Bardelys the Magnificent, Rafael Sabatini [best free e book reader .txt] 📗

the sunlit

dome of glass overhead.

 

“Ah-h!” he gasped. It was a long-drawn sigh of regret, of conclusion,

or of weary impatience. “There is no one in Toulouse who will swear

to your identity monsieur?” he asked.

 

“I am afraid there is not,” I replied. “I know of no one.”

 

As I uttered those words the President’s countenance changed as

abruptly as if he had flung off a mask. From soft and cat-like

that he had been during the past few moments, he grew of a sudden

savage as a tiger. He leapt to his feet, his face crimson, his

eyes seeming to blaze, and the words he spoke came now in a hot,

confused, and almost incoherent torrent.

 

“Miserable!” he roared, “out of your own mouth have you convicted

yourself. And to think that you should have stood there and wasted

the time of this Court - His Majesty’s time - with your damnable

falsehoods! What purpose did you think to serve by delaying your

doom? Did you imagine that haply, whilst we sent to Paris for your

witnesses, the King might grow weary of justice, and in some fit

of clemency announce a general pardon? Such things have been known,

and it may be that in your cunning you played for such a gain based

upon such a hope. But justice, fool, is not to be cozened. Had

you, indeed, been Bardelys, you had seen that here in this court

sits a gentleman who is very intimate with him. He is there,

monsieur; that is Monsieur le Comte de Chatellerault, of whom

perhaps you may have heard. Yet, when I ask you whether in Toulouse

there is any one who can bear witness to your identity, you answer

me that you know of no one. I will waste no more time with you, I

promise you.”

 

He flung himself back into his chair like a man exhausted, and

mopped his brow with a great kerchief which he had drawn from his

robes. His fellow judges laid their heads together, and with smiles

and nods, winks and leers, they discussed and admired the miraculous

subtlety and acumen of this Solomon. Chatellerault sat, calmly

smiling, in solemn mockery.

 

For a spell I was too thunderstruck to speak, aghast at this

catastrophe. Like a fool, indeed, I had tumbled into the pit that

had been dug for me by Chatellerault for I never doubted that it

was of his contriving. At last, “My masters,” said I, “these

conclusions may appear to you most plausible, but, believe me, they

are fallacious. I am perfectly acquainted with Monsieur de

Chatellerault, and he with me, and if he were to speak the truth

and play the man and the gentleman for once, he would tell you that

I am, indeed, Bardelys. But Monsieur le Comte has ends of his own

to serve in sending me to my doom. It is in a sense through his

agency that I am at present in this position, and that I have been

confounded with Lesperon. What, then, could it have availed me to

have made appeal to him? And yet, Monsieur le President, he was

born a gentleman, and he may still retain some notion of honour.

Ask him, sir - ask him point-blank, whether I am or not Marcel de

Bardelys.”

 

The firmness of my tones created some impression upon those feeble

minds. Indeed, the President went so far as to turn an interrogative

glance upon the Count. But Chatellerault, supremely master of the

situation, shrugged his shoulders, and smiled a pitying,

long-suffering smile.

 

“Must I really answer such a question, Monsieur le President?” he

inquired in a voice and with a manner that clearly implied how low

would be his estimate of the President’s intelligence if he were,

indeed, constrained to do so.

 

“But no, Monsieur le Comte,” replied the President with sudden haste,

and in scornful rejection of the idea. “There is no necessity that

you should answer.”

 

“But the question, Monsieur le President!” I thundered, my hand

outstretched towards Chatellerault. “Ask him - if you have any

sense of your duty - ask him am I not Marcel de Bardelys.”

 

“Silence!” blazed the President back at me. “You shall not fool us

any longer, you nimble-witted liar!”

 

My head drooped. This coward had, indeed, shattered my last hope.

 

“Some day, monsieur,” I said very quietly, “I promise you that your

behaviour and these gratuitous insults shall cost you your position.

Pray God they do not cost you also your head!”

 

My words they treated as one might treat the threats of a child.

That I should have had the temerity to utter them did but serve

finally to decide my doom, if, indeed, anything had been wanting.

 

With many epithets of opprobrium, such as are applied to malefactors

of the lowest degree, they passed sentence of death upon me, and

with drooping spirits, giving myself up for lost and assured that

I should be led to the block before many hours were sped, I

permitted them to reconduct me through the streets of Toulouse to

my prison.

 

I could entertain you at length upon my sensations as I walked

between my guards, a man on the threshold of eternity, with hundreds

of men and women gaping at me - men and women who would live for

years to gape upon many another wretch in my position. The sun

shone with a brilliance that to such eyes as mine was a very mockery.

Thus would it shine on through centuries, and light many another

unfortunate to the scaffold. The very sky seemed pitiless in the

intensity of its cobalt. Unfeeling I deemed the note that everywhere

was struck by man and Nature, so discordant was it with my gloomy

outlook. If you would have food for reflection upon the evanescent

quality of life, upon the nothingness of man, upon the empty,

heartless egoism implicit in human nature, get yourselves sentenced

to death, and then look around you. With such a force was all this

borne in upon me, and with such sufficiency, that after the first

pang was spent I went near to rejoicing that things were as they

were, and that I was to die, haply before sunset. It was become

such a world as did not seem worth a man’s while to live in: a world

of vainness, of hollowness, of meanness, of nothing but illusions.

The knowledge that I was about to die, that I was about to quit all

this, seemed to have torn some veil from my eyes, and to have

permitted me to recognize the worthless quality of what I left.

Well may it be that such are but the thoughts of a man’s dying

moments, whispered into his soul by a merciful God to predispose him

for the wrench and agony of his passing.

 

I had been a half-hour in my cell when the door was opened to admit

Castelroux, whom I had not seen since the night before. He came

to condole with me in my extremity, and yet to bid me not utterly

lose hope.

 

“It is too late to-day to carry out the sentence,” said he, “and as

tomorrow will be Sunday, you will have until the day after. By

then much may betide, monsieur. My agents are everywhere scouring

the province for your servants, and let us pray Heaven that they

may succeed in their search.”

 

“It is a forlorn hope, Monsieur de Castelroux,” I sighed, “and I

will pin no faith to it lest I suffer a disappointment that will

embitter my last moments, and perhaps rob me of some of the

fortitude I shall have need of.”

 

He answered me, nevertheless, with words of encouragement. No

effort was being spared, and if Rodenard and my men were still in

Languedoc then was every likelihood that they would be brought to

Toulouse in time. Then he added that that, however, was not the

sole object of his visit. A lady had obtained permission of the

Keeper of the Seals to visit me, and she was waiting to be admitted.

 

“A lady?” I exclaimed, and the thought of Roxalanne flitted through

my mind. “Mademoiselle de Lavedan?” I inquired.

 

He nodded. “Yes,” said he; then added, “She seems in sore

affliction, monsieur.”

 

I besought him to admit her forthwith, and presently she came.

Castelroux closed the door as he withdrew, and we were left alone

together. As she put aside her cloak, and disclosed to me the pallor

of her face and the disfiguring red about her gentle eyes, telling

of tears and sleeplessness, all my own trouble seemed to vanish in

the contemplation of her affliction.

 

We stood a moment confronting each other with no word spoken. Then,

dropping her glance, and advancing a step, in a faltering,

hesitating manner “Monsieur, monsieur,” she murmured in a suffocating

voice.

 

In a bound I was beside her, and I had gathered her in my arms, her

little brown head against my shoulder.

 

“Roxalanne!” I whispered as soothingly as I might - “Roxalanne!”

 

But she struggled to be free of my embrace.

 

“Let me go, monsieur,” she pleaded, a curious shrinking in her very

voice. “Do not touch me, monsieur. You do not know - you do not

know.”

 

For answer, I enfolded her more tightly still.

 

“But I do know, little one,” I whispered; “and I even understand.”

 

At that, her struggles ceased upon the instant, and she seemed to

lie limp and helpless in my arms.

 

“You know, monsieur,” she questioned me - “you know that I betrayed

you?”

 

“Yes,” I answered simply.

 

“And you can forgive me? I am sending you to your death and you

have no reproaches for me! Oh, monsieur, it will kill me!”

 

“Hush, child!” I whispered. “What reproaches can I have for you?

I know the motives that impelled you.”

 

“Not altogether, monsieur; you cannot know them. I loved you,

monsieur. I do love you, monsieur. Oh! this is not a time to

consider words. If I am bold and unmaidenly, I - I—”

 

“Neither bold nor unmaidenly, but - oh, the sweetest damsel in all

France, my Roxalanne!” I broke in, coming to her aid. “Mine was a

leprous, sinful soul, child, when I came into Languedoc. I had no

faith in any human good, and I looked as little for an honest man

or a virtuous woman as one looks for honey in a nettle. I was

soured, and my life had hardly been such a life as it was meet to

bring into contact with your own. Then, among the roses at Lavedan,

in your dear company, Roxalanne, it seemed that some of the good,

some of the sweetness, some of the purity about you were infused

anew into my heart. I became young again, and I seemed oddly

cleansed. In that hour of my rejuvenation I loved you, Roxalanne.”

 

Her face had been raised to mine as I spoke. There came now a

flutter of the eyelids, a curious smile about the lips. Then her

head drooped again and was laid against my breast; a sigh escaped

her, and she began to weep softly.

 

“Nay, Roxalanne, do not fret. Come, child, it is not your way to

be weak.”

 

“I have betrayed you!” she moaned. “I am sending you to your

death!”

 

“I understand, I understand,” I answered, smoothing her brown

hair.

 

“Not quite, monsieur. I loved you so, monsieur, that you can have

no thought of how I suffered that morning when Mademoiselle de

Marsac came to Lavedan.

 

“At first it was but the pain of thinking that - that I was about to

lose you; that you were to