. I am sure you
did not think I could be amused so easily. You shall see this silly
chick one day, humorously ugly and all daubed with ink.

There is a low couch in one corner of the room, and just above
hangs a picture of my mother. In another corner is a little shelf
of books, among them two which I have studied constantly since you
were put in prison--your great Shakespeare, and the writings of one
Mr. Addison. I had few means of studying at first, so difficult
it seemed, and all the words sounded hard; but there is your
countryman, one Lieutenant Stevens of Rogers' Rangers, a prisoner,
and he has helped me, and is ready to help you when the time comes
for stirring. I teach him French; and though I do not talk of you,
he tells me in what esteem you are held in Virginia and in England,
and is not slow to praise you on his own account, which makes me
more forgiving when he would come to sentiment!

In another corner is my spinning-wheel, and there stands a
harpsichord, just where the soft sun sends in a ribbon of light;
and I will presently play for you a pretty song. I wonder if you
can hear it? Where I shall sit at the harpsichord the belt of
sunlight will fall across my shoulder, and, looking through the
window, I shall see your prison there on the Heights; the silver
flag with its gold lilies on the Chateau St. Louis; the great
guns of the citadel; and far off at Beauport the Manor House and
garden which you and I know so well, and the Falls of Montmorenci,
falling like white flowing hair from the tall cliff.

You will care to know of how these months have been spent, and
what news of note there is of the fighting between our countries.
No matters of great consequence have come to our ears, save that
it is thought your navy may descend on Louisburg; that Ticonderoga
is also to be set upon, and Quebec to be besieged in the coming
summer. From France the news is various. Now, Frederick of Prussia
and England defeat the allies, France, Russia, and Austria; now,
they, as Monsieur Doltaire says, "send the great Prussian to
verses and the megrims." For my own part, I am ever glad to hear
that our cause is victorious, and letters that my brother writes
me rouse all my ardour for my country. Juste has grown in place
and favour, and in his latest letter he says that Monsieur
Doltaire's voice has got him much advancement. He also remarks
that Monsieur Doltaire has reputation for being one of the most
reckless, clever, and cynical men in France. Things that he has
said are quoted at ball and rout. Yet the King is angry with him,
and La Pompadour's caprice may send him again to the Bastile.
These things Juste heard from D'Argenson, Minister of War, through
his secretary, with whom he is friendly.

I will now do what I never thought to do: I will send you here
some extracts from my journal, which will disclose to you the
secrets of a girl's troubled heart. Some folk might say that I am
unmaidenly in this. But I care not, I fear not.


December 24. I was with Robert to-day. I let him see what trials I
had had with Monsieur Doltaire, and what were like to come. It hurt
me to tell him, yet it would have hurt me more to withhold them. I
am hurt whichever way it goes. Monsieur Doltaire rouses the worst
parts of me. On the one hand I detest him for his hatred of Robert
and for his evil life, yet on the other I must needs admire him for
his many graces--why are not the graces of the wicked horrible?--for
his singular abilities, and because, gamester though he may be, he
is no public robber. Then, too, the melancholy of his birth and
history claims some sympathy. Sometimes when I listen to him speak,
hear the almost piquant sadness of his words, watch the spirit of
isolation which, by design or otherwise, shows in him, for the
moment I am conscious of a pity or an interest which I flout in
wiser hours. This is his art, the potent danger of his personality.

To-night he came, and with many fine phrases wished us a happy
day to-morrow, and most deftly worked upon my mother and Georgette
by looking round and speaking with a quaint sort of raillery--half
pensive, it was--of the peace of this home-life of ours; and indeed,
he did it so inimitably that I was not sure how much was false
and how much true. I tried to avoid him to-day, but my mother as
constantly made private speech between us easy. At last he had
his way, and then I was not sorry; for Georgette was listening to
him with more colour than she is wont to wear. I would rather see
her in her grave than with her hand in his, her sweet life in his
power. She is unschooled in the ways of the world, and she never
will know it as I now do. How am I sounding all the depths! Can a
woman walk the dance with evil, and be no worse for it by-and-bye?
Yet for a cause, for a cause! What can I do? I can not say,
"Monsieur Doltaire, you must not speak with me, or talk with me;
you are a plague-spot." No, I must even follow this path, so it
but lead at last to Robert and his safety.

Monsieur, having me alone at last, said to me, "I have kept my
word as to the little boast: this Captain Moray still lives."

"You are not greater than I thought," said I.

He professed to see but one meaning in my words, and answered,
"It was then mere whim to see me do this thing, a lady's curious
mind, eh? My faith, I think your sex are the true scientists:
you try experiment for no other reason than to see effect."

"You forget my deep interest in Captain Moray," said I, with airy
boldness.

He laughed. He was disarmed. How could he think I meant it! "My
imagination halts," he rejoined. "Millennium comes when you are
interested. And yet," he continued, "it is my one ambition to
interest you, and I will do it, or I will say my prayers no more."

  "But how can that be done no more,
  Which ne'er was done before?"

I retorted, railing at him, for I feared to take him seriously.

"There you wrong me," he said. "I am devout; I am a lover of the
Scriptures--their beauty haunts me; I go to mass--its dignity
affects me; and I have prayed, as in my youth I wrote verses. It
is not a matter of morality, but of temperament. A man may be
religious and yet be evil. Satan fell, but he believed and he
admired, as the English Milton wisely shows it."

I was most glad that my father came between us at that moment;
but before Monsieur left, he said to me, "You have challenged
me. Beware: I have begun this chase. Yet I would rather be your
follower, rather have your arrow in me, than be your hunter." He
said it with a sort of warmth, which I knew was a glow in his
senses merely; he was heated with his own eloquence.

"Wait," returned I. "You have heard the story of King Artus?"

He thought a moment. "No, no. I never was a child as other
children. I was always comrade to the imps."

"King Artus," said I, "was most fond of hunting." (It is but a
legend with its moral, as you know.) "It was forbidden by the
priests to hunt while mass was being said. One day, at the lifting
of the host, the King, hearing a hound bay, rushed out, and
gathered his pack together; but as they went, a whirlwind caught
them up into the air, where they continue to this day, following
a lonely trail, never resting, and all the game they get is one
fly every seventh year. And now, when all on a sudden at night you
hear the trees and leaves and the sleepy birds and crickets stir,
it is the old King hunting--for the fox he never gets."

Monsieur looked at me with curious intentness. "You have a great
gift," he said; "you make your point by allusion. I follow you.
But see: when I am blown into the air I shall not ride alone.
Happiness is the fox we ride to cover, you and I, though we find
but a firefly in the end."

"A poor reply," I remarked easily; "not worthy of you."

"As worthy as I am of you," he rejoined; then he kissed my hand.
"I will see you at mass to-morrow."

Unconsciously, I rubbed the hand he kissed with my handkerchief.

"I am not to be provoked," he said. "It is much to have you treat
my kiss with consequence."


March 25. No news of Robert all this month. Gabord has been away
in Montreal. I see Voban only now and then, and he is strange in
manner, and can do nothing. Mathilde is better--so still and
desolate, yet not wild; but her memory is all gone, all save for
that "Francois Bigot is a devil." My father has taken anew a
strong dislike to Monsieur Doltaire, because of talk that is
abroad concerning him and Madame Cournal. I once thought she was
much sinned against, but now I am sure she is not to be defended.
She is most defiant, though people dare not shut their doors
against her. A change seemed to come over her all at once,
and over her husband also. He is now gloomy and taciturn, now
foolishly gay, yet he is little seen with the Intendant, as
before. However it be, Monsieur Doltaire and Bigot are no longer
intimate. What should I care for that, if Monsieur Doltaire had no
power, if he were not the door between Robert and me? What care I,
indeed, how vile he is, so he but serve my purpose? Let him try my
heart and soul and senses as he will; I will one day purify myself
of his presence and all this soiling, and find my peace in Robert's
arms--or in the quiet of a nunnery.

This morning I got up at sunrise, it being the Annunciation of
the Virgin, and prepared to go to mass in the chapel of the
Ursulines. How peaceful was the world! So still, so still. The
smoke came curling up here and there through the sweet air of
spring, a snowbird tripped along the white coverlet of the earth,
and before a Calvary, I saw a peasant kneel and say an Ave as he
went to market. There was springtime in the sun, in the smell of
the air; springtime everywhere but in my heart, which was all
winter. I seemed alone--alone--alone. I felt the tears start. But
that was for a moment only, I am glad to say, for I got my courage
again, as I did the night before when Monsieur Doltaire placed his
arm at my waist, and poured into my ears a torrent of protestations.

I did not move at first. But I could feel my cheeks go to stone,
and something clamp my heart. Yet had ever man such hateful
eloquence! There is that in him--oh, shame! oh, shame!--which goes
far with a woman. He has the music of passion, and though it is
lower than love, it is the poetry of the senses. I spoke to him
calmly, I think, begging him place his merits where they would have
better entertainment; but I said hard, cold things at last, when
other means availed not; which presently made him turn upon me in
another fashion.

His words dropped slowly, with a consummate carefulness, his
manner was pointedly courteous, yet there was an underpressure of
force, of will, which made me see the danger of my position. He
said that I was quite right; that he would wish no privilege of a
woman which was not given with a frank eagerness; that to him no
woman was worth the having who did not throw her whole nature into
the giving. Constancy--that was another matter. But a perfect gift
while there was giving at all--that was the way.

"There is something behind all this," he said. "I am not so
vain as to think any merits of mine would influence you. But my
devotion, my admiration of you, the very force of my passion,
should move you. Be you ever so set against me--and I do not
think you are--you should not be so strong to resist the shock of
feeling. I do not know the cause, but I will find it out; and when
I do, I shall remove it or be myself removed." He touched my arm
with his fingers. "When I touch you like that," he said, "summer
riots in my veins. I will not think that this which rouses me so
is but power upon one side, and effect upon the other. Something
in you called me to you, something in me will wake you yet. Mon
Dieu, I could wait a score of years for my touch to thrill you
as yours does me! And I will--I will."

"You think it suits your honour to force my affections?" I asked;
for I dared not say all I wished.

"What is there in this reflecting on my honour?" he answered.
"At Versailles, believe me, they would say I strive here for a
canonizing. No, no; think me so gallant that I follow you to serve
you, to convince you that the way I go is the way your hopes will
lie. Honour? To fetch you to the point where you and I should
start together on the Appian Way, I would traffic with that, even,
and say I did so, and would do so a thousand times, if in the end
it put your hand in mine. Who, who can give you what I offer, can
offer? See: I have given myself to a hundred women in my time--but
what of me? That which was a candle in a wind, and the light went
out. There was no depth, no life, in that; only the shadow of a
man was there those hundred times. But here, now, the whole man
plunges into this sea, and he will reach the lighthouse on the
shore, or be broken on the reefs. Look in my eyes, and see the
furnace there, and tell me if you think that fire is for cool
corners in the gardens at Neuilly or for the Hills of--" He suddenly
broke off, and a singular smile followed. "There, there," he said,
"I have said enough. It came to me all at once how droll my speech
would sound to our people at Versailles. It is an elaborate irony
that the occasional virtues of certain men turn and mock them. That
is the penalty of being inconsistent. Be saint or imp; it is the
only way. But this imp that mocks me relieves you of reply. Yet I
have spoken truth, and again and again I will tell it you, till
you believe according to my gospel."

How glad I was that he himself lightened the situation! I had been
driven to despair, but this strange twist in his mood made all
smooth for me. "That 'again and again' sounds dreary," said I. "It
might almost appear I must sometime accept your gospel, to cure you
of preaching it, and save me from eternal drowsiness."

We were then most fortunately interrupted. He made his adieus,
and I went to my room, brooded till my head ached, then fell
a-weeping, and wished myself out of the world, I was so sick and
weary. Now and again a hot shudder of shame and misery ran through
me, as I thought of monsieur's words to me. Put them how he would,
they sound an insult now, though as he spoke I felt the power of
his passion. "If you had lived a thousand years ago, you would
have loved a thousand times," he said to me one day. Sometimes I
think he spoke truly; I have a nature that responds to all
eloquence in life.


Robert, I have bared my heart to thee. I have hidden nothing. In
a few days I shall go back to the city with my mother, and when I
can I will send news; and do thou send me news also, if thou canst
devise a safe way. Meanwhile, I have written my brother Juste to
be magnanimous, and to try for thy freedom. He will not betray me,
and he may help us. I have begged him to write to thee a letter
of reconcilement.

And now, comrade of my heart, do thou have courage. I also shall
be strong as I am ardent. Having written thee, I am cheerful once
more; and when again I may, I will open the doors of my heart that
thou mayst come in. That heart is thine, Robert. Thy

ALIXE,

who loves thee all her days.

P.S.--I have found the names and places of the men who keep the
guard beneath thy window. If there is chance for freedom that way,
fix the day some time ahead, and I will see what may be done.
Voban fears nothing; he will act secretly for me.

The next day I arranged for my escape, which had been long in
planning.



XVII

THROUGH THE BARS OF THE CAGE


I should have tried escape earlier but that it was little use to
venture forth in the harsh winter in a hostile country. But now
April had come, and I was keen to make a trial of my fortune. I
had been saving food for a long time, little by little, and hiding
it in the old knapsack which had held my second suit of clothes. I
had used the little stove for parching my food--Indian corn, for
which I had professed a fondness to my jailer, and liberally paid
for out of funds which had been sent me by Mr. George Washington
in answer to my letter, and other moneys to a goodly amount in a
letter from Governor Dinwiddie. These letters had been carefully
written, and the Marquis de Vaudreuil, into whose hands they had
first come, was gallant enough not to withhold them--though he
read them first.

Besides Indian corn, the parching of which amused me, I had dried
ham and tongue, and bread and cheese, enough, by frugal use, to
last me a month at least. I knew it would be a journey of six weeks
or more to the nearest English settlement, but if I could get that
month's start I should forage for the rest, or take my fate as I
found it: I was used to all the turns of fortune now. My knapsack
gradually filled, and meanwhile I slowly worked my passage into the
open world. There was the chance that my jailer would explore the
knapsack; but after a time I lost that fear, for it lay untouched
with a blanket in a corner, and I cared for my cell with my own
hands.

The true point of danger was the window. There lay my way. It
was stoutly barred with iron up and down, and the bars were set in
the solid limestone. Soon after I entered this prison, I saw that
I must cut a groove in the stone from stanchion to stanchion, and
then, by drawing one to the other, make an opening large enough to
let my body through. For tools I had only a miserable knife with
which I cut my victuals, and the smaller but stouter one which
Gabord had not taken from me. There could be no pounding, no
chiselling, but only rubbing of the hard stone. So hour after
hour I rubbed away, in constant danger of discovery however. My
jailer had a trick of sudden entrance, which would have been
grotesque if it had not been so serious to me. To provide against
the flurried inquisition of his eye, I kept near me bread well
chewed, with which I filled the hole, covering it with the sand
I had rubbed or the ashes of my pipe. I lived in dread of these
entrances, but at last I found that they chanced only within
certain hours, and I arranged my times of work accordingly. Once
or twice, however, being impatient, I scratched the stone with
some asperity and noise, and was rewarded by hearing my fellow
stumbling in the hall; for he had as uncertain limbs as ever I
saw. He stumbled upon nothing, as you have seen a child trip
itself up by tangling of its feet.

The first time that he came, roused by the grating noise as he
sat below, he stumbled in the very centre of the cell, and fell
upon his knees. I would have laughed if I had dared, but I yawned
over the book I had hastily snatched up, and puffed great whiffs
from my pipe. I dreaded lest he should go to the window. He started
for it, but suddenly made for my couch, and dragged it away, as if
looking to find a hole dug beneath it. Still I did not laugh at him,
but gravely watched him; and presently he went away. At another
time I was foolishly harsh with my tools; but I knew now the time
required by him to come upstairs, and I swiftly filled the groove
with bread, strewed ashes and sand over it, rubbed all smooth, and
was plunged in my copy of Montaigne when he entered. This time he
went straight to the window, looked at it, tried the stanchions,
and then, with an amused attempt at being cunning and hiding his
own vigilance, he asked me, with laborious hypocrisy, if I had seen
Captain Lancy pass the window. And so for weeks and weeks we played
hide-and-seek with each other.

At last I had nothing to do but sit and wait, for the groove was
cut, the bar had room to play. I could not bend it, for it was fast
at the top; but when my hour of adventure was come, I would tie a
handkerchief round the two bars and twist it with the piece of
hickory used for stirring the fire. Here was my engine of escape,
and I waited till April should wind to its close, when I should,
in the softer weather, try my fortune outside these walls.

So time went on until one eventful day, even the 30th of April
of that year 1758. It was raining and blowing when I waked, and
it ceased not all the day, coming to a hailstorm towards night. I
felt sure that my guards without would, on such a day, relax their
vigilance. In the evening I listened, and heard no voices nor any
sound of feet, only the pelting rain and the whistling wind. Yet I
did not stir till midnight. Then I slung the knapsack in front of
me, so that I could force it through the window first, and tying
my handkerchief round the iron bars, I screwed it up with my stick.
Presently the bars came together, and my way was open. I got my
body through by dint of squeezing, and let myself go plump into
the mire below. Then I stood still a minute, and listened again.

A light was shining not far away. Drawing near, I saw that it
came from a small hut or lean-to. Looking through the cracks, I
observed my two gentlemen drowsing in the corner. I was eager for
their weapons, but I dared not make the attempt to get them, for
they were laid between their legs, the barrels resting against
their shoulders. I drew back, and for a moment paused to get my
bearings. Then I made for a corner of the yard where the wall was
lowest, and, taking a run at it, caught the top, with difficulty
scrambled up, and speedily was over and floundering in the mud. I
knew well where I was, and at once started off in a northwesterly
direction, toward the St. Charles River, making for a certain
farmhouse above the town. Yet I took care, though it was dangerous,
to travel a street in which was Voban's house. There was no light
in the street nor in his house, nor had I seen any one abroad as
I came, not even a sentinel.

I knew where was the window of the barber's bedroom, and I tapped
upon it softly. Instantly I heard a stir; then there came the
sound of flint and steel, then a light, and presently a hand at
the window, and a voice asking who was there.

I gave a quick reply; the light was put out, the window opened,
and there was Voban staring at me.

"This letter," said I, "to Mademoiselle Duvarney," and I slipped
ten louis into his hand, also.

This he quickly handed back. "M'sieu'," said he, "if I take it I
would seem to myself a traitor--no, no. But I will give the letter
to ma'm'selle."

Then he asked me in; but I would not, yet begged him, if he could,
to have a canoe at my disposal at a point below the Falls of
Montmorenci two nights hence.

"M'sieu'," said he, "I will do so if I can, but I am watched.
I would not pay a sou for my life--no. Yet I will serve you, if
there is a way."

Then I told him what I meant to do, and bade him repeat it
exactly to Alixe. This he swore to do, and I cordially grasped the
good wretch's shoulder, and thanked him with all my heart. I got
from him a weapon, also, and again I put gold louis into his hand,
and bade him keep it, for I might need his kind offices to spend it
for me. To this he consented, and I plunged into the dark again. I
had not gone far when I heard footsteps coming, and I drew aside
into the corner of a porch. A moment, then the light flashed full
upon me. I had my hand upon the hanger I had got from Voban, and I
was ready to strike if there were need, when Gabord's voice broke
on my ear, and his hand caught at the short sword by his side.

"'Tis dickey-bird, aho!" cried he. There was exultation in his eye
and voice. Here was a chance for him to prove himself against me;
he had proved himself for me more than once.

"Here was I," added he, "making for M'sieu' Voban, that he might
come and bleed a sick soldier, when who should come running but our
English captain! Come forth, aho!"

"No, Gabord," said I, "I'm bound for freedom." I stepped forth. His
sword was poised against me. I was intent to make a desperate fight.

"March on," returned he gruffly, and I could feel the iron in
his voice.

"But not with you, Gabord. My way lies towards Virginia."

I did not care to strike the first blow, and I made to go past
him. His lantern came down, and he made a catch at my shoulder.
I swung back, threw off my cloak and up my weapon.

Then we fought. My knapsack troubled me, for it was loose, and
kept shifting. Gabord made stroke after stroke, watchful, heavy,
offensive, muttering to himself as he struck and parried. There was
no hatred in his eyes, but he had the lust of fighting on him, and
he was breathing easily, and could have kept this up for hours. As
we fought I could hear a clock strike one in a house near. Then
a cock crowed. I had received two slight wounds, and I had not
touched my enemy. But I was swifter, and I came at him suddenly
with a rush, and struck for his left shoulder when I saw my chance.
I felt the steel strike the bone. As I did so, he caught my wrist
and lunged most fiercely at me, dragging me to him. The blow struck
straight at my side, but it went through the knapsack, which had
swung loose, and so saved my life; for another instant and I had
tripped him down, and he lay bleeding badly.

"Aho! 'twas a fair fight," said he. "Now get you gone. I call
for help."

"I can not leave you so, Gabord," said I. I stooped and lifted up
his head.

"Then you shall go to citadel," said he, feeling for his small
trumpet.

"No, no," I answered; "I'll go fetch Voban."

"To bleed me more!" quoth he whimsically; and I knew well he was
pleased that I did not leave him. "Nay, kick against yon door. It
is Captain Lancy's."

At that moment a window opened, and Lancy's voice was heard.
Without a word I seized the soldier's lantern and my cloak, and
made away as hard as I could go.

"I'll have a wing of you for lantern there!" roared Gabord,
swearing roundly as I ran off with it.

With all my might I hurried, and was soon outside the town, and
coming fast to the farmhouse about two miles beyond. Nearing it, I
hid the lantern beneath my cloak and made for an outhouse. The door
was not locked, and I passed in. There was a loft nearly full of
hay, and I crawled up, and dug a hole far down against the side of
the building, and climbed in, bringing with me for drink a nest of
hen's eggs which I found in a corner. The warmth of the dry hay was
comforting, and after caring for my wounds, which I found were but
scratches, I had somewhat to eat from my knapsack, drank up two
eggs, and then coiled myself for sleep. It was my purpose, if not
discovered, to stay where I was two days, and then to make for the
point below the Falls of Montmorenci where I hoped to find a canoe
of Voban's placing.

When I waked it must have been near noon, so I lay still for a
time, listening to the cheerful noise of fowls and cattle in the
yard without, and to the clacking of a hen above me. The air smelt
very sweet. I also heard my unknowing host, at whose table I had
once sat, two years before, talking with his son, who had just
come over from Quebec, bringing news of my escape, together with a
wonderful story of the fight between Gabord and myself. It had, by
his calendar, lasted some three hours, and both of us, in the end,
fought as we lay upon the ground. "But presently along comes a
cloaked figure, with horses, and he lifts m'sieu' the Englishman
upon one, and away they ride like the devil towards St. Charles
River and Beauport. Gabord was taken to the hospital, and he swore
that Englishman would not have got away if stranger had not fetched
him a crack with a pistol-butt which sent him dumb and dizzy. And
there M'sieu' Lancy sleep snug through all until the horses ride
away!"

The farmer and his son laughed heartily, with many a "By Gar!"
their sole English oath. Then came the news that six thousand
livres were offered for me, dead or living, the drums beating
far and near to tell the people so.

The farmer gave a long whistle, and in a great bustle set to
calling all his family to arm themselves and join with him in this
treasure-hunting. I am sure at least a dozen were at the task,
searching all about; nor did they neglect the loft where I lay.
But I had dug far down, drawing the hay over me as I went, so that
they must needs have been keen to smell me out. After about three
hours' poking about over all the farm, they met again outside this
building, and I could hear their gabble plainly. The smallest among
them, the piping chore-boy, he was for spitting me without mercy;
and the milking-lass would toast me with a hay-fork, that she would,
and six thousand livres should set her up forever.

In the midst of their rattling came two soldiers, who ordered them
about, and with much blustering began searching here and there,
and chucking the maids under the chins, as I could tell by their
little bursts of laughter, and the "La M'sieu's!" which trickled
through the hay.

I am sure that one such little episode saved me. For I heard a
soldier just above me poking and tossing hay with uncomfortable
vigour. But presently the amorous hunter turned his thoughts
elsewhere, and I was left to myself, and to a late breakfast of
parched beans and bread and raw eggs, after which I lay and
thought; and the sum of the thinking was that I would stay where
I was till the first wave of the hunt had passed.

Near midnight of the second day I came out secretly from my
lurking-place, and faced straight for the St. Charles River.
Finding it at high water, I plunged in, with my knapsack and cloak
on my head, and made my way across, reaching the opposite shore
safely. After going two miles or so, I discovered friendly covert
in the woods, where, in spite of my cloak and dry cedar boughs
wrapped round, I shivered as I lay until the morning. When the sun
came up, I drew out, that it might dry me; after which I crawled
back into my nest and fell into a broken sleep. Many times during
the day I heard the horns of my hunters, and more than once voices
near me. But I had crawled into the hollow of a half-uprooted stump,
and the cedar branches, which had been cut off a day or two before,
were a screen. I could see soldiers here and there, armed and
swaggering, and faces of peasants and shopkeepers whom I knew.

A function was being made of my escape; it was a hunting-feast,
in which women were as eager as their husbands and their brothers.
There was something devilish in it, when I came to think of it: a
whole town roused and abroad to hunt down one poor fugitive, whose
only sin was, in themselves, a virtue--loyalty to his country. I
saw women armed with sickles and iron forks, and lads bearing axes
and hickory poles cut to a point like a spear, while blunderbusses
were in plenty. Now and again a weapon was fired, and, to watch
their motions and peepings, it might have been thought I was a
dragon, or that they all were hunting La Jongleuse, their fabled
witch, whose villainies, are they not told at every fireside?

Often I shivered violently, and anon I was burning hot; my
adventure had given me a chill and fever. Late in the evening of
this day, my hunters having drawn off with as little sense as they
had hunted me, I edged cautiously down past Beauport and on to
the Montmorenci Falls. I came along in safety, and reached a spot
near the point where Voban was to hide the boat. The highway ran
between. I looked out cautiously. I could hear and see nothing,
and so ran out and crossed the road, and pushed for the woods on
the banks of the river. I had scarcely got across when I heard
a shout, and looking round I saw three horsemen, who instantly
spurred towards me. I sprang through the underbrush and came
down roughly into a sort of quarry, spraining my ankle on a pile
of stones. I got up quickly; but my ankle hurt me sorely, and I
turned sick and dizzy. Limping a little way, I set my back against
a tree, and drew my hanger. As I did so, the three gentlemen
burst in upon me. They were General Montcalm, a gentleman of the
Governor's household, and Doltaire!

"It is no use, dear Captain," said Doltaire. "Yield up your weapon."

General Montcalm eyed me curiously, as the other gentleman
talked in low, excited tones; and presently he made a gesture
of courtesy, for he saw that I was hurt. Doltaire's face wore a
malicious smile; but when he noted how sick I was, he came and
offered me his arm, and was constant in courtesy till I was set
upon a horse; and with him and the General riding beside me I
came to my new imprisonment. They both forbore to torture me with
words, for I was suffering greatly; but they fetched me to the
Chateau St. Louis, followed by a crowd, who hooted at me. Doltaire
turned on them at last, and stopped them.

The Governor, whose petty vanity was roused, showed a foolish
fury at seeing me, and straightway ordered me to the citadel
again.

"It's useless kicking 'gainst the pricks," said Doltaire to me
cynically, as I passed out limping between two soldiers; but I did
not reply. In another half hour of most bitter journeying I found
myself in my dungeon. I sank upon the old couch of straw, untouched
since I had left it; and when the door shut upon me, desponding,
aching in all my body, now feverish and now shivering, my ankle in
great pain, I could bear up no longer, and I bowed my head and fell
a-weeping like a woman.



XVIII

THE STEEP PATH OF CONQUEST


Now I am come to a period on which I shall not dwell, nor repeat
a tale of suffering greater than that I had yet endured. All the
first night of this new imprisonment I tossed on my wretched bed
in pain and misery. A strange and surly soldier came and went,
bringing bread and water; but when I asked that a physician be sent
me, he replied, with a vile oath, that the devil should be my only
surgeon. Soon he came again, accompanied by another soldier, and
put irons on me. With what quietness I could I asked him by whose
orders this was done; but he vouchsafed no reply save that I was
to "go bound to fires of hell."

"There is no journeying there," I answered; "here is the place
itself."

Then a chain was roughly put round my injured ankle, and it gave me
such agony that I turned sick, but I kept back groaning, for I would
not have these varlets catch me quaking.

"I'll have you grilled for this one day," said I. "You are no men,
but butchers. Can you not see my ankle has been sorely hurt?"

"You are for killing," was the gruff reply, "and here's a taste
of it."

With that he drew the chain with a jerk round the hurt member,
so that it drove me to madness. I caught him by the throat and
hurled him back against the wall, and snatching a pistol from his
comrade's belt aimed it at his head. I was beside myself with pain,
and if he had been further violent I should have shot him. His
fellow dared not stir in his defence, for the pistol was trained
on him too surely; and so at last the wretch, promising better
treatment, crawled to his feet, and made motion for the pistol to
be given him. But I would not yield it, telling him it should be
a guarantee of truce. Presently the door closed behind them, and I
sank back upon the half-fettered chains.

I must have sat for more than an hour, when there was a noise
without, and there entered the Commandant, the Marquis de Montcalm,
and the Seigneur Duvarney. The pistol was in my hand, and I did not
put it down, but struggled to my feet, and waited for them to speak.

For a moment there was silence, and then the Commandant said,
"Your guards have brought me word, Monsieur le Capitaine, that you
are violent. You have resisted them, and have threatened them with
their own pistols."

"With one pistol, monsieur le commandant," answered I. Then, in
bitter words, I told them of my treatment by those rascals, and
I showed them how my ankle had been tortured. "I have no fear of
death," said I, "but I will not lie and let dogs bite me with
'I thank you.' Death can come but once, it is a damned brutality
to make one die a hundred and yet live--the work of Turks, not
Christians. If you want my life, why, take it and have done."

The Marquis de Montcalm whispered to the Commandant. The Seigneur
Duvarney, to whom I had not yet spoken, nor he to me, stood
leaning against the wall, gazing at me seriously and kindly.

Presently Ramesay, the Commandant, spoke, not unkindly: "It was
ordered you should wear chains, but not that you should be
maltreated. A surgeon shall be sent to you, and this chain shall
be taken from your ankle. Meanwhile, your guards shall be changed."

I held out the pistol, and he took it. "I can not hope for justice
here," said I, "but men are men, and not dogs, and I ask for human
usage till my hour comes and my country is your jailer."

The Marquis smiled, and his gay eyes sparkled. "Some find comfort
in daily bread, and some in prophecy," he rejoined. "One should
envy your spirit, Captain Moray."

"Permit me, your Excellency," replied I; "all Englishmen must envy
the spirit of the Marquis de Montcalm, though none is envious of
his cause."

He bowed gravely. "Causes are good or bad as they are ours or
our neighbours'. The lion has a good cause when it goes hunting for
its young; the deer has a good cause when it resists the lion's
leap upon its fawn."

I did not reply, for I felt a faintness coming; and at that
moment the Seigneur Duvarney came to me, and put his arm through
mine. A dizziness seized me, my head sank upon his shoulder, and
I felt myself floating away into darkness, while from a great
distance came a voice:

"It had been kinder to have ended it last year."

"He nearly killed your son, Duvarney." This was the voice of the
Marquis in a tone of surprise.

"He saved my life, Marquis," was the sorrowful reply. "I have not
paid back those forty pistoles, nor ever can, in spite of all."

"Ah, pardon me, seigneur," was the courteous rejoinder of the
General.

That was all I heard, for I had entered the land of complete
darkness. When I came to, I found that my foot had been bandaged,
there was a torch in the wall, and by my side something in a jug,
of which I drank, according to directions in a surgeon's hand on
a paper beside it.

I was easier in all my body, yet miserably sick still, and I
remained so, now shivering and now burning, a racking pain in my
chest. My couch was filled with fresh straw, but in no other wise
was my condition altered from the first time I had entered this
place. My new jailer was a man of no feeling that I could see,
yet of no violence or cruelty; one whose life was like a wheel,
doing the eternal round. He did no more nor less than his orders,
and I made no complaint nor asked any favour. No one came to me,
no message found its way.

Full three months went by in this fashion, and then, one day,
who should step into my dungeon, torch in hand, but Gabord! He
raised the light above his head, and looked down at me most
quizzically.

"Upon my soul--Gabord!" said I. "I did not kill you, then?"

"Upon your soul and upon your body, you killed not Gabord."

"And what now, quarrelsome Gabord?" I questioned cheerfully.

He shook some keys. "Back again to dickey-bird's cage. 'Look you,'
quoth Governor, 'who will guard and bait this prisoner like the man
he mauled?' 'No one,' quoth a lady who stands by Governor's chair.
And she it was who had Governor send me here--even Ma'm'selle
Duvarney. And she it was who made the Governor loose off these
chains."

He began to free me from the chains. I was in a vile condition.
The irons had made sores upon my wrists and legs, my limbs now
trembled so beneath me that I could scarcely walk, and my head was
very light and dizzy at times. Presently Gabord ordered a new bed
of straw brought in; and from that hour we returned to our old
relations, as if there had not been between us a fight to the
death. Of what was going on abroad he would not tell me, and soon
I found myself in as ill a state as before. No Voban came to me,
no Doltaire, no one at all. I sank into a deep silence, dropped
out of a busy world, a morsel of earth slowly coming to Mother
Earth again.

A strange apathy began to settle on me. All those resources of
my first year's imprisonment had gone, and I was alone: my mouse
was dead; there was no history of my life to write, no incident to
break the pitiful monotony. There seemed only one hope: that our
army under Amherst would invest Quebec and take it. I had no news
of any movement, winter again was here, and it must be five or
six months before any action could successfully be taken; for the
St. Lawrence was frozen over in winter, and if the city was to be
seized it must be from the water, with simultaneous action by land.

I knew the way, the only way, to take the city. At Sillery, west
of the town, there was a hollow in the cliffs, up which men,
secretly conveyed above the town by water, could climb. At the top
was a plateau, smooth and fine as a parade-ground, where battle
could be given, or move be made upon the city and citadel, which
lay on ground no higher. Then, with the guns playing on the town
from the fleet, and from the Levis shore with forces on the
Beauport side, attacking the lower town where was the Intendant's
palace, the great fortress might be taken, and Canada be ours.

This passage up the cliff side at Sillery I had discovered three
years before.

When winter set well in Gabord brought me a blanket, and though
last year I had not needed it, now it was most grateful. I had been
fed for months on bread and water, as in my first imprisonment, but
at last--whether by orders or not, I never knew--he brought me a
little meat every day, and some wine also. Yet I did not care for
them, and often left them untasted. A hacking cough had never left
me since my attempt at escape, and I was miserably thin, and so
weak that I could hardly drag myself about my dungeon. So, many
weeks of the winter went on, and at last I was not able to rise
from my bed of straw, and could do little more than lift a cup of
water to my lips and nibble at some bread. I felt that my hours
were numbered.

At last, one day, I heard commotion at my dungeon door; it
opened, and Gabord entered and closed it after him. He came and
stood over me, as with difficulty I lifted myself upon my elbow.

"Come, try your wings," said he.

"It is the end, Gabord?" asked I.

"Not paradise yet!" said he.

"Then I am free?" I asked.

"Free from this dungeon," he answered cheerily.

I raised myself and tried to stand upon my feet, but fell back.
He helped me to rise, and I rested an arm on his shoulder.

I tried to walk, but faintness came over me, and I sank back.
Then Gabord laid me down, went to the door, and called in two
soldiers with a mattress. I was wrapped in my cloak and blankets,
laid thereon, and so was borne forth, all covered even to my weak
eyes. I was placed in a sleigh, and as the horses sprang away,
the clear sleigh-bells rang out, and a gun from the ramparts was
fired to give the noon hour, I sank into unconsciousness.



XIX

A DANSEUSE AND THE BASTILE


Recovering, I found myself lying on a couch, in a large,
well-lighted room hung about with pictures and adorned with
trophies of the hunt. A wide window faced the foot of the bed
where I lay, and through it I could see--though the light hurt my
eyes greatly--the Levis shore, on the opposite side of the St.
Lawrence. I lay and thought, trying to discover where I was. It
came to me at last that I was in a room of the Chateau St. Louis.
Presently I heard breathing near me, and, looking over, I saw a
soldier sitting just inside the door.

Then from another corner of the room came a surgeon with some
cordial in a tumbler, and, handing it to me, he bade me drink.
He felt my pulse; then stopped and put his ear to my chest, and
listened long.

"Is there great danger?" asked I.

"The trouble would pass," said he, "if you were stronger. Your
life is worth fighting for, but it will be a struggle. That dungeon
was slow poison. You must have a barber," added he; "you are a
ghost like this."

I put my hand up, and I found my hair and beard were very long
and almost white. Held against the light, my hands seemed
transparent. "What means my coming here?" asked I.

He shook his head. "I am but a surgeon," he answered shortly,
meanwhile writing with a flourish on a piece of paper. When he had
finished, he handed the paper to the soldier, with an order. Then
he turned to go, politely bowing to me, but turned again and said,
"I would not, were I you, trouble to plan escape these months yet.
This is a comfortable prison, but it is easier coming in than going
out. Your mind and body need quiet. You have, we know, a taste for
adventure"--he smiled--"but is it wise to fight a burning powder
magazine?"

"Thank you, monsieur," said I, "I am myself laying the fuse to
that magazine. It fights for me by-and-bye."

He shrugged a shoulder. "Drink," said he, with a professional air
which almost set me laughing, "good milk and brandy, and think of
nothing but that you are a lucky man to have this sort of prison."

He bustled out in an important way, shaking his head and talking
to himself. Tapping the chest of a bulky soldier who stood outside,
he said brusquely, "Too fat, too fat; you'll come to apoplexy. Go
fight the English, lazy ruffian!"

The soldier gave a grunt, made a mocking gesture, and the door
closed on me and my attendant. This fellow would not speak at all,
and I did not urge him, but lay and watched the day decline and
night come down. I was taken to a small alcove which adjoined the
room, where I slept soundly.

Early the next morning I waked, and there was Voban sitting just
outside the alcove, looking at me. I sat up in bed and spoke to
him, and he greeted me in an absent sort of way. He was changed as
much as I; he moved as one in a dream; yet there was the ceaseless
activity of the eye, the swift, stealthy motion of the hand. He
began to attend me, and I questioned him; but he said he had orders
from mademoiselle that he was to tell nothing--that she, as soon as
she could, would visit me.

I felt at once a new spring of life. I gave him the letter I had
written, and bade him deliver it, which he promised to do; for
though there was much in it not vital now, it was a record of my
thoughts and feelings, and she would be glad of it, I knew. I
pressed Voban's hand in leaving, and he looked at me as if he
would say something; but immediately he was abstracted, and left
me like one forgetful of the world.

About three hours after this, as I lay upon the couch in the large
room, clean and well shaven, the door opened, and some one entered,
saying to my guard, "You will remain outside. I have the Governor's
order."

I knew the voice; an instant, and I saw the face shining with
expectancy, the eyes eager, yet timid, a small white hand pressed
to a pulsing breast--my one true friend, the jailer of my heart.

For a moment she was all trembling and excited, her hand softly
clutching at my shoulder, tears dripping from her eyes and falling
on my cheek, as hers lay pressed to mine; but presently she grew
calm, and her face was lifted with a smile, and, brushing back some
flying locks of hair, she said in a tone most quaint and touching
too, "Poor gentleman! poor English prisoner! poor hidden lover!
I ought not, I ought not," she added, "show my feelings thus, nor
excite you so." My hand was trembling on hers, for in truth I
was very weak. "It was my purpose," she continued, "to come most
quietly to you; but there are times when one must cry out, or the
heart will burst."

I spoke then as a man may who has been delivered from bondage
into the arms of love. She became very quiet, looking at me in her
grave, sweet way, her deep eyes shining with a sincerity.

"Honest, honest eyes," said I--"eyes that never deceive, and
never were deceived."

"All this in spite of what you do not know," she answered. For
an instant a look elfish and childlike came into her eyes, and she
drew back from me, stood in the middle of the floor, and caught
her skirts in her fingers.

"See," she said, "is there no deceit here?"

Then she began to dance softly, her feet seeming hardly to touch the
ground, her body swaying like a tall flower in the wind, her face
all light and fire. I was charmed, fascinated. I felt my sleepy
blood stirring to the delicate rise and fall of her bosom, the light
of her eyes flashing a dozen colours. There was scarce a sound her
steps could not be heard across the room.

All at once she broke off from this, and stood still.

"Did my eyes seem all honest then?" she asked, with a strange,
wistful expression. Then she came to the couch where I was.

"Robert," said she, "can you, do you trust me, even when you see
me at such witchery?"

"I trust you always," answered I. "Such witcheries are no evils
that I can see."

She put her finger upon my lips, with a kind of bashfulness.
"Hush, till I tell you where and when I danced like that, and then,
and then--"

She settled down in a low chair. "I have at least an hour," she
continued. "The Governor is busy with my father and General
Montcalm, and they will not be free for a long time. For your
soldiers, I have been bribing them to my service these weeks past,
and they are safe enough for to-day. Now I will tell you of that
dancing.

"One night last autumn there was a grand dinner at the Intendance.
Such gentlemen as my father were not asked; only the roisterers and
hard drinkers, and gambling friends of the Intendant. You would know
the sort of upspring it would be. Well, I was sitting in my window,
looking down into the garden; for the moon was shining. Presently
I saw a man appear below, glance up towards me, and beckon. It was
Voban. I hurried down to him, and he told me that there had been a
wild carousing at the palace, and that ten gentlemen had determined,
for a wicked sport, to mask themselves, go to the citadel at
midnight, fetch you forth, and make you run the gauntlet in the yard
of the Intendance, and afterwards set you fighting for your life
with another prisoner, a common criminal. To this, Bigot, heated
with wine, made no objection. Monsieur Doltaire was not present; he
had, it was said, taken a secret journey into the English country.
The Governor was in Montreal, where he had gone to discuss matters
of war with the Council.

"There was but one thing to do--get word to General Montcalm. He
was staying at the moment with the Seigneur Pipon at his manor by
the Montmorenci Falls. He must needs be sought there: he would
never allow this shameless thing. So I bade Voban go thither at
once, getting a horse from any quarter, and to ride as if for his
life. He promised, and left me, and I returned to my room to think.
Voban had told me that his news came from Bigot's valet, who is his
close friend. This I knew, and I knew the valet too, for I had seen
something of him when my brother lay wounded at the palace. Under
the best circumstances General Montcalm could not arrive within two
hours. Meanwhile, these miserable men might go on their dreadful
expedition. Something must be done to gain time. I racked my brain
for minutes, till the blood pounded at my temples. Presently a plan
came to me.

"There is in Quebec one Madame Jamond, a great Parisian dancer,
who, for reasons which none knows save perhaps Monsieur Doltaire,
has been banished from France. Since she came to Canada, some nine
months ago, she has lived most quietly and religiously, though many
trials have been made to bring her talents into service; and the
Intendant has made many efforts have her dance in the palace for
his guests. But she would not.

"Madame Lotbiniere had come to know Jamond, and she arranged, after
much persuasion, for lessons in dancing to be given to Lucy, myself,
and Georgette. To me the dancing was a keen delight, a passion. As I
danced I saw and felt a thousand things, I can not tell you how. Now
my feet appeared light as air, like thistledown, my body to float.
I was as a lost soul flying home, flocks of birds singing me to come
with them into a pleasant land.

"Then all that changed, and I was passing through a bitter land,
with harsh shadows and tall cold mountains. From clefts and hollows
figures flew out and caught at me with filmy hands. These melancholy
things pursued me as I flew, till my wings drooped, and I felt that
I must drop into the dull marsh far beneath, round which travelled
a lonely mist.

"But this too passed, and I came through a land all fire, so that,
as I flew swiftly, my wings were scorched, and I was blinded often,
and often missed my way, and must change my course of flight. It was
all scarlet, all that land--scarlet sky and scarlet sun, and scarlet
flowers, and the rivers running red, and men and women in long red
robes, with eyes of flame, and voices that kept crying, 'The world
is mad, and all life is a fever!'"

She paused for a moment, seeming to come out of a dream, and then
she laughed a little. "Will you not go on?" I asked gently.

"Sometimes, too," she continued, "I fancied I was before a king
and his court, dancing for my life or for another's. Oh, how I
scanned the faces of my judges, as they sat there watching me; some
meanwhile throwing crumbs to fluttering birds that whirled round
me, some stroking the ears of hounds that gaped at me, while the
king's fool at first made mock at me, and the face of a man behind
the king's chair smiled like Satan--or Monsieur Doltaire! Ah,
Robert, I know you think me fanciful and foolish, as indeed I am;
but you must bear with me.

"I danced constantly, practising hour upon hour with Jamond,
who came to be my good friend; and you shall hear from me some day
her history--a sad one indeed; a woman sinned against, not sinning.
But these special lessons went on secretly, for I was sure, if
people knew how warmly I followed this recreation, they would set
it down to wilful desire to be singular--or worse. It gave me new
interest in lonely days. So the weeks went on.

"Well, that wicked night I sent Voban to General Montcalm, and,
as I said, a thought came to me: I would find Jamond, beg her to
mask herself, go to the Intendance, and dance before the gentlemen
there, keeping them amused till the General came, as I was sure he
would at my suggestion, for he is a just man and a generous. All
my people, even Georgette, were abroad at a soiree, and would not
be home till late. So I sought Mathilde, and she hurried with me,
my poor daft protector, to Jamond's, whose house is very near the
bishop's palace.

"We were at once admitted to Jamond, who was lying upon a couch.
I hurriedly told her what I wished her to do, what was at stake,
everything but that I loved you; laying my interest upon humanity
and to your having saved my father's life. She looked troubled at
once, then took my face in her hands. 'Dear child,' she said, 'I
understand. You have sorrow too young--too young.' 'But you will do
this for me?' I cried. She shook her head sadly. 'I can not. I am
lame these two days,' she answered. 'I have had a sprain.' I sank
on the floor beside her, sick and dazed. She put her hand pitifully
on my head, then lifted up my chin. Looking into her eyes, I read a
thought there, and I got to my feet with a spring. 'I myself will
go,' said I; 'I will dance there till the General comes.' She put
out her hand in protest. 'You must not,' she urged. 'Think: you may
be discovered, and then the ruin that must come!'

"'I shall put my trust in God,' said I. 'I have no fear. I will do
this thing.' She caught me to her breast. 'Then God be with you,
child,' was her answer; 'you shall do it.' In ten minutes I was
dressed in a gown of hers, which last had been worn when she danced
before King Louis. It fitted me well, and with a wig the colour of
her hair, brought quickly from her boxes, and use of paints which
actors use, I was transformed. Indeed, I could scarce recognize
myself without the mask, and with it on my mother would not have
known me. 'I will go with you,' she said to me, and she hurriedly
put on an old woman's wig and a long cloak, quickly lined her face,
and we were ready. She walked lame, and must use a stick, and we
issued forth towards the Intendance, Mathilde remaining behind.

"When we got to the palace, and were admitted, I asked for the
Intendant's valet, and we stood waiting in the cold hall until he
was brought. 'We come from Voban, the barber,' I whispered to him,
for there were servants near; and he led us at once to his private
room. He did not recognize me, but looked at us with sidelong
curiosity. 'I am,' said I, throwing back my cloak, 'a dancer, and
I have come to dance before the Intendant and his guests.' 'His
Excellency does not expect you?' be asked. 'His Excellency has
many times asked Madame Jamond to dance before him,' I replied. He
was at once all complaisance, but his face was troubled. 'You come
from Monsieur Voban?' he inquired. 'From Monsieur Voban,' answered
I. 'He has gone to General Montcalm.' His face fell, and a kind of
fear passed over it. 'There is no peril to any one save the English
gentleman,' I urged. A light dawned on him. 'You dance until the
General comes?' he asked, pleased at his own penetration. 'You will
take me at once to the dining-hall,' said I, nodding. 'They are
in the Chambre de la Joie,' he rejoined. 'Then the Chambre de la
Joie,' said I; and he led the way. When we came near the chamber,
I said to him, 'You will tell the Intendant that a lady of some
gifts in dancing would entertain his guests; but she must come
and go without exchange of individual courtesies, at her will.

"He opened the door of the chamber, and we followed him; for
there was just inside a large oak screen, and from its shadow we
could see the room and all therein. At the first glance I shrank
back, for, apart from the noise and the clattering of tongues,
such a riot of carousal I have never seen. I was shocked to note
gentlemen whom I had met in society, with the show of decorum
about them, loosed now from all restraint, and swaggering like
woodsmen at a fair. I felt a sudden fear, and drew back sick;
but that was for an instant, for even as the valet came to the
Intendant's chair a dozen or more men, who were sitting near
together in noisy yet half-secret conference, rose to their feet,
each with a mask in his hand, and started towards the door. I felt
my blood fly back and forth in my heart with great violence, and
I leaned against the oak screen for support. 'Courage,' said the
voice of Jamond in my ear, and I ruled myself to quietness.

"Just then the Intendant's voice stopped the men in their
movement towards the great entrance door, and drew the attention
of the whole company. 'Messieurs,' said he, 'a lady has come to
dance for us. She makes conditions which must be respected. She
must be let come and go without individual courtesies. Messieurs,'
he added, 'I grant her request in your name and my own.'

"There was a murmur of 'Jamond! Jamond!' and every man stood looking
towards the great entrance door. The Intendant, however, was gazing
towards the door where I was, and I saw he was about to come, as
if to welcome me. Welcome from Francois Bigot to a dancing-woman!
I slipped off the cloak, looked at Jamond, who murmured once again,
'Courage,' and then I stepped out swiftly, and made for a low,
large dais at one side of the room. I was so nervous that I knew not
how I went. The faces and forms of the company were blurred before
me, and the lights shook and multiplied distractedly. The room
shone brilliantly, yet just under the great canopy, over the dais;
there were shadows, and they seemed to me, as I stepped under the
red velvet, a relief, a sort of hiding-place from innumerable
candles and hot unnatural eyes.

"Once there I was changed. I did not think of the applause that
greeted me, the murmurs of surprise, approbation, questioning,
rising round me. Suddenly, as I paused and faced them all,
nervousness passed out of me, and I saw nothing--nothing but a sort
of far-off picture. My mind was caught away into that world which I
had created for myself when I danced, and these rude gentlemen were
but visions. All sense of indignity passed from me. I was only a
woman fighting for a life and for her own and her another's
happiness.

"As I danced I did not know how time passed--only that I must
keep those men where they were till General Montcalm came. After a
while, when the first dazed feeling had passed, I could see their
faces plainly through my mask, and I knew that I could hold them;
for they ceased to lift their glasses, and stood watching me,
sometimes so silent that I could hear their breathing only,
sometimes making a great applause, which passed into silence again
quickly. Once, as I wheeled, I caught the eyes of Jamond watching
me closely. The Intendant never stirred from his seat, and scarcely
moved, but kept his eyes fixed on me. Nor did he applaud. There was
something painful in his immovability.

"I saw it all as in a dream, yet I did see it, and I was resolute to
triumph over the wicked designs of base and abandoned men. I feared
that my knowledge and power to hold them might stop before help
came. Once, in a slight pause, when a great noise of their hands
and a rattling of scabbards on the table gave me a short respite,
some one--Captain Lancy, I think--snatched up a glass, and called
on all to drink my health.

"'Jamond! Jamond!' was the cry, and they drank; the Intendant
himself standing up, and touching the glass to his lips, then
sitting down again, silent and immovable as before. One gentleman,
a nephew of the Chevalier de la Darante, came swaying towards
me with a glass of wine, begging me in a flippant courtesy to
drink; but I waved him back, and the Intendant said most curtly,
'Monsieur de la Darante will remember my injunction.'

"Again I danced, and I can not tell you with what anxiety and
desperation--for there must be an end to it before long, and your
peril, Robert, come again, unless these rough fellows changed their
minds. Moment after moment went, and though I had danced beyond
reasonable limits, I still seemed to get new strength, as I have
heard men say, in fighting, they 'come to their second wind.' At
last, at the end of the most famous step that Jamond had taught me,
I stood still for a moment to renewed applause; and I must have
wound these men up to excitement beyond all sense, for they would
not be dissuaded, but swarmed towards the dais where I was, and
some called for me to remove my mask.

"Then the Intendant came down among them, bidding them stand
back, and himself stepped towards me. I felt affrighted, for I
liked not the look in his eyes, and so, without a word, I stepped
down from the dais--I did not dare to speak, lest they should
recognize my voice--and made for the door with as much dignity as
I might. But the Intendant came to me with a mannered courtesy,
and said in my ear, 'Madame, you have won all our hearts; I would
you might accept some hospitality--a glass of wine, a wing of
partridge, in a room where none shall disturb you?' I shuddered,
and passed on. 'Nay, nay, madame, not even myself with you, unless
you would have it otherwise,' he added.

"Still I did not speak, but put out my hand in protest, and
moved on towards the screen, we two alone, for the others had
fallen back with whisperings and side-speeches. Oh, how I longed to
take the mask from my face and spurn them! The hand that I put out
in protest the Intendant caught within his own, and would have held
it, but that I drew it back with indignation, and kept on towards
the screen. Then I realized that a new-corner had seen the matter,
and I stopped short, dumfounded--for it was Monsieur Doltaire! He
was standing beside the screen, just within the room, and he sent
at the Intendant and myself a keen, piercing glance.

"Now he came forward quickly, for the Intendant also half
stopped at sight of him, and a malignant look shot from his eyes;
hatred showed in the profane word that was chopped off at his
teeth. When Monsieur Doltaire reached us, he said, his eyes resting
on me with intense scrutiny, 'His Excellency will present me to his
distinguished entertainer?' He seemed to read behind my mask. I knew
he had discovered me, and my heart stood still. But I raised my eyes
and met his gaze steadily. The worst had come. Well, I would face
it now. I could endure defeat with courage. He paused an instant,
a strange look passed over his face, his eyes got hard and very
brilliant, and he continued (oh, what suspense that was!): 'Ah yes,
I see--Jamond, the perfect and wonderful Jamond, who set us all
a-kneeling at Versailles. If Madame will permit me?' He made to take
my hand. Here the Intendant interposed, putting out his hand also.
'I have promised to protect Madame from individual courtesy while
here,' he said. Monsieur Doltaire looked at him keenly. 'Then your
Excellency must build stone walls about yourself,' he rejoined,
with cold emphasis. 'Sometimes great men are foolish. To-night your
Excellency would have let'--here he raised his voice so that all
could hear--'your Excellency would have let a dozen cowardly
gentlemen drag a dying prisoner from his prison, forcing back his
Majesty's officers at the dungeon doors, and, after baiting, have
matched him against a common criminal. That was unseemly in a great
man and a King's chief officer, the trick of a low law-breaker. Your
Excellency promised a lady to protect her from individual courtesy,
if she gave pleasure--a pleasure beyond price--to you and your
guests, and you would have broken your word without remorse. General
Montcalm has sent a company of men to set your Excellency right in
one direction, and I am come to set you right in the other.'

"The Intendant was white with rage. He muttered something between
his teeth, then said aloud, 'Presently we will talk more of this,
monsieur. You measure strength with Francois Bigot: we will see
which proves the stronger in the end.' 'In the end the unjust
steward kneels for mercy to his master,' was Monsieur Doltaire's
quiet answer; and then he made a courteous gesture towards the door,
and I went to it with him slowly, wondering what the end would be.
Once at the other side of the screen, he peered into Jamond's face
for an instant, then he gave a low whistle. 'You have an apt pupil,
Jamond, one who might be your rival one day,' said he. Still there
was a puzzled look on his face, which did not leave it till he saw
Jamond walking. 'Ah yes,' he added, 'I see now. You are lame. This
was a desperate yet successful expedient.'

"He did not speak to me, but led the way to where, at the great
door, was the Intendant's valet standing with my cloak. Taking it
from him, he put it round my shoulders. 'The sleigh by which I came
is at the door,' he said, 'and I will take you home.' I knew not
what to do, for I feared some desperate act on his part to possess
me. I determined that I would not leave Jamond, in any case, and
I felt for a weapon which I had hidden in my dress. We had not,
however, gone a half dozen paces in the entrance hall when there
were quick steps behind, and four soldiers came towards us, with an
officer at their head--an officer whom I had seen in the chamber,
but did not recognize.

"'Monsieur Doltaire,' the officer said; and monsieur stopped.
Then he cried in surprise, 'Legrand, you here!' To this the officer
replied by handing monsieur a paper. Monsieur's hand dropped to his
sword, but in a moment he gave a short, sharp laugh, and opened up
the packet. 'H'm,' he said, 'the Bastile! The Grande Marquise is
fretful--eh, Legrand? You will permit me some moments with these
ladies?' he added. 'A moment only,' answered the officer. 'In
another room?' monsieur again asked. 'A moment where you are,
monsieur,' was the reply. Making a polite gesture for me to step
aside, Monsieur Doltaire said, in a voice which was perfectly
controlled and courteous, though I could hear behind all a deadly
emphasis, 'I know everything now. You have foiled me, blindfolded
me and all others, these three years past. You have intrigued
against the captains of intrigue, you have matched yourself against
practised astuteness. On one side, I resent being made a fool and
tool of; on the other, I am lost in admiration of your talent. But
henceforth there is no such thing as quarter between us. Your lover
shall die, and I will come again. This whim of the Grande Marquise
will last but till I see her; then I will return to you--forever.
Your lover shall die, your love's labour for him shall be lost. I
shall reap where I did not sow--his harvest and my own. I am as ice
to you, mademoiselle, at this moment; I have murder in my heart. Yet
warmth will come again. I admire you so much that I will have you
for my own, or die. You are the high priestess of diplomacy; your
brain is a statesman's, your heart is a vagrant; it goes covertly
from the sweet meadows of France to the marshes of England, a taste
unworthy of you. You shall be redeemed from that by Tinoir Doltaire.
Now thank me for all I have done for you, and let me say adieu.'
He stooped and kissed my hand. 'I can not thank you for what I
myself achieved,' I said. 'We are, as in the past, to be at war,
you threaten, and I have no gratitude.' 'Well, well, adieu and au
revoir, sweetheart,' he answered. 'If I should go to the Bastile,
I shall have food for thought; and I am your hunter to the end. In
this good orchard I pick sweet fruit one day.' His look fell on me
in such a way that shame and anger were at equal height in me. Then
he bowed again to me and to Jamond, and, with a sedate gesture,
walked away with the soldiers and the officer.

"You can guess what were my feelings. You were safe for the
moment--that was the great thing. The terror I had felt when I saw
Monsieur Doltaire in the Chambre de la Joie had passed, for I felt
he would not betray me. He is your foe, and he would kill you; but
I was sure he would not put me in danger while he was absent in
France--if he expected to return--by making public my love for you
and my adventure at the palace. There is something of the noble
fighter in him, after all, though he is so evil a man. A prisoner
himself now, he would have no immediate means to hasten your death.
But I can never forget his searching, cruel look when he recognized
me! Of Jamond I was sure. Her own past had been full of sorrow, and
her life was now so secluded and religious that I could not doubt
her. Indeed, we have been blessed with good, true friends, Robert,
though they are not of those who are powerful, save in their
loyalty."

Alixe then told me that the officer Legrand had arrived from
France but two days before the eventful night of which I have just
written, armed with an order from the Grande Marquise for Doltaire's
arrest and transportation. He had landed at Gaspe, and had come on
to Quebec overland. Arriving at the Intendance, he had awaited
Doltaire's coming. Doltaire had stopped to visit General Montcalm at
Montmorenci Falls, on his way back from an expedition to the English
country, and had thus himself brought my protection and hurried to
his own undoing. I was thankful for his downfall, though I believed
it was but for a moment.

I was curious to know how it chanced I was set free of my
dungeon, and I had the story from Alixe's lips; but not till after
I had urged her, for she was sure her tale had wearied me, and she
was eager to do little offices of comfort about me; telling me
gaily, while she shaded the light, freshened my pillow, and gave
me a cordial to drink, that she would secretly convey me wines and
preserves and jellies and such kickshaws, that I should better get
my strength.

"For you must know," she said, "that though this gray hair and
transparency of flesh become you, making your eyes look like two
jets of flame and your face to have shadows most theatrical, a
ruddy cheek and a stout hand are more suited to a soldier. When
you are young again in body, these gray hairs shall render you
distinguished."

Then she sat down beside me, and clasped my hand, now looking
out into the clear light of afternoon to the farther shores of
Levis, showing green here and there from a sudden March rain, the
boundless forests beyond, and near us the ample St. Lawrence still
covered with its vast bridge of ice; anon into my face, while I
gazed into those deeps of her blue eyes that I had drowned my heart
in. I loved to watch her, for with me she was ever her own absolute
self, free from all artifice, lost in her perfect naturalness: a
healthy, perfect soundness, a primitive simplicity beneath the
artifice of usual life. She had a beautiful hand, long, warm, and
firm, and the fingers, when they clasped, seemed to possess and
inclose your own--the tenderness of the maidenly, the protectiveness
of the maternal. She carried with her a wholesome fragrance and
beauty as of an orchard, and while she sat there I thought of the
engaging words:

"Thou art to me like a basket of summer fruit, and I seek
thee in thy cottage by the vineyard, fenced about with good
commendable trees."

Of my release she spoke thus: "Monsieur Doltaire is to be
conveyed overland to the coast en route for France, and he sent
me by his valet a small arrow studded with emeralds and pearls,
and a skull all polished, with a message that the arrow was for
myself, and the skull for another--remembrances of the past, and
earnests of the future--truly an insolent and wicked man. When he
was gone I went to the Governor, and, with great show of interest
in many things pertaining to the government (for he has ever been
flattered by my attentions--me, poor little bee in the buzzing
hive!), came to the question of the English prisoner. I told him
it was I that prevented the disgrace to his good government by
sending to General Montcalm to ask for your protection.

"He was deeply impressed, and he opened out his vain heart in
divers ways. But I may not tell you of these--only what concerns
yourself; the rest belongs to his honour. When he was in his most
pliable mood, I grew deeply serious, and told him there was a danger
which perhaps he did not see. Here was this English prisoner, who,
they said abroad in the town, was dying. There was no doubt that
the King would approve the sentence of death, and if it were duly
and with some display enforced, it would but add to the Governor's
reputation in France. But should the prisoner die in captivity, or
should he go an invalid to the scaffold, there would only be pity
excited in the world for him. For his own honour, it were better the
Governor should hang a robust prisoner, who in full blood should
expiate his sins upon the scaffold. The advice went down like wine;
and when he knew not what to do, I urged your being brought here,
put under guard, and fed and nourished for your end. And so it was.

"The Governor's counsellor in the matter will remain a secret,
for by now he will be sure that he himself had the sparkling
inspiration. There, dear Robert, is the present climax to many
months of suspense and persecution, the like of which I hope I may
never see again. Some time I will tell you all: those meetings with
Monsieur Doltaire, his designs and approaches, his pleadings and
veiled threats, his numberless small seductions of words, manners,
and deeds, his singular changes of mood, when I was uncertain
what would happen next; the part I had to play to know all that
was going on in the Chateau St. Louis, in the Intendance, and
with General Montcalm; the difficulties with my own people; the
despair of my poor father, who does not know that it is I who have
kept him from trouble by my influence with the Governor. For since
the Governor and the Intendant are reconciled, he takes sides with
General Montcalm, the one sound gentleman in office in this poor
country--alas!"

Soon afterwards we parted. As she passed out she told me I might
at any hour expect a visit from the Governor.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Seats of the Mighty, Volume 3" ***

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