The Scourge of God

A comely woman then, now an old one and before him, there, in the body of the Court.

What if she and Urbaine should meet? What if they had met?

The doomed man, the man upon whom Amédée Beauplan was about to pronounce sentence, had said that Cavalier had discovered those who knew her father, Urbain Ducaire. Was she one of those whom the Camisard chief had discovered, and had she told all?

"Is he mad?" some in the Court asked again, while others answered, "More like stricken with remorse or fear." Yet surely not the latter, since now he repeated his last words referring to the sentence.

"Pronounce-it."

Yet with his eyes never off that woman's face.

A moment later and it was done; the sentence delivered, even as it had been delivered again and again in Nîmes and Avignon, Montpellier and Alais within the last few months by red-robed legal functionaries, and, in countless bourgs and villages, by rough soldiers acting as judges. A sentence of death by the flames before the Beau Dieu of the cathedral, to take place at the time ordered by the King's representative, Baville. The ashes afterward to be scattered to the winds.

Yet, as Amédée Beauplan's voice ceased, others were heard in the Court, rising above all the noise made by the movement of the spectators passing out into the street, by the orders shouted from officers to men to clear that Court, and by the loud murmurings either of approbation or disapproval which were heard.

"It will never take place," one clear, high-toned voice was heard above all others to cry, "never. Ere it does, Nîmes shall be consumed to ashes."

And Martin, turning as the warders prepared to take him back to his cell, saw from whose lips that cry had come. From Cavalier, the man dressed in russet-brown and with his features hidden by the long black wig.

Perhaps, too, Baville suspected who might be the utterer of that ominous threat, for now he rose from his seat once more, again he stood erect and commanding; except for his pallor, which still remained, he was himself as ever.

"Stop!" he cried, his voice ringing like a clarion above all the other sounds, the shuffling of feet, the murmurings and mutterings, and the clank of sabres; "stop and hear my words!" And seeing that all eyes were turned toward him, he continued, his tones as firm and unshaken as though the events of the past hour had had no actual existence:

"In this hall to-day are present-I know it well-many who are rebels to the King's, to my authority. Men whose lives are forfeit even as the lives of countless others have been forfeited. Enough! To-day they are safe. This Court is open, but for to-day only. Let those rebels therefore take heed. For so sure as there is a God above us, so sure as I, Baville, Intendant of Languedoc and representative of his Majesty, stand here, those rebels who are found in this city at nightfall shall follow the same road their brethren have trod before them. You have called me the Tiger of Languedoc, and, by the splendour of Heaven, a tiger you shall still find me. Till rebellion is crushed forever from out this province, so long as I live, never will I spare one who takes up arms against the anointed King of France. Now," and he sank back on to his chair, "begone all of you out of Nîmes. To-night I cause a house-to-house visitation to be made-ay! a search from room to room. Those found here die. Begone, therefore, while there is yet time."

Then, without waiting to hear what answer might be made to his threats by any in the crowd, he rose and, passing to the heavily curtained door which led from out the Court, left them. Yet ere he did so, and even while the attendants held back that curtain for him to pass through, he paused once and, facing all there, gazed on them calmly.

A moment later he was gone; gone without hearing the curses and objurgations muttered by many lips, the loud "Brava" which Montrevel gave utterance to, or the little rippling laugh that issued from Léonie Sabbat's lips as again she struck her unwilling neighbour on the shoulder with her white hand and exclaimed, "Avec tout, il est superbe."

Had she seen him, however, the instant after the heavily figured arras had fallen behind him, she might have deemed he was less strong and masterful than she had a moment before grudgingly allowed him to be. For even as he passed down the passage which led to the door at which his heavily-gilt state-coach awaited him, an exact facsimile of that in which Le Roi Soleil himself travelled from Versailles to Marly or from St. Germain to Fontainebleau, he walked unsteadily and his white brow was moist and damp.

"If she should have met Urbaine," he muttered as he passed along the passage, "or if she should meet her, and tell all!"

CHAPTER XXIX

"HER FATHER'S MURDERER."

"I have not yet decided," Baville said that night to Beauplan as they sat together in the new citadel, "when the sentence will be carried out. Have my doubts as to whether I shall not release him."

"Release him!" the other echoed. "Release him! Such a thing is unheard of. He, an Englishman, a consorter with the Camisards, a man under the ban of Versailles! Surely you would not dare-"

"Dare!" exclaimed Baville, though very quietly, "dare! Monsieur Beauplan, you forget yourself. Since I have ruled in Languedoc no man has dared to use that word to me before."

"Yet," said the judge, a member of an ancient family in the south, who had always rebelled against the authority of this stranger to the customs, as well as the noblesse, of Languedoc, "though none here may question your authority, there are those in the capital who can do so."

"There are. But you are not of the number. Monsieur Beauplan, I have nothing more to say. I wish you a good-night."

"I understand," Beauplan replied, "understand very well. And your conduct is natural; also natural that there should be an exchange of prisoners, that your child's release should depend upon his. Yet beware, Monsieur l'Intendant! I was at Versailles two months ago, as you know, and-and-they said-" and he hesitated a moment while a slight smile came into his face.

"What did they say?"

"That not only might a substitute he sent in place of Montrevel, but of-"

"Baville! Is that it?"

"It is that."

"The substitute to be, perhaps, Amédée Beauplan."

"Nay, that is impossible, as you are aware. In Languedoc none can rule as Intendant who are of the province. Yet I warn you, if you set free this man even in the desire to obtain the freedom of Urbaine Ducaire, neither Chamillart nor Madame de Maintenon will forgive."

"You mean well, doubtless," Baville replied, "yet I shall act as I see best. Beauplan, you have children of your own, also a high post. If the life of one of your girls were balanced against that post, which should you prefer to protect?"

To this the judge made no answer, leaving the Intendant alone a moment afterward. Yet, as he sought his own great sumptuous coach, he acknowledged that, much as he detested Baville, what he was undoubtedly about to do was natural.

Left alone, the other took from his pocket a paper and glanced at it as, before the judge had appeared in his room, he had glanced at it a dozen times-a paper on which were written only a few words. They ran:

"Urbaine Ducaire will be restored unharmed to none other than the Englishman sentenced to death to-day. If he dies she dies too. Nothing can save her, even though she is a Huguenot. Decide, therefore, and decide quickly." And it was signed "Jean Cavalier."

"So," he mused, "he was in the Court to-day, or sent this message by one of his followers, knowing well what the sentence would be. Yet the decision was made ere this paper was smuggled in here, God knows how! It needed not this to determine me."

He struck upon the bell by his side as he thus reflected, and, on the servant appearing in answer to it, he asked:

"How came this paper here which I found upon my table?" and he touched with his finger the letter from Cavalier.

"It was left, monsieur, by a woman."

"A woman! Of what description?"

"Old, monsieur, gray and worn. She said, monsieur, that it was of the first importance. A matter of life and death."

Again, as the lackey spoke, there came that feeling to the other's heart of icy coldness, the feeling of utter despair which had seized upon him earlier, as he saw her face in Court. For he never doubted that the bearer of the missive was the same woman who appeared as a spectre before him at the trial-the woman who could tell Urbaine all.

"Where have they disposed the man who was tried and sentenced to-day?" he asked next.

"In the same room he has occupied since he was brought here, monsieur."

"So! Let him be brought to this room. I have to speak with him."

"Here, monsieur!" the man exclaimed with an air of astonishment which he could not repress.

"Here."

Ten minutes later and Martin was before him, he having been conducted from the wing of the citadel in which he was confined to the adjacent one in which Baville's set of apartments were.

His escort consisted of two warders who were of the milice; nor was there any need that he should have more to guard him, for his hands were manacled with great steel gyves, the lower ends of which were attached by ring bolts to his legs above his knees. Yet, since they could have had no idea that there was any possibility of one so fettered as he escaping from their custody, the careful manner in which these men stood by their prisoner could have been but assumed with a view to finding favour with the ruler of the province.

As Martin confronted the other, their eyes met in one swift glance; then Baville's were quickly lowered. Before that man, the man whom Urbaine loved, the man who had saved her life, who could restore her once more to his arms-if, knowing what she might know, she would ever return to them-the all-powerful Intendant felt himself abased.

"Who," he said, addressing the warders, "has the key of those irons?"

"I, monsieur," one answered.

"Remove them."

"Monsieur!"

"Do as I bid you."

With a glance at his comrade (the fellow said afterward that the Intendant had gone mad) the one thus addressed did as he was ordered. A moment later and Martin and Baville were alone, the warders dismissed with a curt word, and hurrying off to tell their mates and comrades that the rebellion must be over since the trial of the morning could have been but a farce.

Then Baville rose and, standing before Martin, said:

"You see, I keep my promise. You are free."

"Free! To do what? Rejoin Urbaine?"

"Ay, to rejoin Urbaine. For that alone, upon one stipulation."

"What is the stipulation?"

"That-that-she and I meet again!"

"Meet again! Why not?"

Instead of replying to this question Baville asked Martin another.

"Was," he demanded, speaking swiftly, "Cavalier in Court to-day, dressed in a russet suit, disguised in a long black wig?"

"Yes," the other replied, "he was there."

"And the woman with him, old, gray-haired, is she one of the dwellers in the mountains, one of his band?"

"Nay. Her I have never seen."

"She can not then have met, have come into contact with Urbaine?"

"How can I say? It is a week since I left Urbaine there, safe with him in those mountains. Since then many things have happened, among others the horrors of Mercier's mill."

"It was not my doing," Baville answered hotly. "Not mine; Montrevel is alone answerable for that. I was away at the beginning, on my road back from Valence. None can visit that upon my head. Yet-yet-rather should fifty such horrors happen, rather that I myself should perish in such a catastrophe, than that this woman and Urbaine should ever meet."

As he spoke there came to Martin's memory the words that Cavalier had uttered to him. "Ere she leaves us there is something to be told her as regards Baville's friendship for her father, Ducaire. And when she has heard that, it may be she will never wish to return to him, to set eyes on her beloved Intendant again."

Was this woman of whom Baville spoke the one who could tell her that which would cause her the great revulsion of feeling which Cavalier had hinted at?

"Why should they never meet?" he asked, the question forced from him by the recollection of the Camisard's words joined to Baville's present emotion.

"Because," the other replied, his face once more the colour of death, the usually rich full voice dull and choked, "because-O God! that I should have to say it-because I am, though all unwittingly, her father's murderer. And that woman knows it."

"You! Her father's murderer!"

"Yes, I." Then he went on rapidly, his tones once more those of command, his bearing that of the ruler before whom stood a prisoner in his power. "But ask me no more. It was all a hideous, an awful mistake. I loved Urbain Ducaire; would have saved him. And-and-by that mistake I slew him. Also, I love his child-his! – nay, mine, by all the years in which I have cherished, nurtured her. Oh, Urbaine, Urbaine, ma mie, ma petite!" he whispered, as though there were none other present to see him in this, his dark hour. "Urbaine, if you learn this you will come to hate me as all in Languedoc hate me."

"Be comforted," Martin exclaimed, touched to the heart by the man's grief, forgetful, too, of all the horrible instances of severity linked with his name, "be comforted. She must never meet that woman, never know. Only," he almost moaned, remembering all that the knowledge of this awful thing would bring to her, "how to prevent it. How to prevent it."

"I have it," Baville said, and he straightened himself, was alert, strong again, "I have it. I said but now I would, must, see her once more. But, God help me! I renounce that hope forever. To save her from that knowledge, to save her heart from breaking, I forego all hopes of ever looking on her face again, ever hearing her whisper 'Father' in my ear more. And you, you alone, can save her. You must fly with her, away, out of France. Then-God, he knows! – she and I will be far enough apart. Also she will be far enough away from that woman who can denounce me."

"But how, how, how? Where can we fly? All Languedoc, all the south, is blocked with the King's, with your, troops-"

"Nay, the Camisards can help you. Can creep like snakes across the frontier to Switzerland, to the Duke of Savoy's dominions. You must go-at once. You are free, I say," and he stamped his foot in his excitement. "Go, go, go. I set you free, annul this trial, declare it void. Only go, for God's sake go, and find her ere it is too late."

"I need no second bidding," Martin answered, his heart beating high within him at the very thought of flying to Urbaine, of seeing her again and of clasping her to his arms, and, once across the frontier, of never more being parted from her; of his own freedom which would thereby be assured he thought not one jot, the full joy of possessing Urbaine forever eclipsing the delight of that newly restored liberty entirely; "desire naught else. Only, how will you answer for it?"

"Answer!" Baville exclaimed. "Answer! To whom shall I answer but to Louis? And though I pay with my head for my treachery, if treachery it is, she will be safe from the revelation of my fault. That before all."

"When shall I depart?" Martin asked briefly.

"Now, to-night, at once. Lose no moment. A horse shall be prepared for you. Also a pass that will take you through any of the King's forces you may encounter on the road to the mountains. Once there, you are known to the Camisards and-and she will be restored to you."

"Will they let me pass the gate?"

"Let you pass the gate! Pass the gate! Ay, since I go with you as far as that. Let us see who will dare to stop you."

An hour later Martin was a free man.

Free, that is, in so far that he had passed the Porte des Carmes and was once more upon the road toward the mountains, toward where Urbaine Ducaire was. Yet with all around him the troops of Montrevel, the field marshal having sallied forth that morning intent upon more slaughter and bloodshed, and with, still farther off, the Camisards under Cavalier in one division and under Roland in another, descending, if all accounts were true, upon Nîmes and Alais with a full intention of avenging mercilessly the burning of their brethren in the mill.

Yet, sweet as was the sense of that freedom, sweet, too, as was the hope that ere many more hours would be passed he and Urbaine would have met once more never again to part, he could not but reflect upon the heartbrokenness of Baville as he bid him Godspeed.

"Save her, save her," he whispered as they stood at the Great Gate, "save her from France, above all from the knowledge of what happened so long ago. Fly with her to Switzerland and thence to your own land; there you can live happily. And-and-tell me ere you go that from your lips she shall never know aught. Grant me that prayer at the last."

"Out of my love for her, out of the hopes that in all the years which I pray God to let me spend with her, no sorrow may come near her, I promise. If it rests with me you shall be always the same in her memory as you have been in actual life. I promise. And perhaps when happier days shall dawn, you and your wife and she may all meet again."

"Perhaps," Baville replied, "perhaps." Then from the breast of this man whose name was execrated in every land to which French Protestants had fled for asylum, this man of whom all said that his heart, if heart he had, was formed of marble, there issued a deep sob ere he moaned: "Be good to her. Shield her from harm, I implore you. She was all we had to love. Almost the only thing on earth that loved me. Farewell!"

CHAPTER XXX

FREE

The mountains again! And Martin free! Happy, too, because, as the cold blast swept down from their summits to him as he rode swiftly through the valley toward the commencement of the ascent, he knew that it came from where, high up, Urbaine waited for her freedom and for his return. Knew it beyond all thought and doubt; knew, divined that daily those clear, pure eyes looked for him to be restored to her, was sure that nightly, ere she sought her bed, she prayed upon her knees for him and his safety. Had she not said it, promised it, ere they parted? Was not that enough? Enough to make him turn in his wrist another inch upon his horse's rein, press that horse's flanks once more, urge it onward to where she was?

Yet though he travelled with Baville's pass in his pocket, though he went toward where the Camisards were, who would receive him with shouts of exaltation and welcome, he knew that again he rode with his life in his hands as, but a night or so before, he had thus ridden from the seacoast to Nîmes. For there were those abroad now who would be like enough to tear Baville's pass up and fling it in his face if he were caught, soldiers who served Montrevel and Montrevel alone, men whose swords would be through his heart or the bullets from their musketoons embedded in his brain, if he but fell into their hands. For on this very night the great bravo had broken with the Intendant ere he had quit Nîmes to march toward the Cévennes and make one more attack upon the strongholds of the "rebels"; had sworn that ere Villars arrived, who was now on the way from Paris to supersede Julien, he would wipe out those rebels so that, when Louis' principal soldier should appear on the scene, he would find none to crush.

Also he had sent forward on the very road which Martin now followed a captain named Planque (a swashbuckler like himself) and a lieutenant named Tournaud, in command of three thousand men, all of whom had declared with many an oath that they took their orders from their commander and from no governor or intendant who ever ruled.

At first Martin had not known this, would indeed not have known it at all, had not his suspicions been aroused by finding that, as he rode on swiftly toward where the principal ascent to the mountains began, near Alais, he was following a vast body of men, among whom were numbers of the hated Pyrenean Miquelets; men who marched singing their hideous mountain songs and croons, such as in many a fray had overborne the shrieks of the dead and dying.

"I must be careful," Martin had muttered to himself, as he drew rein and moved his horse on to the short crisp grass that bordered the road, "or I shall be among them. Where do they go to?"

Yet, careful as he was, he still determined to follow in their train, to observe what road they took when farther on in their march, for he knew, from having been much in the neighbourhood a year before, and ere he had set out for Switzerland on his first quest for Cyprien de Rochebazon, that ere long they must take one route of two. If that to the left, which branched off near Anduse, their destination would be undoubtedly the mountains; if they kept straight on, then Alais was their destination. And if the latter, they would not hinder him. He was soon to know, however, where that destination lay.

High above the chatter of the Miquelets and their repulsive chants-on one subject alone, that of slaughter, rapine, and plunder combined-high above also the jangle of the bridles, bridoons, steel bits, and the hoofs of the dragoons and chevaux-légers ahead, the orders were borne on the crisp icy air: the orders to wheel to the left-to the mountains.

Therefore an attack was intended there, or what, as Julien had himself termed it, when planning that which was now to be carried out, une battue.

That it would be successful Martin doubted. Never yet had the royalists forced their way far up those passes, never yet had they been able to possess themselves of one square yard of ground above the level of the valley. And he recalled the treacherous drawbridges constructed over ravines and gullies, as well as the other traps, which he had seen and had pointed out to him as he descended from the Cévennes to meet Cavalier. He doubted if now this enlarged attack would be any more successful than former and less well-arranged attacks had been.

Yet Urbaine was there. That unnerved him, caused him to shudder. For if at last, if now, at this time, success should come to these troops, as both Julien and Montrevel had sworn it should come eventually, what then of her! Those in command might not know, or, knowing, not choose to believe that she was Baville's cherished idol. And to think of his beloved one in the power of those fiends, the Miquelets, was enough to cause his heart to cease beating.

Or, better still, to beat more fiercely with a firm determination of seeking her than even he had experienced an hour before; the determination to get to where she was before these heavily accoutred soldiers could do so, if they ever got there at all; to join her, save her, protect her. But how to do it! How! How!

How to get ahead of this band; how gain the ascent before them, warn the Camisards. Above all-ay, that was it-above all, how save the girl he worshipped and adored! That, or one other thing: die in the attempt.

He knew a moment later that the turn was made toward the mountains. From beneath the tree where he had halted he saw, in the rays of the now risen full moon, the sparkle of the breasts and backs and gorgets of the dragoons as they wheeled to the left, also the glitter of aiguillette and steel trappings. Perceived, too, that a deep silence had fallen on all that moving mass. Even the Miquelets ceased to sing and chatter. Nothing disturbed the silence of the night but the thud of countless horses' hoofs, with now and again a neigh and now and again the rattle of scabbard against charger's flank. They were in, or near the country of the insidious, unvanquished foe. Doubtless the order had gone forth for silence.

He must get ahead of them-reach the pass or mountain road before them. Otherwise, what of Urbaine if they should win?

But, again, how to do it!

To the left of him, and still farther yet to the left of where the battalions marched after wheeling, there was a stream, a branch of Le Gardon; in summer a swift-flowing river beneath whose gliding waters the reeds bent gracefully; now half frozen and seemingly without current. If he could cross that, there was on the other side a wide open plain, on which for centuries peasant landlords had been endeavouring to cultivate grapevines, to redeem from the marshy soil that was so common in the south some of the thousands of useless acres which abounded. And across that plain, dotted here and there by countless poles on which no vine had ever grown in man's memory, and on which many sheep had browsed upon the short grass salted by the spray (brought in from the Mediterranean on the wings of the Circius) until the Cévenoles had descended and raided them, he might make his way, might cut off by a short détour that advancing force, get before it to where the ascent began, be the first to reach the mountains, the home of the outcasts.