The Abbess Of Vlaye

"She will hear too much by and by!" Roger muttered.

Then a thing happened. The light cast by the bonfire embraced, it has been said, the whole of the courtyard. The men, confident in their strength, had left the gate open. As Roger ceased to speak, a single horseman emerged, silent as a spectre, from the low gateway, and advancing at a foot-pace three or four steps, drew rein, and gazed in astonishment at the scene of hilarity presented to him.

The three at the window were the first to see him. Roger's hand closed on his sister's; hers, so cold a moment before, grew on a sudden hot. "Who is it?" Roger muttered. "Who is it?" The court, which sloped a little from the house, was wide, but it might have been narrow and still he had asked, for the stranger wore-it was no uncommon fashion in those days-a mask. It was a slender thing, hiding only the upper part of the face, but it sufficed. "Who is it?" Roger repeated.

"M. des Voeux!" Bonne answered involuntarily. In their excitement the three rose to their feet.

Whether it were M. des Voeux or not, the masked man seemed in two minds about advancing. He had even turned his horse as if he would go out again, when some of the revellers espied him, and on the instant a silence, broken only by the crackling of the logs, and as striking as the previous din, proclaimed the fact.

The change seemed to encourage the stranger to advance. As he wheeled again and paced nearer, the men who sat on the farther side of the fire from him, and for that reason could not see him, rose and stood gaping at him through the smoke. He moved nearer to the outer ring.

"Who lives here, my good people?" he asked in a voice peculiarly sweet and clear; his tone smacked even a little womanish.

One of the men stifled a drunken laugh. Another turned, and after winking at his neighbours-who passed the joke round-advanced a pace or two, uncovered elaborately and bowed with ceremony to match. "M. le Vicomte de Villeneuve, if it please you, my lord-I should say your excellency!" with another low bow.

"Curse on it!" the stranger exclaimed.

The men's spokesman stared an instant, taken aback by the unexpected rejoinder. Then, aware that his reputation among his fellows was at stake, he recovered himself. "Did your excellency, my lord duke" – another delighted chuckle among the men-"please to speak?"

"Go and tell him I am here," the masked man answered, disregarding their horse-play; and he released his feet from the stirrups. The window of the dining-hall was open, and the three at it could mark him well, and hear every word of the dialogue.

"If your excellency-would enter?" the man rejoined with the same travesty of politeness. "The Vicomte would not wish you, I am sure, to await his coming."

"Very good. And do you, fellow, tell him that I crave the favour of a night's lodging. That I am alone, and my-but the rest I will tell him myself!"

The troopers nudged one another. "Go, Jasper," said the spokesman aloud, "and carry his excellency's commands to M. le Vicomte. Your horse, my lord duke, shall be taken care of! This way, if it please you my lord duke! And do some of you," turning, and making, unseen by the stranger, the motion of turning a key-"bring lights! Lights to the west tower, do you hear?"

The faces of the three within the window were pressed against the panes. "Who can he be?" Bonne muttered. "They call him-"

"They are fooling him!" Roger replied In wrath. "They know no more who he is than we do! He is not des Voeux. He has not his height, and not half his width. But what," angrily, "are they doing now? Where are they taking the man? Why are they taking him to the old tower?"

Why indeed?

Instead of conducting the guest over the bridge which led to the inhabited part of the house, the trooper, attended by four or five of his half-drunken comrades, was ushering him with ceremony to the lesser bridge which led to the western tower; the ground floor of which, a cold damp dungeon-like place, was used as a wood store. It had been opened a few hours before, that fagots might be taken from it, and this circumstance had perhaps suggested the joke to the prime conspirator.

"Lights are coming, my lord duke!" he said, taking a flaring brand from one of his comrades and holding it aloft. He was chuckling inwardly at the folly of the stranger in swallowing his egregious titles without demur. "The Vicomte shall be told. Beware of the step, my lord!" lowering his light that the other might see it. They were on the threshold now, and he pushed open the door that already stood ajar. "The step is somewhat awkward, your excellency! We have to go through the-it is somewhat old-fashioned, but craving your excellency's pardon for bringing you this way-Yah!"

With the word a sudden push thrust the unsuspecting stranger forward. Involuntarily he stumbled, tripped and with a cry of rage found himself on his hands and knees among the fagots. Before he could rise the door clanged horridly on him, the key grated in the lock, he was in darkness, a prisoner!

The men, reckless and half-drunk, roared with delight at the jest. "Welcome, my lord duke!" the ringleader cried, holding aloft his light, and bowing to the ground before the thick oaken door. "Welcome to Villeneuve!"

"Welcome!" cried the others, waving their lights, and clutching one another in fits of laughter. "Welcome to Villeneuve! A good night to you! An appetite to your supper, my lord duke!"

So they gibed awhile. Then, beginning to weary of it, they turned and, still shaking with laughter, discovered an addition to their party: Roger stood before them, his eyes glittering with excitement. The lad had not been able to look on and see the trick played on a guest; the more as that guest represented his one solitary, feeble hope of help. The men might still be sober enough to listen; at any rate he would try. Much against their wills he had broken away from the girls. He was here.

"Open that door!" he said.

The man to whom he spoke, the ringleader, looked almost as much astonished as he was. The others ceased to laugh, and waited to see what would happen.

"That door?" the man concerned answered slowly as soon as he could bring his thoughts to bear on the emergency.

"Yes, that door!" Roger cried imperiously, all the Villeneuve in him rising to the surface. "And instantly, fellow!"

"So be it, if you will have it so," the man replied, shrugging his shoulders. "But it was only a jest, and-"

"There is enough of the jest, and too much!" Roger retorted. He spoke so bravely that not a man remembered his crooked shoulders. "Open, I say!"

The man shook his head. "Best not," he said.

"It shall be done!"

"Well, you can open, if you please," the man replied. "But I am M. de Vlaye's man and take orders nowhere else!" And with an insolent gesture he flung the key on the ground.

To punish him for his insolence, when they were a score to one, was impossible. Roger took up the key, set it in the lock, turned, opened, and, tricked in his turn, plunged head first into the darkness, impelled by a treacherous thrust from behind. Crash! The door was shut on him.

But he knew naught of that. As he fell forward a savage blow from the front, from the darkness, hurled him breathless against a pile of fagots. At the same moment a voice cried in his ear, "There is one is spent, Deo Laus!" A hand groped for him, a foot was set hard against him, and something wrenched at his clothes.

"Why," quoth the same voice a second later-the darkness was almost perfect-"did I not run the rascal through?"

"No!" Roger said, and as the stranger's sword, which had only passed through his clothes, was dragged clear, he nimbly shifted his place. "And I beg you will not," he continued hurriedly. "I was coming to your aid, and those treacherous dogs played the same trick on me!" "Then who are you?"

"I am Roger de Villeneuve, my father's son."

"Then it is Villeneuve, this place? They did not lie in that?"

"No, it is Villeneuve, but these scoundrels are Vlaye's people," Roger answered. He was in the depths of despair, for the girls were alone now and unprotected. "They are in possession here," he continued, almost weeping. "M. de Vlaye-"

"The Captain of Vlaye, do you mean?"

"Yes. He tried to seize the Countess of Rochechouart as she passed this way yesterday. She took refuge here and he did not dare to drag her away. So he left these men to guard her, as he said; but really to carry her off as soon as they should be drunk enough to venture on it." Poor Roger's voice shook. He was lamenting his folly, his dreadful folly, in leaving the women.

The stranger took the news, as was natural, after a different fashion, and one strange enough. First he swore with a deliberate fluency that shocked the country lad; and then he laughed with a light-hearted joyousness that was still more alien from the circumstances. "Well, it is an adventure!" he cried. "It is an adventure! And for what did I come? To the fool his folly! And one fool makes many! But do you think, my friend," he continued, speaking in a different strain, "that they will carry off the Countess while we lie here?"

Roger, raging in the dark, had no other thought. "Why not?" he cried. "Why not? And there are other women in the house." He groaned.

"Young?"

"Yes, yes."

"And one of them-lovely?" There was amusement in the stranger's tone.

"One of them is my sister," Roger retorted fiercely. And for an instant the other was silent.

Then, "With what attendance?" he asked. "Whom have they with them that you can trust?"

"The Countess's steward and one old man. And my father, but he is old also."

"Pheugh!" the stranger whistled. "An adventure indeed!" From the sound of the fagots it seemed that he was moving. "We must out of this," he said, "and to the rescue! But how? There is no other door than the one by which we entered?"

"There is one, but the key is lost, and it has not been opened for years."

"Then we must go out as we came in," the stranger answered gaily. "But how? But how? Let me think! Let me think, lad!"

The smell of damp earth mingled with rotting wood pervaded the darkness in which they stood. They could not see one another, but at a certain height from the ground a shaft of reddish light pierced the gloom and disclosed about a foot of the cobweb vault above them. This light entered through an arrow-slit which looked toward the bonfire, and apparently it suggested a plan, for presently the stranger could be heard stumbling and groping towards it.

"You cannot go out that way!" Roger said.

"No, but I can get them in!" the other answered drily, and from certain noises which came to his ear Roger judged that the man was piling wood under the opening that he might climb to it. He succeeded by-and-by; his head and shoulders became darkly visible at the window-if window that could be called which was but a span wide.

"There is some one in command?" he asked. "Who is it? His name, my friend?" And when Roger, who fortunately remembered Ampoule's name, had told him: "Do you pile," he said, "some wood behind the door, so that it cannot be opened to the full or too quickly. It is only to give us time to transact the punctilios."

Roger complied. He hoped-but with doubt-that the man was not mad. He supposed that out in the world men were of these odd and surprising kinds. The Lieutenant had impressed him. This strange man, who after coming within an ace of killing him jested, who laughed and blasphemed in a breath, and who was no sooner down than he was up, impressed him more vividly, though differently. And was to impress him still more. For when he had set the wood behind the door, the unknown, raised on his pile of fagots, thrust his face into the opening of the arrow-slit, and in a shrill voice of surprising timbre began to pour on the ill-starred Ampoule a stream of the grossest and most injurious abuse. Amid stinging gibes and scalding epithets, and words that blistered, the name rang out at intervals only to sink again under the torrent of vile charges and outrageous insinuations. The lad's ears burned as he listened; burned still more hotly as he reflected that the girls might be within hearing. As for the men at the fire, twenty seconds saw them silent with amazement. Their very laughter died out under that steady stream of epithets, for any one of which a man of honour must have cut his fellow's throat. A moment or two passed in this stark surprise; still the voice, ever attaining lower depths of abuse, went on.

At length, whether some one told him or he heard it himself, the lieutenant came out, and, flushed with drink, listened for a while incredulous. But when he caught his name, undoubtedly his name, "Ampoule! Ampoule!" again and again, and the tale was told him, and he began to comprehend that in the tower was a man who dared to say of him, Vlaye's right hand in many a dark adventure, of him who had cut many a young cock's comb-to say of him the things he heard-he stood an instant in the blaze of the fire and bellowed like a bull.

"His own sister, fifteen years old," the pitiless voice repeated. "Sold her to a Spanish Jew and divided the money with his mother!"

Ampoule's mouth opened wide, but this time breath failed him. He gasped.

"And being charged with it at Fontarabie," continued the voice, "as he returned, showed the white feather before four men at the inn, who took him and dipped him in a dye vat."

"Son of a dog!" Ampoule shrieked, getting his voice at last. "This is too much! This is-"

"Why, he never bullies when he is unsupported!" his tormentor went on. "But a craven he has always been when put to it! If he be not, let him say it now, and face me in a ring!"

The exasperated man ground his teeth and flung out his arms. "Face you!" he roared. "You! You! Face me, and I will cut out your heart!"

"Fine talk! Fine talk!" came the answer. "So you have said many a time and run! Meet me in a ring, foot to foot and fairly, in your shirt!"

"I'll meet you!" the lieutenant answered passionately. "I'll meet you, fool of the world. Little you know whom you have bearded. You must be mad; but mad or not, say your prayer, for 'twill be the last time!"

There was a momentary pause. Then "Promise me a ring and fair-play!" cried the high, delicate voice, "and a clear way of escape if I kill you!"

"Ay, ay! That will I! All that! And much good may it do you!"

"Nay, but swear it," the stranger persisted, "by-by our Lady of Rocamadour!"

"I swear it! I swear it!"

"Then," the stranger replied with a sneer, "it is for you to open. I've no key!" And he leapt lightly from his pile of fagots to the floor.

CHAPTER VIII.

FATHER ANGEL

As he groped his way towards the door, he came into contact with Roger, who was also making for it. Roger gripped him and tried to hold him. "Is there no other way?" the lad muttered. The situation appalled him. "No other way? You are no match for him!"

"That we shall see!" the stranger retorted curtly.

"Then I shall help you!" the lad declared.

"Would you take on another of them?" the stranger answered eagerly. "But no, you are over young for it! You are over young by your voice." Then, as the key grated in the lock, "Stand at my back if you will," he continued, "and if they-would play me foul, it may serve. But I shall give him brief occasion! You will see a pretty thing, my lad."

Crash! The door was forced open, letting a flood of smoky light into the dark place. He who had opened the door, Ampoule himself, strode back, when he had done it, across the wooden bridge, and flinging a hoarse taunt, a "Come if you dare!" over his shoulder, swaggered to the farther end of the hollow space which the men had formed by ranging themselves in three lines; the bridge and moat forming the fourth. One in every three or four held up a blazing firebrand, plucked from the flames; the light of which, falling on the intervening space, rendered it as clear as in the day.

The stranger, a little to Roger's surprise, but less to the surprise of Ampoule's comrades, did not obey the summons with much alacrity. He waited in the doorway, accustoming his eyes to the light, and the lad, whose heart overflowed with pity and apprehension-for he could not think his ally a match for Ampoule's skill and strength-had time to mark the weird mingling of glare and shadow, and to wonder if this lurid space encircled by unreal buildings were indeed the peaceful courtyard which he had known from childhood. Meanwhile Ampoule waited disdainfully at the other end of the lists, and as one who scarcely expected his adversary to appear made his blade whistle in the air. Or, in turn, to show how lightly he held the situation, he aimed playful thrusts at the legs of the man who stood nearest, and who skipped to escape them.

"Must we fetch you out, dirty rogue?" he cried, after a minute of this. "Or-"

"Oh, tace! tace!" the stranger answered in a peevish tone. He showed himself on the drawbridge, and with an air of great caution began to cross it. He still wore his mask. "You are more anxious than most to reach the end of your life," he continued in the same querulous tone. "You are ready?"

"Ready, when you please!" Ampoule retorted fuming. "It is not I-"

"Who hang back?" the stranger answered. As he spoke he stepped from the end of the bridge like a man stepping into cold water. He even seemed to hold himself ready to flee if attacked too suddenly. "But you are sure you are ready now?" he queried. "Quite ready? Do not let me" – with a backward glance-"take you by surprise!"

Ampoule began to think that it would not be without trouble he would draw his adversary within reach. The duels of those days, be it remembered, were not formal. Often men fought without seconds; sometimes in full armour, sometimes in their shirts. Advantages that would now be deemed dishonourable were taken by the most punctilious. So, to lure on his man and show his own contempt for the affair, Ampoule tossed up his sword, and caught it again by the hilt. "I'm ready!" he said. He came forward three paces, and again tossing up his sword, recovered it.

But the masked man seemed to be unwilling to quit the shelter of the drawbridge; so unwilling that Roger, who had taken up his position on the bridge behind him, felt his cheek grow hot. His ally had proved himself such a master of tongue fence as he had never imagined. Was he, ready as he had been to provoke the quarrel, of those who blench when the time comes to make good the taunt?

It seemed so. For the stranger still hung undecided, a foot as it were either way. "You are sure that I should not now take you by surprise?" he babbled, venturing at length a couple of paces in the direction of the foe-but glancing behind between his steps.

"I am quite sure," Ampoule answered scornfully, "that I see before me a poltroon and a coward!"

The word was still on his lips, when like a tiger-cat, like that which in all the world is most swift to move, like, if you will, the wild boar that will charge an army, the mask darted rather than ran upon his opponent. But at the same time with an incredible lightness. Before Ampoule could place himself in the best posture, before he could bring his sword-point to the level, or deal one of those famous "estramaçons" which he had been wasting on the empty air, the other was within his guard, they were at close quarters, the advantage of the bigger man's length of arm was gone. How it went after that, who struck, who parried, not the most experienced eye could see. So quick on one another, so furious, so passionate were the half-dozen blows the masked man dealt, that the clearest vision failed to follow them. It was as if a wild cat, having itself nine lives, had launched itself at Ampoule's throat, and gripped, and stabbed, and struck, and in ten seconds borne him to the ground, falling itself with him. But whereas in one second the masked man was up again and on his guard, Ampoule rose not. A few twitches of the limbs, a stifled groan, an arm flung wide, a gasp, and as he had seen many another pass, through the gate by which he had sent not a few, Ampoule passed himself. Of so thin a texture is the web of life, and so slight the thing that suffices to tear it. Had the masked stranger ridden another road that night, had he been a little later, had he been a little sooner; had the trooper refrained from his jest or the men from the wine-pot, had Roger kept his distance, or the arrow-slit looked another way-had any one of these chance occasions fallen other than it fell, Ampoule had lived, and others perchance had died by his hand!

All passed, it has been said, with incredible swiftness; the attack so furious, the end a lightning-stroke. Roger on the bridge awoke from a doubt of his ally's courage to see a whirl, a blow, a fall; and then on the ground ill-lighted and indistinct-for half the men had dropped their lights in their excitement-he saw a grim picture, a man dying, and another crouching a pace from him, watching with shortened point and bent knees for a possible uprising.

But none came; Ampoule had lived. And presently, still watching cautiously, the mask raised himself and dropped his point. A shiver, a groan passed round the square. A single man swore aloud. Finally three or four, shaking off the stupor of amazement, moved forwards, and with their eyes assured themselves that their officer was dead.

At that Roger, still looking on as one fascinated, shook himself awake, in fear for his principal. He expected that an attack would be made on the masked man. None was made, however, no one raised hand or voice. But as he moved towards him, to support him were it needful, the unexpected happened. The unknown tottered a pace or two, leant a moment on his sword-point, swayed, and slowly sank down on the ground.

With a cry of despair Roger sprang to him, and by the gloomy light of the three brands which still remained ablaze, he saw that blood was welling fast from a wound in the masked man's shoulder. Ampoule had passed, but not without his toll.

Roger forgot the danger. Kneeling, following his instinct, he took the fainting man's head on his shoulder. But he was helpless in his ignorance; he knew not how to aid him. And it was one of the troopers, late his enemies, who, kneeling beside him, quickly and deftly cut away the breast of the injured man's shirt, and with a piece of linen, doubled and redoubled, staunched the flow of blood. The others stood round the while, one or two lending a light, their fellows looking on in silence. Roger, even in his distress, wondered at their attitude. It would not have surprised him if the men had fallen on the stranger and killed him out of hand. Instead they bent over the wounded man with looks of curiosity; with looks gloomy indeed, but in which awe and admiration had their part. Presently at his back a man muttered.

"The devil, or a Joyeuse!" he said. "No other, I'll be sworn!"

No one answered, but the man who was dressing the wound lifted the unknown's hand and silently showed a ring set with stones that even by that flickering and doubtful light dazzled the eye. They were stones such as Roger had never seen, and he fancied that they must be of inestimable value.

"Ay, ay!" the man who had spoken muttered. "I thought it was so when I saw him join! I mind his brother, the day he died, taking two of his own men so, and-pouf! I saw him drown an hour after, and he took the water just so, cursing and swearing; but the Tarn was too strong for him."

"That was Duke Antony?" a second whispered.

"Antony Scipio."

"I never saw him," the second speaker answered softly. "Duke Anne at Coutras-I saw him die; and des Ageaux, that is now Governor of Périgord, got just such a wound as that in trying to save him."

"Pouf! All the world knew him!" he who had first spoken rejoined with the scorn of superior knowledge. "But" – to the man who was binding up the hurt, and who had all but finished his task-"you had better look and make sure that we shall not have our trouble for nothing."

The trooper nodded and began to feel for the fastening of the mask, which was of strong silk on a stiff frame. Roger raised his hand to prevent him, but as quickly repressed the impulse. The men were saving the man's life, and had a right to learn who he was. Besides, sooner or later, the thing must come off.