The Chaplet of Pearls, Charlotte M. Yonge [good beach reads TXT] 📗

in France, our innocence will be proved. I demand, sir, that you examine the abbess, the priest, the steward, the sergeant of gendarmes: they are impartial witnesses, and will serve the King's justice, if justice be his purpose. Or, if this be but M. de Nid-de-Merle's way of completing the work he left unfinished four years ago, I am ready. Only let my brother go free. He is heir to nothing here.'

'Enough, sir. Words against the King's justice will be reckoned against you,' said the officer. 'I shall do myself the honour of attending the funeral the day after to-morrow, and then I shall convey you to Tours, to answer for this deed at your leisure. Monsieur le Marquis, are the prisoners secure here, or would you have them _garde a vue_.'

'No need for that,' said Narcisse, lightly; 'had there been any exit they would have found it long ago. Your good fellows outside the door keep them safe enough. M. le Baron de Ribaumont, I have the honour to wish you a good morning.'

Berenger returned his bow with one full of defiance, and the door was again locked upon the prisoners; while Philip exclaimed, 'The cowardly villain, Berry; is it a hanging matter?'

'Not for noble blood,' said Berenger. 'We are more likely to be brought to no trial, but to lie prisoners for life;' then, as Philip grew white and shivered with a sick horror, he added bravely, 'But they shall not have us, Philip. We know the vaults well enough to play at hide and seek with them there, and even if we find no egress we may hold out till they think us fled and leave open the doors!'

Philip's face lighted up again, and they did their best by way of preparation, collecting wood for torches, and putting aside food at their meals. It was a very forlorn hope, but the occupation it caused was effectual in keeping up Philip's spirits, and saving him from despondency.


CHAPTER XXXIX. THE PEDLAR'S PREDICTION


But if ne'er so close you wall him,
Do the best that you may;
Blind Love, if so you call him,
Will find out his way. --OLD SONG

'Too late,' muttered Berenger to himself, as he stood by the fire in his prison-chamber. Humfrey and Philip were busy in the vaults, and he was taking his turn in waiting in the sitting-room to disarm suspicion. 'It is too late now, and I thank God that so it is.'

'Do you indeed, M. le Baron?' said a low voice close beside him; and, as he turned in haste, he beheld, at the foot of the turret-stair, the youth Aime de Selinville, holding a dark lantern in his hand, and veiling its light.

'Ha!' and he started to his feet. 'Whence come you?'

'From my Lady,' was the youth's answer. 'She has sent me to ask whether you persist in what you replied to her the other day. For if not, she bids me say that it is not too late.'

'And if I do persevere?'

'Then--ah! what do I know? Who can tell how far malice can go? And there are towers and bastilles where hope never enters. Moreover, your researches underground are known.'

'Sir,' said Berenger, the heart-sinking quelled by the effort of resistance, 'Madame de Selinville has my answer--I must take the consequences. Tell her, if she truly wishes me well, the honourable way of saving us would be to let our English friends know what has befallen us.'

'You forget, M. le Baron, even if she could proclaim the dishonour of her family, interference from a foreign power might only lead to a surer mode of removing you,' said Aime, lowering his voice and shuddering.

'Even so, I should thank her. Then would the bitterest pang be taken away. Those at our home would not deem us faithless recreants.'

'Thank her!' murmured the lad in an inward voice. 'Very well, sir, I will carry her your decision. It is your final one. Disgrace, prison, death--rather than freedom, love, wealth!'

'The semblance of dishonour rather than the reality!' said Berenger, firmly.

The light-footed page disappeared, and in a few moments a very different tread came up from below, and Philip appeared.

'What is it, Berry? Methought I heard a voice.'

'Forgive me, brother,' said Berenger, holding out his hand; 'I have thrown away another offer.' 'Tush, the thing to pardon would be having accepted one. I only wish they would leave us in peace! What was it this time?'

'A messenger through young Selinville. Strange, to trust her secrets to that lad. But hush, here he is again, much sooner than I thought. What, sir, have you been with your lady again?'

'Yes, sir,' the young said, with a trembling voice, and Berenger saw that his eyes were red with weeping; 'she bids me tell you that she yields. She will save you eve while you have and despite her! There is only one thing---'

'And what is that?'

'You must encumber yourself with the poor Aime. You must let me serve you instead of her. Listen, sir, it cannot be otherwise.' Then with a brisker, more eager voice, he continued: 'Monsieur knows that the family burial-place is Bellaise? Well, to-morrow, at ten o'clock, all the household, all the neighbourhood, will come and sprinkle holy water on the bier. The first requiem will be sung, and then will all repair to the convent. There will be the funeral mass, the banquet, the dole. Every creature in the castle--nay, in all the neighbourhood for twenty miles round--will be at the convent, for the Abbess has given out that the alms are to be double, and the bread of wheat. Not a soul will remain here, save the two gendarmes on guard at that door, and the poor Aime, whom no one will miss, even if any person could be distinguished in their black cloaks. Madame la Comtesse has given him this key, which opens a door on the upper floor of the keep, unknown to the guards, who, for that matter, shall have a good tankard of spiced wine to console and occupy them. Then is the way clear to the castle court, which is not over looked by their window, the horses are in the stables, and we are off,--that is if M. le Baron will save a poor youth from the wrath of M. de Nid-de-Merle.'

'You are and honest fellow!' cried Philip, shaking him vehemently by the hand. 'You shall go with us to England, and we will make a brave man of you.'

'We shall owe you our lives,' said Berenger, warmly, 'and be ever bound to you. Tell your lady that THIS is magnanimity; that now I truly thank her as our preserver, and shall bless her all the days of the life she gives us. But my servants?'

'Guibert is a traitor,' said Aime; 'he has been so ever since you were at Paris. Breathe no word to him; but he, as a Catholic, shall be invited to the funeral. Your stout Englishman should by all means be with us.'

'My Norman also,' added Berenger,--'my dear foster-brother, who has languished in the dungeon for three years;' and when the explanation had been made, Aime assented, though half-unwillingly, to the necessity, and presently quitted them to bear back their answer to his lady. Philip shook his hand violently again, patted him on the back, so as almost to take away his breath, and bade him never fear, they would be sworn brothers to him for ever; and then threw up his hat into the air, and was so near astonishing the donjon walls with a British hurrah, that Berenger had to put his hand over his mouth and strangle the shout in his very throat.

The chief of that night was spent in enlarging the hole in Osbert's wall, so as to admit of his creeping through it; and they also prepared their small baggage for departure. Their stock of money, though some had been spent on renewing their clothes, and some in needful gratuities to the servants and gendarmes, was sufficient for present needs, and they intended to wear their ordinary dress. They were unlikely to meet any of the peasants in the neighbourhood; and, indeed, Berenger had so constantly ridden out in his black mask, that its absence, now that his scars were gone, was as complete a change as could be effected in one whose height was of unusual.

'There begins the kneel,' said Philip, standing at the window. 'It's our joy-bell, Berry! Every clang seems to me to say, "Home! home! home!"

'For you, Phil,' said Berenger; 'but I must be satisfied of Eutacie's fate first. I shall go first to Nissard--whither we were bound when we were seized--then to La Rochelle, whence you may---'

'No more of that,' burst out Philip. 'What! would you have me leave you now, after all we have gone through together? Not that you will find her. I don't want to vex you, brother, on such a day as this, but you conjurer's words are coming true in the other matter.'

'How? What mean you, Phil?'

'What's the meaning of Aime?' asked Philip. 'Even I am French scholar enough for that. And who sends him?'

Meantime the court was already filling with swarms of persons of every rank and degree, but several anxious hours had passed before the procession was marshaled; and friars and monks, black, white, and gray,--priests in rich robes and tall caps,--black-cloaked gentlemen and men-at-arms,--all bearing huge wax tapers,--and peasants and beggars of every conceivable aspect,--filed out of the court, bearing with them the richly-emblazoned bier of the noble and puissant knight, the Beausire Charles Eutache de Ribaumont Nid-de-Merle, his son walking behind in a long black mantle, and all who counted kindred of friendship following two and two; then all the servants, every one who properly belonged to the castle, were counted out by the brothers from their windows, and Guibert among them.

'Messieurs,' a low, anxious voice sounded in the room.

'We will only fetch Osbert.'

It was a terrible only, as precious moments slipped away before there appeared in the lower chamber Berenger and Humfrey, dragging between them a squalid wretch, with a skin like stained parchment over a skeleton, tangled hair and beard, staring bewildered eyes, and fragments of garments, all dust, dirt, and rags.

'Leave me, leave me, dear master,' said the object, stretching his whole person towards the fire as they let him sink down before it. 'You would but ruin yourself.'

'It is madness to take him,' said Aime, impatiently.

'I go not without him,' said Berenger. 'Give me the soup, Philip.'

Some soup and wine had been placed by the fire, and likewise a shirt and a suit of Humfrey's clothes were spread before it. Aime burst out into the yard, absolutely weeping with impatience, when, unheeding all his remonstrances, his three companions applied themselves to feeding, rubbing, and warming Osbert, and assuring him that the pains in his limbs would pass away with warmth and exercise. He had been valiant of heart in his dungeon; but his sudden plunge into upper air was like rising from the grave, and brought on all the effects of his dreary captivity, of which he had hardly been sensible when he