Kitabı oku: «Noémi», sayfa 6

CHAPTER XI.
THE TEN CROSSES

Ogier del' Peyra, with a much larger body of men, murderously, if not well, equipped, had left Ste. Soure an hour after the departure of Jean. The Vézère makes a great sweep to meet the Beune, but, as though disgusted at the insignificance of its tributary, after having received its waters, it at once turns and flows in an almost directly opposite direction, leaving a broad, flat tongue of land round which it curls, a tongue of rich alluvial soil, interspersed with gravel that is purple in autumn with crocus, and in summer blue with salvia.

Here the party, headed by Ogier, waited in patience till the signal flashed thrice from the heights opposite, when it was immediately answered by three corresponding flares of dry grass.

Then Ogier and his men, under cover of the darkness, moved up the river to the ford, waded across the water, and cautiously crept along the river bank among the osiers in straggling line, till they had reached a suitable point below the "Church." From this point they could see the lights from the windows of that unhallowed edifice shining before them, half-way up the sky like stars, but stars of lurid hue.

Then they sat down in the dewy grass and waited. Hour passed after hour. The stars before them waxed faint and went out.

Then, suddenly, bringing all to their feet, came the peal of the horn, echoed and re-echoed from every cliff, and followed by a crash and a flare.

The scene that ensued was one such as none who witnessed it had ever had a chance of beholding before, or were likely to see again.

The immense pile of brushwood and fat and other fuel caught with rapidity and rose in a burst of flame high up, as it were in mid-heaven, followed immediately by its being poured over the lip of the precipice, the molten, blazing tar, the incandescent fat, streaked the cliff as with rivers of light, fell on the projecting roof, ran in through the interstices created by the fall of stones that had shivered the covering tiles, and set fire to the rafters they had protected.

Dense volumes of swirling red smoke, in which danced ghostly jets of blue flame, rolled about the habitation of the robber band, and penetrated to its interior. It broke out of the windows in long spirals and tongues, forked as those of adders.

The rocks up the Vézère were visible, glaring orange, every tree was lit up, and its trunk turned to gold. The Vézère glowed a river of flame; clouds that had vanished gathered, crowding to see the spectacle, and palpitated above it.

"Forward!" yelled Ogier, and the whole party rushed up the steep ascent.

For one reason it would have been better had they crept up the steep slope before the horn was blown, so as to be ready at once to burst the gates and occupy every avenue. But Ogier had considered this course, and had deemed the risk greater than the advantage. To climb the rubble slope without displacing the shale was impossible; to do so without making sufficient noise to alarm the sentinel was hardly feasible in such a still night. This might have been done in blustering wind and lashing rain, not on such a night as that when the bullfrog's call rang down the valley and was answered by another frog a mile distant.

The ascent was arduous; it could not have been made easily in pitch darkness; now it was effected rapidly by the glare of the cataract of falling fire and of blazing rafters.

In ten minutes, with faces streaming, with lungs blowing, the peasants reached the gate-house. They beat at it with stones, with their fists; they drove their pikes at it, but could not open it.

Then a man – it was one of those who had been taken and confined in the castle – bid all stand back. He buckled on to his feet a sort of spiked shoe, with three prongs in each sole, and held a crooked axe in his hand.

"I have not been in there for nothing," laughed he. "I saw what they had for climbing walls, and I've made the like at my forge."

Then he went to the wall, drove in the end of his pick, and in a moment, like a cat, went up from stone course to stone course, till he reached the summit of the wall, when he threw aside his foot-grapnels and leaped within. In the panic caused by the sudden avalanche of stones and fire the sentinel had deserted the gate. The oak doors were cast open, and the whole body of armed men burst in.

They found the small garrison huddled together, paralysed with fear, all their daring, their insolence, their readiness on an occasion gone. They stood like sheep, unable to defend themselves, and were taken without offering any resistance.

The surprise was so complete, the awfulness of the manner in which they were visited was so overwhelming, that the ruffians did not know whether they were not called to their final account, and whether their assailants were not fiends from the flaming abyss.

It had come on them in the midst of sleep when stupefied with drink.

"Follow me!" ordered Ogier, and he led the way through fallen flakes of fire, smouldering beams, and smoking embers, to a portion of the castle that was intact. It consisted wholly of a cavern faced up with stone, and the cataract of fire had not reached it, or had not injured it.

"Bring the prisoners to me," said Ogier. "Where is the Captain? Where is Le Gros Guillem?"

The head of the band was not taken.

"Disperse – seek him everywhere!" ordered Del' Peyra.

The men ran in every possible direction. They searched every cranny.

"He has escaped up the ladder to the Last Refuge!" shouted one. The Last Refuge was the chamber excavated above the projecting roof of the castle, cut in the solid rock.

"He cannot," said another, "the ladder was the first thing to burn. See, it is in pieces now."

"If he be there," scoffed a third, "let him there abide. He can neither get up nor down."

"I do not think he is there. He is in Hell's Mouth."

This Hell's Mouth was the tortuous cavern opening upon the ledge of rock occupied by the castle.

"If he is there, who will follow him?" asked one.

"Aye! who – when the foul fiend will hide him."

"I do not believe it," said one of the men who had been confined in the "Church." He indicated with his finger. "There is a mal-pas yonder; he has escaped along that."

A mal-pas, in fact, exists in many of these rock castles. It consists of a track sometimes natural, often artificially cut in the face of the cliff, so narrow that only a man with an unusually steady head can tread it; often is the mal-pas so formed that it cannot be walked along upright, but in a bent posture. Often also it is cut through abruptly and purposely to be crossed by a board which he who has fled over it can kick down and so intercept pursuit.

"Bring up the men for me to judge them," said Ogier, "and you, Mathieu, give me your sharp-pointed pick."

The man addressed handed the implement to his Seigneur, who seated himself on the floor of rock with his legs apart and extended.

"Giraud!" said Ogier, "and you, Roland, run out a beam through one of the windows – through yonder, and one of you find rope – abundance. How many are here?"

"There are twelve," was the answer.

"That is well; twelve – enough rope to hang twelve men, one after another from the window."

Sufficiency of rope was not to be found.

"It matters not," said Ogier. "There are other ways into another world than along a rope. They shall walk the beam. Thrust it through the window and rope the end of it."

"Which end?"

"This one in the room, to hold it down."

A large beam, fallen from the roof in the adjoining chamber, and still smoking and glowing at one end, was dragged in, and the burning end thrust out through a window. The driving it through the opening, together with the inrush of air to the heated apartments, caused the red and charred wood to burst into light; it projected some ten feet beyond the wall, fizzing, spurting forth jets of blue flame over the abyss.

"Number one!" shouted Ogier. "Make him walk the rafter. Drive him forward with your pikes if he shrinks back."

One of the ruffians of the band, his face as parchment, speechless in the stupefaction of his fear, was made to mount the beam, and then the peasants round shouted, drove at him with their knives and pruning-hooks, and made him pass through the window.

There were three men seated on the end of the beam, which rested on a bench in the chamber.

The moment the unhappy wretch had disappeared through the window, Ogier began to hew with his pick into the floor.

"Forward! He is hanging back! He clings to the wall! Coward! He is endeavouring to scramble in again!" was yelled by the peasants, crowding round the window to watch the man on the charred and glowing beam end.

"Drive him off with a pike! Make him dance on the embers!" called one within, and a reaping-hook, bound to a pole, was thrust forth.

A scream, horrible in its agony, in its intensity; and those seated on the beam felt there was no longer a counterpoise.

Chip, chip, went Ogier.

Presently he looked up. He had cut a Greek cross in the chalk floor.

"Number two!" he ordered.

Then the wretch who was seized burst from his captors, rushed up to Ogier, threw himself on his knees, and implored to be spared. He would do anything. He would forswear the English. He would never plunder again.

Old Del' Peyra looked at him coldly.

"Did you ever spare one who fell into your hands? Did you spare Rossignol? Make him walk the beam."

The shrieking wretch was lifted by strong arms on to the rafter; he refused to stand, he threw himself on his knees, he struggled, bit, prayed, sobbed – all the manhood was gone out of him.

"Thrust him through the window," said one. "If he will not walk the beam he shall cling to it."

The brigand's efforts were in vain. He was driven through the opening. In his frantic efforts to save himself he gripped the rafter, hanging from it, his legs swinging in space.

"Cut off his fingers," said one.

Then the man, to escape a blow from an axe, ran his hands along, put them on glowing red charcoal, and dropped.

Chip, chip! went Ogier. He had cut a second cross.

"Number three!" he said.

The man whose turn came thrust aside those who held him, leaped on the beam, and walked deliberately through the window and bounded into the darkness.

Chip, chip! went Ogier. He worked on till he had incised a third cross in the floor.

Thus one by one was sent to his death out of the chamber reeking with wood-smoke, illumined by the puffs of flame from the still burning buildings that adjoined. Ten crosses had been cut in the floor.

"Number eleven!" said Ogier; and at that same moment his son Jean entered at the head of those who had ignited and sent down the cataract of fire that had consumed the nest.

"What are you doing, father?"

"Sending them before their Judge," answered Ogier. "See these ten crosses. There are ten have been dismissed."

Then the man who had been brought forward to be sent along the same road as the rest said —

"I do not cry for life; but this I say; it was I, aye, I and my fellow here, Amanieu, who provided the hundred livres, without which the seven would not have been set free."

"You provided it?"

"Aye, under the Captain's daughter. It was we who did it. If that goes to abate our sentence – well."

"Father, spare these two," pleaded Jean.

"As you will, Jean; but there is space for two more crosses. Would – would I could cut an eleventh, and that a big one, for the Gros Guillem."

Then murmurs arose. The peasants, their love of revenge, their lust for slaughter whetted, clamoured for the death of the last two of the band.

But Jean was firm.

"My father surrenders them to me," he said.

"Then let them run on the mal-pas," shouted one of the peasants.

"Good!" said the brigand Roger; "give me a plank and I will run on it, so will Amanieu."

Ogier looked ruefully at the crosses.

"'Tis a pity," said he. "I intended to cut a dozen."

If the visitor to the Eglise de Guillem will look, to this day, rudely hacked in the floor, he will see the ten crosses: he will see further – but we will leave the rest to the sequel.

CHAPTER XII.
THREE CROSSES

No sooner had Noémi left l'église than with her teeth she tore the red cross off her left shoulder in an ebullition of wrathful resentment.

She rode, attended by the two servants of the Tardes, to La Roque Gageac without speaking.

Her mind was busy. It was clear to her that she could not remain with her aunt after that affair at the Devil's Table. The Bishop of Sarlat was not an energetic ruler; he might demur to making an expedition against Domme, doubt the expediency of attempting reprisals against so terrible a man as Le Gros Guillem, and all for the sake of a Jew, but he could hardly allow her, who had been the mover in the robbery, to remain in one of his towns. It would not be well for her to compromise the Tarde family. She must go to her mother at Domme.

On arriving at La Roque, she told Jacques and Jean Tarde what she had done.

Jacques burst out laughing. "Well done, Cousin Noémi! I am glad our money has gone to some good purpose."

She flushed to her temples. Jean del' Peyra had not welcomed her with commendation. He had received what she had done in an ungracious manner. She resented this. She was bitter at heart against him. That was the last time she would move a finger to help a Del' Peyra.

Noémi remained the night and part of next day at La Roque. Though young and strong, she was greatly tired by the exertion she had gone through, and by the mental excitement even more than the bodily exertion. The distance to Domme was not great. She had but to cross the Dordogne a couple of leagues higher in a ferry-boat and she would be at the foot of the rock of Domme. This rock may be described as an oval snuffbox with precipitous sides, flat, or nearly so, above, with, however, one end somewhat elevated above the other. On this superior elevation stood the castle or citadel. On the lower was the town, uniformly built, with a quadrangular market-place in the midst surrounded by arcades, and every street cutting another at right angles, and every house an exact counterpart of its fellow.

The garrison kept guard on the walls, but their headquarters were in the castle, where also resided their Captain, Guillem. Access to the town was to be had by one way only, and the gate was strongly defended by salient drums of towers. The castle had a triple defence of river, wall and half towers, and possessed a great donjon, square and machicolated. In 1369 it had stood a siege by the English for fifteen days, and had repelled Sir John Chandos and all his force. Since then it had fallen into the hands of the English through the neglect of the French crown to provide the necessary garrison.

Noémi was attended as far as Domme by her cousins' servant. On reaching the town it was at once manifest that something unusual had occurred which was occupying the minds and tongues of the townspeople. The men were gathered in knots; the arcaded market-place was full of them.

The girl entered the castle and proceeded to her mother's room. This lady was past the middle age, finely framed and delicately featured, still beautiful, but languid and desponding. She greeted her daughter without impulsive affection.

"Noémi," she said, "something has happened to discompose your father. I do not know what it is, the whole place is in commotion."

"I will go see," answered the girl.

"I do not think he wishes to be disturbed," said the lady, and sighing, leaned back in her seat.

Noémi at once proceeded to the chamber usually occupied by Guillem, and she saw him there, seated at a table, gnawing his nails.

The insolent, dauntless freebooter was much altered. He sat with his elbows on the table, his fingers to his teeth, his hair ragged, his tall, smooth head, usually polished, without its wonted gloss, his eyes staring stonily before him.

The Captain was mortified rather than hurt. He had been driven like a wolf athwart the woods by the peasants; smoked out of his lair by Jacques Bonhomme, like a fox.

He had escaped from the "Church" by the skin of his teeth. Roused by the crashing in of the roof, then by the flood of fire, he had sprung from his bed, half-clothed, without his jerkin and boots, had seized his sword and had fled. In an instant he had realised the impossibility of resistance, and had run along the mal-pas, and, selfish in his fear, had kicked down the plank over the chasm to secure himself from pursuit, though at the sacrifice of his men.

He had lurked at a distance, watching his blazing castle and then had run on. Occasionally he had all but rushed into the arms of peasants flocking from the neighbourhood. Once, in the grey morning light, he had been recognised and pursued, and had only saved himself by cowering under an overhanging stone till the men had gone by.

Bootless, running over rocks and stones, and these latter in many cases flints that were broken and cut like razors, his feet had been gashed, and he had at length been hardly able to limp along. Prickles of briar, spines of juniper, had aggravated the wounds, and it was with extreme difficulty that he had reached the Dordogne, seized a boat, and rowed himself across into territory nominally English. Even then he had not been safe. He knew it. He must reach Domme before the tidings of the disaster arrived, or all the subjugated country would be roused. He broke into a farmer's stable, took his horse, and galloped with it up the valley, nor halted till he reached the gates of Domme, where his warder opened to him in amaze to see the governor of the town, the captain of the garrison, arrive in such a deplorable condition.

Since his arrival, after he had bathed his feet and had them bound up, he had been seated at his table, gnawing his nails, glaring into space, his heart eaten out with rage, humiliation, and raven for revenge.

To have been defied by a Del' Peyra! To have been warned by his adversary and not to have profited by the warning! Guillem's bald forehead smoked, so hot were his thoughts within him.

Noémi stood looking at the Captain, amazed at the change that had come over him – at his haggardness, at his stoniness of eye.

"Father, what has happened?"

"Go away! I want no women here."

"But, father, something has taken place. All Domme is in commotion. The streets are full."

"Full!" in a scream; "talking of me – of my disgrace! Call my lieutenant; I will send the pikemen through the streets to clear them – to silence the chattering rogues."

"But what does this all mean, father?"

"Come here, child." He waved his arm without looking at her. She obeyed. She stepped to his side and stood by the table.

"Father, your fingers are bleeding; you have gnawed them."

"Have I? It matters not. My feet are bleeding, my brain is bleeding, my honour is bled to death."

"What has happened?"

He took her hand. The only soft part in this terrible man was his love for Noémi, and that was rarely shown.

"What are the Del' Peyras to you?" he asked roughly.

"Nothing, father."

He looked round, caught her steady eye, winced, and turned his away.

"So – nothing. Why did you then ransom these men?"

"Because, father, I had pity for the men themselves."

"Why?" He could not understand this simple, natural, elementary feeling. She did not answer him, but loosened her hand from his; she took the torn strips of red silk that had formed her cross and put them on the table before him. "I renounce my companionship," she said.

He did not regard her words or her action.

"I am glad the Del' Peyras are nothing to you. I swear – " He sprang up but sank again. He could not bear to stand on his mangled feet. "I swear to you, I swear to all Périgord I will root them out; I will not leave a fibre of them anywhere. I will let all the world know what it is to oppose me."

"What has been done, father?"

Again he turned his face, but could not endure her clear eyes.

"I cannot tell you. Ask others."

Steps were audible in the anteroom, and Roger and Amanieu entered. They saluted.

"Captain," said Roger, "we only are come."

"And the others?"

"Ten of them – made to leap the beam."

"Yes, Captain, and the Seigneur del' Peyra sent his compliments to you, and was sorry your legs were so long. You'll excuse me, Captain, they were his own words; he made me swear to repeat them. He was very sorry your legs were so long. He cut ten crosses in the stone, one for each of the comrades, and, said he, there was room for another, and he'll do you the honour of making its legs long also, if he has the chance of catching you."

Guillem gnashed his teeth; the blood rushed into his eyes. He glared at the messenger.

"I think, Captain, you might have left us the plank," said Amanieu. "As it was, we had to borrow one from the peasants."

"Send me the lieutenant. This can only be wiped out in blood!" roared the Gros Guillem, in spite of his wounded feet, leaping into an upright position. "I care not that I am lamed – I care not – I shall be lifted into my saddle. I will not eat, I will not sleep till I have revenged myself and the murdered ten, and my burnt castle and this outrage on my honour."

"I am here, Captain," said the lieutenant, stepping forward. He had entered along with the returned companions. In the blindness of his agony of mind and rage Guillem had not noticed him.

The filibuster turned his face to the lieutenant. It was terrible. His red but grizzled hair, uncombed, shaggy with sweat, electrified and bristling with the fury that was in him, his pale eyes and red suffused balls, his great mouth with pointed fangs, the lower jaw quivering with excitement, made his appearance terrible.

"Lieutenant!" shouted Guillem; "call out all the men available – all but such as must remain to guard the castle and this cursed disloyal town, in which every citizen is a traitor. Muster them outside the castle; bring forth as many horses as we have. If I am carried, I will go. At once, before these peasants have recovered their astonishment, because they surprised us when we were asleep: at once, as swiftly as possible, to chastise them. Cut down every peasant in arms: give no quarter, but above all, take me Ogier del' Peyra. I will pay fifty livres for him – to any man – to have him taken alive. I do not desire him dead; I must have him alive. Do you mark me? First of all, Del' Peyra. At once, before they expect reprisals – at once."

His hand was on the table. In his fury he shook it as if it had been his enemy he was grappling.

"To horse, Roger and Amanieu, and revenge your wrongs, as I will revenge mine."

"Pardon me, Captain," said Roger. "What is this I see? the red silk cross – what? has she taken this off and renounced companionship? So do I. I cannot serve against the father Del' Peyra or the son who spared my life." He plucked at the cross on his shoulder, then with his dagger unripped it, tore it, and threw it on the table.

"Nor I," said Amanieu surlily, "not because they spared me, but because you kicked down the plank." And he also tore off his cross and flung it on the table.