The House of the Wolf, Stanley Weyman [most inspirational books of all time TXT] 📗

like a log, without a word, without a cry! Amid a roar of rage from a thousand throats, a roar that might have shaken the stoutest heart, and blanched the swarthiest cheek, Bezers disappeared within!

It was then I saw the power of discipline and custom. Few as were the troopers who had followed him--a mere handful--they fell without hesitation on the foremost of the crowd, who were already in confusion, stumbling and falling over their leader's body; and hurled them back pell-mell along the gallery. The throng below had no firearms, and could give no aid at the moment; the stage was narrow; in two minutes the Vidame's people had swept it clear of the crowd and were in possession of it. A tall fellow took up the priest's body, dead or alive, I do not know which, and flung it as if it had been a sack of corn over the rail. It fell with a heavy thud on the ground. I heard a piercing scream that rose above that babel--one shrill scream! and the mob closed round and hid the thing.

If the rascals had had the wit to make at once for the right-hand stairs, where we stood with two or three of Bezers' men who had kept their saddles, I think they might easily have disposed of us, encumbered as we were, by the horses; and then they could have attacked the handful on the gallery on both flanks. But the mob had no leaders, and no plan of operations. They seized indeed two or three of the scattered troopers, and tearing them from their horses, wreaked their passion upon them horribly. But most of the Switzers escaped, thanks to the attention the mob paid to the houses and what was going forward on the galleries; and these, extricating themselves joined us one by one, so that gradually a little ring of stern faces gathered about the stair-foot. A moment's hesitation, and seeing no help for it, we ranged ourselves with them; and, unchecked as unbidden, sprang on three of the led horses.

All this passed more quickly than I can relate it: so that before our feet were well in the stirrups a partial silence, then a mightier roar of anger at once proclaimed and hailed the re-appearance of the Vidame. Bigoted beyond belief were the mob of Paris of that day, cruel, vengeful, and always athirst for blood; and this man had killed not only their leader but a priest. He had committed sacrilege! What would they do? I could just, by stooping forward, command a side view of the gallery, and the scene passing there was such that I forgot in it our own peril.

For surely in all his reckless life Bezers had never been so emphatically the man for the situation--had never shown to such advantage as at this moment when he stood confronting the sea of faces, the sneer on his lip, a smile in his eyes; and looked down unblenching, a figure of scorn, on the men who were literally agape for his life. The calm defiance of his steadfast look fascinated even me. Wonder and admiration for the time took the place of dislike. I could scarcely believe that there was not some atom of good in this man so fearless. And no face but one no face I think in the world, but one--could have drawn my eyes from him. But that one face was beside him. I clutched Marie's arm, and pointed to the bareheaded figure at Bezers' right hand.

It was Louis himself: our Louis de Pavannes, But he was changed indeed from the gay cavalier I remembered, and whom I had last seen riding down the street at Caylus, smiling back at us, and waving his adieux to his mistress! Beside the Vidame he had the air of being slight, even short. The face which I had known so bright and winning, was now white and set. His fair, curling hair--scarce darker than Croisette's--hung dank, bedabbled with blood which flowed from a wound in his head. His sword was gone; his dress was torn and disordered and covered with dust. His lips moved. But he held up his head, he bore himself bravely with it all; so bravely, that I choked, and my heart seemed bursting as I looked at him standing there forlorn and now unarmed. I knew that Kit seeing him thus would gladly have died with him; and I thanked God she did not see him. Yet there was a quietness in his fortitude which made a great difference between his air and that of Bezers. He lacked, as became one looking unarmed on certain death, the sneer and smile of the giant beside him.

What was the Vidame about to do? I shuddered as I asked myself. Not surrender him, not fling him bodily to the people? No not that: I felt sure he would let no others share his vengeance that his pride would not suffer that. And even while I wondered the doubt was solved. I saw Bezers raise his hand in a peculiar fashion. Simultaneously a cry rang sharply out above the tumult, and down in headlong charge towards the farther steps came the band of horsemen, who had got clear of the crowd on that side. They were but ten or twelve, but under his eye they charged, as if they had been a thousand. The rabble shrank from the collision, and fled aside. Quick as thought the riders swerved; and changing their course, galloped through the looser part of the throng, and in a trice drew rein side by side with us, a laugh and a jeer on their reckless lips.

It was neatly done: and while it was being done the Vidame and his knot of men, with those who had been searching the building, hurried down the gallery towards us, their rear cleared for the moment by the troopers' feint. The dismounted men came bundling down the steps, their eyes aglow with the war-fire, and got horses as they could. Among them I lost sight of Louis, but perceived him presently, pale and bewildered, mounted behind a trooper. A man sprang up before each of us too, greeting our appearance merely by a grunt of surprise. For it was no time to ask or answer. The mob was recovering itself, and each moment brought it reinforcements, while its fury was augmented by the trick we had played it, and the prospect of our escape.

We were under forty, all told; and some men were riding double. Bezers' eye glanced hastily over his array, and lit on us three. He turned and gave some order to his lieutenant. The fellow spurred his horse, a splendid grey, as powerful as his master's, alongside of Croisette, threw his arm round the lad, and dragged him dexterously on to his own crupper. I did not understand the action, but I saw Croisette settle himself behind Blaise Bure--for he it was--and supposed no harm was intended. The next moment we had surged forward, and were swaying to and fro in the midst of the crowd.

What ensued I cannot tell. The outlook, so far as I was concerned, was limited to wildly plunging horses--we were in the centre of the band and riders swaying in the saddle--with a glimpse here and there of a fringe of white scowling faces and tossing arms. Once, a lane opening, I saw the Vidame's charger--he was in the van--stumble and fall among the crowd and heard a great shout go up. But Bezers by a mighty effort lifted it to its legs again. And once too, a minute later, those riding on my right, swerved outwards, and I saw something I never afterwards forgot.

It was the body of the Coadjutor, lying face upwards, the eyes open and the teeth bared in a last spasm. Prostrate on it lay a woman, a young woman, with hair like red gold falling about her neck, and skin like milk. I did not know whether she was alive or dead; but I noticed that one arm stuck out stiffly and the crowd flying before the sudden impact of the horses must have passed over her, even if she had escaped the iron hoofs which followed. Still in the fleeting glance I had of her as my horse bounded aside, I saw no wound or disfigurement. Her one arm was cast about the priest's breast; her face was hidden on it. But for all that, I knew her--knew her, shuddering for the woman whose badges I was even now wearing, whose gift I bore at my side; and I remembered the priest's vaunt of a few hours before, made in her presence, "There is no man in Paris shall thwart me to-night!"

It had been a vain boast indeed! No hand in all that host of thousands was more feeble than his now: for good or ill! No brain more dull, no voice less heeded. A righteous retribution indeed had overtaken him. He had died by the sword he had drawn--died, a priest, by violence! The cross he had renounced had crushed him. And all his schemes and thoughts, and no doubt they had been many, had perished with him. It had come to this, only this, the sum of the whole matter, that there was one wicked man the less in Paris--one lump of breathless clay the more.

For her--the woman on his breast--what man can judge a woman, knowing her? And not knowing her, how much less? For the present I put her out of my mind, feeling for the moment faint and cold.

We were clear of the crowd, and clattering unmolested down a paved street before I fully recovered from the shock which this sight had caused me. Wonder whither we were going took its place. To Bezers' house? My heart sank at the prospect if that were so. Before I thought of an alternative, a gateway flanked by huge round towers appeared before us, and we pulled up suddenly, a confused jostling mass in the narrow way; while some words passed between the Vidame and the Captain of the Guard. A pause of several minutes followed; and then the gates rolled slowly open, and two by two we passed under the arch. Those gates might have belonged to a fortress or a prison, a dungeon or a palace, for all I knew.

They led, however, to none of these, but to an open space, dirty and littered with rubbish, marked by a hundred ruts and tracks, and fringed with disorderly cabins and make-shift booths. And beyond this--oh, ye gods! the joy of it--beyond this, which we crossed at a rapid trot, lay the open country!

The transition and relief were so wonderful that I shall never forget them. I gazed on the wide landscape before me, lying quiet and peaceful in the sunlight, and could scarce believe in my happiness. I drew the fresh air into my lungs, I threw up my sheathed sword and caught it again in a frenzy of delight, while the gloomy men about me smiled at my enthusiasm. I felt the horse beneath me move once more like a thing of life. No enchanter with his wand, not Merlin nor Virgil, could have made a greater change in my world, than had the captain of the gate with