Part 15

At dinner, however, he succeeded in shaking off his sadness, thanks, perhaps, to the exhilarating influence of several glasses of champagne, and when the guests rose from table he had almost forgotten his forebodings. He was rising in his turn, when a servant approached him and whispered: “There is a young peasant in the hall who wishes to speak with Monsieur le Marquis. He would not give me his name.”

“Wouldn’t give his name?” ejaculated Martial. “Ah, well, on one’s wedding-day one must grant an audience to everybody.” And with a smile he descended the staircase. Beside the fragrant flowering plants with which the vestibule was lined, he found a young a man with a pale face, whose eyes glittered with feverish brilliancy. On recognising him Martial could not restrain an exclamation of surprise. “Jean Lacheneur!” he exclaimed; “you imprudent fellow!”

Young Lacheneur stepped forward. “You thought you were rid of me,” he said, bitterly. “But you see you were mistaken. However, you can order your people to arrest me if you choose.”

Martial’s brow lowered on hearing these insulting words. “What do you want?” he asked coldly.

“I am to give you this on behalf of Maurice d’Escorval,” replied Jean, drawing a letter from his pocket.

With an eager hand, Martial broke the seal; but scarcely had he glanced at the contents than he turned as pale as death and staggered back, exclaiming, “Infamous!”

“What am I to say to Maurice,” insisted Jean. “What do you intend to do?”

“Come--you shall see,” replied the young marquis, seizing Jean by the arm and dragging him up the staircase. The expression of Martial’s features had so changed during his brief absence that the wedding guests looked at him with astonishment when he re-entered the grand saloon holding an open letter in one hand, and leading with the other a young peasant whom no one recognised. “Where is my father?” he asked, in a husky voice; “where is the Marquis de Courtornieu?”

The duke and the marquis were with Blanche in a little drawing-room leading out of the main hall. Martial hastened there, followed by a crowd of wondering guests, who, foreseeing a stormy scene, were determined to witness it. He walked straight towards M. de Courtornieu, who was standing by the fire-place, and handing him the letter: “Read!” said he, in a threatening voice.

M. de Courtornieu mechanically obeyed the injunction; but suddenly he turned livid; the paper trembled in his hands: he averted his glance, and was obliged to lean against the mantelpiece for support. “I don’t understand,” he stammered: “no, I don’t understand.”

The duke and Blanche had both sprung forward. “What is the matter?” they both asked in one breath; “what has happened?”

Martial’s reply was to tear the letter from the Marquis de Courtornieu’s hands, and to turn to his father with these words: “Listen to this note I have just received.”

Three hundred people were assembled in the room, or clustering round the doorway, but the silence was so perfect that Martial’s voice reached the farthest extremity of the grand hall as he read: “Monsieur le Marquis--Upon the honour of your name, and in exchange for a dozen lines that threatened you with ruin, you promised us the Baron d’Escorval’s life. You did, indeed, bring the ropes by which he was to make his escape, but they had been previously cut, and my father was precipitated on to the rocks below. You have forfeited your honour, sir. You have soiled your name with opprobrium, and while a drop of blood remains in my veins, I will leave no means untried to punish you for your cowardice and treason. By killing me you would, it is true, escape the chastisement I am reserving for you. I challenge you to fight with me. Shall I wait for you to-morrow on La Reche? At what hour? With what weapons? If you are the vilest of men, you can appoint a meeting, and then send your gendarmes to arrest me. That would be an act worthy of you.

“MAURICE D’ESCORVAL.”

* * * * *

On hearing these words the Duke de Sairmeuse was seized with despair. He saw the secret of the baron’s flight made public, and his own political prospects ruined. “Hush!” he hurriedly exclaimed in a low voice; “hush, wretched fellow, you will ruin us!”

But Martial did not even seem to hear him. He finished his perusal, and then looking the Marquis de Courtornieu full in the face: “_Now_, what do you think?” he asked.

“I am still unable to comprehend,” replied the old nobleman, coldly.

Martial raised his hand; and every one present believed that he was about to strike his father-in-law. “You don’t comprehend,” he exclaimed sarcastically. “Ah, well, if _you_ don’t, _I_ do. I know who that officer was who entered the room where I deposited the ropes--and I know what took him there.” He paused, crumpled the letter between his hands, and threw it in M. de Courtornieu’s face, with these last words: “Here, take your reward, you cowardly traitor!”

Overwhelmed by this denouement the marquis sank back into an arm-chair, and Martial, still holding Jean Lacheneur by the arm, was on the point of leaving the room, when his young wife, wild with despair, tried to detain him. “You shall not go!” she exclaimed, “you cannot! Where are you going? That young fellow with you is Jean Lacheneur. I recognize him. You want to join his sister--your mistress!”

Martial indignantly pushed his wife aside. “How dare you insult the noblest and purest of women,” he exclaimed. “Ah, well--yes--I am going to find Marie-Anne. Farewell!” And with these words he left the chateau.

XXIV.

The ledge of rock on which the Baron d’Escorval and Corporal Bavois rested on descending from the tower was not more than a yard and a half across its widest part. It sloped down towards the edge of the precipice, and its surface was so rugged and uneven that it was considered very imprudent to stand there, even in the day-time. Thus it will be understood that the task of lowering a man from this ledge, at dead of night, was perilous in the extreme. Before allowing the baron to descend, Bavois took every possible precaution to save himself from being dragged over the verge of the precipice by his companion’s weight. He fixed his crowbar firmly in a crevice of the rock, seated himself, braced his feet against the bar, threw his shoulders well back, and then feeling that his position was secure he bid the baron let himself down. The sudden parting of the rope hurled the corporal against the tower wall, and then he rebounded forward on his knees. For an instant he hung suspended over the abyss, his hands clutching at the empty air. A hasty movement, and he would have fallen. But he possessed a marvellous power of will, and had faced danger so often in his life that he was able to restrain himself. Prudently, but with determined energy, he screwed his feet and knees into the crevices of the rock, feeling with his hands for some point of support; then gradually sinking on to one side, he at last succeeded in dragging himself from the verge of the precipice.

The effort had been a terrible one, his limbs were quite cramped, and he was obliged to sit down and rest himself. He fully believed that the baron had been killed by his fall, but this catastrophe did not produce much effect upon the old soldier, who had seen so many comrades fall by his side on fields of battle. What did amaze him, however, was the breaking of the rope--a rope so thick that one would have supposed it capable of sustaining the weight of ten men like the baron. It was too dark to examine the fragment remaining in his possession, but on feeling it at the lower end with his finger, the corporal was surprised to find it quite smooth and even, not rough and ragged as is usual after a break. “It must have been cut--yes cut nearly through,” exclaimed Bavois with an oath. And at the same time a previous incident recurred to his mind. “This,” thought he, “explains the noise which the poor baron heard in the next room! And I said to him: ‘Nonsense! it is a rat!’”

With the view of verifying his conjectures, Bavois passed the cord round about the crowbar and pulled at it with all his strength. It parted in three places. The discovery appalled him. A part of the rope had fallen with the baron, and it was evident that the remaining fragments even if tied together would not be long enough to reach the base of the rock. What was to be done? How could he escape? If he could not descend the precipice he must remain on the ledge from which there was no other mode of escape. “It’s all up, corporal,” he murmured to himself. “At daybreak they will find the baron’s cell empty. They will poke their heads out of the window, and see you here perched like a stone saint on his pedestal. Of course you’ll be captured, tried, and condemned, and have to take your turn in the ditches. Ready! Aim! Fire! That’ll be the end of your story.”

He stopped short, for a vague idea had just entered his mind, which he felt might lead to salvation. It had come to him in touching the rope which he and the baron had used in their descent from the latter’s cell to the rocky ledge, and which, firmly attached to the bars above hung down the side of the tower. “If you had that rope which hangs there, corporal,” said he, you could tie it to these bits, and then the cord would be long enough to take you down the precipice. But how can one obtain it? If one goes back after it, one can’t bring it down and come down again ones’ self at the same time. He pondered for a moment and then began talking to himself again. “Attention, corporal,” said he. “You are going to knot the five pieces of rope you’ve got here together, and you’re going to fasten them to your waist; next you’re going to climb up to that window, hand over hand. Not an easy matter! A staircase would be preferable. But no matter, you mustn’t be finical, corporal. So you will climb up and find yourself in the cell again. What are you going to do there? A mere nothing. You will unfasten the cord secured to the window bars, you will tie it to this one and that will give you eighty feet of good strong rope. Then you will pass the rope about one of the bars that remain intact, you will tie the two ends together, and then the rope will be doubled. Next you must let yourself down here again, and when you are here, you will only have to untie one of the knots, and the rope will be at your service. Do you understand, corporal?”

The corporal did understand so well that in less than twenty minutes he was back again upon the narrow shelf of rock, having successfully accomplished the dangerous feat which he had planned. Not without a terrible effort, however, not without torn and bleeding hands and knees. Still he had succeeded in obtaining the rope, and now he was certain that he could make his escape from his dangerous position. He was chuckling gleefully at the prospect when suddenly he bethought himself of M. d’Escorval whom he had forgotten first in his anxiety, and then in his joy. “Poor baron,” murmured the corporal remorsefully. “I shall succeed in saving my miserable life, for which no one cares, but I was unable to save his. No doubt, by this time his friends have carried him away.”

As he uttered these words he leant forward, and to his intense amazement perceived a faint light moving here and there in the depths below. What could have happened? Something extraordinary, that was evident; or else intelligent men like the baron’s friends would never have displayed this light, which, if noticed from the citadel, would betray their presence and ruin them. However, the corporal’s time was too precious to be wasted in idle conjectures. “Better go down on the double-quick,” he said aloud, as if to spur on his courage. “Come, my friend, spit on your hands and be off!”

As he spoke the old soldier threw himself flat on his belly and crawled slowly backwards to the verge of the precipice. The spirit was strong, but the flesh shuddered. To march upon a battery had been a mere pastime for him in days of imperial glory; but to face an unknown peril, to suspend one’s life upon a cord, was a very different matter. Great drops of perspiration, caused by the horror of his situation, stood out upon his brow when he felt that half his body had passed over the edge of the precipice, and that the slightest movement would now launch him into space. Still he did not hesitate, but allowed himself to glide on, murmuring: “If there is a God who watches over honest people let Him open His eyes this instant!”

Providence was watching; and Bavois arrived at the end of his dangerous journey alive and safe. He fell like a mass of rock; and groaned aloud when at last, after a swift flight through space, he sank heavily on to the rugged soil below. For a minute he lay stunned and dizzy on the ground. He was rising when he felt himself seized by either arm. “No foolishness,” he cried quickly. “It is I, Bavois.”

But his captors did not loosen their hold. “How does it happen,” asked one of them in a threatening tone, “that the Baron d’Escorval is precipitated half way down the cliff, and that you alight in safety a few moments later?”

The old soldier was too shrewd not to understand the import of this insinuation; and the indignation he felt, gave him sufficient strength to free himself with a violent jerk from his captor’s hand. “A thousand thunderclaps!” he cried, “so I pass for a traitor, do I! No, it is impossible, well, just listen to me.” Then rapidly, but with great clearness, he recounted all the phases of his escape, his despair, his perilous situation, and the almost insurmountable obstacles which he had overcome. His tone was so sincere, the details he gave so circumstantial, that his questioners--two of the retired officers who had been waiting for the baron--at once held out their hands, sorry that they had wounded the feelings of a man so worthy of their respect and gratitude. “Forgive us, corporal,” said one of them sadly. “Misery makes men suspicious and unjust, and we are very unhappy.”

“No offence,” he growled. “If I had trusted poor M. d’Escorval, he would be alive now.”

“The baron still breathes,” observed one of the officers.

This was such astounding news that for a moment Bavois was utterly confounded. “Ah! I will give my right hand, if necessary, to save him!” he exclaimed, at last.

“If it is possible to save him, he will be saved, my friend. That worthy priest whom you see there, is an excellent physician. He is examining M. d’Escorval’s wounds at this moment. It was by his order that we procured and lighted that candle, which may bring our enemies upon us at any moment; but this is not a time for hesitation.”

Bavois looked with all his eyes, but from where he was standing he could only distinguish a confused group of moving figures. On stepping forward, however, he perceived that Marie-Anne was holding a candle over the baron who lay stretched upon the ground, his head reclining on his wife’s knees. His face was not disfigured; but he was extremely pale, and his eyes were closed at intervals. He shuddered, and then the blood would trickle from his mouth. His clothing was hacked--literally hacked to pieces; and it was easy to see that he had been frightfully mauled and wounded. Kneeling beside the unconscious man, the Abbe Midon was dexterously staunching the blood and applying bandages, torn from the linen of those present. Maurice and one of the officers were assisting him. “Ah! if I had my hands on the scoundrel who cut the rope,” cried the corporal, with passionate indignation; “but patience. I shall have him yet.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“Only too well!” He said no more. The abbe had done all it was possible to do, and was now lifting the wounded man a little higher on Madame d’Escorval’s knees. This change of position elicited a moan which betrayed the baron’s intense sufferings. He opened his eyes and faltered a few words--the first he had uttered. “Firmin!” he murmured, “Firmin!” This was the name of his former secretary, a devoted helpmate who had been dead for several years. It was evident that the baron’s mind was wandering. Still he had some vague idea of his terrible situation, for in a stifled, almost inaudible voice, he added: “Oh! how I suffer! Firmin, I will not fall into the hands of the Marquis de Courtornieu alive. I would rather kill myself.”

This was all; his eyes closed again, and his head fell back a dead weight. The officers clustering round believed that he had expired, and it was with poignant anxiety that they drew the abbe aside. “Is it all over?” they asked. “Is there any hope?”

The priest shook his head sadly, and pointing to heaven: “My hope is in God!” he said reverently.

The hour, the place, the catastrophe, the present danger, the threatening future, all combined to impart solemnity to the priest’s few words; and so profound was the impression that, for a moment, these men, familiar with death and peril, stood in awed silence. Maurice, who approached, followed by Corporal Bavois, brought them back to the exigencies of the situation. “Ought we not to make haste and carry my father away?” he asked. “Mustn’t we be in Piedmont before evening?”

“Yes!” exclaimed one of the officers, “let us start at once.”

But the priest did not move, and it was in a despondent voice that he remarked: “Any attempt to carry M. d’Escorval across the frontier in his present condition would cost him his life.”

This seemed so inevitably a death-warrant for them all, that they shuddered. “My God! what shall we do?” faltered Maurice. “What course shall we adopt?”

No one replied. It was clear that they hoped for salvation through the priest alone. He was lost in thought, and it was some time before he spoke. “About an hour’s walk from here,” he said, at last, “beyond the Croix-d’Arcy, lives a peasant on whom I can rely. His name is Poignot; and he was formerly in M. Lacheneur’s employ. With the assistance of his three sons, he now tills quite a large farm. We must procure a litter and carry M. d’Escorval to this honest peasant’s house.”

“What,” interrupted one of the officers, “you want us to procure a litter at this hour of the night, and in this neighbourhood?”

“It must be done.”

“But won’t it awake suspicion?”

“Most assuredly.”

“The Montaignac police will follow us.”

“I am certain of it.”

“The baron will be recaptured?”

“No.” The abbe spoke in the tone of a man who, having assumed all the responsibility, feels that he has a right to be obeyed. “When the baron had been conveyed to Poignot’s house,” he continued, “one of you gentlemen will take the wounded man’s place on the litter; the others will carry him, and the party will remain together until you have reached Piedmontese territory. Then you must separate and pretend to conceal yourselves, but do it in such a way that you are seen everywhere.”

The priest’s simple plan was readily understood. The royalist emissaries must be thrown off the track; and at the very moment when it seemed to them that the baron was in the mountains, he would be safe in Poignot’s house.

“One word more,” added the cure. “The party which will accompany the pretended baron must look as much like the people one would expect to find with him, as possible. So Mademoiselle Lacheneur will go with you, and Maurice also. Again, people know that I would not leave the baron; and as my priestly robe would attract attention, one of you must assume it. God will forgive the deception on account of its worthy motive.”

It was now necessary to procure the litter; and the officers were trying to decide where they should go to obtain it, when Corporal Bavois interrupted them. “Give yourselves no uneasiness,” he remarked; “I know an inn not far from here where I can procure one.”

He started off on the run, and a few minutes later returned with a small litter, a thin mattress, and a coverlid. He had thought of everything. The baron was lifted carefully from the ground and placed on the mattress--a long and difficult operation which, in spite of extreme caution, provoked many terrible groans from the wounded man. When everything was ready, each officer took an end of the litter, and the little procession, headed by the abbe, started on its way. They were obliged to proceed slowly as the least jolting increased the baron’s sufferings. Still they made some progress, and by daybreak they were about half way to Poignot’s house. They then chanced to meet some peasants going to their daily toil. The latter paused to look at them, and when the group had passed by stood gazing curiously after these strange folks who were apparently carrying a dead body. However, these meetings did not at all seem to worry the Abbe Midon. At all events, he made no attempt to avoid them. At last they came in sight of Poignot’s cottage. There was a little grove not far from the house, and here the party halted, the priest bidding his companions conceal themselves while he went forward to reconnoitre and confer with the man upon whose decision the safety of the whole party depended.

As the priest approached the house, a short, slim peasant with grey hair and a sunburnt face emerged from the stable. This was Father Poignot himself. “What! is this you, Monsieur le Cure!” he exclaimed, delightedly. “Heavens! how pleased my wife will be. We have a great favour to ask of you----” And then, without giving the abbe an opportunity to open his lips, the farmer began to relate his perplexities. The night of the revolt he had given shelter to a poor fellow who had received an ugly swordthrust. Neither his wife nor himself knew how to dress the wound, and he did not dare to send for a doctor. “And this wounded man,” he added, “is Jean Lacheneur, my old employer’s son.”

This recital made the priest feel very anxious. This peasant had already given an asylum to one wounded conspirator, but would he consent to receive another? He could not say, but his voice trembled as he presented his petition. The farmer turned very pale and shook his head gravely more than once, while the priest was speaking. When the abbe had finished, he coldly asked: “Do you know, sir, that I incur a great risk by converting my house into a hospital for these rebels?” The abbe dared not answer. “They told me,” continued Father Poignot, “that I was a coward, because I would not join in the revolt. Such was not my opinion. Now, however, I choose to shelter these wounded men. In my opinion, it requires quite as much courage to do that as to go and fight.”

“Ah! you are a brave fellow!” cried the abbe.

“Never mind about that, but bring M. d’Escorval here. There is no one but my wife and boys, and they won’t betray him!”