The Abbess Of Vlaye

  CHAPTER XIII.

  HOSTAGES.

  There is born of the enthusiasm of self-denial a happiness that whilethe fervour lasts seems all-sufficing. The skirmish that has routedthe van of jealousy stands for the battle; nor does the victor foreseethat with the fall of night the enemy will flock again to the attack,and by many an insidious onset strive to change the fortune of theday.

  Still once to have felt the generous impulse, once to have troddenself underfoot and risen god-like above the baser thoughts, issomething. And if Bonne and her brother were destined to find thevictory less complete than they thought, if they were to know momentswhen the worst in them raised its head, they were but as the best ofus. And again--a reflection somewhat more humorous--had these two beenable to read the mind of the man of whom each was thinking, they hadmet with so curious an enlightenment that they had hardly been able tolook at one another. To say that des Ageaux entertained no tenderfeeling for any one were to say more than the truth; for during thelast few days a weakness had crept unwelcome and unbidden into hisheart. But he kept it sternly in the background--he who had naught todo with such things--and it did not tend in the direction of theCountess. In point of fact the Lieutenant had other and more seriousfood for thought; other and more pressing anxieties than love.Forty-eight hours had disclosed the weakness of the position in whichhe had chosen to place himself. He foresaw, if not the certainty, theprobability of defeat. And defeat in the situation he had taken upmight be attended by hideous consequences.

  These were not slow to cast their shadows. The two on the hill had notsat long in silent companionship before the sounds which rose from thecamp began to take a sterner note. Roger was the first to mark thechange. Rousing himself and shaking off his lugubrious mood, "What isthat?" the lad asked. "Do you hear, Bonne? It sounds like troublesomewhere."

  "Trouble?" she repeated, still half in dreams.

  "Yes, by Jove, but--listen! And what has become"--he was on his feetby this time--"of the Bat's ragged regiment? They have vanished."

  "They must be behind the tree," Bonne answered. And moved by the sameimpulse they walked a little aside along the slope until they couldsee the section of the camp immediately below them, which had beenhidden hitherto by the branches of the great plane-tree.

  The little group which Bonne had left when her feelings compelled herto flight remained in the same place. But all who formed it, theVicomte and his eldest daughter as well as des Ageaux and theCountess, were now on their feet. The Vicomte and the ladies stoodtogether in the background, while des Ageaux, who had placed himselfbefore them, confronted an excited body of men, some hundred innumber, and composed in part at least of those whom the Bat had beenlately drilling. Whether these had broken from his control andgathered their fellows as they moved, or the impulse had come fromoutside and they were but recruits, their presence rendered themovement more formidable. They were not indeed of so low and savage atype as the creatures who had met des Ageaux in the gate the previousday, but viewed in this serried mass, their lowering brutish faces andclenched hands called up a vivid sense of danger. They must have madesome outcry as they approached, or Roger had not noticed theirassemblage. But now they were fallen silent. A grim mass of scowling,hard-breathing men, then small suspicious eyes glaring through tangledlocks irresistibly reminded the observer of that quarry the mostdangerous of all the beasts of chase, the wild boar.

  Bonne's colour faded as her eyes took in the meaning of the scene. Shegrew still paler as her brain pictured for the first time the thingsthat might happen in this camp of clowns of whose real sentiments theintruders had so little knowledge, at whose possible treachery it wasso easy to guess. Time has not wiped, time never will wipe from theFrench memory the fear of a Jacquerie. The horrors of that hideousrevolt, of its rise and its suppression are stamped on the minds ofthe unborn. "What is it?" she repeated more than once, her heartfluttering. How very, very near he stood--on whom all depended--to theline of scowling men!

  "A mutiny, I fear!" Roger answered hastily. "Come!" And, with faceslightly flushed, he hurried, running and sliding down the slope.

  She was not three paces behind him when he reached the foot. Here theylost sight of the scene, but quickly passed between two huts andreached the Vicomte's side. Des Ageaux was speaking.

  "I cannot give you the man," he was saying, "but I can give youjustice."

  "Justice?" the spokesman of the peasants retorted bitterly--he worethe dress of a smith, and belonged to that craft. "Who ever heard butof one sort of justice for the poor man? Justice, Sir Governor, is thepoor man's right to be hung! The poor man's right to be scourged! Thepoor man's right to be broken on the wheel! To see his hut burned andhis wife borne off! That is the justice"--rudely--"the poor man gets--be it high or low, king's or lord's!"

  "Ay, ay!" the stern chorus rose from a hundred throats behind him,"that is the poor man's justice!"

  "It is to put an end to such things I am here!" des Ageaux replied,marking with a watchful eye the faces before him. He was far fromeasy, but he had handled men of their kind before, and thought that heknew them.

  "There was never a beginning of such things, and there will never bean end!" the smith returned, the hopelessness of a thousand years ofwrong in his words. "Never! But give us this man--he has done allthese things, he and his master, and we will believe you."

  "I cannot give him to you," des Ageaux answered. The same prisoner,one of Vlaye's followers, was in question whom the Old Crocans hadyesterday required to be given up to them. "But I have told you and Itell you again," the Lieutenant continued, reading mischief in themen's faces, "that you shall have justice. If this man has wronged youand you can prove it----"

  "If!" the peasant cried, and baring his right arm he raised hisclenched fist to heaven.

  But the Lieutenant went on as if the man had not spoken. "If you canprove these things upon him by witnesses here present----"

  "You will give him to us?"

  "No, I will not do that!"

  "You will give him to us!" the smith repeated, refusing to hear thedenial. And all along the line of scowling faces--the line thatwavered ominously at moments of emotion as if it would break about thelittle group--ran a swift gleam of white teeth.

  But des Ageaux did not blench. He raised his hand for silence, and hisvoice was steady as a rock as he made answer. "No," he said, "I willnot give him to you. He belongs neither to me nor to you, but to Godand the King, whose is justice."

  "To God!" the other snarled, "whose is justice! Rather, whose servantshold the lamb that the devils may flay it! And for the King, SirGovernor, a fig for him! Our own hands are worth a dozen kings!"

  "Stay!" The line was swaying; in the nick of time des Ageaux' voice,and perhaps something in his eye, stayed it. "Listen to me onemoment," he continued. "To-morrow morning--for I have nottime to-day--the man you accuse shall be tried. If he be guilty,before noon he shall die. If he be not guilty, he shall go!"

  A murmur of protest.

  But des Ageaux raised his head higher and spoke more sternly. "Heshall go!" he repeated--and for the moment he mastered them. "If he beinnocent he shall go! What more do you claim? To what beyond have youa right? And now," he continued, as he saw them pause angry butundecided, "for yourselves! I have told you, I tell you again thatthis is your last chance. That I and the offer I make you are yourlast hope! There is a man there"--with his forefinger he singled out atall youth with a long, narrow face and light blue eyes--"who promisesthat when you are attacked he will wave his arm, and Vlaye and hisriders will fall on their faces as fell the walls of Jericho! Do youbelieve him? Will you trust your wives and children to him? Andanother"--again he singled out a man, a beetle-browed dwarf, hideousof aspect, survivor of some ancient race--"who promises victory if youwill sacrifice your captives on yonder stone! Do you believe him? Andif you do not trust these, in what do you trust? Can naked men standbefore mailed horses? Can you take castles wi
th your bare hands? Youhave left your villages, you have slain your oxen, you have burnedyour tools, you have slain your lords' men, you have taken the field.Have peasants ever done these things--and not perished sooner or lateron gibbets and in dungeons? And such will be your fate, and the fateof your women and your children, if you will go your way and will notlisten!"

  "What do you promise us?" The question in various forms broke from adozen throats.

  "First, justice on the chief of your oppressors."

  "The Captain of Vlaye?"

  "The same."

  "Ay, ay!" Their harsh cries marked approval. Some with dark looks spaton their hands and worked their right arms to and fro.

  "Next," des Ageaux continued, "that which never peasant who took thefield had yet--pardon for the past. To those who fear not to go back,leave to return to their homes. To those who have broken their lords'laws a settlement elsewhere with their wives and children. To everyman of his hands, when he leaves, ten deniers out of the spoils ofVlaye to carry him to his home."

  Nine out of ten marked their approval by a shout; and des Ageauxheaved a sigh of relief, thinking all well. But the smith turned andexchanged some words with the men nearest him, chiding them andreminding them of something. Then he turned again.

  "Fine words! But for all this what pledge, Sir Governor?" he askedwith a sneer. "What warranty that when we have done our part we shallnot to gibbet or gallows like our fellows?"

  "The King's word!"

  "Ay? And hostages? What hostages?"

  "Hostages?" The Lieutenant's voice rang sharp with anger.

  "Ay, hostages!" the man answered sturdily, informed by the murmurs ofhis fellows that he had got them back into the road from which desAgeaux' arguments had led them. "We must have hostages."

  Clearly they had made up their minds to this, they had determined onit beforehand. For with one voice, "We must have hostages!" theythundered.

  Des Ageaux paused before he answered--paused in dismay. It looked asif--already he feared it--he had put out his hand too far. As if hehad trusted too implicitly to his management of men, and risked nothimself only, but women; women of the class to which these humanbeasts set down their wrongs, women on whom the least accident orprovocation might lead them to wreak their vengeance! If it were so!But he dared not follow up the thought, lest the coolness on which alldepended should leave him. Instead, "We are all your hostages," hesaid.

  "And what of those? And those?" the smith answered. With a cunninglook he pointed to the two knots of troopers whom des Ageaux hadbrought with him. "And by-and-by there will be more. Madame"--hepointed to the little Countess who had shrunk to Bonne's side, andstood with the elder girl's arm about her--"Madame has sent forfifty riders from her lands in the north--on, we know! And the Dukewho is ill, for another hundred and fifty from Bergerac! When theycome"--with a leer--"where will be our hostages? No, it is now we musttalk, Sir Governor, or not at all."

  Des Ageaux, his cheek flushed, reflected amid an uneasy silence. Heknew that two of his riders were away bearing letters, and that fourmore were patrolling the valley; that two with Charles de Villeneuvewere isolated on the ridge, unable to help; in a word, that no morethan twelve or thirteen were within call, who, separated from theirhorses, were no match for a mob of men outnumbering them by five orsix to one, and whom the first blow would recruit from every quarterof the seething camp. He had miscalculated, and saw it. He hadmiscalculated, and the consequences he dare not weigh. The men inwhose power he had placed himself--and so much more than himself--werenot the dull clods he had deemed them, but alike ferocious andsuspicious, ready on the first hint of treachery to exact a fearfulvengeance. No man had ever kept faith with them; why should theybelieve that he would keep faith? He shut his teeth hard. "I willconsider the matter," he said, "and let you know my answer to-morrowat noon." He spoke as ending the conference, and he made as if hewould turn on his heel.

  "Ay, when madame's fifty spears are come?" the smith cried. "That willnot do! If you mean us well give us hostages. If you mean us ill,"taking one step forward with an insolent gesture----

  "Fool, I mean you no ill!" the Lieutenant answered sternly. "If Imeant you ill, why should I be here?"

  But "Hostages! Hostages!" the crowd answered, raising weapons andfists.

  Their cries drowned his words. A score of hands threatened him.Without looking, he felt that the Bat and his troopers, a little clumpapart, were preparing to intervene, and he knew that on his nextmovement all depended. The pale faces behind him he could not see, forhe was aware that if his eye left his opponents, they would fall uponhim. At any second a hurried gesture, or the least sign of fear mightunloose the torrent, and well was it for all that in many a like scenehis nerve had been tempered to hardness. He shrugged his shoulders.

  "Well," he said, "you shall have your hostages."

  "Ay, ay!" A sudden relaxation, a falling back into quietude of theseething mass approved the consent.

  "You shall have my lieutenant," he continued, "and----"

  "And I will be the other," cried Roger manfully. He stepped forward."I am the son of M. le Vicomte there! I will be your hostage," herepeated.

  But the smith, turning to his followers, grinned. "We'd be little thebetter for them," he said. "Eh? No, Sir Governor! We must have ourchoice!"

  "Your choice, rogues?"

  "Ay, we'll have the pick!" the crowd shouted. "The best of thebasket!" Amid ferocious laughter.

  Des Ageaux had suspected for some hours past that he had done afoolish, a fatally foolish thing in trusting these men, whom no manhad ever trusted. He saw now that only two courses stood open to him.He might strike the smith down at his feet, and risk all on the effectwhich the act might have on his followers; or he might yield what theyasked, allow them to choose their hostages, and trust to time andskill for the rest. His instincts were all for the bolder course, buthe had women behind him, and their chance in a conflict so unequalmust be desperate. With a quietness and firmness characteristic of theman he accepted his defeat.

  "Very well," he said. "It matters nothing. Whom will you have?"

  "We'll have you," the smith replied grinning, "and her!" With a grimyhand he pointed to the little Countess who with Bonne's arm about herand Fulbert at her elbow was staring fascinated at the line of savagefaces.

  "You cannot have a lady!" the Lieutenant answered with a chill at hisheart.

  "Ay, but it is she who has the riders who are coming!" the smithretorted shrewdly. "It is her we want and it is her we'll have! We'lldo her no harm, and she may have her own hut on our side, and herwoman with her, and a man if she pleases. And you may have a hutbeside hers, if one," with a wink, "won't do for the two."

  "But, man," des Ageaux cried, his brow dark, "how can I take Vlaye andhis castle while I lie a hostage?"

  "Oh, you shall go to and fro, to and fro, Sir Governor!" the smithanswered lightly. "We'll not be too strict if you are there of nights.And we will know ourselves safe. And as we live by bread," hecontinued stoutly, "we'll do her no harm if faith be kept with us!"

  Des Ageaux endeavoured to hide his emotion, but the sweat stood on hisbrow. Defeat is bitter to all. To the man who has long been successfulmost bitter.

  Suddenly, "I will go!" said the Countess bravely. And she steppedforward by the Lieutenant's side, a little figure, shrinking, yetresolute. "I will go," she repeated, trembling with excitement, yetfacing the men.

  "No!" Roger cried--and then was silent. It was not for him to speak.What could he do?

  "We will all go!" Bonne said.

  "Nay, but that will not do," the smith replied, with a sly grimace."For then they"--he pointed to the little knot of troopers who waitedwith sullen faces a short arrow-shot away--"would be coming as well.The lady may bring a woman if she pleases, and her man there, as Isaid." He nodded towards Fulbert. "But no more, or we are no gainers!"

  To the Lieutenant that moment was one of the bitterest of his life.He, the King's Governor, who had acted as master,
who had forced theVicomte and his party to come into his plans, whether they would orno, stood out-generalled by a mob of peasants, whom he had thought touse as tools! And not only that, but the young Countess, whose safetyhe had made the pretext for the abandonment of the chateau, mustsurrender herself to a risk more serious--ay, far more serious, thanthat from which he had made this ado to save her!

  Humiliation could scarcely go farther. It was to his credit, it wasperhaps some proof of his capacity for government that, seeing thething inevitable, he refrained from useless words or protest, andsternly agreed. He and the Countess would remove to the farther sideof the camp in the course of the day.

  "With a man and a maid only?" the smith persisted, knitting his brows.Having got what he had asked he doubted.

  "The Countess of Rochechouart will be so attended," the Lieutenantanswered sternly. "And you, Sir Governor?"

  "I am a soldier," he retorted, so curtly that they were abashed. Withsome muttering they began to melt away. Awhile they stood in groups,discussing the matter. Then gradually they retired across the rivuletto their quarters.

  The Lieutenant had been almost happy had that ended it. But he had toface those whom he had led into this trap, those whom he had forced totrust him, those whom he had carried from their home. He was not longin learning their views.

  "A soldier!" the Vicomte repeated, taking up his last word in a voiceshaking with passion. "You call yourself a soldier and you bring us tothis! To this!" With loathing he described the outline of the campwith his staff. "You a soldier, and cast women to these devils! Pah!Since Coutras there may be such soldiers! But in my time, no!"

  He did not reply: and the Abbess took up the tale. "Excellent!" shesaid, with bitterest irony. "We are all now assured of your prudenceand sagacity, sir! The safety and freedom which we enjoy here, theease of mind which the Countess will doubtless enjoy tonight----"

  "Do not frighten her, mademoiselle!" he said, repressing himself.Then, as if an impulse moved him, he turned slowly to Bonne. "Have younothing to add, mademoiselle?" he asked, in a peculiar tone.

  "Nothing!" she answered bravely. And then--it needed some courage tospeak before her father and sister, "Were I in the Countess's place Ishould not fear. I am sure she will be safe with you."

  "Safe!" Odette cried, her eyes flashing. In the excitement of themoment the plans she had so recently made were forgotten. "Ay, as safeas a lamb among wolves! As safe as a nun among robbers! So safe that Ifor one am for leaving this moment. Ay, for leaving, and now!" shecontinued, stamping her foot on the sward "What is it to us if thisgentleman, who calls himself the Governor of Perigord--and may besuch, I care not whether he is or not--has a quarrel with M. de Vlayeand would fain use us in it as he uses these brute beasts? What, Isay, is it to us? Or why do we take part? M. le Vicomte"--she turnedto her father--"if you are still master of Villeneuve, you will orderour horses and take us thither. We have naught to fear, I say itagain, we have naught to fear at M. de Vlaye's hands; and if we fallinto them between this and Villeneuve, so much the better! But if westay here we have all to fear." In truth she was honestly frightened.She thought the case desperate.

  "Mademoiselle----"

  "No, sir!" she retorted, turning from him. "I did not speak to you;but to you, M. le Vicomte! Sir, you hear me? Is it not your will thatwe order the horses and go from here?"

  "If we can go safely----"

  "You cannot go safely!" des Ageaux said, with returning decision."If you have nothing to fear from the Captain of Vlaye, the Countesshas. Nor is that all. These men"--he pointed in the directionof the peasants, who were buzzing about their huts like a swarm ofbees--"have forced my hand, but through fear and distrust, not inmalice. They mean us no harm if we mean them none. But the OldCrocans, as they call themselves, in the town on the hill--if you fallinto their hands, M. le Vicomte--and beyond the lines of this camp noone is safe from their prowling bands--then indeed God help you!"

  "God help us whether or no!" the Vicomte answered in senile anger. "Iwash my hands of it all, of it all! I am nothing here, and have beennothing! Let who will do! The world is mad!"

  "Certainly we were mad when we trusted you!" the Abbess cried,addressing des Ageaux. "Never so mad! But if I mistake not, here isanother with good news! Oh!" to the Bat, who, with a shamefaced air,was hovering on the skirts of the group, as if he were not sure of hisreception, "speak, sir, without reserve! We all know"--in a tone ofmockery--"how fair and safely we stand!"

  Des Ageaux turned to his follower. "What is it?" he asked.

  "The prisoner is missing, my lord." The Abbess laughed bitterly. Theothers looked at the Bat with faces of dismay. "Missing? The man wehave promised to hold for them. How?" des Ageaux exclaimed sternly.This was a fresh blow and a serious one.

  "When I saw, my lord, that we were like to be in trouble here, I drewoff the two men who were guarding him. He was bound, and--we had toofew as it was."

  "But he cannot have passed the ramparts."

  "Anyway we cannot find him," the Bat answered, looking ashamed anduncomfortable. "I've searched the huts, and----"

  "Is it known?"

  "No, my lord."

  "Then set the guards as before over the hut in which you had him, andsee that the matter does not leak out to-night."

  "But if," the Bat objected, "they discover that he is gone while youare with them to-night, my lord, they are in an ugly mood, and----"

  "They must not discover it!" des Ageaux answered firmly. "Go, see toit yourself. And let two men whom you can trust continue the search,but as if they had lost something of their own."

  The Bat went on his errand; and the Abbess, with this fresh weapon inher quiver, prepared to resume the debate. But the Lieutenant wouldnot have it. "Mademoiselle," he said, with a look which silenced her,"if you say more to alarm the Countess, whose courage"--he bowed inthe direction of the pale frightened girl--"is an example to us all,she will not dare to go this evening. And if she does not go, thelives of all will be in danger. An end of this, if you please!"

  And he turned on his heel, and left them.