CHAPTER VIII.
ON THE THRESHOLD.
He hurried along the ramparts in a rage with those whom he had left, ina still greater rage with himself. He had played the Tissot with avengeance. He had flown at them in weak passion, he had recoiled asweakly, he had left them to call him coward. Now, even now, he wasfleeing from them, and they were jeering at him. Ay, jeering at him;their laughter followed him, and burned his ears.
The rain that beat on his fevered face, the moist wind from the RhoneValley below, could not wipe out _that_--the defeat and the shame. Thedarkness through which he hurried could not hide it from his eyes. Thushad Tissot begun, flying out at them, fleeing from them, a thing ofmingled fury and weakness. He knew how they had regarded Tissot. So theynow regarded him.
And the girl? What shame lay on his manhood who had abandoned her, whohad left her to be their sport! His rage boiled over as he thought ofher, and with the rain-laden wind buffeting his brow he halted and madeas if he would return. But to what end if she would not have his aid, towhat end if she would not suffer him? With a furious gesture, he hurriedon afresh, only to be arrested, by-and-by, at the corner of the rampartsnear the Bourg du Four, by a dreadful thought. What if he had deceivedhimself? What if he had given back before them, not because she hadwilled it, not because she had looked at him, not in compliance withher wishes; but in face of the odds against him, and by virtue of somestreak of cowardice latent in his nature? The more he thought of it, themore he doubted if she had looked at him; the more likely it seemed thatthe look had been a straw, at which his craven soul had grasped!
The thought maddened him. But it was too late to return, too late toundo his act. He must have left them a full half-hour. The town wasgrowing quiet, the sound of the evening psalms was ceasing. The rustleof the wind among the branches covered the tread of the sentries as theywalked the wall between the Porte Neuve and the Mint tower; only theirharsh voices as they met midway and challenged came at intervals to hisears. It must be hard on ten o'clock. Or, no, there was the bell of St.Peter's proclaiming the half-hour after nine.
He was ashamed to return to the house, yet he must return; andby-and-by, reluctantly and doggedly, he set his face that way. The windand rain had cooled his brow, but not his brain, and he was still in afever of resentment and shame when his lagging feet brought him to thehouse. He passed it irresolutely once, unable to make up his mind toenter and face them. Then, cursing himself for a poltroon, he turnedagain and made for the door.
He was within half a dozen strides of it when a dark figure detacheditself from the doorway, and stumbled down the steps. Its aim seemed tobe to escape, and leaping to the conclusion that it was Gentilis, andthat some trick was being prepared for him, Claude sprang forward. Hishand shot out, he grasped the other's neck. His wrath blazed up.
"You rogue!" he said. "I'll teach you to lie in wait for me!" Andshifting his grasp from the man's neck to his shoulder, he turned himround regardless of his struggles. As he did so the man's hat fell off.With amazement Claude recognised the features of the Syndic Blondel.
The young man's arm fell, and he stared, open-mouthed and aghast, thepassion with which he had seized the stranger whelmed in astonishment.
The Syndic, on the other hand, behaved with a strange composure.Breathing rather quickly, but vouchsafing no word of explanation, hestraightened the crumpled linen about his neck, and set right his coat.He was proceeding, still in silence, to pick up his hat, when Claude,anticipating the action, secured the hat and restored it to him.
"Thank you," he said. And then, stiffly, "Come with me," he continued.
He turned as he spoke and led the way to a spot at some distance fromthe house, yet within sight of the door; there he wheeled about. "I wascoming to see you," he said, steadfastly confronting Claude. "Why haveyou not called upon me, young man, in accordance with the invitation Igave you?"
Claude stared. The Syndic's matter-of-factness and the ease with whichhe ignored what had just passed staggered him. Perhaps after all Blondelhad come for this, and had been startled while waiting at the door bythe quickness of his approach. "I--I had overlooked it," he murmured,trying to accept the situation.
"Then," the Syndic answered shrewdly, "I can see that you have notwanted anything."
"No."
"You lodge there?" Blondel continued, pointing to the house. "But I knowyou do. And keep late hours, I fear. You are not alone in the house, Ithink?"
"No," Claude replied; and on a sudden, as his mind went back to thehouse and those in it, there leapt into it the temptation to tell all tothis man, a magistrate, and appeal to him in the girl's behalf. Hecould not speak to a more proper person, if he sought the city through;and here was the opportunity, brought unsought, to his door. But then hehad not the girl's leave to speak; could he speak without her leave? Heshifted his feet, and to gain time, "No," he said slowly, "there are twoor three who lodge in the house."
"Is not the person with whom you quarrelled at the inn one of them?" theSyndic asked. "Eh? Is not he one?"
"Yes," Claude answered; and the recollection of the scene and of thesupport which the Syndic had given to Grio checked the impulse to speak.Perhaps after all the girl knew best.
"And a person of the name of Basterga, I think?"
Claude nodded. He dared not trust himself to speak now. Could it be thata whisper of what was passing in the house had reached the magistrates?
The Syndic coughed. He glanced from the distant door, now a mere blur inthe obscurity, to his companion's face and back again to the door--ofwhich he seemed reluctant to lose sight. For a moment he seemed at aloss how to proceed. When he did speak, after a long pause, it was in adry curt tone. "It is about him I wish to hear something," he said. "Ilook to you as a good citizen to afford such information as the Staterequires. The matter is more important than you think. I ask you whatyou know of that man."
"Messer Basterga!"
"Yes."
Claude stared. "I know no good," he answered, more and more surprised."I do not like him, Messer Syndic."
"But he is a learned man, I believe. He passes for such, does he not?"
"Yes."
"Yet you do not like him. Why?"
Claude's face burned. "He puts his learning to no good use," he blurtedout. "He uses it to--to torture women. If I could tell you all--all,Messer Blondel," the young man continued, in growing excitement, "youwould understand me better! He gains power over people, a strange power,and abuses it."
"Power? What do you mean? What kind of power?"
"God knows."
The Syndic stared a moment, his face expressive of contempt. This wasnot the line he had meant his questions to take. What did it matter tohim how the man treated women? Pshaw! Then suddenly a light--as ofsatisfaction, or discovery--gleamed in his eyes. "Do you mean," hemuttered, lowering his voice, "by sorcery?"
"God knows."
"By evil arts?"
The young man shook his head. "I do not know," he answered, almostpettishly. "How should I? But he has a power. A secret power! I do notunderstand him or it!"
The Syndic looked at him darkly thoughtful. "You did not know that thatwas said of him?" he asked.
"That he----"
"Has magical arts?"
Claude shook his head.
"Nor that he has a laboratory upstairs?" Blondel continued, fixing theyoung man gravely with his eyes. "A laboratory in which he reads much inunknown tongues? And speaks much when no one is present? And triesexperiments with strange substances?"
Claude shook his head. "No!" he said. "Never! I never heard it."
He never had; but in his eyes dawned none the less a look of horror. Noman in those days doubted the existence of the devilish arts at whichBlondel hinted--arts by the use of which one being could make himselfmaster of the will and person of another. No man doubted theirexistence: and that they were rare, were difficult, were seldom broughtwithin a man's experience, made them only the more hateful withoutmaking them se
em to the men of that day the less probable. That theywere often exercised at the cost of the innocent and pure, who in thisway were added to the accursed brood--few doubted this too; but the fullhorror of it could be known only to the man who loved, and whoreverenced where he loved. Fortunately, men who never doubted thereality of witchcraft, seldom conceived of it as touching those aboutthem; and it was only slowly that Claude took in the meaning of theSyndic's suggestion, or discerned how perfectly it accounted for a thingotherwise unaccountable--the mysterious sway which the scholar held overthe young girl.
But he reached, he came to that point at last; and his silence andagitation were more eloquent than words. The Syndic, who had not shothis bolt wholly at a venture--for to accuse Basterga of the black arthad passed through his mind before--saw that he had hit the mark; and hepushed his advantage. "Have you noted aught," he asked, "to bear out theidea that he is given to such practices?"
Claude was silent in sheer horror: horror of the thing suggested to him,horror of the punishment in which he might involve the innocent.
"I don't know!" he stammered at last, and almost incoherently. "I knownothing! Don't ask me! God grant it be not so!" And he covered his face.
"Amen! Amen, indeed," Blondel answered gravely. "But now for the woman,over whom you said he had power?"
"I said?"
"Aye, you, a minute ago! Who is she? Is she one of the household? Come,young man, you must answer me," the Syndic continued with severityproportioned to the other's hesitation. "I know much, and a little morelight may enable us to act and to bring the guilty to punishment. Doesshe live in the house?"
Only the darkness hid Claude's pallor. "There is a woman," he mutteredreluctantly, "who lives in the house. But I know nothing! I have noproof! Nothing, nothing!"
"But you suspect! You suspect, young man," the Syndic continued, eyeinghim sternly, "and suspecting you would leave her in the clutches of thedevil whose she must become, body and soul! For shame!"
"But I do not believe it!" Claude cried fiercely. "I do not believe it!"
"Of her?"
"Of her? No! _Mon dieu!_ No! She is a child! She is innocent! Innocentas----"
"The day! you would say?" the Syndic struck in, almost solemnly. "Thelikelier prey? The choicest are ever the devil's morsels."
"And you think that she----"
"God help her, if she be in his power! This man," the Syndic continued,laying his hand on the other's arm, "has ruined hundreds by his secretarts, by his foul practices, by his sorceries. He has made Venice toohot for him. In Padua they will have him no more. Genoa has driven himforth. If you doubt this character of him there is an easy proof; for itis whispered, nay, it is almost certain, in what his power lies. Do youknow his room?"
"No."
"No?" in a tone of dismay. "But is it not on a level with yours?"
"No," Claude answered, shivering; "it is over mine."
"No matter, there is an easy mode of proving him," the Syndic replied;and despite himself his tone was eager. "If he be the man they say heis, there is in his room a box of steel chained to the wall. It containsthe spell he uses. By means of it he can enter where he pleases, he canenslave women to his will, he----"
"And you do not seize it?" Claude cried in a tone of horror.
"He has the Grand Duke's protection," the Syndic answered smoothly, "andto touch him without clear proof might cause much trouble to the State."
"And for that you suffer him," Claude exclaimed, his voice trembling."You suffer him to work his will? You suffer him----"
"I must follow the law," Blondel answered, shaking his head. He lookedwarily round; the dark ramparts were quiet. "I act but as a magistrate.Were I a mere man and knew him, as I know him now, for what he is--afoul magician weaving his spells about the young, ensnaring, with hissorceries, the souls of innocent women, corrupting--but what is it,young man?"
"He is within?"
"No; he left the house a minute or so before you arrived. But what isit?" Seizing the young man's arm he restrained him. "Where are yougoing?"
"To his room!" Claude answered between his set teeth. "Be he man ordevil--to his room!"
"You dare?"
"I dare and I will!" Resisting the Syndic's feigned efforts to hold himback, he strode towards the door. "That spell shall not be his anotherhour."
But Blondel terrified by his sudden success, and loth, now the time wascome, to put all on a cast, kept his hand on him. "Stay! Stay!" hebabbled, dragging him back. "Do not be rash!"
"Stay, and leave him to ruin her!"
"Still, listen! Whatever you do, listen!" the Syndic answered; andinsisted, clinging to him. His agitation was such, that had Clauderetained his powers of observation, he must have found something strangein this anxiety. "Listen! If you find the casket, on your life touchnothing in it! On your life!" Blondel repeated, his hands clinging moretightly to the other's arm. "Bring it entire--touch nothing! If you donot promise me I will raise the alarm here and now! To open it, I warnyou, is to risk all!"
"I will bring it!" Claude answered, his foot on the steps, his hand onthe latch. "I will bring it!"
"Ay, but you do not know what hangs on it! You will bring it as you findit?"
His persistence was so strange, he clung to the young man's arm with socomplete an abandonment of his ordinary manner, that, with the latchhalf raised, Claude looked at him in wonder. "Very well, I will bring itas I find it!" he muttered. Then, notwithstanding a movement which theSyndic made to restrain him, he pushed the door.
It was not locked, and, in a moment, he stood in the living-room whichhe had left little more than an hour before. It was untenanted, but notin darkness; a rushlight, set in an earthen vessel on the hearth, flunglong shadows on the walls and ceiling, and gave to the room, so homelyin its every-day aspect, a sinister look. The door of Gentilis' room wasshut; probably he was asleep. That at the foot of the staircase was alsoshut. Claude stood a moment, frowning; then he crossed the floortowards the staircase door. But though his mind was fixed, the spell ofthe other's excitement told on him: the flicker of the rushlight madehim start; and half-way across the room a sound at his elbow brought himup as if he had been stabbed. He turned his head, expecting to find thebig man's eyes bent on him from some corner. He found instead theSyndic, who had stolen in after him, and with a dark anxious face wasstanding like a shadow of guilt between him and the door.
The young man resented the alarm which the other had caused him. "If youare going, go," he muttered. "And if you will do it yourself, MesserSyndic, so much the better." He pointed to the door of the staircase.
The Syndic recoiled, his beard wagging senilely. "No, no," he babbled."No, I will go back."
It was no longer the formal magistrate, but a frightened man who stoodat Claude's elbow. And this was so clear that superstition, which is ofall things the most infectious, began to shake the young man'sresolution. Desperately he threw it off, and went to open the door. Thenhe reflected that it would be dark upstairs, he must have a light; andre-crossing the floor he brought the rushlight from the hearth. Holdingit aloft he opened the creaking door and began to ascend the stairs.
With every step the awe of the other world grew on him; while theshadow, which he had found at his elbow below, followed him upwards.When he paused at the head of the flight the Syndic's face was on alevel with his knee, the Syndic's eyes were fixed on his.
Claude did not understand this; but the man's company was welcome now;and the sight of Basterga's door, not three paces from the place wherehe stood, diverted his thoughts. He had not been above stairs since theday of his arrival, but he knew that Basterga's room was the nearest tothe stairs. That was the door then; behind that door the Italian wroughthis devilish spells!
His light, smoky and wavering, cast black shadows on the walls of thepassage as he moved. The air seemed heavy, laden with some strange drug;the house was still, with the stillness which precedes horror. Not manymen of his time, suspecting what he suspected, would h
ave opened thatdoor, or at that hour of the night would have entered that room. ButClaude, though he feared, though he shuddered, though unearthly terrorspressed upon him, possessed a charm that supported his courage: thememory of the scene in the room below, of the scalding drops falling onthe white skin, of the girl looking at him with that face of pain. Thedevil was strong, but there was a stronger; and in the strength of lovethe young man approached the door and tried it. It was locked.
Somehow the fact augmented his courage. "Where the devil is, is no needof locks," he muttered, and he felt above the door, then, stooping,groped under it. In the latter place he found the key, thrust out ofsight between door and floor, where doubtless it was Basterga's customto hide it. He drew it out, and with a grim face set it in the lock.
"Quick!" muttered a voice in his ear, and turning he saw that the Syndicwas trembling with eagerness. "Quick, quick! Or he may return!"
Claude smiled. If he did not fear the devil he certainly did not fearBasterga. He was about to turn the key in the lock when a sound stayedhis hand, ay, and rooted him to the spot. Yet it was only a laugh--but alaugh such as his ears had never caught before, a laugh full of ghastly,shrill, unearthly mirth. It rang through the passage, through thehouse, through the night; but whence it proceeded, whether from somebeing at his elbow, or from above stairs, or below, it was impossible tosay; and the blood gone from his face, Claude stood, peering over hisshoulder into the dark corners of the passage. Again that laugh rose,shrill, mocking, unearthly; and this time his hand fell from the lock.
The Syndic, utterly unmanned, leant sweating against the wall. He calledupon the name of his Maker. "My God!" he muttered. "My God!"
"_There is no God!_"
The words, each syllable of them clear, though spoken in a voice shrilland cracked and strange, and such as neither of them had ever heardbefore, were beyond doubt. Close on them followed a shriek of weirdlaughter, and then the blasphemy repeated in the same tone of mockery.The hair crept on Claude's head, the blood withdrew to his heart. Thekey which he had drawn out of the lock fell from the hand it seemed tofreeze.
With distended eyes he glared down the passage. The words were still inthe air, the laughter echoed in his brain, the shadows cast by theshaking rushlight danced and took weird shapes. A rustling as of blackwings gathered about him, unseen shapes hovered closer and closer--wasit his fancy or did he hear them?
He tried to disbelieve, he strove to withstand his terror; and a momenthis fortitude held. Then, as the Syndic, shaking as with the palsy,tottered, with a hand on either wall down the stairs, and moaning aloudin his terror, felt his way across the room below, Claude's courage,too, gave way; not in face of that he saw, but of that which he fancied.He turned too, and with a greater show of composure, and still carryingthe light, he stumbled down the stairs and into the room below.
There, for an instant sense and nerve returned, and he stood. He turnedeven, and made as if he would re-ascend the staircase. But he had nosooner thrust his head into it, and paused an instant to listen ere heventured, than a faint echo of the same mirthless laughter reached him,and he turned shuddering, and fled--fled out of the room, out of thehouse, out of the light, to the same spot under the trees whence he hadstarted with so bold a heart a few minutes earlier.
The Syndic was there before him--or no, not the Syndic, but a strickenman, clinging to a tree; seized now and again with a fresh fit oftrembling. "Take me home," he babbled. "There is no hope! There is nohope. Take me home!"
His house was not far off, and Claude, when he had a little recoveredhimself, assented, gave the tottering man his arm and supported him--heneeded support--until they reached the dwelling in the Bourg du Four.Still a wreck Blondel was by this time a little more coherent. Heforesaw solitude, and dreaded it; and would have had the other enter andpass the night with him. But the young man, already ashamed of hisweakness, already doubting and questioning, refused, and would say nomore than that he would return on the morrow. With an aspect apparentlycomposed, he insisted on taking his leave, turned from the door andretraced his steps to the Corraterie. But when he came to the house, helacked, brave as he was, the heart to enter; and passing it, he spentthe time until daybreak, in walking up and down the rampart withinhearing of the sentries.
His mind grown somewhat calmer, he set himself to recall, precisely andexactly, the thing that had happened. But recall it as he might, hecould not account for it. The words of blasphemy that had scorched hisears as the key entered the lock, had been uttered, he was sure, in novoice known to him; nay more, in no voice of human intonation. How couldhe explain them? How account for them save in one way? How defend hiscowardice save on one ground? He shuddered, gazing at the house, andmurmuring now a prayer, and now a word of exorcism. But the day hadcome, the sky was red, and the sun was near its rising before he tookcourage and dared to cross the threshold.