THE LONG NIGHT

BYSTANLEY WEYMAN

 AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE, " ETC. 

 _SECOND IMPRESSION_

 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON AND BOMBAY 1903

 WORKS BY STANLEY WEYMAN. 

 The House of the Wolf. The New Rector. The Story of Francis Cludde. A Gentleman of France. The Man in Black. Under the Red Robe. My Lady Rotha. The Red Cockade. Shrewsbury. Sophia. The Castle Inn. From the Memoirs of a Minister of France. Count Hannibal. In Kings' Byways. The Long Night. 

 CONTENTS

 CHAPTER PAGE

 I. A Student of Theology 1 II. The House on the Ramparts 16 III. The Quintessential Stone 31 IV. Cæsar Basterga 45 V. The Elixir Vitæ 59 VI. To Take or Leave 74 VII. A Second Tissot 88 VIII. On the Threshold 102 IX. Melusina 116 X. Auctio Fit: Venit Vita 129 XI. By This or That 143 XII. The Cup and the Lip 157 XIII. A Mystery Solved 172 XIV. "And Only One Dose in all the World!" 185 XV. On the Bridge 200 XVI. A Glove and What Came of It 215 XVII. The _Remedium_ 227 XVIII. The Bargain Struck 242 XIX. The Departure of the Rats 257 XX. In the Darkened Room 271 XXI. The _Remedium_ 285 XXII. Two Nails in the Wall 301 XXIII. In Two Characters 318 XXIV. Armes! Armes! 335 XXV. Basterga at Argos 350 XXVI. The Dawn 365

CHAPTER I. 

A STUDENT OF THEOLOGY. 

They were about to shut the Porte St. Gervais, the north gate of Geneva. The sergeant of the gate had given his men the word to close; but at thelast moment, shading his eyes from the low light of the sun, he happenedto look along the dusty road which led to the Pays de Gex, and he badethe men wait. Afar off a traveller could be seen hurrying two donkeystowards the gate, with now a blow on this side, and now on that, and nowa shrill cry. The sergeant knew him for Jehan Brosse, the bandy-leggedtailor of the passage off the Corraterie, a sound burgher and a good manwhom it were a shame to exclude. Jehan had gone out that morning tofetch his grapes from Möens; and the sergeant had pity on him. 

He waited, therefore; and presently he was sorry that he had waited. Behind Jehan, a long way behind him, appeared a second wayfarer; a youngman covered with dust who approached rapidly on long legs, a bundlejumping and bumping at his shoulders as he ran. The favour of the gatewas not for such as he--a stranger; and the sergeant anxious to bar, yetunwilling to shut out Jehan, watched his progress with disgust. As hefeared, too, it turned out. Young legs caught up old ones: the strangerovertook Jehan, overtook the donkeys. A moment, and he passed under thearch abreast of them, a broad smile of acknowledgment on his heatedface. He appeared to think that the gate had been kept open out ofkindness to him. 

And to be grateful. The war with Savoy--Italian Savoy which, like anoctopus, wreathed clutching arms about the free city of Geneva--had cometo an end some months before. But a State so small that the frontier ofits inveterate enemy lies but two short leagues from its gates, has needof watch and ward, and curfews and the like, so that he was fortunatewho found the gates of Geneva open after sunset in that year, 1602; andthe stranger seemed to know this. 

As the great doors clanged together and two of the watch wound up thecreaking drawbridge, he turned to the sergeant, the smile still on hisface. "I feared that you would shut me out!" he panted, still holdinghis sides. "I would not have given much for my chance of a bed a minuteago. "

The sergeant answered only by a grunt. 

"If this good fellow had not been in front----"

This time the sergeant cut him short with an imperious gesture, and theyoung man seeing that the guard also had fallen stiffly into rank, turned to the tailor. He was overflowing with good nature: he must speakto some one. "If you had not been in front, " he began, "I----"

But the tailor also cut him short--frowning and laying his finger to hislip and pointing mysteriously to the ground. The stranger stooped tolook more closely, but saw nothing: and it was only when the othersdropped on their knees that he understood the hint and hastened tofollow the example. The soldiers bent their heads while the sergeantrecited a prayer for the safety of the city. He did this reverently, while the evening light--which fell grey between walls and sobered thosewho had that moment left the open sky and the open country--cast itssolemn mantle about the party. 

Such was the pious usage observed in that age at the opening and theclosing of the gates of Geneva: nor had it yet sunk to a form. Thenearness of the frontier and the shadow of those clutching arms, everextended to smother the free State, gave a reality to the faith of thosewho opened and shut, and with arms in their hands looked back on tenyears of constant warfare. Many a night during those ten years hadGeneva gazed from her watch-towers on burning farms and smoulderinghomesteads; many a day seen the smoke of Chablais hamlets float a darktrail across her lake. What wonder if, when none knew what a night mightbring forth, and the fury of Antwerp was still a new tale in men's ears, the Genevese held Providence higher and His workings more near than menare prone to hold them in happier times?

Whether the stranger's reverent bearing during the prayer gained thesergeant's favour, or the sword tied to his bundle and the bulgingcorners of squat books which stuffed out the cloak gave a new notion ofhis condition, it is certain that the officer eyed him more kindly whenall rose from their knees. "You can pass in now, young sir, " he saidnodding. "But another time remember, if you please, the earlier here thewarmer welcome!"

"I will bear it in mind, " the young traveller answered, smiling. "Perhaps you can tell me where I can get a night's lodging?"

"You come to study, perhaps?" The sergeant puffed himself out as hespoke, for the fame of Geneva's college and its great professor, Theodore Beza, was a source of glory to all within the city walls. Learning, too, was a thing in high repute in that day. The learnedtongues still lived and were passports opening all countries toscholars. The names of Erasmus and Scaliger were still in the mouths ofmen. 

"Yes, " the youth answered, "and I have the name of a lodging in which Ihope to place myself. But for to-night it is late, and an inn were moreconvenient. "

"Go then to the 'Bible and Hand, '" the sergeant answered. "It is adecent house, as are all in Geneva. If you think to find here aroistering, drinking, swearing tavern, such as you'd find in Dijon----"

"I come to study, not to drink, " the young man answered eagerly. 

"Well, the 'Bible and Hand, ' then! It will answer your purpose well. Cross the bridge and go straight on. It is in the Bourg du Four. "

The youth thanked him with a pleased air, and turning his back on thegate proceeded briskly towards the heart of the city. Though it was notSunday the inhabitants were pouring out from the evening preaching asplentifully as if it had been the first day of the week; and as hescanned their grave and thoughtful faces--faces not seldom touched withsternness or the scars of war--as he passed between the gabledsteep-roofed houses and marked their order and cleanliness, as he sawabove him and above them the two great towers of the cathedral, he felta youthful fervour and an enthusiasm not to be comprehended in our age. 

To many of us the name and memory of Geneva stand for anything butfreedom. But to the Huguenot of that generation and day, the name ofGeneva stood for freedom; for a fighting aggressive freedom, a fullfreedom in the State, a sober measured freedom in the Church. The citywas the outpost, southwards, of the Reformed religion and the Reformedlearning; it sowed its ministers over half Europe, and where they went, they spread abroad not only its doctrines but its praise and its honour. If, even to the men of that day there appeared at times a something toostiff in its attitude, a something too near the Papal in its decrees, they knew with what foes and against what odds it fought, and how littleconsistent with the ferocity of that struggle were the compromises oflife or the courtesies of the lists. 

At any rate, in some such colours as these, framed in such a halo, Claude Mercier saw the Free City as he walked its narrow streets thatevening, seeking the "Bible and Hand". In some such colours had hisfather, bred under Calvin to the ministry, depicted it: and the youngman, half French, half Vaudois, sought nothing better, set nothinghigher, than to form a part of its life, and eventually to contribute toits fame. Good intentions and honest hopes tumbled over one another inhis brain as he walked. The ardour of a new life, to be begun this day, possessed him. He saw all things through the pure atmosphere of his ownhappy nature: and if it remained to him to discover how Geneva wouldstand the test of a closer intimacy, at this moment, the youth took thecity to his heart with no jot of misgiving. To follow in the steps ofTheodore Beza, a Frenchman like himself and gently bred, to devotehimself, in these surroundings to the Bible and the Sword, and find inthem salvation for himself and help for others--this seemed an endsimple and sufficing: the end too, which all men in Geneva appeared tohim to be pursuing that summer evening. 

By-and-by a grave citizen, a psalm-book in his hand, directed him to theinn in the Bourg du Four; a tall house turning the carved ends of twosteep gables to the street. On either side of the porch a long lowcasement suggested the comfort that was to be found within; nor was thepledge unfulfilled. In a trice the student found himself seated at ashining table before a simple meal and a flagon of cool white wine witha sprig of green floating on the surface. His companions were twomerchants of Lyons, a vintner of Dijon, and a taciturn, soberly cladprofessor. The four elders talked gravely of the late war, of theprevalence of drunkenness in Zurich, of a sad case of witchcraft atBasle, and of the state of trade in Lausanne and the Pays de Vaud; whilethe student, listening with respect, contrasted the quietude of thishouse, looking on the grey evening street, with the bustle and chatterand buffoonery of the inns at which he had lain on his way fromChatillon. He was in a mood to appraise at the highest all about him, from the demure maid who served them to the cloaked burghers who fromtime to time passed the window wrapped in meditation. From a house hardby the sound of the evening psalms came to his ears. There are moods andplaces in which to be good seems of the easiest; to err, a thingwell-nigh impossible. 

The professor was the first to rise and retire; on which the twomerchants drew up their seats to the table with an air of relief. Thevintner looked after the retreating figure. "Of Lausanne, I shouldjudge?" he said, with a jerk of the elbow. 

"Probably, " one of the others answered. 

"Is he not of Geneva, then?" our student asked. He had listened withinterest to the professor's talk and between whiles had wondered if itwould be his lot to sit under him. 

"No, or he would not be here!" one of the merchants replied, shrugginghis shoulders. 

"Why not, sir?"

"Why not?" The merchant fixed the questioner with eyes of surprise. "Don't you know, young man, that those who live in Geneva may notfrequent Geneva taverns?"

"Indeed?" Mercier answered, somewhat startled. "Is that so?"

"It is very much so, " the other returned with something of a sneer. 

"And they do not!" quoth the vintner with a faint smile. 

"Well, professors do not!" the merchant answered with a grimace. "I saynothing of others. Let the Venerable Company of Pastors see to it. It istheir business. "

At this point the host brought in lights. After closing the shutters hewas in the act of retiring when a door near at hand--on the farther sideof the passage if the sound could be trusted--flew open with a clatter. Its opening let out a burst of laughter, nor was that the worst: alas, above the laughter rang an oath--the ribald word of some one who hadcaught his foot in the step. 

The landlord uttered an exclamation and went out hurriedly, closing thedoor behind him. A moment and his voice could be heard, scolding andpersuading in the passage. 

"Umph!" the vintner muttered, looking from one to the other with ahumorous eye. "It seems to me that the Venerable Company of Pastors havenot yet expelled the old Adam. "

Open flew the door and cut short the word. But it had been heard, "Pastors?" a raucous voice cried. "Passers and Flinchers is what I callthem!" And a stout heavy man, whose small pointed grey beard did butemphasise the coarse virility of the face above it, appeared on thethreshold, glaring at the four. "Pastors?" he repeated defiantly. "Passers and Flinchers, I say!"

"In Heaven's name, Messer Grio!" the landlord protested, hovering at hisshoulder, "these are strangers----"

"Strangers? Ay, and flinchers, they too!" the intruder retorted, heedless of the remonstrance. And he lurched into the room, a bulky, reeling figure in stained green and tarnished lace. "Four flinchers! ButI'll make them drink a cup with me or I'll prick their hides! Do youthink we shed blood for you and are to be stinted of our liquor!"

"Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" the landlord cried, wringing his hands. "Youwill be my ruin!"

"No fear!"

"But I do fear!" the host retorted sharply, going so far as to lay ahand on his shoulder. "I do fear. " Behind the man in green hisboon-fellows, flushed with drink, had gathered, and were staring halfcurious, half in alarm into the room. The landlord turned and appealedto them. "For Heaven's sake get him away quietly!" he muttered. "I shalllose my living if this be known. And you will suffer too! Gentlemen, " heturned to the party at the table, "this is a quiet house, a quiet housein general, but----"

"Tut-tut!" said the vintner good-naturedly. "We'll drink a cup with thegentleman if he wishes it!"

"You'll drink or be pricked!" quoth Messer Grio; he was one of those whogrow offensive in their cups. And while his friends laughed, he swishedout a sword of huge length, and flourished it. "Ça! Ça! Now let me seeany man refuse his liquor!"

The landlord groaned, but thinking apparently that soonest broken wassoonest mended, he vanished, to return in a marvellously short space oftime with four tall glasses and a flask of Neuchatel. "'Tis good wine, "he muttered anxiously. "Good wine, gentlemen, I warrant you. And MesserGrio here has served the State, so that some little indulgence----"

"What art muttering?" cried the bully, who spoke French with an accentnew and strange in the student's ears. "Let be! Let be, I say! Let themdrink, or be pricked!"

The merchants and the vintner took their glasses without demur: and, perhaps, though they shrugged their shoulders, were as willing as theylooked. The young man hesitated, took with a curling lip the glass whichwas presented to him, and then, a blush rising to his eyes, pushed itfrom him. 

"'Tis good wine, " the landlord repeated. "And no charge. Drink, youngsir, and----"

"I drink not on compulsion!" the student answered. 

Messer Grio stared. "What?" he roared. "You----"

"I drink not on compulsion, " the young man repeated, and this time hespoke clearly and firmly. "Had the gentleman asked me courteously todrink with him, that were another matter. But----"

"Sho!" the vintner muttered, nudging him in pure kindness. "Drink, man, and a fico for his courtesy so the wine be old! When the drink is in, the sense is out, and, " lowering his voice, "he'll let you blood to acertainty, if you will not humour him. "

But the grinning faces in the doorway hardened the student in hisresolution. "I drink not on compulsion, " he repeated stubbornly. And herose from his seat. 

"You drink not?" Grio exclaimed. "You drink not? Then by the living----"

"For Heaven's sake!" the landlord cried, and threw himself between them. "Messer Grio! Gentlemen!"

But the bully, drunk and wilful, twitched him aside. "Under compulsion, eh!" he sneered. "You drink not under compulsion, don't you, my lad? Letme tell you, " he continued with ferocity, "you will drink when I please, and where I please, and as often as I please, and as much as I please, you meal-worm! You half-weaned puppy! Take that glass, d'you hear, andsay after me, Devil take----"

"Messer Grio!" cried the horrified landlord. 

"Devil take"--for a moment a hiccough gave him pause--"all flinchers!Take the glass, young man. That is well! I see you will come to it! Nowsay after me, Devil take----"

"That!" the student retorted, and flung the wine in the bully's face. 

The landlord shrieked; the other guests rose hurriedly from their seats, and got aside. Fortunately the wine blinded the man for a moment, and herecoiled, spitting curses and darting his sword hither and thither inimpotent rage. By the time he had cleared his eyes the youth had got tohis bundle, and, freeing his blade, placed himself in a posture ofdefence. His face was pale, but with the pallor of excitement ratherthan of fear; and the firm set of his mouth and the smouldering fire inhis eyes as he confronted the drunken bravo, no less than the manner inwhich he handled his weapon, showed him as ready to pursue as he hadbeen hardy to undertake the quarrel. 

He gave proof of forethought, too. "Witness all, he drew first!" hecried; and his glance quitting Grio for the briefest instant sought tomeet the merchants' eyes. "I am on my defence. I call all here towitness that he has thrust this quarrel upon me!"

The landlord wrung his hands. "Oh dear! oh dear!" he cried. "In Heaven'sname, gentlemen, put up! put up! Stop them! Will no one stop them!" Andin despair, seeing no one move to arrest them, he made as if he wouldstand between them. 

But the bully flourished his blade about his ears, and with a cry thegoodman saved himself "Out, skinker!" Grio cried grimly. "And you, sayyour prayers, puppy. Before you are five minutes older I will spit youlike a partridge though I cross the frontier for it. You have basted mewith wine! I will baste you after another fashion! On guard! On guard, and----"

"_What is this?_"

The voice stayed Grio's tongue and checked his foot in the very instantof assault. The student, watching his blade and awaiting the attack, wassurprised to see his point waver and drop. Was it a trick, he wondered?A stratagem? No, for a silence fell on the room, while those who heldthe floor hastened to efface themselves against the wall, as if they atany rate had nothing to do with the fracas. And next moment Grioshrugged his shoulders, and with a half-stifled curse stood back. 

"What is this?"

The same question in the same tone. This time the student saw whosevoice it was had stayed Grio's arm. Within the door a pace in front oftwo or three attendants, who had displaced the roisterers on thethreshold, appeared a spare dry-looking man of middle height, wearinghis hat, and displaying a gold chain of office across the breast of hisblack velvet cloak. In age about sixty, he had nothing that at a firstglance seemed to call for a second: his small pinched features, and thedownward curl of the lip, which his moustache and clipped beard failedto hide, indicated a nature peevish and severe rather than powerful. Onnearer observation the restless eyes, keen and piercing, assertedthemselves and redeemed the face from insignificance. When, as on thisoccasion, their glances were supported by the terrors of the State, itwas not difficult to understand why Messer Blondel, the Syndic, thoughno great man to look upon, had both weight with the masses, and a holdnot to be denied over his colleagues in the Council. 

No one took on himself to answer the question he had put, and in a voicethin and querulous, but with a lurking venom in its tone, "What isthis?" the great man repeated, looking from one to another. "Are we inGeneva, or in Venice? Under the skirts of the scarlet woman, or wherethe magistrates bear not the sword in vain? Good Mr. Landlord, arethese your professions? Your bailmen should sleep ill to-night, for theyare likely to answer roundly for this! And whom have we sparking ithere? Brawling and swearing and turning into a profligate's tavern aplace that should be for the sober entertainment of travellers? Whomhave we here--eh! Let me see them! Ah!"

He paused rather suddenly, as his eyes met Grio's: and a little of hisdignity fell from him with the pause. His manner underwent a subtlechange from the judicial to the paternal. When he resumed, he wagged hishead tolerantly, and a modicum of sorrow mingled with his anger. "Ah, Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" he said, "it is you, is it? For shame! Forshame! This is sad, this is lamentable! Some indulgence, it is true"--hecoughed--"may be due after late events, and to certain who have bornepart in them. But this goes too far! Too far by a long way!"

"It was not I began it!" the bully muttered sullenly, a mixture ofbravado and apology in his bearing. He sheathed his blade, and thrustthe long scabbard behind him. "He threw a glass of wine in my face, Syndic--that is the truth. Is an old soldier who has shed blood forGeneva to swallow that, and give God thanks?"

The Syndic turned to the student, and licked his lips, his features morepinched than usual. "Are these your manners?" he said. "If so, they arenot the manners of Geneva! Your name, young man, and your dwellingplace?"

"My name is Claude Mercier, last from Chatillon in Burgundy, " the youngman answered firmly. "For the rest, I did no otherwise than you, sir, must have done in my case!"

The magistrate snorted. "I!"

"Being treated as I was!" the young man protested. "He would have medrink whether I would or no! And in terms no man of honour could bear. "

"Honour?" the Syndic retorted, and on the word exploded in great wrath. "Honour, say you? Then I know who is in fault. When men of your racetalk of honour 'tis easy to saddle the horse. I will teach you that weknow naught of honour in Geneva, but only of service! And naught ofpunctilios but much of modest behaviour! It is such hot blood as yoursthat is at the root of brawlings and disorders and such-like, to thescandal of the community: and to cool it I will commit you to the townjail until to-morrow! Convey him thither, " he continued, turning sharplyto his followers, "and see him safely bestowed in the stocks. To-morrowI will hear if he be penitent, and perhaps, if he be in a coolertemper----"

But the young man, aghast at this sudden disgrace, could be silent nolonger. "But, sir, " he broke in passionately, "I had no choice. It wasno quarrel of my beginning. I did but refuse to drink, and when he----"

"Silence, sirrah!" the Syndic cried, and cut him short. "You will dowell to be quiet!" And he was turning to bid his people bear theirprisoner out without more ado when one of the merchants ventured to putin a word. 

"May I say, " he interposed timidly, "that until this happened, MesserBlondel, the young man's conduct was all that could be desired?"

"Are you of his company?"

"No, sir. "

"Then best keep out of it!" the magistrate retorted sharply. 

"And you, " to his followers, "did you hear me? Away with him!"

But as the men advanced to execute the order, the young man steppedforward. "One moment!" he said. "A moment only, sir. I caught the nameof Blondel. Am I speaking to Messer Philibert Blondel?"

The Syndic nodded ungraciously. "Yes, " he said, "I am he. What of it?"

"Only this, that I have a letter for him, " the student answered, gropingwith trembling fingers in his pouch. "From my uncle, the Sieur deBeauvais of Nocle, by Dijon. "

"The Sieur de Beauvais?"

"Yes. "

"He is your uncle?"

"Yes. "

"So! Well, I remember now, " Blondel continued, nodding. "His name wasMercier. Certainly, it was. Well, give me the letter. " His tone wasstill harsh, but it was not the same; and when he had broken the sealand read the letter--with a look half contemptuous, half uneasy--hisbrow cleared a little. "It were well young people knew better whatbecame them, " he cried, peevishly shrugging his shoulders. "It wouldsave us all a great deal. However, for this time as you are a strangerand well credited, I find, you may go. But let it be a lesson to you, doyou hear? Let it be a lesson to you, young man. Geneva, " pompously, "isno place for brawling, and if you come hither for that, you will quicklyfind yourself behind bars. See that you go to a fit lodging to-morrow, and do you, Mr. Landlord, have a care that he leaves you. "

The young man's heart was full, but he had the wisdom to keep his temperand to say no more. The Syndic on his part was glad, on second thoughts, to be free of the matter. He was turning to go when it seemed to strikehim that he owed something more to the bearer of the letter. He turnedback. "Yes, " he said, "I had forgotten. This week I am busy. But nextweek, on some convenient day, come to me, young sir, and I may be ableto give you a word of advice. In the forenoon will be best. Untilthen--see to your behaviour!"

The young man bowed and waited, standing where he was, until the bustleattending the Syndic's departure had quite died away. Then he turned. "Now, Messer Grio, " he said briskly, "for my part I am ready. "

But Messer Grio had slipped away some minutes before. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE HOUSE ON THE RAMPARTS. 

The affair at the inn which had threatened to turn out so unpleasantlyfor our hero, should have gone some way towards destroying the illusionswith which he had entered Geneva. But faith is strong in the young, andhope stronger. The traditions of his boyhood and his fireside, and thestories, animate with affection for the cradle of the faith, to which hehad listened at his father's knee, were not to be over-ridden by theshadow of an injustice, which in the end had not fallen. When the youngman went abroad next morning and viewed the tall towers of St. Peter, ofwhich his father had spoken--when, from those walls which had defiedthrough so many months the daily and nightly threats of an ever-presentenemy, he looked on the sites of conflicts still famous and onfarmsteads but half risen from their ruins--when, above all, heremembered for what those walls stood, and that here, on the borders ofthe blue lake, and within sight of the glittering peaks which charmedhis eyes--if in any one place in Europe--the battle of knowledge andfreedom had been fought, and the rule of the monk and the Inquisitorcast down, his old enthusiasm revived. He thirsted for fresh conflicts, for new occasions: and it is to be feared dreamt more of the Sword thanof the sacred Book, which he had come to study, and which, in Geneva, went hand in hand with it. 

In the fervour of such thoughts and in the multitude of new interestswhich opened before him, he had well-nigh forgotten the Syndic's tyrannybefore he had walked a mile: nor might he have given a second thought toit but for the need which lay upon him of finding a new lodging beforenight. In pursuit of this he presently took his way to the Corraterie, arow of gabled houses, at the western end of the High Town, built withinthe ramparts, and enjoying over them a view of the open country, and theJura. The houses ran for some distance parallel with the rampart, thenretired inwards, and again came down to it; in this way enclosing atriangular open space or terrace. They formed of themselves an innerline of defence, pierced at the point farthest from the rampart by thePorte Tertasse: a gate it is true, which was often open even at night, for the wall in front of the Corraterie, though low on the town side, looked down from a great height on the ditch and the low meadows thatfringed the Rhone. Trees planted along the rampart shaded the triangularspace, and made it a favourite lounge from which the inhabitants of thatquarter of the town could view the mountains and the sunset whiletasting the freshness of the evening air. 

A score of times had Claude Mercier listened to a description of thisrow of lofty houses dominating the ramparts. Now he saw it, and, charmedby the position and the aspect, he trembled lest he should fail tosecure a lodging in the house which had sheltered his father's youth. Heedless of the suspicious glances shot at him by the watch at the PorteTertasse, he consulted the rough plan which his father had made forhim--consulted it rather to assure himself against error than because hefelt doubt. The precaution taken, he made for a house a little to theright of the Tertasse gate as one looks to the country. He mounted byfour steep steps to the door and knocked on it. 

It was opened so quickly as to disconcert him. A lanky youth about hisown age bounced out and confronted him. The lad wore a cap and carriedtwo or three books under his arm as if he had been starting forth whenthe summons came. The two gazed at one another a moment: then, "DoesMadame Royaume live here?" Claude asked. 

The other, who had light hair and light eyes, said curtly that she did. 

"Do you know if she has a vacant room?" Mercier asked timidly. 

"She will have one to-night!" the youth answered with temper in histone: and he dashed down the steps and went off along the street withoutceremony or explanation. Viewed from behind he had a thin neck whichagreed well with a small retreating chin. 

The door remained open, and after hesitating a moment Claude tapped onceand again with his foot. Receiving no answer he ventured over thethreshold, and found himself in the living-room of the house. It wascool, spacious and well-ordered. On the left of the entrance a woodensettle flanked a wide fireplace, in front of which stood a small heavytable. Another table a little bigger occupied the middle of the room; inone corner the boarded-up stairs leading to the higher floors bulkedlargely. Two or three dark prints--one a portrait of Calvin--with aframed copy of the Geneva catechism, and a small shelf of books, tooksomething from the plainness and added something to the comfort of theapartment, which boasted besides a couple of old oaken dressers, highlypolished and gleaming, with long rows of pewter ware. Two doors stoodopposite the entrance and appeared to lead--for one of them stoodopen--to a couple of closets: bedrooms they could hardly be called, yetin one of them Claude knew that his father had slept. And his heartwarmed to it. 

The house was still; the room was somewhat dark, for the windows werelow and long, strongly barred, and shaded by the trees, through the coolgreenery of which the light filtered in. The young man stood a moment, and hearing no footstep or movement wondered what he should do. Atlength he ventured to the door of the staircase and, opening it, coughed. Still no one answered or came, and unwilling to intrude fartherhe turned about and waited on the hearth. In a corner behind the settlehe noticed two half pikes and a long-handled sword; on the seat of thesettle itself lay a thin folio bound in stained sheepskin. A logsmouldered on the hearth, and below the great black pot which hung overit two or three pans and pipkins sat deep among the white ashes. Savefor these there was no sign in the room of a woman's hand or use. And hewondered. Certainly the young man who had departed so hurriedly had saidit was Madame Royaume's. There could be no mistake. 

Well, he would go and come again. But even as he formed the resolution, and turned towards the outer door--which he had left open--he heard afaint sound above, a step light but slow. It seemed to start from theuppermost floor of all, so long was it in descending; so long was itbefore, waiting on the hearth cap in hand, he saw a shadow darken theline below the staircase door. A second later the door opened and ayoung girl entered and closed it behind her. She did not see him;unconscious of his presence she crossed the floor and shut the outerdoor. 

There was a something in her bearing which went to the heart of theyoung man who stood and saw her for the first time; a depression, adejection, an I know not what, so much at odds with her youth and herslender grace, that it scarcely needed the sigh with which she turnedto draw him a pace nearer. As he moved their eyes met. She, who had notknown of his presence, recoiled with a low cry and stared wide-eyed: hebegan hurriedly to speak. 

"I am the son of M. Gaston Mercier, of Chatillon, " he said, "who lodgedhere formerly. At least, " he stammered, beginning to doubt, "if this bethe house of Madame Royaume, he lodged here. A young man who met me atthe door said that Madame lived here, and had a room. "

"He admitted you? The young man who went out?"

"Yes. "

She gazed hard at him a moment, as if she doubted or suspected him. Then, "We have no room, " she said. 

"But you will have one to-night, " he answered

"I do not know. "

"But--but from what he said, " Claude persisted doggedly, "he meant thathis own room would be vacant, I think. "

"It may be, " she answered dully, the heaviness which surprise had liftedfor a moment settling on her afresh. "But we shall take no new lodgers. Presently you would go, " with a cold smile, "as he goes to-day. "

"My father lodged here three years, " Claude answered, raising his headwith pride. "He did not go until he returned to France. I ask nothingbetter than to lodge where my father lodged. Madame Royaume will know myname. When she hears that I am the son of M. Gaston Mercier, who oftenspeaks of her----"

"He fell sick here, I think?" the girl said. She scanned him anew withthe first show of interest that had escaped her. Yet reluctantly, itseemed; with a kind of ungraciousness hard to explain. 

"He had the plague in the year M. Chausse, the pastor of St. Gervais, died of it, " Claude answered eagerly. "When it was so bad. And Madamenursed him and saved his life. He often speaks of it and of Madame withgratitude. If Madame Royaume would see me?"

"It is useless, " she answered with an impatient shrug. "Quite useless, sir. I tell you we have no room. And--I wish you good-morning. " On theword she turned from him with a curt gesture of dismissal, and kneelingbeside the embers began to occupy herself with the cooking pots;stirring one and tasting another, and raising a third a little aslant atthe level of her eyes that she might peer into it the better. Helingered, watching her, expecting her to turn. But when she had skimmedthe last jar and set it back, and screwed it down among the embers, sheremained on her knees, staring absently at a thin flame which had sprungup under the black pot. She had forgotten his presence, forgotten himutterly; forgotten him, he judged, in thoughts as deep and gloomy as thewide dark cavern of chimney which yawned above her head and dwarfed theslight figure kneeling Cinderella-like among the ashes. 

Claude Mercier looked and looked, and wondered, and at last longed:longed to comfort, to cherish, to draw to himself and shelter thebudding womanhood before him, so fragile now, so full of promise for thefuture. And quick as the flame had sprung up under her breath, a magicflame awoke in his heart, and burned high and hot. If he did not lodgehere, The sky might fall, fish fly, and sheep pursue The tawny monarch of the Libyan strand!

But he would lodge here. He coughed. 

She started and turned, and seeing him, seeing that he had not gone, sherose with a frown. "What is it?" she said. "For what are you waiting, sir?"

"I have something in charge for Madame Royaume, " he answered. 

"I will give it her, " she returned sharply. "Why did you not say so atonce?" And she held out her hand. 

"No, " he said hardily. "I have it in charge for her hand only. "

"I am her daughter. "

He shook his head stubbornly. 

What she would have done on that--her face was hard and promisednothing--is uncertain. Fortunately for the young man's hopes, a dullreport as of a stick striking the floor in some room above reached theirears; he saw her eyes flicker, alter, grow soft. "Wait!" she saidimperiously; and stooping to take one of the pipkins from the fire, shepoured its contents into a wooden bowl which stood beside her on thetable. She added a horn-spoon and a pinch of salt, fetched a slice ofcoarse bread from a cupboard in one of the dressers, and taking all inskilled steady hands, hands childishly small, though brown as nuts, shedisappeared through the door of the staircase. 

He waited, looking about the room, and at this, and at that, with a newinterest. He took up the book which lay on the settle: it was a learnedvolume, part of the works of Paracelsus, with strange figures anddiagrams interwoven with the crabbed Latin text. A passage which hedeciphered, abashed him by its profundity, and he laid the book down, and went from one to another of the black-framed engravings; from theseto an oval piece in coarse Limoges enamel, which hung over the littleshelf of books. At length he heard a step descending from the upperfloors, and presently she appeared in the doorway. 

"My mother will see you, " she said, her tone as ungracious as her look. "But you will say nothing of lodging here, if it please you. Do youhear?" she added, her voice rising to a more imperious note. 

He nodded. 

She turned on the lowest step. "She is bed-ridden, " she muttered, as ifshe felt the need of explanation. "She is not to be disturbed with housematters, or who comes or goes. You understand that, do you?"

He nodded, with a mental reservation, and followed her up the confinedstaircase. Turning sharply at the head of the first flight he saw beforehim a long narrow passage, lighted by a window that looked to the back. On the left of the passage which led to a second set of stairs, were twodoors, one near the head of the lower flight, the other at the foot ofthe second. She led him past both--they were closed--and up the secondstairs and into a room under the tiles, a room of good size but with aroof which sloped in unexpected places. 

A woman lay there, not uncomely; rather comely with the beauty ofadvancing years, though weak and frail if not ill. It was the woman ofwhom he had so often heard his father speak with gratitude and respect. It was neither of his father, however, nor of her, that Claude Mercierthought as he stood holding Madame Royaume's hand and looking down ather. For the girl who had gone before him into the room had passed tothe other side of the bed, and the glance which she and her motherexchanged as the daughter leant over the couch, the message of love andprotection on one side, of love and confidence on the other--thatmessage and the tone, wondrous gentle, in which the girl, so curt andabrupt below, named him--these revealed a bond and an affection forwhich the life of his own family furnished him with no precedent. 

For his mother had many children, and his father still lived. But thesetwo, his heart told him as he held Madame Royaume's shrivelled hand inhis, were alone. They had each but the other, and lived each in theother, in this room under the tiles with the deep-set dormer windowsthat looked across the Pays de Gex to the Jura. For how much thatprospect of vale and mountain stood in their lives, how often they roseto it from the same bed, how often looked at it in sunshine and shadowwith the house still and quiet below them, he seemed to know--to guess. He had a swift mental vision of their lives, and then Madame Royaume'svoice recalled him to himself. 

"You are newly come to Geneva?" she said, gazing at him. 

"I arrived yesterday. "

"Yes, yes, of course, " she answered. She spoke quickly and nervously. "Yes, you told me so. " And she turned to her daughter and laid her handon hers as if she talked more easily so. "Your father, MonsieurMercier, " with an obvious effort, "is well, I hope?"

"Perfectly, and he begged me to convey his grateful remembrances. Thoseof my mother also, " the young man added warmly. 

"Yes, he was a good man! I remember when, when he was ill, and M. Chausse--the pastor, you know"--the reminiscence appeared to agitateher--"was ill also----"

The girl leant over her quickly. "Monsieur Mercier has brought somethingfor you, mother, " she said. 

"Ah?"

"His grateful remembrances and this letter, " Claude murmured with ablush. He knew that the letter contained no more than he had alreadysaid; compliments, and the hope that Madame Royaume might be able toreceive the son as she had received the father. 

"Ah!" Madame Royaume repeated, taking the letter with fingers that shooka little. 

"You shall read it when Monsieur Mercier is gone, " her daughter said. With that she looked across at the young man. Her eyes commanded him totake his leave. 

But he was resolute. "My father expresses the hope, " he said, "that youwill grant me the same privilege of living under your roof, Madame, which was so highly prized by him. "

"Of course, of course, " she answered eagerly, her eyes lighting up. "Iam not myself, sir, able to overlook the house--but, Anne, you will seeto--to this being done?"

"My dear mother, we have no room!" the girl replied; and stooping, hidher face while she whispered in her mother's ear. Then aloud, "We are sofull, so--it goes so well, " she continued gaily. "We never have anyroom. I am sure, sir, "--again she faced him across the bed--"it is adisappointment to my mother, but it cannot be helped. "

"Dear, dear, it is unfortunate!" Madame Royaume exclaimed; and then witha fond look at her daughter, "Anne manages so well!"

"Yet if there be a room at any time vacant?"

"You shall assuredly have it. "

"But, mother dear, " the girl cried, "M. Grio and M. Basterga arepermanent on the floor below. And Esau and Louis are now with us, andhave but just entered on their course at college. And you know, " shecontinued softly, "no one ever leaves your house before they are obligedto leave it, mother dear!"

The mother patted the daughter's hand. "No, " she said proudly. "It istrue. And we cannot turn any one away. And yet, " looking up at Anne, "the son of Messer Mercier? You do not think--do you think that we couldput him----"

"A closet however small!" Claude cried. 

"Unfortunately the room beyond this can only be entered through thisone. "

"It is out of the question!" the girl responded quickly; and for thefirst time her tone rang a little hard. The next instant she seemed torepent of her petulance; she stooped and kissed the thin face sunk inthe pillow's softness. Then, rising, "I am sorry, " she continued stifflyand decidedly. "But it is impossible!"

"Still--if a vacancy should occur?" he pleaded. 

Her eyes met his defiantly. "We will inform you, " she said. 

"Thank you, " he answered humbly. "Perhaps I am fatiguing your mother?"

"I think you are a little tired, dear, " the girl said, stooping overher. "A little fatigues you. "

Madame's cheeks were flushed; her eyes shone brightly, even feverishly. Claude saw this, and having pushed his plea and his suit as far as hedared, he hastened to take his leave. His thoughts had been busy withhis chances all the time, his eyes with the woman's face; yet he boreaway with him a curiously vivid picture of the room, of the bow-potblooming in the farther dormer, of the brass skillet beside the greenboughs which filled the hearth, of the spinning wheel in the middle ofthe floor, and the great Bible on the linen chest beside the bed, of thesloping roof, and a queer triangular cupboard which filled one corner. 

At the time, as he followed the girl downstairs, he thought of none ofthese things. He only asked himself what mystery lay in the bosom ofthis quiet house, and what he should say when he stood in the room belowat bay before her. Of one thing he was still sure--sure, ay and surer, since he had seen her with her mother, The sky might fall, fish fly, and sheep pursue The tawny monarch of the Libyan strand!

but he lodged here. The mention of his adversary of last night, whichhad not escaped his ear, had only hardened him in his resolution. Theroom of Esau--or was it Louis' room--must be his! He must be Jacob theSupplanter. 

She did not speak as she preceded him down the stairs, and before theyemerged one after the other into the living-room, which was stillunoccupied, he had formed his plan. When she moved towards the outerdoor to open it he refused to follow: he stood still. "Pardon me, " hesaid, "would you mind giving me the name of the young man who admittedme?"

"I do not see----"

"I only want his name. "

"Esau Tissot. "

"And his room? Which was it?"

Grudgingly she pointed to the nearer of the two closets, that of whichthe door stood open. 

"That one?"

"Yes. "

He stepped quickly into it, and surveyed it carefully. Then he laid hiscap on the low truckle-bed. "Very good, " he said, raising his voice andspeaking through the open door, "I will take it. " And he came out again. 

The girl's eyes sparkled. "If you think, " she cried, her temper showingin her face, "that that will do you any good----"

"I don't think, " he said, cutting her short, "I take it. Your motherundertook that I should have the first vacant room. Tissot resigned thisroom this morning. I take it. I consider myself fortunate--mostfortunate. "

Her colour came and went. "If you were a boor, " she cried, "you couldnot behave worse!"

"Then I am a boor!"

"But you will find, " she continued, "that you cannot force your wayinto a house like this. You will find that such things are not done inGeneva. I will have you put out!"

"Why?" he asked, craftily resorting to argument. "When I ask only toremain and be quiet? Why, when you have, or to-night will have, an emptyroom? Why, when you lodged Tissot, will you not lodge me? In what am Iworse than Tissot or Grio, " he continued, "or--I forget the other'sname? Have I the plague, or the falling sickness? Am I Papist or Arian?What have I done that I may not lie in Geneva, may not lie in yourhouse? Tell me, give me a reason, show me the cause, and I will go. "

Her anger had died down while he spoke and while she listened. Instead, the lowness of heart to which she had yielded when she thought herselfalone before the hearth showed in every line of her figure. "You do notknow what you are doing, " she said sadly. And she turned and lookedthrough the casement. "You do not know what you are asking, or to whatyou are coming. "

"Did Tissot know when he came?"

"You are not Tissot, " she answered in a low tone, "and may fare worse. "

"Or better, " he answered gaily. "And at worst----"

"Worse or better you will repent it, " she retorted. "You will repent itbitterly!"

"I may, " he answered. "But at least you never shall. "

She turned and looked at him at that; looked at him as if the curtain ofapathy fell from her eyes and she saw him for the first time as he was, a young man, upright and not uncomely. She looked at him with her mindas well as her eyes, and seeing felt curiosity about him, pity for him, felt her own pulses stirred by his presence and his aspect. A faintcolour, softer than the storm-flag which had fluttered there a minutebefore, rose to her cheeks; her lips began to tremble. He feared thatshe was going to weep, and "That is settled!" he said cheerfully. "Good!" and he went into the little room and brought out his cap. "I laylast night at the 'Bible and Hand, ' and I must fetch my cloak and pack. "

She stayed him by a gesture. "One moment, " she said. "You are determinedto--to do this? To lodge here?"

"Firmly, " he answered, smiling. 

"Then wait. " She passed by him and, moving to the fireplace, raised thelid of the great black pot. The broth inside was boiling and bubbling towithin an inch of the lip, the steam rose from it in a fragrant cloud. She took an iron spoon and looked at him, a strange look in her eyes. "Stand where you are, " she said, "and I will try you, if you are fit tocome to us or no. Stand, do you hear, " she repeated, a note ofexcitation, almost of mockery, in her voice, "where you are whateverhappens! You understand?"

"Yes, I am to stand here, whatever happens, " he answered, wondering. What was she going to do?

She was going to do a thing outside the limits of his imagination. Shedipped the iron spoon in the pot and, extending her left arm, deliberately allowed some drops of the scalding liquor to fall on thebare flesh. He saw the arm wince, saw red blisters spring out on thewhite skin, he caught the sharp indraw of her breath, but he did notmove. Again she dipped the spoon, looking at him with defiant eyes, andwith the same deliberation she let the stuff fall on the living flesh. This time the perspiration sprang out on her brow, her face burnedsuddenly hot, her whole frame shrank under the torture. 

"Don't!" he cried hoarsely. "I will not bear it! Don't!" And he uttereda cry half-articulate, like a beast's. 

"Stand there!" she said. And still he stood: stood, his hands clenchedand his lips drawn back from his teeth, while she dipped the spoonagain, and--though her arm shook now like an aspen and there were tearsof pain in her eyes--let the dreadful stuff fall a third time. 

She was white when she turned to him. "If you do it again, " he criedfuriously, "I will upset--the cursed pot. "

"I have done, " she said, smiling faintly. "I am not very brave--afterall!" And going to the dresser, her knees trembling under her, shepoured out some water and drank it greedily. Then she turned to him, "Doyou understand?" she said with a long tense look. "Are you prepared? Ifyou come here, you will see me suffer worse things, things a hundredtimes, a thousand times worse than that. You will see me suffer, and youwill have to stand and see it. You will have to stand and suffer it. Youwill have to stand! If you cannot, do not come. "

"I stood it, " he answered doggedly. "But there are things flesh andblood cannot stand. There is a limit----"

"The limit I shall fix, " she said proudly. "Not you. "

"But you will fix it?"

"Perhaps. At any rate, that is the bargain. You may accept or refuse. You do not know where I stand, and I do. You must see and be blind, feeland be dumb, hear and make no answer, unless I speak--if you are to comehere. "

"But you will speak--sometime?"

"I do not know, " she answered wearily, and her whole form wilting shelooked away from him. "I do not know. Go now, if you please--andremember!"

CHAPTER III. 

THE QUINTESSENTIAL STONE. 

The old town of Geneva, pent in the angle between lake and river, andcramped for many generations by the narrow corselet of its walls, wasnot large; it was still high noon when Mercier, after paying hisreckoning at the "Bible and Hand, " and collecting his possessions, foundhimself again in the Corraterie. A pleasant breeze stirred the leafybranches which shaded the ramparts, and he stood a moment beside one ofthe small steep-roofed watch-towers, and resting his burden on thebreast-high wall, gazed across the hazy landscape to the mountains, beyond which lay Chatillon and his home. 

Yet it was not of his home he was thinking as he gazed; nor was it hismother's or his father's face that the dancing heat of mid-day mirroredfor him as he dreamed. Oh, happy days of youth when an hour and a facechange all, and a glance from shy eyes, or the pout of strange lipsblinds to the world and the world's ambitions! Happy youth! But alas forthe studies this youth had come so far to pursue, for the theology hehad crossed those mountains to imbibe--at the pure source and fount ofevangelical doctrine! Alas for the venerable Beza, pillar and pattern ofthe faith, whom he had thirsted to see, and the grave of Calvin, aim andend of his pilgrimage! All Geneva held but one face for him now, onepresence, one gracious personality. A scarlet blister on a round whitearm, the quiver of a girl's lip a-tremble on the verge of tears--theseand no longing for home, these and no memory of father or mother or thedays of childhood, filled his heart to overflowing. He dreamed with hiseyes on the hills, but it was not

 Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, the things he had come to study; but of a woman's trouble and the secretlife of the house behind him, of which he was about to form part. 

At length the call of a sentry at the Porte Tertasse startled him fromhis thoughts. He roused himself, and uncertain how long he had lingeredhe took up his cloak and bag and, turning, hastened across the street tothe door at the head of the four steps. He found it on the latch, andwith a confident air, which belied his real feelings, he pushed it openand presented himself. 

For a moment he fancied that the room held only one person. This was ayoung man who sat at the table in the middle of the room and, surprisedby the appearance of a stranger, suspended his spoon in the air that hemight the better gaze at him. But when Claude had set down his bagbehind the door, and turned to salute the other, he discovered hiserror; and despite himself he paused in the act of advancing, unable tohide his concern. At the table on the hearth, staring at him in silence, sat two other men. And one of the two was Grio. 

Mercier paused we have said; he expected an outburst of anger if not anassault. But a second glance at the old ruffian's face relieved him: astare of vacant wonder made it plain that Grio sober retained little ofthe doings of Grio drunk. Nevertheless, the silent gaze of thethree--for no one greeted him--took Claude aback; and it was butawkwardly and with embarrassment that he approached the table, andprepared to add himself to the party. Something in their looks as wellas their silence whispered him unwelcome. He blushed, and addressing theyoung man at the larger table--

"I have taken Tissot's room, " he said shyly. "This is his seat, Isuppose. May I take it?" And indicating an empty bowl and spoon on thenearer side of the table, he made as if he would sit down before them. 

In place of answering, the young man looked from him to the two on thehearth, and laughed--a foolish, frightened laugh. The sound ledMercier's eyes in the same direction, and he appreciated for the firsttime the aspect of the man who sat with Grio; a man of great height andvast bulk, with a large plump face and small grey eyes. It struckMercier as he met the fixed stare of those eyes, that he had enteredwith less ceremony than was becoming, and that he ought to make amendsfor it; and, in the act of sitting down in the vacant seat, he turnedand bowed politely to the two at the other table. 

"Tissotius timuit, jam peregrinus adest!" the big man murmured in avoice at once silky and sonorous. Then ignoring Mercier, but lookingblandly at the young man who sat facing him at the table, "What is thisof Tissot?" he continued. "Can it be, " with a side-glance at thenewcomer, "that we have lost our--I may not call him our quintessence oralcahest--rather shall I say our baser ore, that at the virgin touch ofour philosophical stone blushed into ruddy gold? And burned everbrighter and hotter in her presence! Tissot gone, and with him all thosefair experiments! Is it possible?"

The young man's grin showed that he savoured a jest. But, "I knownothing, " he muttered sheepishly. "'Tis new to me. "

"Tissot gone!" the big man repeated in a tone humorously melancholy. "Nomore shall we

 Upon his viler metal test our purest pure, And see him transmutations three endure!

Tissot gone! And you, sir, come in his place. What change is here! Astranger, I believe?"

"In Geneva, yes, " Claude answered, wondering and a little abashed. Theman spoke with an air of power and weight. 

"And a student, doubtless in our Academia? Like our Tissot? Yes. It maybe, " he continued in the same smooth tones wherein ridicule andpoliteness appeared to be so nicely mingled that it was difficult tojudge if he spoke in jest or earnest, "like him in other things! It maybe that we have gained and not lost. And that qualities finer and moresusceptible underlie an exterior more polished and an ease morecomplete, " he bowed, "than our poor Tissot could boast! But here is

 Our stone angelical whereby All secret potencies to light are brought!

Doubtless"--with a wave of the hand he indicated the girl who had thatmoment entered--"you have met before?"

"I could not otherwise, " Claude answered coldly--he began to resent boththe man and his manner--"have engaged the lodging. " And he rose to takefrom the girl's hand the broth she was bringing him. She, on her side, made no sign that she noticed a change, or that it was no longer Tissotshe served. She gave him what he needed, mechanically and withoutmeeting his eyes. Then turning to the others, she waited on them afterthe same fashion. For a minute or two there was silence in the room. 

A strange silence, Claude thought, listening and wondering: as strangeand embarrassing as the talk of the man who shared with Grio the tableby the fireplace: as strange as the atmosphere about them, which hungheavy, to his fancy, and oppressive, fraught with unintelligiblerailleries, with subtle jests and sneers. The girl went to and fro, fromone to another, her face pale, her manner quiet. And had he not seen herearlier with another look in her eyes, had he not detected a sinistersomething underlying the big man's good humour, he would have learnednothing from her; he would have fancied that all was as it should be inthe house and in the company. 

As it was he understood nothing. But he felt that a something was wrong, that a something overhung the party. Seated as he was he could notwithout turning see the faces of the two at the other table, nor watchthe girl when she waited on them. But the suspicion of a smile whichhovered on the lips of the young man who sat opposite him--whom he couldsee--kept him on his guard. Was a trick in preparation? Were they aboutto make him pay his footing? No, for they had no notice of his coming. They could not have laid the mine. Then why that smile? And why thissilence?

On a sudden he caught the sound of a movement behind him, the swirl of apetticoat, and the clang of a pewter plate as it fell noisily to thefloor. His companion looked up swiftly, the smile on his face broadeningto a snigger. Claude turned too as quickly as he could and looked, hisface hot, his mind suspecting some prank to be played on him; to hisastonishment he discovered nothing to account for the laugh. The girlappeared to be bending over the embers on the hearth, the men to beengaged with their meal; and baffled and perplexed he turned again and, his ears burning, bent over his plate. He was glad when the stout manbroke the silence for the second time. 

"Agrippa, " he said, "has this of amalgams. That whereas gold, silver, tin are valuable in themselves, they attain when mixed with mercury to acertain light and sparkling character, as who should say the bubbles onwine, or the light resistance of beauty, which in the one case and theother add to the charm. Such to our simple pleasures"--he continued witha rumble of deep laughter--"our simple pleasures, which I must now alsocall our pleasures of the past, was our Tissot! Who, running fluidhither and thither, where resistance might be least of use, was as itwere the ultimate sting of enjoyment. Is it possible that we have in ourfriend a new Tissot?"

The young man at the table giggled. "I did not know Tissot!" Claudereplied sharply and with a burning face--they were certainly laughing athim. "And therefore I cannot say. "

"Mercury, which completes the amalgam, " the stout man muttered absentlyand as if to himself, "when heated sublimes over!" Then turning after amoment's silence to the girl, "What says our Quintessential Stone tothis?" he continued. "Her Tissot gone will she still work her wonders?Still of base Grios and the weak alloys red bridegrooms make?Still--kind Anne, your hand!"

Silence! Silence again. What were they doing? Claude, full of suspicion, turned to see what it meant; turned to learn what it was on which thegreedy eyes of his table-fellow were fixed so intently. And now he saw, more or less. The stout man and Grio had their heads together and theirfaces bent over the girl's hand, which the former held. On them, however, Claude scarcely bestowed a glance. It was the girl's face whichcaught and held his eyes, nay, made them burn. Had it blushed, had itshowed white, he had borne the thing more lightly, he had understood itbetter. But her face showed dull and apathetic; as she stood lookingdown at the men, suffering them to do what they would with her hand, astrange passivity was its sole expression. When the big man (whose nameClaude learned later was Basterga), after inspecting the palm, kissed itwith mock passion, and so surrendered it to Grio, who also pressed hiscoarse lips to it, while the young man beside Claude laughed, no changecame over her. Released, she turned again to the hearth, impassive. AndClaude, his heart beating, recognised that this was the hundredthperformance; that so far from being a new thing it was a thing so old asto be stale to her, moving her less, though there were insult andderision in every glance of the men's eyes, than it moved him. 

And noting this he began in a dim way to understand. This was the thingwhich Tissot had not been able to bear; which in the end had driven theyoung man with the small chin from the house. This was the pleasantry towhich his feeble resistance, his outbursts of anger, of jealousy, or ofprotest had but added piquancy, the ultimate sting of pleasure to thejaded palate of the performers. This was the obsession under which shelay, the trial and persecution which she had warned him he would find ithard to witness. 

Hard? He believed her, trifling as was the thing he had seen. For behindit he had a glimpse of other and worse things, and behind all of someshadowy brooding mystery which compelled her to suffer them and forbadeher to complain. What that was he could not conceive, what it could behe could not conceive: nor had he long to consider the question. Hefound the shifty eyes of his table-fellow fixed upon him, and, thoughthe moment his own eyes met them they were averted, he fancied that theysped a glance of intelligence to the table behind him, and he hastenedto curb, if not his feelings, at least the show of them. He had hiswarning. It was not as Tissot he must act if he would help her, but morewarily, more patiently, biding her time, and letting the blow, when thetime came, precede the word. Unwarned, he had acted it is probable asTissot had acted, weakly and stormily: warned, he had no excuse if hefailed her. Young as he was he saw this. The fault lay with him if hemade the position worse instead of better. 

Whether, do what he would, his feelings made themselves known--for theshoulders can speak, and eloquently, on occasion--or the reverse was thecase, and his failure to rise to the bait disappointed the tormentor, the big man, Basterga, presently resumed the attack. 

"Tissotius pereat, Tissotianus adest!" he muttered with a sneer. "Butperhaps, young sir, Latinity is not one of your subjects. The tongue ofthe immortal Cicero----"

"I speak it a little, " Claude answered quietly. "It were foolish toapproach the door of learning without the key. "

"Oh, you are a wit, young sir! Well, with your wit and your Latinity canyou construe this:--

 Stultitiam expellas, furca tamen usque recurret Tissotius periit terque quaterque redit!"

"I think so, " Claude replied gravely. 

"Good, if it please you! And the meaning?"

"Tissot was a fool, and you are another!" the young man returned. "Willyou now solve me one, reverend sir, with all submission?"

"Said and done!" the big man answered disdainfully. 

"Nec volucres plumæ faciunt nec cuspis Achillem! Construe me that thenif you will!"

Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "Fine feathers do not make fine birds!"he said. "If you apply it to me, " he continued with a contemptuous face, "I----"

"Oh, no, to your company, " Claude answered. Self-control comes hardly tothe young, and he had already forgotten his _rôle_. "Ask him whathappened last night at the 'Bible and Hand, '" he continued, pointing toGrio, "and how he stands now with his friend the Syndic!"

"The Syndic?"

"The Syndic Blondel!"

The moment the words had passed his lips, Claude repented. He saw thathe had struck a note more serious than he intended. The big man did notmove, but over his fat face crept a watching expression; he was plainlystartled. His eyes, reduced almost to pin-points, seemed for an instantthe eyes of a cat about to spring. The effect was so evident indeed thatit bewildered Claude and so completely diverted his attention from Grio, the real target, that when the bully, who had listened stupidly to theexchange of wit, proved by a brutal oath his comprehension of thereference to himself, the young man scarcely heard him. 

"The Syndic Blondel?" Basterga muttered after a pregnant pause. "Whatknow you of him, pray?"

Before the young man could answer, Grio broke in. "So you have followedme here, have you?" he cried, striking his jug on the table and glaringacross the board at the offender. "You weren't content to escape lastnight it seems. Now----"

"Enough!" Basterga muttered, the keen expression of his face unchanged. "Softly! Softly! Where are we? I don't understand. What is this? Lastnight----"

"I want not to rake up bygones if you will let them be, " Claude answeredwith a sulky air, half assumed. "It was you who attacked me. "

"You puppy!" Grio roared. "Do you think----"

"Enough!" Basterga said again: and his eyes leaving the young man fixedthemselves on his companion. "I begin to understand, " he murmured, hisvoice low, but not the less menacing for that, or for the cat-like purrin it. "I begin to comprehend. This is one of your tricks, Messer Grio. One of the clever tricks you play in your cups! Some day you'll do thatin them will--No!" repressing the bully as he attempted to rise. "Havedone now and let us understand. The 'Bible and Hand, ' eh? 'Twas there, Isuppose, you and this youth met, and----"

"Quarrelled, " said Claude sullenly. "That's all. "

"And you followed him hither?"

"No, I did not. "

"No? Then how come you here?" Basterga asked, his eyes still watchful. "In this house, I mean? 'Tis not easy to find. "

"My father lodged here, " Claude vouchsafed. And he shrugged hisshoulders, thinking that with that the matter was clear. 

But Basterga continued to eye him with something that was not farremoved from suspicion. "Oh, " he said. "That is it, is it? Your fatherlodged here. And the Syndic--Blondel, was it you said? How comes he intoit? Grio was prating of him, I suppose?" For an instant, while he waitedthe answer to the question, his eyes shrank again to pin-points. 

"He came in and found us at sword-play, " Claude answered. "Or justfalling to it. And though the fault was not mine, he would have sent meto prison if I had not had a letter for him. "

"Oh!" And returning with a manifest effort to the tone and manner of afew minutes before:--

 "Impiger, Iracundus, Inexorabilis, acer Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis, "

he hummed. "I doubt if such manners will be appreciated in Geneva, youngman, " and furtively he wiped his brow. "To old stagers like my friendhere who has given his proofs of fidelity to the State, some indulgenceis granted----"

"I see that, " Claude answered with sarcasm. 

"I am saying it. But you, if you will not be warned, will soon find ormake the town too hot for you. "

"He will find this house too hot for him!" growled his companion, whohad made more than one vain attempt to assert himself. "And that to-day!To-day! Perdition, I know him now, " he continued, fixing his bloodshoteyes on the young man, "and if he crows here as he crowed last night, his comb must be cut! As well soon as late, for there will be no livingwith him! There, don't hold me, man! Let me at him!" And he tried torise. 

"Fool, have done!" Basterga replied, still restraining him, but only bythe exertion of considerable force. And then in a lower tone but onepartially audible, "Do you want to draw the eyes of all Geneva thisway?" he continued. "Do you want the house marked and watched and everygossip's tongue wagging about it? You did harm enough last night, I'llanswer, and well if no worse comes of it! Have done, I say, or I shallspeak, you know to whom!"

"Why does he come here? Why does he follow me?" the sot complained. 

"Cannot you hear that his father lodged here?"

"A lie!" Grio cried vehemently. "He is spying on us! First at the 'Bibleand Hand' last night, and then here! It is you who are the fool, man. Let me go! Let me at him, I say!"

"I shall not!" the big man answered firmly. And he whispered in theother's ear something which Claude could not catch. Whatever it was itcooled Grio's rage. He ceased to struggle, nodded sulkily and sat back. He stretched out his hand, took a long draught, and having emptied hisjug, "Here's Geneva!" he said, wiping his lips with the air of a man whohad given a toast. "Only don't let him cross me! That is all. Where isthe wench?"

"She has gone upstairs, " Basterga answered with one eye on Claude. Heseemed to be unable to shake off a secret doubt of him. 

"Then let her come down, " Grio answered with a grin, half drunken, halfbrutal, "and make her show sport. Here, you there, " to the young man whoshared Claude's table, "call her down and----"

"Sit still!" Basterga growled, and he trod--Claude was almost sure ofit--on the bully's foot. "It is late, and these young gentlemen shouldbe at their themes. Theology, young sir, " he turned to Claude with theslightest shade of over-civility in his pompous tone, "like the pursuitof the Alcahest, which some call the Quintessence of the Elements, allows no rival near its throne!"

"I attend my first lecture to-morrow, " Claude answered drily. And hekept his seat. His face was red and his hand trembled. They would callher down for their sport, would they! Not in his presence, nor again inhis absence, if he could avoid it. 

Grio struck the table. "Call her down!" he ordered in a tone whichbetrayed the influence of his last draught. "Do you hear!" And he lookedfiercely at Louis Gentilis, the young man who sat opposite Claude. 

But Louis only looked at Basterga and grinned. 

And Basterga it was plain was not in the mood to amuse himself. Whateverthe reason, the big man was no longer at his ease in Mercier's company. Some unpleasant thought, some suspicion, born of the incident at the"Bible and Hand, " seemed to rankle in his mind, and, strive as hewould, betrayed its presence in the tone of his voice and the glance ofhis eye. He was uneasy, nor could he hide his uneasiness. To the lookwhich Gentilis shot at him he replied by one which imperatively bade theyoung man keep his seat. "Enough fooling for to-day, " he said, andstealthily he repressed Grio's resistance. "Enough! Enough! I see thatthe young gentleman does not altogether understand our humours. He willcome to them in time, in time, " his voice almost fawning, "and see wemean no harm. Did I understand, " he continued, addressing Claudedirectly, "that your father knew Messer Blondel?"

"Who is now Syndic? My uncle did, " Claude answered rather curtly. He wasmore and more puzzled by the change in Basterga's manner. Was the bigman a poltroon whom the bold front shown to Grio brought to heel? Or wasthere something behind, some secret upon which his words had unwittinglytouched?

"He is a good man, " Basterga said. "And of the first in Geneva. Hisbrother too, who is Procureur-General. Their father died for the State, and the sons, the Syndic in particular, served with high honour in thewar. Savoy has no stouter foe than Philibert Blondel, nor Geneva a moredevoted son. " And he drank as if he drank a toast to them. 

Claude nodded. 

"A man of great parts too. Probably you will wait on him?"

"Next week. I was near waiting on him after another fashion, " Claudecontinued rather grimly. "Between him and your friend there, " with aglance at Grio, who had relapsed into a moody glaring silence, "I waslike to get more gyves than justice. "

The big man laughed. "Our friend here has served the State, " heremarked, "and does what another may not. Come, Messer Grio, " hecontinued, clapping him on the shoulder, as he rose from his seat. "Wehave sat long enough. If the young ones will not stir, it becomes theold ones to set an example. Will you to my room and view theprecipitation of which I told you?"

Grio gave a snarling assent, and got to his feet; and the party broke upwith no more words. Claude took his cap and prepared to withdraw, wellcontent with himself and the line he had taken. But he did not leave thehouse until his ears assured him that the two who had ascended thestairs together had actually repaired to Basterga's room on the firstfloor, and there shut themselves up. 

CHAPTER IV. 

CÆSAR BASTERGA. 

Had it been Mercier's eye in place of his ear which attended the two mento the upper room, he would have remarked--perhaps with surprise, sincehe had gained some knowledge of Grio's temper--that in proportion asthey mounted the staircase, the toper's crest drooped, and his arroganceebbed away; until at the door of Basterga's chamber, it was but asneaking and awkward man who crossed the threshold. 

Nor was the reason far to seek. Whatever the standpoint of the two menin public, their relations to one another in private were delivered up, stamped and sealed in that moment of entrance. While Basterga, leavingthe other to close the door, strode across the room to the window andstood gazing out, his very back stern and contemptuous, Grio fidgetedand frowned, waiting with ill-concealed penitence, until the other choseto address him. At length Basterga turned, and his gleaming eyes, hismoon-face pale with anger, withered his companion. 

"Again! Again!" he growled--it seemed he dare not lift his voice. "Willyou never be satisfied until we are broken on the wheel? You dog, you!The sooner you are broken the better, were that all! Ay, and were thatall, I could watch the bar fall with pleasure! But do you think I willsee the fruit of years of planning, do you think that I will see thereward of this brain--this! this, you brainless idiot, who know notwhat a brain is"--and he tapped his brow repeatedly with an earnestnessalmost grotesque--"do you think that I will see this cast away, becauseyou swill, swine that you are! Swill and prate in your cups!"

"'Fore God, I said nothing!" Grio whined. "I said nothing! It was onlythat he would not drink and I----"

"Made him?"

"No, he would not, I say, and we were coming to blows. And then----"

"He gave back, did he?"

"No, Messer Blondel came in. "

Cæsar Basterga stretched out his huge arms. "Fool! Fool! Fool!" hehissed, with a gesture of despair. "There it is! And Blondel, who shouldhave sent you to the whipping-post, or out of Geneva, has to cloak you!And men ask why, and what there is between our most upright Syndic and adrunken, bragging----"

"Softly, " Grio muttered, with a flash of sullen resentment. "Softly, Messer Basterga! I----"

"A drunken, swilling, prating pig!" the other persisted. "A brokensoldier living on an hour of chance service? Pooh, man, " with contempt, "do not threaten me! Do you think that I do not know you more than halfcraven? The lad below there would cut your comb yet, did I suffer it. But that is not the point. The point is that you must needs advertisethe world that you and the Syndic, who has charge of the walls, arehail-fellows, and the world will ask why! Or he must deal with you asyou deserve and out you go from Geneva!"

"Per Bacco! I am not the only soldier, " Grio muttered, "who ruffles ithere!"

"No! And is not that half our battle?" Basterga rejoined, gazing on himwith massive scorn. "To make use of them and their grumbling, and theirdistaste for the Venerable Company of Pastors who rule us! Such men areour tools; but tools only, and senseless tools, for Geneva won for theGrand Duke, and what will they be the better, save in the way of alittle more licence and a little more drink? But for you I had somethingbetter! Is the little farm in Piedmont not worth a month's abstinence?Is drink-money for your old age, when else you must starve or stab inthe purlieus of Genoa, not worth one month's sobriety? But you mustneeds for the sake of a single night's debauch ruin me and get yourselfbroken on the wheel!"

Grio shrank under his eye. "There is no harm done, " he muttered at last. "Nobody suspects what is between us. "

"How do you know that?" came the retort. "What? You think it is naturalBlondel should favour such as you?"

"It will not be the first time Geneva cloak has covered Genoa velvet!"

"Velvet!" Basterga repeated with a sneer. "Rags rather!" And then morequickly, "But that is not all, nor the half. Do you think Blondel, whois on the point, Blondel, who will and will not and on whom all mustturn, Blondel the upright, the impeccable, the patriotic, without whomwe can do nothing, and who, I tell you, hangs in the balance--do youthink he likes it, blockhead? Or is the more inclined to trust his lifewith us when he sees us brawlers, toss-pots, common swillers? Do youthink he on whom I am bringing to bear all the resources of thisbrain--this!"--and again the big man tapped his forehead with tragicearnestness--"and whom you could as much move to side with us as youcould move yonder peak of the Jura from its base--do you think he willdeem better of our part for this?"

"Well, no. "

"No! No, a thousand times!"

"But I count drunk the same as sober for that!" Grio cried, plucking upspirit and speaking with a gleam of defiance in his eye. "For it is myopinion that you have no more chance of moving him than I have! And soto be plain you have it, Messer Basterga. For how are you going to movehim? With what? Tell me that!"

"Ah!"

"With money?" Grio continued with a fluency which showed he spoke on asubject to which he had given much thought. "He is rich and ten thousandcrowns would not buy him. And the Grand Duke, much as he craves Geneva, will not spend over boldly. "

"No, I shall not move him with money. "

"With power and rank, then? Will the Grand Duke make him Governor ofGeneva? No, for he dare not trust him. And less than that, what is it toSyndic Blondel, whose word to-day is all but law in Geneva?"

"No, nor with power, " Basterga answered quietly. 

"Is it with revenge, then? There are men I know who love revenge. But heis not of the south, and at such a risk revenge were dearly bought. "

"No, nor with revenge, " Basterga replied. 

"A woman, then? For that is all that is left, " Grio rejoined in triumph. Once he had spoken out, he had put himself on a level with his master;he had worsted him, or he was much mistaken. "Perhaps, from the way youhave played with the little prude below, it is a woman. But they areplenty, even in Geneva, and he is rich and old. "

"No, nor with a woman. "

"Then with what?"

"With this!" Basterga replied. And for the third time, drawing himselfup to his full height, he tapped his brow. "Do you doubt its power?"

For answer Grio shrugged his shoulders, his manner sullen andcontemptuous. 

"You do?"

"I don't see how it works, Messer Basterga, " the veteran muttered. "Isay not you have not good wits. You have, I grant it. But the best ofwits must have their means and method. It is not by wishing andwilling----"

"How know you that?"

"Eh?"

"How know you that?" Basterga repeated with sudden energy, and he shooka massive finger before the other's eyes. "But how know you anything, "he continued with disdain, as he dropped the hand again, and turned onhis heel, "dolt, imbecile, rudiment that you are? Ay, and blind to boot, for it was but the other day I worked a miracle before you, and youlearned nothing from it. "

"It is no question of miracles, " the other muttered doggedly. "But ofhow you will persuade the Syndic Blondel to betray Geneva to Savoy!"

"Is it so? Then tell me this: the girl below who smacked your face amonth back because you laid a hand upon her wrist, and who would havehad you put to the door the same day--how did I tame her? Can you answerme that?"

Grio's face fell remarkably. "No, master, " he said, noddingthoughtfully. "I grant it. I cannot. A wilder filly was never handled. "

"So! And yet I tamed her. And she suffers you! She's sport for us withinbounds. Yet do you think she likes it when you paw her hand or lay yourdirty arm about her waist, or steal a kiss? Think you the blood mountsand ebbs for nothing? Or the tears rise and the lip trembles and thelimbs shake for sheer pleasure. I tell you, if eyes could slay, you hadbreathed your last some weeks ago. "

"I know, " Grio answered, nodding thoughtfully. "I have wondered andwondered, ay, many a time, how you did it. "

"Yet I did it? You grant that?"

"Yes. "

"And you do not understand--with what?"

Grio shook his head. 

"Then why mistrust me now, blockhead, " the other retorted, "when I saythat as I charmed her, I can charm Blondel? Ay, and more easily. Youknow not how I did the one, nor how I shall do the other, " the big mancontinued. "But what of that?" And in a louder voice, and with a gustowhich showed how genuine was his delight in the metre, "Pauci quos æquus amavit Jupiter aut ardens evexit ad æthera virtus Dis geniti potuere, "

he mouthed. "But that, " he added, looking scornfully at his confederate, "is Greek to you!"

Grio's altered aspect, his crestfallen air owned the virtue of theargument if not of the citation; which he did not understand. He drew adeep breath. "Per Bacco, " he said, "if you succeed in doing it, MesserBasterga----"

"I shall do it, " Basterga retorted, "if you do not spoil all with yourdrunken tricks!"

Grio was silent a moment, sunk plainly in reflection. Presently hisbloodshot eyes began to travel respectfully and even timidly over theobjects about him. In truth the room in which he found himself wasworthy of inspection, for it was no common room, either in aspect orfurnishing. It boasted, it is true, none of the weird properties, theskulls and corpse-lights, dead hands, and waxen masks with which thenecromancer of that day sought to impress the vulgar mind. But in placeof these a multitude of objects, quaint, curious, or valuable, filledthat half of the room which was farther from the fire-hearth. On thewall, flanked by a lute and some odd-looking rubrical calendars, werethree or four silver discs, engraved with the signs of the Zodiac; thesewere hung in such a position as to catch the light which entered throughthe heavily leaded casement. On the window-seat below them, a pile ofPlantins and Elzevirs threatened to bury a steel casket. On the table, several rolls of vellum and papyrus, peeping from metal cylinders, leantagainst a row of brass-bound folios. A handsome fur covering masked thetruckle-bed, but this, too, bore its share of books, as did two or threelong trunks covered with stamped and gilded leather which stood againstthe wall and were so long that the ladies of the day had the credit ofhiding their gallants in them. On stools lay more books, and yet morebooks, with a medley of other things: a silver flagon, and some weapons, a chess-board, an enamelled triptych and the like. 

In a word, this half of the room wore the aspect of a library, low-roofed, dark and richly furnished. The other half, partly dividedfrom it by a curtain, struck the eye differently. A stove of peculiarfashion, equipped with a powerful bellows, cumbered the hearth; beforethis on a long table were ranged a profusion of phials and retorts, glass vessels of odd shapes, and earthen pots. Crucibles and alembicsstood in the ashes before the stove, and on a sideboard placed under thewindow were scattered a set of silver scales, a chemist's mask, and anumber of similar objects. Cards bearing abstruse calculations hungeverywhere on the walls; and over the fireplace, inscribed in gold andblack letters, the Greek word "EUREKA" was conspicuous. 

The existence of such a room in the quiet house in the Corraterie waslittle suspected by the neighbours, and if known would have struck themwith amazement. To Grio its aspect was familiar: but in this casefamiliarity had not removed his awe of the unknown and the magical. Helooked about him now, and after a pause:--

"I suppose you do it--with these, " he murmured, and with an almostimperceptible shiver he pointed to the crucibles. 

"With those?" Basterga exclaimed, and had the other ascribedsupernatural virtues to the cinders or the bellows he could not havethrown greater scorn into his words. "Do you think I ply this basemechanic art for aught but to profit by the ignorance of the vulgar? Orthink by pots and pans and mixing vile substances to make this, which bynature is this, into that which by nature it is not! I, a scholar? Ascholar? No, I tell you, there was never alchemist yet could transmutebut one thing--poor into rich, rich into poor!"

"But, " Grio murmured with a look and in a voice of disappointment, "isnot that the true transmutation which a thousand have died seeking, andone here and there, it is rumoured, has found? From lead to gold, MesserBasterga?"

"Ay, but the lead is the poor alchemist, who gets gold from his patronby his trick. And the gold is the poor fool who finds him in his living, and being sucked, turns to lead! There you have your transmutation. "

"Yet----"

"There is no yet!"

"But Agrippa, " Grio persisted, "Cornelius Agrippa, who sojourned here inGeneva and of whom, master, you speak daily--was he not a learned man?"

"Ay, even as I am!" Cæsar Basterga answered, swelling visibly withpride. "But constrained, even as I am, to ply the baser trade and stoopto that we see and touch and smell! Faugh! What lot more cursed than toquit the pure ether of Latinity for the lower region of matter? And inplace of cultivating the _literæ humaniores_, which is the truecultivation of the mind, and sets a man, mark you, on a level withprinces, to stoop to handle virgin milk and dragon's blood, as theystyle their vile mixtures; or else grope in dead men's bodies for thething which killed them. Which is a pure handicraft and cheirergon, unworthy a scholar, who stoops of right to naught but the goose-quill!"

"And yet, master, by these same things----"

"Men grow rich, " Basterga continued with a sneer, "and get power? Ay, and the bastard sits in the chair of the legitimate; and pure learninggoes bare while the seekers after the Stone and the Elixir (who, inthese days are descending to invent even lesser things and smalleradvantages that in the learned tongues have not so much as names) growin princes' favour and draw on their treasuries! But what says Seneca?'It is not the office of Philosophy to teach men to use their hands. Theobject of her lessons is to form the soul and the taste. ' And AldusManucius, vir doctissimus, magister noster, " here he raised his hand tohis head as if he would uncover, "says also the same, but in a Latinitymore pure and translucent, as is his custom. "

Grio scratched his head. The other's vehemence, whether he sneered orpraised, flew high above his dull understanding. He had his share of thereverence for learning which marked the ignorant of that age: but towhat better end, he pondered stupidly, could learning be directed thanto the discovery of that which must make its owner the most enviable ofmortals, the master of wealth and youth and pleasure! It was not tothis, however, that he directed his objection: the _argumentum adhominem_ came more easily to him. "But you do this?" he said, pointingto the paraphernalia about the stove. 

"Ay, " Basterga rejoined with vehemence. "And why, my friend? Because thenoble rewards and the consideration which former times bestowed onlearning are to-day diverted to baser pursuits! Erasmus was the friendof princes, and the correspondent of kings. Della Scala was thecompanion of an emperor; Morus, the Englishman, was the right arm of aking. And I, Cæsar Basterga of Padua, bred in the pure Latinity of ourMaster Manucius, yield to none of these. Yet am I, if I would live, forced to stoop 'ad vulgus captandum!' I must kneel that I may rise! Imust wade through the mire of this base pursuit that I may reach thefirm ground of wealth and learned ease. But think you that I am the dupeof the art wherewith I dupe others? Or, that once I have my foot on firmground I will stoop again to the things of matter and sense? No, byHercules!" the big man continued, his eye kindling, his form dilating. "This scheme once successful, this feat that should supply me for life, once performed, Cæsar Basterga of Padua will know how to add, to thoselaurels which he has already gained, The bays of Scala and the wreath of More, Erasmus' palm and that which Lipsius wore. "

And in a kind of frenzy of enthusiasm the scholar fell to pacing thefloor, now mouthing hexameters, now spurning with his foot a pot or analembic which had the ill-luck to lie in his path. Grio watched him, andwatching him, grew only more puzzled--and more puzzled. He could haveunderstood a moral shrinking from the enterprise on which they were bothembarked--the betrayal of the city that gave them shelter. He could haveunderstood--he had superstition enough--a moral distaste for alchemy andthose practices of the black art which his mind connected with it. Butthis superiority of the scholar, this aloofness, not from the treachery, but from the handicraft, was beyond him. For that reason it imposed onhim the more. 

Not the less, however, was he importunate to know wherein Bastergatrusted. To rave of Scholarship and Scaliger was one thing, to bringBlondel into the plot which was to transfer Geneva to Savoy and strikethe heaviest blow at the Reformed that had been struck in thatgeneration, was another thing and one remote. The Syndic was a triflediscontented and inclined to intrigue; that was true, Grio knew it. Butto parley with the Grand Duke's emissaries, and strive to get and givenot, that was one thing; while to betray the town and deliver it tiedand bound into the hands of its arch-enemy, was another and a far moreweighty matter. One, too, to which in Grio's judgment--and in the darklanes of life he had seen and weighed many men--the magistrate wouldnever be brought. 

"Shall you need my aid with him?" he asked after a while, seeing thescholar still wrapt in thought. The question was not lacking in craft. 

"Your aid? With whom?"

"With Messer Blondel. "

"Pshaw, man, " Basterga answered, rousing himself from his reverie. "Ihad forgotten him and was thinking of that villain Scioppius and histract against Joseph Justus. Do you know, " he continued with a snort ofindignation, "that in his _Hyperbolimæus_, not content with thestatement that Joseph Justus left his laundress's bill at Louvainunpaid, he alleges that I--I, Cæsar Basterga of Padua--was broken on thewheel at Munster a year ago for the murder of a gentleman!"

Grio turned a shade paler. "If this business miscarry, " he said, "thestatement may prove within a year of the mark. Or nearer, at any rate, than may please us. "

Basterga smiled disdainfully. "Think it not!" he answered, extending hisarms and yawning with unaffected sincerity. "There was never scholar yetdied on the wheel. "

"No?"

"No, friend, no. Nor will, unless it be Scioppius, and he is unworthy ofthe name of scholar. No, we have our disease, and die of it, but it isnot that. Nevertheless, " he continued with magnanimity, "I will not denythat when Master Pert-Tongue downstairs put our names together so pat, it scared me. It scared me. For how many chances were there against suchan accident? Or what room to think it an accident, when he spoke clearlywith the _animus pugnandi_? No, I'll not deny he touched me home. "

Grio nodded grimly. "I would we were rid of him!" he growled. "The youngviper! I foresee danger from him. "

"Possibly, " Basterga replied. "Possibly. In that case measures must betaken. But I hope there may be no necessity. And now, I expect MesserBlondel in an hour, and have need, my friend, of thought and solitudebefore he comes. Knock at my door at eight this evening and I may havenews for you. "

"You don't think to resolve him to-night?" Grio muttered with a look ofincredulity. 

"It may be. I do not know. In the meantime silence, and keep sober!"

"Ay, ay!"

"But it is more than ay, ay!" Basterga retorted with irritation; withsomething of the temper, indeed, which he had betrayed at the beginningof the interview. "Scholars die otherwise, but many a broken soldier hascome to the wheel! So do you have a care of it! If you do not----"

"I have said I will!" Grio cried sharply. "Enough scolding, master. I'vea notion you'll find your own task a little beyond your hand. See if Iam not right!" he added. And with this show of temper on his side, hewent out and shut the door loudly behind him. 

Basterga stood a few moments in thought. At length, "Dimidium facti, qui bene c[oe]pit, habet!"

he muttered. And shrugging his shoulders he looked about him, judgingwith an artistic eye the effect which the room would have on a stranger. Apparently he was not perfectly content with it, for, stepping to one ofthe long trunks, he drew from it a gold chain, some medals and ajewelled dagger, and flung these carelessly on a box in a corner. He setup the alembics and pipkins which he had overturned, and here and therehe opened a black-lettered folio, discovered an inch or two of crabbedHebrew, or the corner of an illuminated script. A cameo dropped in oneplace, a clay figure of Minerva set up in another, completed thepicture. 

His next proceeding was less intelligible. He unearthed from the pile ofduo-decimos on the window-seat the steel casket which has beenmentioned. It was about twelve inches long and as many wide; and as deepas it was broad. Wrought in high relief on the front appeared anelaborate representation of Christ healing the sick; on each end, belowa massive ring, appeared a similar design. The box had an appearance ofstrength out of proportion to its size; and was furnished with twolocks, protected and partly hidden by tiny shields. 

Basterga handling it gently polished it awhile with a cloth, thenbearing it to the inner end of the room he set it on a bracket besidethe hearth. This place was evidently made for it, for on either side ofthe bracket hung a steel chain and padlock; with which, and the rings, the scholar proceeded to secure the casket to the wall. This done, hestepped back and contemplated the arrangement with a smile ofcontemptuous amusement. 

"It is neither so large as the Horse of Troy, " he murmured complacently, "nor so small as the Wafer that purchased Paris. It is neither so deepas hell, nor so high as heaven, nor so craftily fastened a wise man maynot open it, nor so strong a fool may not smash it. But it may suffice. Messer Blondel is no Solomon, and may swallow this as well as anotherthing. In which event, Ave atque vale, Geneva! But here he comes. Andnow to cast the bait!"

CHAPTER V. 

THE ELIXIR VITÆ. 

As the Syndic crossed the threshold of the scholar's room, he uncoveredwith an air of condescension that, do what he would, was not free fromuneasiness. He had persuaded himself--he had been all the morningpersuading himself--that any man might pay a visit to a learnedscholar--why not? Moreover, that a magistrate in paying such a visit wasbut in the performance of his duty, and might plume himself accordinglyon the act. 

Yet two things like worms in the bud would gnaw at his peace. The firstwas conscience: if the Syndic did not know he had reason to suspect thatBasterga bore the Grand Duke's commission, and was in Geneva to furtherhis master's ends. The second source of his uneasiness he did notacknowledge even to himself, and yet it was the more powerful: it was asuspicion--a strong suspicion, though he had met Basterga buttwice--that in parleying with the scholar he was dealing with a man forwhom he was no match, puff himself out as he might; and who secretlydespised him. 

Perhaps the fact that the latter feeling ceased to vex him before he hadbeen a minute in the room, was the best testimony to Basterga's tact wecould desire. Not that the scholar was either effusive or abject. It wasrather by a frank address which took equality for granted, and by aneasy assumption that the visit had no importance, that he calmed MesserBlondel's nerves and soothed his pride. 

Presently, "If I do not the honour of my poor apartment so pressingly assome, " he said, "it is out of no lack of respect, Messer Syndic. Butbecause, having had much experience of visitors, I know that nothingfits them so well as to be left at liberty, nothing irks them so much asto be over-pressed. Here now I have some things that are thought to becurious, even in Padua, but I do not know whether they will interestyou. "

"Manuscripts?"

"Yes, manuscripts and the like. This, " Basterga lifted one from thetable and placed it in his visitor's hands, "is a facsimile, preparedwith the utmost care, of the 'Codex Vaticanus, ' the most ancientmanuscript of the New Testament. Of interest in Geneva, where by thehands of your great printer, Stephens, M. De Beza has done so much toadvance the knowledge of the sacred text. But you are looking at thatchart?"

"Yes. What is it, if it please you?"

"It is a plan of the ancient city of Aurelia, " Basterga replied, "whichCæsar, in the first book of his Commentaries places in Switzerland, butwhich, some say, should be rather in Savoy. "

"Indeed, Aurelia?" the Syndic muttered, turning it about. It was a planbeautifully and elaborately finished, but, like most of the plans ofthat day, it was without names. "Aurelia?"

"Yes, Aurelia. "

"But I seem to--is this water?"

"Yes, a lake, " Basterga replied, stooping with a faint smile to theplan. 

"And this a river?"

"Yes. "

"Aurelia? But--I seem to know the line of this wall, and these bastions. Why, it is--Messer Basterga, " in a tone of surprise, not unmingled withanger--"you play with me! it is Geneva!"

Basterga permitted his smile to become more apparent. "Oh no, Aurelia, "he said lightly and almost jocosely. "Aurelia in Savoy, I assure you. Whatever it is, however, we have no need to take it to heart, MesserBlondel. Believe me, it comes from, and is not on its way to, the GrandDuke's library at Turin. "

The Syndic showed his displeasure by putting the map from him. 

"Your taste is rather for other things, " Basterga continued, affectingto misunderstand the act. "This illuminated manuscript, now, mayinterest you? It is in characters which are probably strange to you?"

"Is it Hebrew?" the Syndic muttered stiffly, his temper still assertingitself. 

"No, it is in the ancient Arabic character; that into which the works ofAristotle were translated as far back as the ninth century of our era. It is a curious treatise by the Arabic sage, Ibn Jasher, who was theteacher of Ibn Zohr, who was the teacher of Averroes. It was carriedfrom Spain to Rome about the year 1000 by the learned Pope Sylvester theSecond, who spoke Arabic and of whose library it formed part. "

"Indeed!" Blondel responded, staring at it. "It must be of great value. How came it into your possession, Messer Basterga?"

Basterga opened his mouth and shut it again. "I do not think I can tellyou that, " he said. 

"It contains, I suppose, many curious things?"

"Curious?" Basterga replied impulsively, "I should say so! Why, it wasin that volume I found----" And there in apparent confusion he brokeoff. He laughed awkwardly, and then, "Well, you know, " he resumed, "westudents find many things interest us which would fail to touch the manof affairs". As if he wished to change the subject, he took themanuscript from the Syndic's hand and threw it carelessly on the table. 

Messer Blondel thought the carelessness overdone, and, his interestaroused, he followed the manuscript, he scarcely knew why, with hiseyes. "I think I have heard the name of Averroes?" he said. "Was he nota physician?"

"He was many things, " Basterga answered negligently. "As a physician hewas, I believe, rather visionary than practical. I have his _Colliget_, his most famous work in that line, but for my part, in the case of anordinary disease, I would rather trust myself, " with a shrug ofcontempt, "to the Grand Duke's physician. "

"But in the case of an extraordinary disease?" the Syndic askedshrewdly. 

Basterga frowned. "I meant in any disease, " he said. "Did I sayextraordinary?"

"Yes, " Messer Blondel answered stoutly. The frown had not escaped him. "But I take it, you are something of a physician yourself?"

"I have studied in the school of Fallopius, the chirurgeon of Padua, "the scholar answered coldly. "But I am a scholar, Messer Blondel, not aphysician, much less a practitioner of the ancillary art, which I taketo be but a base and mechanical handicraft. "

"Yet, chemistry--you pursue that?" the other rejoined with a glance atthe farther table and its load of strange-looking phials and retorts. 

"As an amusement, " Basterga replied with a gesture of haughtydeprecation. "A parergon, if you please. I take it, a man may dip intothe mystical writings of Paracelsus without prejudice to his Latinity;and into the cabalistic lore of the school of Cordova without losing histaste for the pure oratory of the immortal Cicero. Virgil himself, ifwe may believe Helinandus, gave the weight of his great name to suchsports. And Cornelius Agrippa, my learned forerunner in Geneva----"

"Went something farther than that!" the Syndic struck in with a meaningnod, twice repeated. "It was whispered, and more than whispered--I hadit from my father--that he raised the devil here, Messer Blondel; thevery same that at Louvain strangled one of Agrippa's scholars who brokein on him before he could sink through the floor. "

Basterga's face took on an expression of supreme scorn. "Idle tales!" hesaid. "Fit only for women! Surely you do not believe them, MesserBlondel?"

"I?"

"Yes, you, Messer Syndic. "

"But this, at any rate, you'll not deny, " Blondel retorted eagerly, "that he discovered the Philosopher's Stone?"

"And lived poor, and died no richer?" Basterga rejoined in a tone ofincreasing scorn. 

"Well, for the matter of that, " the Syndic answered more slowly, "thatmay be explained. "

"How?"

"They say, and you must have heard it, that the gold he made in that wayturned in three days to egg-shells and parings of horn. "

"Yet having it three days, " Basterga asked with a sneer, "might he notbuy all he wanted?"

"Well, I can only say that my father, who saw him more than once in thestreet, always told me--and I do not know any one who should have knownbetter----"

"Pshaw, Messer Blondel, you amaze me!" the scholar struck in, risingfrom his seat and adopting a tone at once contemptuous and dictatorial. "Do you not know, " he continued, "that the Philosopher's Stone was andis but a figure of speech, which stands as some say for the perfectelement in nature, or as others say for the vital principle--thatvivifying power which evades and ever must evade the search of men? Doyou not know that the sages whose speculations took that direction wereendangered by accusations of witchcraft; and that it was to evade theseand to give their researches such an aspect as would command theconfidence of the vulgar, that they gave out that they were seekingeither the Philosopher's Stone, which would make all men rich, or theElixir Vitæ, which would confer immortality. Believe me, they werethemselves no slaves to these expressions; nor were the initiated amongtheir followers. But as time went on, tyros, tempted by sounds, andcaught by theories of transmutation, began to interpret them literally, and, straying aside, spent their lives in the vain pursuit of wealth oryouth. Poor fools!"

Messer Blondel stared. Had Basterga, assailing him from a differentside, broached the precise story to which, in the case of Agrippa orAlbertus Magnus, the Syndic was prepared to give credence, he hadcertainly received the overture with suspicion if not with contempt. Hehad certainly been very far from staking good florins upon it. But whenthe experimenter in the midst of the apparatus of science, andsurrounded by things which imposed on the vulgar, denied their value, and laughed at the legends of wealth and strength obtained by theirmeans--this fact of itself went very far towards convincing him thatBasterga had made a discovery and was keeping it back. 

The vital principle, the essential element, the final good, these werefine phrases, though they had a pagan ring. But men, the Syndic argued, did not spend money, and read much and live laborious days, merely tocoin phrases. Men did not surround themselves with costly apparatus onlyto prove a theory that had no practical value. "He has discoveredsomething, " Blondel concluded in his mind, "if it be not thePhilosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Life. I am sure he has discoveredsomething. " And with eyes grown sharp and greedy, the magistrate rakedthe room. 

The scholar stood thoughtful where he had paused, and did not seem tonotice him. 

"Then do you mean, " Blondel resumed after a while, "that all your workthere"--he indicated by a nod the chemical half of the room--"has beenthrown away?"

"Well----"

"Not quite, I think?" the Syndic said, his small eyes twinkling. "Eh, Messer Basterga, not quite? Now be candid. "

"Well, I would not say, " Basterga answered coldly, and as it seemedunwillingly, "that I have not derived something from the researches withwhich I have amused my leisure. But nothing of value to the general. "

"Yet something of value to yourself, " Blondel said, his head on oneside. 

Basterga frowned, then shrugged his shoulders. "Well, yes, " he said atlength, "as it happens, I have. But a thing of no use to any one else, for the simple reason----"

"That you have only enough for yourself!"

The scholar looked astonished and a little offended. 

"I do not know how you learned that, " he said curtly, "but you areright. I had no intention of telling you as much, but, as you haveguessed that, I do not mind adding that it is a remedy for a diseasewhich the most learned physicians do not pretend to cure. "

"A remedy?"

"Yes, vital and certain. "

"And you discovered it?"

"No, I did not discover it, " Basterga replied modestly. "But the storyis so long that I will ask you to excuse me. "

"I shall not excuse you if you do not favour me with it, " the Syndicanswered eagerly. As he leaned forward there was a light in his eyesthat had not been in them a few minutes before. His hand, too, shook ashe moved it from the arm of his chair to his knee. "Nay, but, I prayyou, indulge me, " he continued, in a tone anxious and almost submissive. "I shall not betray your secrets. I am no philosopher, and no physician, and, had I the will, I could make no use of your confidence. "

"That is true, " Basterga replied. "And, after all, the matter is simple. I do not know why I should refuse to oblige you. I have said that I didnot discover this remedy. That is so. But it happened that in trying, byway of amusement, certain precipitations, I obtained not that which Isought--nor had I expected, " he continued, smiling, "to obtain that, forit was the Elixir of Life, which, as I have told you, does notexist--but a substance new in my experience, and which seemed to me topossess some peculiar properties. I tested it in all the ways known tome, but without benefit or enlightenment; and in the end I was about tocast it aside, when I chanced on a passage in the manuscript of IbnJasher--the same, in fact, that I showed you a few minutes ago. "

"And you found?" The Syndic's attitude as he leaned forward, with partedlips and a hand on each knee, betrayed an interest so abnormal that itwas odd that Basterga did not notice it. 

Instead, "I found that he had made, " the scholar replied quietly, "asfar back as the tenth century the same experiment which I had justcompleted. And with the same result. "

"He obtained the substance?"

Basterga nodded. 

"And discovered? What?" Blondel asked eagerly. "Its use?"

"A certain use, " the other replied cautiously. "Or, rather, it was nothe, but an associate, called by him the Physician of Aleppo, whodiscovered it. This man was the pupil of the learned Rhazes, and thetutor of the equally learned Avicenna, the link, in fact, between them;but his name, for some reason, perhaps because he mixed with hispractice a greater degree of mysticism than was approved by the Arabianschools of the next generation, has not come down to us. This manidentified the product which had defied Ibn Jasher's tests with asubstance even then considered by most to be fabulous, or to beextracted only from the horn of the unicorn if that animal existed. Thatit had some of the properties of the fabled substance, he proceeded toprove to the satisfaction of Ibn Jasher by curing of a certain incurabledisease five persons. "

"No more than five?"

"No. "

"Why?"

"The substance was exhausted. "

Blondel gasped. "Why did he not make more?" he cried. His voice wasquerulous, almost savage. 

"The experiment, " Basterga answered, "of which it was the product wascostly. "

Blondel's face turned purple. "Costly?" he cried. "Costly? When thelives of men hung in the balance. "

"True, " Basterga replied with a smile; "but I was about to say that, costly as it was, it was not its price which hindered the production ofa further supply. The reason was more simple. He could not extract it. "

"Could not? But he had made it once?"

"Precisely. "

"Then why could he not make it again?" the Syndic asked. He wasgenuinely, honestly angry. It was strange how much he took the matter toheart. 

"He could not, " Basterga answered. "He repeated the process again andagain, but the peculiar product, which at the first trial had resultedfrom the precipitation, was not obtained. "

"There was something lacking!"

"There was something lacking, " Basterga answered. "But what that waswhich was lacking, or how it had entered into the alembic in the firstinstance, could not be discovered. The sage tried the experiment underall known conditions, and particularly when the moon was in the samequarter and when the sun was in the same house. He tried it, indeed, thrice on the corresponding day of the year, but--the product did notissue. "

"How do you account for that?"

"Probably, in the first instance, an impurity in one of the drugsintroduced a foreign substance into the alembic. That chance neveroccurred again, as far as I can learn, until, amusing myself with thesame precipitation, I--I, Cæsar Basterga of Padua, " the scholarcontinued, not boastfully but in a tone thoughtful and almost absent, "in the last year of the last century, hit at length upon the sameresult. "

The Syndic leaned forward; his hands gripped his knees more tightly. "And you, " he said, "can repeat it?"

Basterga shook his head sorrowfully. "No, " he said, "I cannot. Not thatI have myself essayed the experiment more than thrice. I could notafford it. But a correspondent, M. De Laurens, of Paris, physician tothe King, has, at the expense of a wealthy patient, spent more thanfifteen thousand florins in essays. Alas, without result. "

The big man spoke with his eyes on the floor. Had he turned them on theSyndic he must have seen that he was greatly agitated. Beads of moisturestood on his brow, his face was red, he swallowed often and withdifficulty. At length, with an effort at composure, "Possibly yourproduct--is not, after all, the same as Ibn Jasher's?" he said. 

"I tested it in the same way, " Basterga answered quietly. 

"What? By curing persons of that disease?"

"Yes, " Basterga rejoined. "And I would to Heaven, " he continued, withthe first spirt of feeling which he had allowed to escape him, "that Ihad held my hand after the first proof. Instead, I must needs try itagain and again, and again. "

"For nothing?"

Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "No, " he said, "not for nothing. " By agesture he indicated the objects about him. "I am not a poor man now, Messer Blondel. Not for nothing, but too cheaply. And so often that Ihave now remaining but one portion of that substance which all thescience of Padua cannot renew. One portion, only, alas!" he repeatedwith regret. 

"Enough to cure one person?" the Syndic exclaimed. 

"Yes. "

"And the disease?" Blondel rose as he spoke. "The disease?" he repeated. He extended his trembling arms to the other. No longer, even if hewished it, could Basterga feign himself blind to the agitation whichshook, which almost convulsed, the Syndic's meagre frame. "The disease?Is it not that which men call the Scholar's? Is it not that? But I knowit is. "

Basterga with something of astonishment in his face inclined his head. 

"And I have that disease! I!" the Syndic cried, standing before him apiteous figure. He raised his hands above his head in a gesture whichchallenged the compassion of gods and men. "I! In two years----" Hisvoice failed, he could not go on. 

"Believe me, Messer Blondel, " Basterga answered after a long andsorrowful pause, "I am grieved. Deeply grieved, " he continued in a toneof feeling, "to hear this. Do the physicians give no hope?"

"Sons of the Horse-Leech!" the Syndic cried, a new passion shaking himin its turn. "They give me two years! Two years! And it may be less. Less!" he cried, raising his voice. "I, who go to and fro here andthere, like other men with no mark upon me! I, who walk the streets insunshine and rain like other men! Yet, for them the sky is bright, andthey have years to live. For me, one more summer, and--night! Two moreyears at the most--and night! And I, but fifty-eight!"

The big man looked at him with eyes of compassion. "It may be, " he said, after a pause, "that the physicians are wrong, Messer Blondel. I haveknown such a case. "

"They are, they shall be wrong!" Blondel replied. "For you will give meyour remedy! It was God led me here to-day, it was God put it in yourheart to tell me this. You will give me your remedy and I shall live!You will, will you not? Man, you can pity!" And joining his hands hemade as if he would kneel at the other's feet. "You can pity, and youwill?"

"Alas, alas, " Basterga replied, much and strongly moved. "I cannot. "

"Cannot?"

"Cannot. "

The Syndic glared at him. "Why?" he cried, "Why not? If I give you----"

"If you were to give me the half of your fortune, " Basterga answeredsolemnly, "it were useless! I myself have the first symptoms of thedisease. "

"You?"

"Yes, I. "

The Syndic fell back in his chair. A groan broke from him that borewitness at once to the bitterness of his soul and the finality of theargument. He seemed in a moment shrunk to half his size. In a momentdisease and the shadow of death clouded his features; his cheeks wereleaden; his eyes, without light or understanding, conveyed no meaning tohis brain. "You, too!" he muttered mechanically. "You, too!"

"Yes, " Basterga replied in a sorrowful voice. "I, too. No wonder I feelfor you. I have not known it long, nor has it proceeded far in my case. I have even hopes, at least there are times when I have hopes, that thephysicians may be mistaken. "

Blondel's small eyes bulged suddenly larger. "In that event?" he criedhoarsely. "In that event surely----"

"Even in that event I cannot aid you, " the big man answered, spreadingout his hands. "I am pledged by the most solemn oath to retain the oneportion I have for the use of the Grand Duke, my patron. And apart fromthat oath, the benefits I have received at his hand are such as to givehim a claim second only to my necessity. A claim, Messer Blondel, which--I say it sorrowfully--I dare not set aside for any privatefeeling or private gain. "

Blondel rose violently, his hands clawing the air. "And I must die?" hecried, his voice thick with rage. "I must die because he _may_ be ill?Because--because----" He stopped, struggling with himself, unable, itseemed, to articulate. By-and-by it became apparent that the pause hadanother origin, for when he spoke he had conquered his passion. "Pardonme, " he said, still hoarsely, but in a different tone--the tone of onewho saw that violence could not help him. "I was forgetting myself. Life--life is sweet to all, Messer Basterga, and we cannot lightly seeit pass from us. To have life within sight, to know it within this room, perhaps within reach----"

"Not quite that, " Basterga murmured, his eyes wandering to the steelcasket, chained to the wall beside the hearth. "Still, I understand;and, believe me, " he added in a tone of sympathy, "I feel for you, Messer Blondel. I feel deeply for you. "

"Feel?" the Syndic muttered. For an instant his eyes gleamed savagely, the veins of his temples swelled. "Feel!"

"But what can I do?"

Blondel could have answered, but to what advantage? What could wordsprofit him, seeing that it was a life for a life, and that, as all thata man hath he will give for his life, so there is nothing another haththat he will take for it. Argument was useless; prayer, in view of theother's confession, beside the mark. The magistrate saw this, and madean effort to resume his dignity. "We will talk another day, " hemurmured, pressing his hand to his brow, "another day!" And he turned tothe door. "You will not mention what I have said to you, MesserBasterga?"

"Not a syllable, " his host answered, as he followed him out. Theabruptness of the departure did not surprise him. "Believe me, I feelfor you, Messer Blondel. "

The Syndic acknowledged the phrase by a gesture not without pathos, and, passing out, stumbled blindly down the narrow stairs. Basterga attendedhim with respect to the outer door, and there they parted in silence. The magistrate, his shoulders bowed, walked slowly to the left, where, turning into the town through the inner gate, the Porte Tertasse, hedisappeared. The big man waited a while, sunning himself on the steps, his face towards the ramparts. 

"He will come back, oh, yes, he will come back, " he purred, smiling allover his large face. "For I, Cæsar Basterga, have a brain. And 'tisbetter a brain than thews and sinews, gold or lands, seeing that it hasall these at command when I need them. The fish is hooked. It will bestrange if I do not land him before the year is out. But the bribe tohis physician--it was a happy thought: a happy thought of this brain ofCæsar Basterga, graduate of Padua, _viri valde periti, doctissimique_!"

CHAPTER VI. 

TO TAKE OR LEAVE. 

The house in the Corraterie, near the Porte Tertasse, differed in nooutward respect from its neighbours. The same row of chestnut treesdarkened its lower windows, the same breezy view of the Rhone meadows, the sloping vineyards and the far-off Jura lightened its upper rooms. Akindred life, a life apparently as quiet and demure, moved within itswalls. Yet was the house a house apart. Silently and secretly, it hadabsorbed and sucked and drawn into itself the hearts and souls and mindsof two men. It held for the one that which the old prize above allthings in the world--life; and for the other, that which the young setabove life--love. 

Life? The Syndic did not doubt; the bait had been dangled before hiseyes with too much cunning, too much skill. In a casket, in a room inthat house in the Corraterie, his life lay hidden; his life, and hecould not come at it! His life? Was it a marvel that waking or sleepinghe saw only that house, and that room, and that casket chained to thewall; that he saw at one time the four steps rising to the door, and theplacid front with its three tiers of windows; at another time, the roomitself with its litter of scripts and dark-bound books, and richfurnishings, and phials and jars and strangely shaped alembics? Was it amarvel that in the dreams of the night the sick man toiled up and up andup the narrow staircase, of which every point remained fixed in hismind; or that waking, whatever his task, or wherever he might be, aloneor in company, in his parlour or in the Town House, he still fella-dreaming of the room and the box--the room and the box that held hislife?

Had this been the worst! But it was not. There were times, bitter times, dark hours, when the pains were upon him, and he saw his fate clearbefore him; for he had known men die of the disease which held him inits clutches, and he knew how they had died. And then he must needs lockhimself into his room that other eyes might not witness the passionatefits of revolt, of rage and horror, and weak weeping, into which theknowledge cast him. And out of which he presently came back to--_thehouse_. His life lay there, in that room, in that house, and he couldnot come at it! He could not come at it! But he would! He would!

It issued in that always; in some plan or scheme for gaining possessionof the philtre. Some of the plans that occurred to him were wild anddesperate; dangerous and hopeless on the face of them. Others weremerely violent; others again, of which craft was the mainspring, heldout a prospect of success. For a whole day the notion of arrestingBasterga on a charge of treason, and seizing the steel casket togetherwith his papers, was uppermost. It seemed feasible, and was feasible;nay, it was more than feasible, it was easy; for already there wererumours of the man abroad, and his name had been mentioned at thecouncil table. The Syndic had only to give the word, and the arrestwould be made, the search instituted, the papers and casket seized. Nay, if he did not give the word, it was possible that others might. 

But when he thought of that step, that irrevocable step, he knew that hewould not have the courage to take it. For if Basterga had so much astwo minutes' notice, if his ear so much as caught the tread of those whocame to take him, he might, in pure malignity, pour the medicine on thefloor, or he might so hide it as to defy search. And at the thought--atthe thought of the destruction of that wherein lay his only chance oflife, his only hope of seeing the sun and feeling again the balmy breathof spring, the Syndic trembled and shook and sweated with rage and fear. No, he would not have the courage. He would not dare. For a week andmore after the thought occurred to him, he dared not approach thescholar's lodging, or be seen in the neighbourhood, so great was hisfear of arousing Basterga's suspicions and setting him on his guard. 

At the end of a fortnight or so, the choice of ways was presented to himin a concrete form; and with an abruptness which placed him on the edgeof perplexity. It was at a morning meeting of the smaller council. Theday was dull, the chamber warm, the business to be transactedmonotonous; and Blondel, far from well and interested in one thingonly--beside which the most important affairs of Geneva seemed small asthe doings of an ant-hill viewed through a glass--had fallen asleep, ornearly asleep. Naturally a restless and wakeful man, of thin habit andnervous temperament, he had never done such a thing before: and it wasunfortunate that he succumbed on this occasion, for while he drowsed thecurrent of business changed. The debate grew serious, even vital. Finally he awoke to the knowledge of place and time with a name ringingin his ears; a name so fixed in his waking thoughts that, before he knewwhere he was or what he was doing, he repeated it in a tone that drewall eyes upon him. 

"Basterga!"

Some knew he had slept and smiled; more had not noticed it, and turned, struck by the strange tone in which he echoed the name. Fabri, the FirstSyndic, who sat two places from him, and had just taken a letter fromthe secretary, leaned forward so as to view him. "Ay, Basterga, " hesaid, "an Italian, I take it. Do you know him, Messer Blondel?"

He was awake now, but, confused and startled, inclined to believe thathe was on his trial; and that the faint parleyings with treason, smallthings hard to define, to which he had stooped, were known. Mechanically, to gain time, he repeated the name: "Basterga?"

"Yes, " Fabri repeated. "Do you know him?"

"Cæsar Basterga, is it?"

"That is his name. "

He was himself now, though his nerves still shook; himself so far as hecould be, while ignorant of what had passed, and how he came to bechallenged. "Yes, I know him, " he said slowly, "if you mean a Paduan, ascholar of some note, I believe. Who applied to me--I dare say it wouldbe six weeks back--for a licence to stay a while in the town. "

"Which you granted?"

"In the usual course. He had letters from"--Blondel shrugged hisshoulders--"I forget from whom. What of him?" with a steady look atBaudichon the councillor, his life-long rival, and the quarter whence iftrouble were brewing it was to be expected. "What of him?" he repeated, throwing himself back in his chair, and tapping the table with hisfingers. 

"This, " Fabri answered, waving the letter which he had in his hands. 

"But I do not know what that is, " Blondel replied coolly. "I amafraid"--he looked at his neighbour on either side--"was I asleep?"

"I fear so, " said one, while the other smiled. They were his very goodfriends and allies. 

"Well, it is not like me. I can say that I am not often, " with a keenlook at Baudichon, "caught napping! And now, M. Fabri, " he continuedwith his usual practical air, "I have delayed the business long enough. What is it? And what is that?" He pointed to the letter in the FirstSyndic's hands. 

"Well, it is really your affair in the main, " Fabri answered, "since asFourth Syndic you are responsible for the guard and the city's safety;and ours afterwards. It is a warning, " he continued, his eyes revertingto the page before him, "from our secret agent in Turin, whose name Ineed not mention"--Blondel nodded--"informing us of a fresh attempt tobe made on the city before Christmas; by means of rafts formed ofhurdles and capable of transporting whole companies of soldiers. Thesehe has seen tried in the River Po, and they performed the work. Havingreached the walls by their means the assailants are to mount by ladderswhich are being made to fit into one another. They are covered withblack cloth, and can be laid against the wall without noise. Itsounds--circumstantial?" Fabri commented, breaking off and looking atBlondel. 

The Syndic nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, " he said, "I think so. I thinkalso, " he continued, "that with the aid of my friend, Captain Blandano, I shall be able to give a good account of the rafts and the ladders. "

Baudichon the councillor interposed. "But that is not all, " he muttered, rolling ponderously in his chair as he spoke. He was a stout man with adouble chin and a weighty manner; honest, but slow, and the spokesman ofthe more wealthy burghers. His neighbour Petitot, a man of singularappearance, lean, with a long thin drooping nose, commonly supportedhim. Petitot, who bore the nickname of "the Inquisitor, " represented theVenerable Company of Pastors, and was viewed with especial distaste bythe turbulent spirits whom the war had left in the city, as well as bythe lower ranks, who upheld Blondel. In sense and vigour the FourthSyndic was more than a match for the two precisians: but honesty ofpurpose has a weight of its own that slowly makes itself felt. "That isnot all, " Baudichon repeated after a glance at his neighbour and allyPetitot, "I want to know----"

"One moment, M. Baudichon, if you please, " Fabri said, cutting himshort, amid a partial titter; the phrase "I want to know" was so oftenon the councillor's lips that it had become ridiculous. "One moment; asyou say, that is not all. The writer proceeds to warn us that the GrandDuke's lieutenant, M. D'Albigny, has taken a house on the Italian sideof the frontier, and is there constructing a huge petard on wheels whichis to be dragged up to the gate----"

"With the ladders and rafts?"

"They seem to belong to another scheme, " Fabri said, as he turned backand conned the letter afresh. 

"With M. D'Albigny at the bottom of both?"

"Yes. "

"Well, if he be not more successful with this, " Blondel answeredcontemptuously, "than he was with the attempt to mine the Arsenal--whichended in supplying us with two or three casks of powder--I think CaptainBlandano and I may deal with him. "

A murmur of assent approved the boast; but it did not proceed from all. There were men at the table who had children, who had wives, who haddaughters, whose faces were grave. Just thirty years had passed over theworld since the horrors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew--to bespeedily followed by the sack of Antwerp--had paled the cheek of Europe. Just thirty years were to elapse and the sack of Magdeburg was to provea match and more than a match for both in horror and cruelty. That thePapists, if they entered, would deal more gently with Geneva, the headand front of offence, or extend to the Mother of Heretics mercy whichthey had refused to her children, these men did not believe. Thepresence of an enemy ever lurking within a league of their gates, everthreatening them by night and by day, had shaken their nerves. Theyfeared everything, they feared always. In fitful sleep, in the smallhours, they heard their doors smashed in; their dreams were disturbed bycries and shrieks, by the din of bells, and the clash of weapons. 

To these men Blondel seemed over confident. But no one took on himselfto gainsay him in his particular province, the superintendence of theguard; and though Baudichon sighed and Petitot shook his head, the wordwas left with him. "Is that all, Messer Fabri?" he asked. 

"Yes, if we lay it to heart. "

"But I want to know, " Baudichon struck in, puffing pompously, "what isto be done about--Basterga. "

"Basterga? To be sure I was forgetting him, " Fabri answered. "What is tobe done? What do you say, Messer Blondel? What are we to do about him?"

"I will tell you if you will tell me what the point is that touches him. You forget, Messer Syndic"--with a somewhat sickly smile--"that I wasasleep. "

"The letter, " Fabri replied, returning to it, "touches him seriously. Itasserts that a person of that name is here in the Grand Duke's interest, that he is in the secret of these plots, and that we should do well toexpel him, if we do not seize and imprison him. "

"And you want to know----"

"I want to know, " Baudichon answered, rolling in his chair as was hishabit when delivering himself, "what you know of him, Messer Blondel. "

Blondel turned rudely on him, perhaps to hide a slight ebb of colourfrom his cheeks. "What I know?" he said. 

"Ay, ay. "

"No more than you know!"

"But, " Petitot retorted in his dry, thin voice, "it was you, MesserBlondel, not Messer Baudichon, who gave him permission to reside in thetown. "

"And I want to know, " Baudichon chimed in remorselessly, "whatcredentials he had. That is what I want to know!"

"Credentials? Oh, something formal! I don't know what, " Blondel repliedrudely. He looked to the secretary who sat at the foot of the table. "Doyou know?" he asked. 

"No, Messer Syndic, " the man replied. "I remember that a licence wasgranted to him in the name of Cæsar Basterga, graduate of Padua; anddoubtless--for licences to reside are not granted without such--he hadletters, but I do not recall from whom. They would be returned to himwith the licence. "

"And that is all, " Petitot said, his long nose drooping, his inquisitiveeyes looking over his glasses, "that you know about him, MesserBlondel?"

Did they know anything, and, if so, what did they know? Blondelhesitated. This persistence, this continual harping on one point, beganto alarm him. But he carried it bravely. "Do you mean as to hisconvictions?" he asked with a sneer. 

"No, I mean at all!"

"I want to know, " Baudichon added--the parrot phrase began to carry toBlondel's ears the note of fate--"what you know about him. "

This time a pause betrayed Blondel's hesitation. Should he admit that hehad been to Basterga's lodging; or dared he deny a fact that might implyan intimacy greater than he had acknowledged? A faint perspiration roseon his brow as he decided that he dare not. "I know that he lives in ahouse in the Corraterie, " he answered, "a house beside the PorteTertasse, and that he is a scholar--I believe of some repute. I know somuch, " he continued boldly, "because he wrote to thank me for thelicence, and, by way of acknowledgment, invited me to visit his lodgingto view a rare manuscript of the Scriptures. I did so, and remained afew minutes with him. That is all I know of him. I suppose, " with a grimlook at Baudichon and the Inquisitor, who had exchanged meaning glances, "it is not alleged that I am in the plot with him? Or that he hasconfided to me the Grand Duke's plans?"

Fabri laughed heartily at the notion, and the laugh, which was echoed byfour-fifths of those at the table, cleared the air. Petitot, it is true, limited himself to a smile, and Baudichon shrugged his shoulders. Butfor the moment the challenge silenced them. The game passed to Blondel'shands, and his spirits rose. "If M. Baudichon wants to know more abouthim, " he said contemptuously, "I dare say that the information can beobtained. "

"The point is, " Fabri answered, "what are we to do?"

"As to--what?"

"As to expelling him or seizing him. "

"Oh!" The exclamation fell from Blondel's lips before he could stay it. He saw what was coming, and the dilemma in which he was to be placed. 

"We have the letter before us, " the First Syndic continued, "and apartfrom it, we know nothing for this person or against him. " He lookedround the table and met assenting glances. "I think, therefore, that itwill be well, to leave it to Messer Blondel. He is responsible for thesafety of the city, and it should be for him to say what is to bedone. "

"Yes, yes, " several voices agreed. "Leave it to Messer Blondel. "

"You assent to that, Messer Baudichon?"

"I suppose so, " the councillor muttered reluctantly. 

"Very good, " said Fabri. "Then, Messer Blondel, it remains with you tosay what is to be done. "

The Fourth Syndic hesitated, and with reason; had Baudichon, had theInquisitor known the whole, they could hardly have placed him in a moreawkward dilemma. If he took the course that prudence in his owninterests dictated, and shielded Basterga, his action might lay him opento future criticism. If, on the other hand, he gave the word to expel orseize him, he broke at once and for ever with the man who held his lastchance of life in the hollow of his hand. 

And yet, if he dared adopt the latter course, if he dared give the wordto seize, there was a chance, and a good chance, that he would find the_remedium_ in the casket; for with a little arrangement Basterga mightbe arrested out of doors, or be allured to a particular place and therebe set upon. But in that way lay risk; a risk that chilled the currentof the Syndic's blood. There was the chance that the attempt might fail;the chance that Basterga might escape; the chance that he might have the_remedium_ about him--and destroy it; the chance that he might havehidden it. There were so many chances, in a word, that the Syndic'sheart stood still as he enumerated them, and pictured the crash of hislast hope of life. 

He could not face the risk. He could not. Though duty, though couragedictated the venture, craven fear--fear for the loss of the new-bornhope that for a week had buoyed him up--carried it. Hurriedly at last, as if he feared that he might change his mind, he pronounced hisdecision. 

"I doubt the wisdom of touching him, " he said. "To seize him if he beguilty proclaims our knowledge of the plot; it will be laid aside, andanother, of which we may not be informed, will be hatched. But let himbe watched, and it will be hard if with the knowledge we have we cannotdo something more than frustrate his scheme. "

After an interval of silence, "Well, " Fabri said, drawing a deep breathand looking round, "I believe you are right. What do you say, MesserBaudichon?"

"Messer Blondel knows the man, " Baudichon answered drily. "He is, therefore, the best judge. "

Blondel reddened. "I see you are determined to lay the responsibility onme, " he cried. 

"The responsibility is on you already!" Petitot retorted. "You havedecided. I trust it may turn out as you expect. "

"And as you do not expect!"

"No; but you see"--and again the Inquisitor looked over hisglasses--"you know the man, have been to his lodging, have conversedwith him, and are the best judge what he is! I have had naught to dowith him. By the way, " he turned to Fabri, "he is at Mère Royaume's, ishe not? Is there not a Spaniard of the name of Grio lodging there?"

Blondel did not answer and the secretary looked up from his register. "An old soldier, Messer Petitot?" he said. "Yes, there is. "

"Perhaps you know him also, Messer Blondel?"

"Yes, I know him. He served the State, " Blondel answered quietly. He hadwinked at more than one irregularity on the part of Grio, and at thesound of the name anger gave place to caution. "I have also, " hecontinued, "my eye upon him, as I shall have it upon Basterga. Will thatsatisfy you, Messer Petitot?"

The councillor leaned forward. "Fac salvam Genevam!" he replied in avoice low and not quite steady. "Do that, keep Geneva safe--guard wellour faith, our wives and little ones--and I care not what you do!" Andhe rose from his seat. 

The Fourth Syndic did not answer. Those few words that in a momentraised the discussion from the low level of detail on which theInquisitor commonly wasted himself, and set it on the true plane ofpatriotism--for with all his faults Petitot was a patriot--silencedBlondel while they irritated and puzzled him. Why did the man assumesuch airs? Why talk as if he and he alone cared for Geneva? Why bearhimself as if he and he alone had shed and was prepared to shed hisblood for the State? Why, indeed? Blondel snarled his indignation, butmade no other answer. 

A few minutes later, as he descended the stairs, he laughed at themomentary annoyance which he had felt. What did it matter to him, adying man, who had the better or who the worse, who posed, or whobelieved in the pose? It was of moment indeed that his enemies hadcontrived to fix him with the responsibility of arresting Basterga, orof leaving him at large: that they had contrived to connect him with thePaduan, and made him accountable to an extent which did not please himfor the man's future behaviour. But yet again what did thatmatter--after all? Of what moment was it--after all? He was a dying man. Was anything of moment to him except the one thing which Basterga had itin his power to grant or to withhold, to give or to deny?

Nothing! Nothing!

He pondered on what had passed, and wondered if he had not donefoolishly. Certainly he had let slip a grand, a unique opportunity ofseizing the man and of snatching the _remedium_. He had put the chancefrom him at the risk of future blame. Now he was of two minds about it. Of two minds: but of one mind only about another thing. As he veeredthis way and that in his mind, now cursing his cowardice, and nowthanking God that he had not taken the irrevocable step, Opportunity That work'st our thoughts into desires, desires To resolutions, kindled in him a burning impatience to act. If he did not act, if hewere not going to act, if he were not going to take some surer and saferstep, he had been foolish and trebly foolish to let slip the opportunitythat had been his. 

But he would act. For a fortnight he had abstained from visitingBasterga, and had even absented himself from the neighbourhood of thehouse lest the scholar's suspicions should be wakened. But to whatpurpose if he were not going to act? If he were not going to build onthe ground so carefully prepared, to what end this wariness and thisabstention?

Within an hour the Syndic, long so wary, had worked himself into a feverand, rather than remain inactive, was ripe for any step, howeverventuresome, provided it led to the _remedium_. He had still theprudence to postpone action until night; but when darkness had fairlyset in and the bell of St. Peter, inviting the townsfolk to the eveningpreaching, had ceased to sound--an indication that he would meet few inthe streets--he cloaked himself, and, issuing forth, bent his stepsacross the Bourg du Four in the direction of the Corraterie. 

Even now he had no plan in his mind. But amid the medley of schemes thatfor a week had been hatching in his brain, he hoped to be guided bycircumstances to that one which gave surest promise of success. Nor washis courage as deeply rooted as he fancied: the day had told on hisnerves; he shivered in the breeze and started at a sound. Yet as oftenas he paused or hesitated, the words "A dying man! A dying man!" rang inhis ears and urged him on. 

CHAPTER VII. 

A SECOND TISSOT. 

Messer Blondel's sagacity in forbearing completely and for so long aperiod the neighbourhood of Basterga proved an unpleasant surprise toone man; and that was the man most concerned. For a day or two thescholar lived in a fool's paradise, and hugging himself on certainsuccess, anticipated with confidence the entertainment which he wouldderive from the antics of the fish as it played about the bait, nowadvancing and now retreating. He had formed a low opinion of themagistrate's astuteness, and forgetting that there is a cunning which isrudimentary and of the primitives, he entertained for some time nomisgiving. But when day after day passed by and still, though more thana week had elapsed, Blondel did not appear, nor make any overture, when, watch he never so carefully in the dusk of the evening or at the quiethours of the day, he caught no glimpse of the Syndic's lurking figure, he began to doubt. He began to fear. He began to wait about the doorhimself in the hope of detecting the other: and a dozen times betweendawn and dark he was on his feet at the upper window, looking warilydown, on the chance of seeing him in the Corraterie. 

At last, slowly and against his will, the fear that the fish would notbite began to take hold of him. Either the Syndic was honest, or he waspatient as well as cunning. In no other way could Basterga explain hisdupe's inaction. And presently, when he had almost brought himself toaccept the former conclusion, on an evening something more than a weeklater, a thing happened that added sharpness to his anxiety. He wascrossing the bridge from the Quarter of St. Gervais, when a man cloakedto the eyes slipped from the shadow of the mills, a little before him, and with a slight but unmistakable gesture of invitation proceeded infront of him without turning his head. 

There was mist on the face of the river that rushed in a cataract below;a steady rain was falling, and darkness itself was not far off. Therewere few abroad, and those were going their ways without looking behindthem. A better time for a secret rendezvous could not be, and MesserBasterga's heart leapt up and his spirits rose as he followed thecloaked figure. At the end of the bridge the man turned leftwards on toa deserted wharf between two mills; Basterga followed. Near the water'sedge the projecting upper floor of a granary promised shelter from therain; under this the stranger halted, and turning, lowered with abrusque gesture his cloak from his face. Alas, the eager "Why, MesserBlondel----" that leapt to Basterga's lips died on them. He stoodspeechless with disappointment, choking with chagrin. The stranger notedit and laughed. 

"Well, " he said in French, his tone dry and sarcastic, "you do not seemoverpleased to see me, Monsieur Basterga! Nor am I surprised. Largepromises have ever small fulfilments!"

"His Highness has discovered that?" Basterga replied, in a tone no lesssarcastic. For his temper was roused. 

The stranger's eyes flickered, as if the other's words touched a sore. "His Highness is growing impatient!" he returned, his tone somewhatwarmer. "That is what he has sent me to say. He has waited long, and hebids me convey to you that if he is to wait longer he must have somesecurity that you are likely to succeed in your design. "

"Or he will employ other means?"

"Precisely. Had he followed my advice, " the stranger continued with anair of lofty arrogance, "he would have done so long ago. "

"M. D'Albigny, " Basterga answered, spreading out his hands with anironical gesture, "would prefer to dig mines under the Tour du Pin nearthe College, and under the Porte Neuve! To smuggle fireworks into theArsenal and the Town House; and then, on the eve of execution, to failas utterly as he failed last time! More utterly than my plan can fail, for I shall not put Geneva on its guard--as he did! Nor set every enemyof the Grand Duke talking--as he did!"

M. D'Albigny--for he it was--let drop an oath. "Are you doing anythingat all?" he asked savagely, dropping the thin veil of irony thatshrouded his temper. "That is the question. Are you moving?"

"That will appear. "

"When? When, man? That is what his Highness wants to know. At presentthere is no appearance of anything. "

"No, " Basterga replied with fine irony. "There is not. I know it. It isonly when the fireworks are discovered and the mines opened and theengineers are flying for their lives--that there is really an appearanceof something. "

"And that is the answer I am to carry to the Grand Duke?" d'Albignyretorted in a tone which betrayed how deeply he resented such taunts atthe lips of his inferior. "That is all you have to tell him?"

Basterga was silent awhile. When he spoke again, it was in a lower andmore cautious tone. "No; you may tell his Highness this, " he said, afterglancing warily behind him. "You may tell him this. The longest night inthe year is approaching. Not many weeks divide us from it. Let him giveme until that night. Then let him bring his troops and ladders and therest of it--the care whereof is your lordship's, not mine--to a part ofthe walls which I will indicate, and he shall find the guards withdrawn, and Geneva at his feet. "

"The longest night? But that is some weeks distant, " d'Albigny answeredin a grumbling tone. Still it was evident that he was impressed by theprecision of the other's promise. 

"Was Rome built in a day? Or can Geneva be destroyed in a day?" Bastergaretorted. 

"If I had my hand on it!" d'Albigny answered truculently, "the taskwould not take more than a day!" He was a Southern Frenchman and anardent Catholic; an officer of high rank in the employ of Savoy; for therest, proud, brave, and difficult. 

"Ay, but you have not your hand on it, M. D'Albigny!" Basterga retortedcoolly. "Nor will you ever have your hand on it, without help from me. "

"And that is all you have to say?"

"At present. "

"Very good, " d'Albigny replied, nodding contemptuously. "If his Highnessbe wise----"

"He is wise. At least, " Basterga continued drily, "he is wiser than M. D'Albigny. He knows that it is better to wait and win, than leap andlose. "

"But what of the discontented you were to bring to a head?" d'Albignyretorted, remembering with relief another head of complaint, on which hehad been charged to deliver himself. "The old soldiers and rufflerswhom the peace has left unemployed, and with whom the man Grio was toaid you? Surely waiting will not help you with them! There should besome in Geneva who like not the rule of the Pastors and the drone ofpsalms and hymns! Men who, if I know them, must be on fire for a change!Come, Monsieur Basterga, is no use to be made of them?"

"Ay, " Basterga answered, after stepping back a pace to assure himself bya careful look that no one was remarking a colloquy which the time andthe weather rendered suspicious. "Use them if you please. Let them drinkand swear and raise petty riots, and keep the Syndics on their guard! Itis all they are good for, M. D'Albigny; and I cannot say that aughtkeeps back the cause so much as Grio's friends and their line ofconduct!"

"So! that is your opinion, is it, Monsieur Basterga?" d'Albignyanswered. "And with it I must go as I came! I am of no use here, itseems?"

"Of great use presently, of none now, " Basterga replied with greaterrespect than he had hitherto exhibited. "Frankly, M. D'Albigny, theyfear you and suspect you. But if President Rochette of Chambery, who hasthe confidence of the Pastors, were to visit us on some pretext orother, say to settle such small matters as the peace has left in doubt, it might soothe their spirits and allay their suspicions. He, ratherthan M. D'Albigny, is the helper I need at present. "

D'Albigny grunted, but it was evident that the other's boldnessimpressed him. "You think, then, that they suspect us?" he said. 

"How should they not? Tell me that. How should they not? Rochette's taskmust be to lull those suspicions to sleep. In the meantime I----"

"Yes?"

"Will be at work, " Basterga replied. He laughed drily as if it pleasedhim to baulk the other's curiosity. Softly he added under his breath, "Captique dolis, lacrimisque coactis, Quos neque Tydides, nec Larrissæus Achilles Non anni domuere decem, non mille carinæ!

D'Albigny nodded. "Well, I trust you are really counting on somethingsolid, " he answered. "For you are taking a great deal upon yourself, Monsieur Basterga. I hope you understand that, " he added with asearching look. 

"I take all on myself, " the big man answered. 

The Frenchman was far from content, but he argued no more. He reflecteda moment, considering whether he had forgotten anything: then, mutteringthat he would convey Basterga's views to the Grand Duke, he pulled hiscloak more closely about his face, and with a curt nod of farewell, heturned on his heel and was gone. A moment, and he was lost to sightbetween the wooden mills and sheds which flanked the bridge on eitherside, and rendered it at once as narrow and as picturesque as were mostof the bridges of the day. Basterga, left solitary, waited a whilebefore he left his shelter. Satisfied at length that the coast wasclear, he continued his way into the town, and thinking deeply as hewent came presently to the Corraterie. It cannot be said that hismeditations were of the most pleasant; and perhaps for this reason hewalked slowly. When he entered the house, shaking the moisture from hiscloak and cap, he found the others seated at table and well advanced intheir meal. He was twenty minutes late. 

He was a clever man. But at times, in moments of irritation, the senseof his cleverness and of his superiority to the mass of men led him todo the thing which he had better have left undone. It was so thisevening. Face to face with d'Albigny, he had put a bold face on thedifficulties which surrounded him: he had let no sign of doubt oruncertainty, no word of fear respecting the outcome escape him. But themoment he found himself at liberty, the critical situation of hisaffairs, if the Syndic refused to take the bait, recurred to his mind, and harassed him. He had no _confidante_, no one to whom he couldbreathe his fears, no one to whom he could explain the situation, orwith whom he could take credit for his coolness: and the curb ofsilence, while it exasperated his temper, augmented a hundredfold thecontempt in which he held the unconscious companions among whom chanceand his mission had thrown him. A spiteful desire to show that contemptsparkled in his eyes as he took his seat at the table this evening; butfor a minute or two after he had begun his meal he kept silence. 

On a mind such as his, outward things have small effect; otherwise thecheerful homeliness of the scene must have soothed him. The lamp, telling of present autumn and approaching winter, had been lit: awood-fire crackled pleasantly in the great fireplace and was reflectedin rows of pewter plates on either dresser: a fragrant stew scented theair; all that a philosopher of the true type could have asked was at hisservice. But Basterga belonged rather to the fifteenth century, thecentury of the south, which was expiring, than to the century of thenorth which was opening. Splendour rather than comfort, the gorgeousnessof Venice, of red-haired dames, stiff-clad in Titian velvets, of tablesgleaming with silk and gold and ruby glass, rather than the plainhomeliness which Geneva shared with the Dutch cities, held his mind. To-night in particular his lip curled as he looked round. To-night inparticular ill-pleased and ill-content he found the place and thecompany well matched, the one and the other mean and contemptible!

One there--Gentilis--marked the great man's mood, and, cringing, afterhis kind, kept his eyes low on his platter. Grio, too, knew enough toseek refuge in sullen silence. Claude alone, impatient of the constraintwhich descended on the party at the great man's coming, continued totalk in a raised voice. "Good soup to-night, Anne, " he said cheerfully. For days past he had been using himself to speak to her easily andlightly, as if she were no more to him than to the others. 

She did not answer--she seldom did. But "Good?" Basterga sneered in hismost cutting tone. "Ay, for schoolboys! And such as have no palate savefor pap!"

Claude being young took the thrust a little to heart. He returned itwith a boy's impertinence. "We none of us grow thin on it, " he said witha glance at the other's bulk. 

Basterga's eyes gleamed. "Grease and dish-washings, " he exclaimed. Andthen, as if he knew where he could most easily wound his antagonist, heturned to the girl. 

"If Hebe had brought such liquor to Jupiter, " he sneered, "do you thinkhe had given her Hercules for a husband, as I shall presently give youGrio? Ha! You flush at the prospect, do you? You colour and tremble, " hecontinued mockingly, "as if it were the wedding-day. You'll sleep littleto-night, I see, for thinking of your Hercules!" With grim irony hepointed to his loutish companion, whose gross purple face seemed thecoarser for the small peaked beard that, after the fashion of the day, adorned his lower lip. "Hercules, do I call him? Adonis rather. "

"Why not Bacchus?" Claude muttered, his eyes on his plate. In spite ofthe strongest resolutions, he could not keep silence. 

"Bacchus? And why, boy?" frowning darkly. 

"He were better bestowed on a tun of wine, " the youth retorted, withoutlooking up. 

"That you might take his place, I suppose?" Basterga retorted swiftly. "What say you, girl? Will you have him?" And when she did not answer, "Bread, do you hear?" he cried harshly and imperiously. "Bread, I say!"And having forced her to come within reach to serve him, "What do yousay to it?" he continued, his hand on the trencher, his eyes on herface. "Answer me, girl, will you have him?"

She did not answer, but that which he had quite falsely attributed toher before, a blush, slowly and painfully darkened her cheeks and neck. He seized her brutally by the chin, and forced her to raise her face. "Blushing, I see?" he continued. "Blushing, blushing, eh? So it is forhim you thrill, and lie awake, and dream of kisses, is it? For this newyouth and not for Grio? Nay, struggle not! Wrest not yourself away! LetGrio, too, see you!"

Claude, his back to the scene, drove his nails into the palms of hishands. He would not turn. He would not, he dared not see what waspassing, or how they were handling her, lest the fury in his breastsweep all away, and he rise up and disobey her! When a movement told himthat Basterga had released her--with a last ugly taunt aimed as much athim as at her--he still sat bearing it, curbing, drilling, compellinghimself to be silent. Ay, and still to be silent, though the voice thatso cruelly wounded her was scarcely mute before it began again. 

"Tissot, indeed!" Basterga cried in the same tone of bitter jeering. "Afig for Tissot! No more shall we

 Upon his viler metal test our purest pure, And see him transmutations three endure!

And why? Because a mightier than Tissot is here! Because, " with a coarselaugh, "Our stone angelical whereby All secret potencies to light are brought

has itself suffered a transmutation! A transmutation do I say! Rather aneclipse, a darkening! He, whom matrons for their maidens fear, has come, has seen, has conquered! And we poor mortals bow before him. "

Still Claude, his face burning, his ears tingling, put force uponhimself and sat mute, his eyes on the board. He would not look round, hewould not acknowledge what was passing. Basterga's tone conveyed ameaning coarser and more offensive than the words he spoke; and Claudeknew it, and knew that the girl, at whom he dared not look knew it, asshe stood helpless, a butt, a target for their gloating eyes. He wouldnot look for he remembered. He saw the scalding liquid blister the skin, saw the rounded arm quiver with pain; and remembering and seeing, he wasresolved that the lesson should not be lost on him. If it was only bysuffering he could serve her, he would serve her. 

He dared not look even at Gentilis, who sat opposite him; and who wasstaring in gross rapture at the girl's confusion, and the burningblushes, so long banished from her pale features. For to look at thatmean mask of a man was the same thing as to strike! Unfortunately, as ithappened, his silence and lack of spirit had a result which he had notforeseen. It encouraged the others to carry their brutality to greaterand even greater lengths. Grio flung a gross jest in the girl's face:Basterga asked her mockingly how long she had loved. They got no answer;on which the big man asked his question again, his voice grown menacing;and still she would not answer. She had taken refuge from Grio'scoarseness in the farthest corner of the hearth: where stooping over apot, she hid her burning face. Had they gone too far at last? So far, that in despair she had made up her mind to resist? Claude wondered. Hehoped that they had. 

Basterga, too, thought it possible; but he smiled wickedly, in the prideof his resources. He struck the table sharply with his knife-haft. "What?" he cried. "You don't answer me, girl? You withstand me, do you?To heel! To heel! Stand out in front of me, you jade, and answer me atonce. There! Stand there! Do you hear?" With a mocking eye he indicatedwith his knife the spot that took his fancy. 

She hesitated a moment, scarlet revolt in her face; she hesitated for along moment; and the lad thought that surely the time had come. But thenshe obeyed. She obeyed! And at that Claude at last looked up; he couldlook up safely now for something, even as she obeyed, had put a bridleon his rage and given him control over it. That something was doubt. Whydid she comply? Why obey, endure, suffer at this man's hands that whichit was a shame a woman should suffer at any man's? What was his holdover her? What was his power? Was it possible, ah, was it possible thatshe had done anything to give him power? Was it possible----

"Stand there!" Basterga repeated, licking his lips. He was in a crueltemper: harassed himself, he would make some one suffer. "Remember whoyou are, wench, and where you are! And answer me! How long have youloved him?"

The face no longer burned: her blushes had sunk behind the mask ofapathy, the pallid mask, hiding terror and the shame of her sex, whichher face had worn before, which had become habitual to her. "I have notloved him, " she answered in a low voice. 

"Louder!"

"I have not loved him. "

"You do not love him?"

"No. " She did not look at Claude, but dully, mechanically, she staredstraight before her. 

Grio laughed boisterously. "A dose for young Hopeful!" he cried. "Ho!Ho! How do you feel now, Master Jackanapes?"

The big man smiled. 

 "Galle, quid insanis? inquit, Tua cura Lycoris Perque nives alium perque horrida castra secuta est!"

he murmured. He bowed ironically in Claude's direction. "The gentlemanpasses beyond the jurisdiction of the court, " he said. "She will havenone of him, it seems; nor we either! He is dismissed. "

Claude, his eyes burning, shrugged his shoulders and did not budge. Ifthey thought to rid themselves of him by this fooling they would learntheir mistake. They wished him to go: the greater reason he should stay. A little thing--the sight of a small brown hand twitching painfully, while her face and all the rest of her was still and impassive, hadexpelled his doubts for the time--had driven all but love and pity andburning indignation from his breast. All but these, and the memory ofher lesson and her will. He had promised and he must suffer. 

Whether Basterga was deceived by his inaction, or of set purpose wasminded to try how far they could go with him, the big man turned againto his victim. "With you, my girl, " he said, "it is otherwise. The soupwas bad, and you are mutinous. Two faults that must be paid for. Therewas something of this, I remember, when Tissot--our good Tissot, whoamused us so much--first came. And we tamed you then. You paid forfeit, I think. You kissed Tissot, I think; or Tissot kissed you. "

"No, it was I kissed her, " Gentilis said with a smirk. "She chose me. "

"Under compulsion, " Basterga retorted drily. "Will you ransom heragain?"

"Willingly! But it should be two this time, " Gentilis said grinning. "Being for the second offence, a double----"

"Pain, " quoth Basterga. "Very good. Do you hear, my girl? Go toGentilis, and see you let him kiss you twice! And see we see and hearit. And have a care! Have a care! Or next time your modesty may notescape so easily! To him at once, and----"

"No!" The cry came from Claude. He was on his feet, his face on fire. "No!" he repeated passionately. 

"No?"

"Not while I am here! Not under compulsion, " the young man cried. "Shameon you!" He turned to the others, generous wrath in his face. "Shame onyou to torture a woman so--a woman alone! And you three to one!"

Basterga's face grew dark. "You are right! We are three, " he muttered, his hand slowly seeking a weapon in the corner behind him. "You speaktruth there, we are three--to one! And----"

"You maybe twenty, I will not suffer it!" the lad cried gallantly. "Youmay be a hundred----"

But on that word, in the full tide of speech he stopped. His voice diedas suddenly as it had been raised, he stammered, his whole bearingchanged. He had met her eyes: he had read in them reproach, warning, rebuke. Too late he had remembered his promise. 

The big man leaned forward. "What may we be?" he asked. "You were going, I think, to say that we might be--that we might be----"

But Claude did not answer. He was passing through a moment of suchmisery as he had never experienced. To give way to them now, to lowerhis flag before them after he had challenged them! To abandon her tothem, to see her--oh, it was more than he could do, more than he couldsuffer! It was----

"Pray go on, " Basterga sneered, "if you have not said your say. Do notthink of us!"

Oh, bitter! But he remembered how the scalding liquor had fallen on thetender skin. "I have said it, " he muttered hoarsely. "I have said it, "and by a movement of his hand, pathetic enough had any understood it, heseemed to withdraw himself and his opposition. 

But when, obedient to Basterga's eye, the girl moved to Gentilis' sideand bent her cheek--which flamed, not by reason of Gentilis or thecoming kisses, but of Claude's presence and his cry for her--he couldnot bear it. He could not stay and see it, though to go was to abandonher perhaps to worse treatment. He rose with a cry and snatched his cap, and tore open the door. With rage in his heart and their laughter, theirmocking, triumphant laughter, in his ears, he sprang down the steps. 

A coward! That was what he must seem to them. A coward's part, that wasthe part they had seen him play. Into the darkness, into the night, whatmattered whither, when such fierce anger boiled within him? Suchself-contempt. What mattered whither when he knew how he had failed! Ay, failed and played the Tissot! The Tissot and the weakling!

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 seem 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 have 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. 

CHAPTER IX. 

MELUSINA. 

Even then, with the daylight about him, he crept into the house under aweight of awe and dread. He left the door ajar that the daylight mightenter with him and dispel the shadows: and when he had crossed thethreshold it was with a pale and frowning face that he advanced to themiddle of the floor, and stood peering round the deserted living-room. No one was stirring above or below, the house and all within it slept:the rushlight stand, its wick long extinguished, remained where he hadset it down in the panic of his flight. 

With that exception--he eyed it darkly--no trace of the mysterious eventof the night was visible. The room wore, or minute by minute assumed, its daylight aspect. Nor had he stood long gazing upon it before hebreathed more freely and felt his heart lightened. What was to bethought, what could be thought in the circumstances, he was not preparedto say. But the panic of the night was gone with the darkness; and withit all thought--if in the depths he had really sunk so low--ofrelinquishing the woman he loved to the powers of evil. 

To the powers of evil! To a fate as much worse than death as the souland the mind are higher than the body! Was he really face to face withthat? Was this house, so quiet, so peaceful, so commonplace, in realitythe theatre of one of those manifestations of Satan's power which werethe horror of the age? His senses affirmed it, and yet he doubted. Suchthings were, he did not deny it. Few men of the time denied it. Butpresented to him, brought within his experience, they shocked him to thepoint of disbelief. He found that from the thing which he was preparedto admit in the general, he dissented fiercely and instinctively in theparticular. 

What, the woman he loved! Was he to believe her delivered, soul andbody, to the power of Satan? Never! All that was sane and wholesome andcourageous in the man rebelled against the thought. He would not believeit. The pots and pans on the hearth, the simple implements of work andlife, on which his eyes alighted wherever he turned them, and to none ofwhich her hand was stranger, his memory of the love that was between herand her mother, his picture of the sacred life led by those two abovestairs, all gave the lie to it! Her subjection to Basterga, hersubmission to contumely and to insult--there must be a reason for these, a natural and innocent reason could he hit on it. The strangeoccurrences of the night, the blasphemous words, the mocking laughter, at the worst they might not import a mastery over her. He shuddered ashe recalled them, they rang in his ears and brain, the vividness of hismemory of them was remarkable. But they might not have relation to her. 

He stood long in moody thought, but his ears never for an instantrelaxed their vigil, their hearkening for he knew not what. At length hepassed into his bedcloset, and cooled his hot face with water andrepaired his dress. Coming out again, he found the house still quiet, the door as he had left it, the daylight pouring in through theaperture. No one was moving, he was still safe from interruption; and acuriosity to visit the passage above and learn if aught abnormal was tobe seen, took possession of him. It was just possible that Basterga hadnot returned; that the key still lay where he had dropped it!

He opened the door of the staircase and listened. He heard nothing, andhe stole half-way up the flight and again stood. Still all was silent. He mounted more boldly then, and he was within four steps of thetop--whence, turning his head a little, he could command thepassage--when a sound arrested him. It was a sound easily explicablethough it startled him; for a moment later Anne Royaume appeared at thefoot of the upper flight of stairs, and moved along the passage towardshim. 

She did not see him, and he could have escaped unnoticed, had he retiredat once. But he stood fixed to the spot by something in her appearance;a something that, as she moved slowly towards him, fancying herselfalone, filled him with dread, and with something worse thandread--suspicion. 

For if ever woman looked as if she had come from a witch's Sabbath, ifever girl, scarce more than child, walked as if she had plucked thefruit of the Tree and savoured it bitter, it was the girl before him. Despair--it seemed to him--rode her like a hag. Dejection, fear, misery, were in her whole bearing. Her eyes looked out from black hollows, hercheeks were pallid, her mouth was nerveless. Three sleepless nights, hethought, could not have changed a woman thus--no, nor thrice three; andhe who had seen her last night and saw her now, gazed fascinated andbewildered, asking himself what had happened, what it meant. 

Alas, for answer there rose the spectre which he had been striving tolay; the spectre that had for the men of that day so appalling, soshocking a reality. Witchcraft! The word rang in his brain. Witchcraftwould account for this, ay, for all; for her long submission to vilebehests and viler men; for that which he had heard in this house atmidnight; for that which the Syndic had whispered of Basterga; for thatwhich he noted in her now! Would account for it; ay, but by fixing herwith a guilt, not of this world, terrible, abnormal: by fixing her witha love of things vile, unspeakable, monstrous, a love that must depriveher life of all joy, all sweetness, all truth, all purity! A guilt and alove that showed her thus!

But thus, for a moment only. The next she espied his face above thelanding-edge, perceived that he watched her, detected, perhaps, something of his feeling. With startling abruptness her featuresunderwent a change. Her cheeks flamed high, her eyes sparkled withresentment. "You!" she cried--and her causeless anger, her impatience ofhis presence, confirmed the dreadful idea he had conceived. "You!" sherepeated. "How dare you come here? How dare you? What are you doinghere? Your room is below. Go down, sir!"

He did not move, but he met her eyes; he tried to read her soul, his ownquaking. And his look, sombre and stern--for he saw a gulf opening athis feet--should have given her pause. Instead, her anger faced him downand mastered him. "Do you hear me?" she flung at him. "Do you hear me?If you have aught to say, if you are not as those others, go down! Godown, and I will hear you there!"

He went down then, giving way to her, and she followed him. She closedthe staircase door behind them; and that done, in the living-room withher he would have spoken. But with a glance at Gentilis' door, shesilenced him, and led the way through the outer door to the open air. The hour was still early, the sun was barely risen. Save for a sentrysleeping at his post on the ramparts, there was no one within sight, andshe crossed the open space to the low wall that looked down upon theRhone. There, in a spot where the partly stripped branches which shadedthe rampart hid them from the windows, she turned to him. "Now, " shesaid--there was a smouldering fire in her eyes--"if you have aught tosay to me, say it. Say it now!"

He hesitated. He had had time to think, and he found the burden laidupon him heavy. "I do not know, " he answered, "that I have any right tospeak to you. "

"Right!" she cried; and let her bitterness have way in that word. "Right! Does any stay for that where I am concerned? Or ask my leave, orcrave my will, sir? Right? You have the same right to flout and jeer andscorn me, the same right to watch and play the spy on me, to hearken atmy door, and follow me, that they have! Ay, and the same right to bid mecome and go, and answer at your will, that others have! Do you scruple alittle at beginning?" she continued mockingly. "It will wear off. Itwill come easy by-and-by! For you are like the others!"

"No!"

"You are as the others! You begin as they began!" she repeated, givingthe reins to her indignation. "The day you came, last night even, Ithought you different. I deemed you"--she pressed her hand to her bosomas if she stilled a pain--"other than you are! I confess it. But you aretheir fellow. You begin as they began, by listening on stairs and atdoors, by dogging me and playing eavesdropper, by hearkening to what Isay and do. Right?" she repeated the word bitterly, mockingly, withfierce unhappiness. "You have the right that they have! The same right!"

"Have I?" he asked slowly. His face was sombre and strangely old. 

"Yes!"

"Then how did I gain it?" he retorted with a dark look. "How"--his tonewas as gloomy as his face--"did they gain it? Or--he?"

"He?" The flame was gone from her face. She trembled a little. 

"Yes, he--Basterga, " he replied, his eyes losing no whit of the changein her. "How did he gain the right which he has handed on to others, theright to shame you, to lay hand on you, to treat you as he does? This isa free city. Women are no slaves here. What then is the secret betweenyou and him?" Claude continued grimly. "What is your secret?"

"My secret!" Her passion dwindled under his eyes, under his words. 

"Ay, " Claude answered, "and his! His secret and yours. What is the thingbetween you and him?" he continued, his eyes fixed on her, "so dark, soweighty, so dangerous, you must needs for it suffer his touch, bear hislook, be smooth to him though you loathe him? What is it?"

"Perhaps--love, " she muttered, with a forced smile. But it did notdeceive him. 

"You loathe him!" he said. 

"I may have loved him--once, " she faltered. 

"You never loved him, " he retorted. All the shyness of youth, all thebashfulness of man with maiden were gone. Under the weight of thatthought, that dreadful thought, he had grown old in a few minutes. Histone was hard, his manner pitiless. "You never loved him!" he repeated, the very immodesty of her excuse confirming his fears. "And I ask you, what is it? What is it that is between you and him? What is it thatgives him this power over you?"

"Nothing, " she stammered, pale to the lips. 

"Nothing! And was it for nothing that you were startled when you foundme upstairs? When you found me watching you five minutes ago, was it fornothing that you flamed with rage----"

"You had no right to be there. "

"No? Yet it was an innocent thing enough--to be there, " he answered. "Tobe there, this morning. " And then, giving the words all the meaning ofwhich his voice was capable, "To have been there last night, " hecontinued, "were a different thing perhaps. "

"Were you there?" Her voice was barely audible. 

"I was. "

It was dreadful to see how she sank under that, how she cringed beforehim, her anger gone, her colour gone, the light fled from her eyes--eyesgrown suddenly secretive. It was a minute, it seemed a minute at least, before she could frame a word, a single word. Then, "What do you know?"she whispered. But for the wall against which she leant, she must havefallen. 

"What do I know?"

She nodded, unable to repeat the words. 

"I was at the door of Basterga's room last night. "

"Last night!"

"Yes. I had the key of his room in my hand. I was putting it into thelock when I heard----"

"Hush!" She stepped forward, she would have put her hand over his mouth. "Hush! Hush!"

The terror of her eyes, the glance she cast behind her, echoed the wordmore clearly than her lips. "Hush! Hush!"

He could not bear to look at her. Her voice, her terror, the verydefence she had striven to make confirmed him in his worst suspicions. The thing was too certain, too apparent; in mercy to himself as well asto her, he averted his eyes. 

They fell on the hills on which he had gazed that morning barely afortnight earlier, when the autumn haze had mirrored her face; and allhis thoughts, his heart, his fancy had been hers, her prize, her easycapture. And now he dared not look on her face. He could not bear to seeit distorted by the terrors of an evil conscience. Even her words whenshe spoke again jarred on him. 

"You knew the voice?" she whispered. 

"I did not know it, " he answered brokenly. "I knew--whose it was. "

"Mine?"

"Yes. " He scarcely breathed the word. 

She did not cry "Hush!" this time, but she caught her breath; and aftera moment's pause, "Still--you did not recognise it?" she murmured. "Youdid not know that it was my voice?" Could it be that after all she hopedto blind him?

"I did not. "

"Thank God!"

"Thank God?" He stared at her, echoing the words in his astonishment. How dared she name the sacred name?

She read his thoughts. "Yes, " she said hardily, "why not?"

He turned on her. "Why not?" he cried. "Why not? You dare to thank Him, who last night denied Him? You dare to name His name in the light, whoin the darkness----You! And you are not afraid?"

"Afraid?" she repeated. There was a strange light, almost a smile hewould have deemed it had he thought that possible, in her face, "Nay, perhaps; perhaps. For even the devils, we are told, believe andtremble. "

His jaw fell; for a moment he gazed at her in sheer bewilderment. Then, as the full import of her words and her look overwhelmed him, he turnedto the wall and bowed his face on his arms. His whole being shook, hissoul was sick. What was he to say to her? What was he to do? Flee fromher presence as from the presence of Antichrist? Avoid her henceforth ashe valued his soul? Pluck even the memory of her from his mind? Orwrestle with her, argue with her, snatch her from the foul spells andenchantments that now held her, the tool and chosen instrument of theevil one, in their fiendish grip?

He felt a Churchman's horror--Protestant as he was--at the thought of awoman possessed. But for that reason, and because he was in the way ofbecoming a minister, was it not his duty to measure his strength withthe Adversary? Alas! he could conceive of no words, no thoughts, noarguments adequate to that strife. Had he been a Papist he might haveturned with hope, even with pious confidence, to the Holy Stoup, theBell and Book and Candle, to the Relics, and hundred Exorcisms of hisChurch. But the colder and more abstract faith of Calvin, while itadmitted the possibility of such possessions, supplied no weapons of amaterial kind. 

He groaned in his impotence, stifled by the unwholesome atmosphere ofhis thoughts. He dared not even ponder too long on what she was whostood beside him; nor peer too closely through the murky veil that hidher being. To do so might be to risk his soul, to become a partner inher guilt. He might conjecture what dark thoughts and dreadful aptitudeslurked behind the girl's gentle mask, he might strive to learn by whatblack arts she had been seduced, what power over visible things had beenthe price of her apostasy, what Sabbath-mark, seal and pledge of thatapostasy she bore--but at what peril! At what risk of soul and body! Hisbrain reeled, his blood raced at the thought. 

Such things had lately been, he knew. Had there not been a dreadfuloutbreak in Alsace--Alsace, the neighbour almost of Geneva--within thelast few years. In Thann and Turckheim, places within a couple of days'journey of Geneva, scores had suffered for such practices; and some ofthese not old and ugly, but young and handsome, girls and pages of theCourt and young wives! Had not the most unlikely persons confessed topractices the most dreadful? The most innocent in appearance to thingsunspeakable!

But--with a sudden revulsion of feeling--that was in Alsace, he toldhimself. That was in Alsace! Such things did not happen here at men'selbows! He must have been mad to think it or dream it. And, lifting hishead, he looked about him. The sun had risen higher, the rich vale ofthe Rhone, extended at his feet, lay bathed in air and light andbrightness. The burnished hills, the brown, tilled slopes, the gleamingriver, the fairness of that rare landscape clad in morning freshness, gave the lie to the suspicions he had been indulging, gave the lie, there and then, to possibilities he dared not have denied in school orpulpit. Nature spoke to his heart, and with smiling face denied theunnatural. In Bamberg and Wurzburg and Alsace, but not here! InMagdeburg, but not here! In Edinburgh, but not here! The world of beautyand light and growth on which he looked would have none of the darkdevil's world of which he had been dreaming: the dark devil's worldwhich the sophists and churchmen and the weak-witted of twoscoregenerations had built up!

He turned and looked at her, the scales fallen from his eyes. Though shewas still pale, she had recovered her composure and she met his gazewithout blenching. But now, behind the passive defiance, grave ratherthan sullen, which she presented to his attack, the weakness, thehelplessness, the heart pain of the woman were plain. 

He discerned them, and while he hungered for a more explicit denial, fora cry of indignant protest, for a passionate repudiation, he found somecomfort in that look. And his heart spoke. "I do not believe it!" hecried impetuously, in perfect forgetfulness of the fact that he had notput his charge into words. "I do not--I will not! Only say that it isfalse! And I will say no more. "

Her answer was as cold water thrown upon him. "I will tell you nothing, "she answered. 

"Why not? Why not?" he cried. 

"You ask why not, " she answered slowly. "Are you so short of memory? Isit so long since, against my will and prayers, you came into yonderhouse--that you forget what I said and what I did? And what youpromised?"

"My God!" he cried in excitement. "You do not know where you stand! Youdo not know what perils threaten you. This is no time, " he continued, holding out his hands to her in growing agitation, "for sticking onscruples or raising trifles. Tell me all!"

"I will tell you nothing!" she replied with the same quiet firmness. "Ihave suffered. I suffer. Can you not suffer a little?"

"Not blasphemy!" he said. "Not that! Tell me"--his voice, his face grewsuppliant--"tell me only that it was not your voice, Anne. Tell me thatit was not you who spoke! Tell me--but that. "

"I will tell you nothing!" she answered in the same tone. 

"You do not know----"

"I know what it is you have in your mind!" she replied. "What it is youare thinking of me. That they will burn me in the Bourg du Fourpresently, as they burned the girl in Aix last year! As they burned thewoman in Besançon not many months since; I have seen those who saw it. As they did to two women in Zurich--my mother was there! As they did tofive hundred people in Geneva in my grandfather's time. It is that, " shecontinued, a strange wild light in her eyes, "that you think they willdo to me?"

"God forbid!" he cried. 

"Nay, you may do it, too, if you choose, " she answered, gravelyregarding him. "But I do not think you will, for you are young, almostas young as I am, and, having done it, you would have many years to liveand think. You would remember in those years that it was my mother whonursed your father, that it was you who came to us not we to you, thatit was you who promised to aid us, not I who sought your aid! You wouldremember all these things of a morning when you awoke early: andthis--that in the end you gave me up to the law and burned me. "

"God forbid!" he cried, and hid his face with his hands. The veryquietness of her speech set an edge on horror. "God forbid!"

"Ay, but men allow!" she answered drearily. "What if I was mad lastnight, and in my madness denied my Maker? I am sane to-day, but I mustburn, if it be known! I must burn!"

"Not by my mouth!" he cried, his brow damp with sweat. "Never, I swearit! If there be guilt, on my head be the guilt!"

"You mean it? You mean that?" she said. 

"I do. "

"You will be silent?"

"I will. "

Her lips parted, hope in her eyes shone--hope which showed how deep herdespair had been. "And you will ask no questions?" she whispered. 

"I will ask no questions, " he answered. He stifled a sigh. 

She drew a deep breath of relief, but she did not thank him. It was athing for which no thanks could be given. She stood a while, sad andthoughtful, reflecting, it seemed, on what had passed; then she turnedslowly and left him, crossed the open space, and entered the house, walking as one under a heavy burden. 

And he? He remained, troubled at one time by the yearning to follow andcomfort and cherish her; cast at another into a cold sweat by therecollection of that voice in the night, and the strange ties whichbound her to Basterga. Innocent, it seemed to him, that connection couldnot be. Based on aught but evil it could hardly be. Yet he must endure, witness, cloak it. He must wait, helpless and inactive, the issue of it. He must lie on the rack, drawn one way by love of her, drawn the otherby daily and hourly suspicions, suspicions so strong and so terriblethat even love could hardly cast them out. 

For the voice he had heard at midnight, and the horrid laughter, whichgreeted the words of sacrilege--were facts. And her subjection toBasterga, the man of evil past the evil name, was a fact. And her terrorand her avowal were facts. He could not doubt, he could not deny them. Only--he loved her. He loved her even while he doubted her, even whilehe admitted that women as young and as innocent had been guilty of theblackest practices and the most evil arts. He loved her and he suffered:doubting, though he could not abandon her. The air was fresh about him, the world lay sunlit under his eyes. But the beauty of the world had notsaved young and tender women, who on such mornings had walked barefoot, none comforting them, to the fiery expiation of their crimes. Perhaps--perhaps among the thousands who had witnessed their last agony, one man hidden in the crowd, had vainly closed ears and eyes, one manhad died a hundred deaths in one. 

CHAPTER X. 

AUCTIO FIT: VENIT VITA. 

In his spacious chestnut-panelled parlour, in a high-backed oaken chairthat had throned for centuries the Abbots of Bellerive, Messer Blondelsat brooding with his chin upon his breast. The chestnut-panelledparlour was new. The shields of the Cantons which formed a frieze abovethe panels shone brightly, the or and azure, gules and argent of theirquarterings, undimmed by time or wood-smoke. The innumerable panes ofthe long heavily leaded windows which looked out on the Bourg du Fourwere still rain-proof; the light which they admitted still foundsomething garish in the portrait of the Syndic--by Schouten--that formedthe central panel of the mantelpiece. New and stately, the room had notits pair in Geneva; and dear to its owner's heart had it been a short, avery short time before. He had anticipated no more lasting pleasure, looked forward to no safer gratification for his declining years, thanto sit, as he now sat, surrounded by its grandeur. In due time--not atonce, lest the people take alarm or his enemies occasion--he haddetermined to rebuild the whole house after the same fashion. The plansof the oaken gallery, the staircase and dining-chamber, prepared by atrusty craftsman of Basle, lay at this moment in the drawer of thebureau beside his chair. 

Now all was changed. A fiat had gone forth, which placed him alikebeyond the envy of his friends, and the hatred of his foes. He mustdie. He must die, and leave these pleasant things, this goodly room, that future of which he had dreamed. Another man would lie warm in thechamber he had prepared; another would be Syndic and bear his wand. Theyears of stately plenty which he had foreseen, were already as lastyear's harvest. No wonder that the sheen of portrait and panel, thepride of echoing oak, were fled; or that the eyes with which he gazed onthe things about him were dull and lifeless. 

Dull and lifeless at one moment, and clouded by the apathy of despair;at another bright with the fierce fever of revolt. In the one phase orthe other he had passed many hours of late, some of them amid thedead-sea grandeur of this room. And he had had his hours of hope also. Afortnight back a ray of hope, bright as the goblin light which shinesthe more brilliantly the darker be the night, had shone on him andamused and enchanted him. And then, in one moment, God and man--or ifnot God, the devil--had joined to quench the hope; and this morning hesat sunk in deepest despair, all in and around him dark. Hitherto he hadregarded appearances. He had hidden alike his malady and his fears, hisapathy and his mad revolt; he had lived as usual. But this morning hewas beyond that. He could not rouse himself, he could not be doing. Hisservants, wondering why he did not go abroad or betake himself to sometask, came and peeped at him, and went away whispering and pointing andnudging one another. And he knew it. But he paid no heed to them or toanything, until it happened that his eyes, resting dully on the street, marked a man who paused before the door and looked at the house, indoubt it seemed, whether he should seek to enter or should pass on. 

For an appreciable time the Syndic watched the loiterer without seeinghim. What did it matter to a dying man--a man whom heaven, impassive, abandoned to the evil powers--who came or who went? But by-and-by hiseyes conveyed the identity of the man to his brain; and he rose to hisfeet, laying his hands on a bell which stood on the table beside him. Inthe act of ringing he changed his mind, and laying the bell down, hestrode himself to the outer door, the house door, and opened it. The manwas still in the street. Scarcely showing himself, Blondel caught hiseye, signed to him to enter, and held the door while he did so. 

Claude Mercier--for he it was--entered awkwardly. He followed the Syndicinto the parlour, and standing with his cap in his hand, beganshamefacedly to explain that he had come to learn how the Syndic was, after--after that which had happened----He did not finish the sentence. 

For that matter, Blondel did not allow him to finish. He had passed atsight of the youth into the other of the two conditions between whichhis days were divided. His eyes glittered, his hands trembled. "Have youdone anything?" he asked eagerly; and the voice in which he said itsurprised the young man. "Have you done anything?"

"As to Basterga, do you mean, Messer Syndic?"

"As to what else? What else?"

"No, Messer Blondel, I have not. "

"Nor learned anything?"

"No, nothing. "

"But you don't mean--to leave it there?" Blondel cried, his voice risinghigh. And he sat down and rose up again. "You have done nothing, but youare going to do something? What will it be? What?" And then as hediscerned the other's surprise, and read suspicion in his eyes, hecurbed himself, lowered his tone, and with an effort was himself. "Youngman, " he said, wiping his brow, "I am still ridden--by what happenedlast night. I have lain, since we parted, under an overwhelming sense ofthe presence of evil. Of evil, " he repeated, still speaking a littlewildly, "such as this God-fearing town should not know even by repute!You think me over-anxious? But I have felt the hot blast of the furnaceon my cheek, my head bears even now the smell of the burning. Hell gapesnear us!" He was beginning to tremble afresh, partly with impatience ofthis parleying, partly with anxiety to pluck from the other his answer. The glitter was returning to his eyes. "Hell gapes near us, " herepeated. "And I ask you, young man, what are you going to do?"

"I?"

"Yes, you!"

Claude stared. "What would you have me do?" he asked. 

"What would you have done last night?" the Syndic retorted. "Did you askme then? Did you wait for my permission? Did you wait even for mypresence?"

"No, but----"

"But what?"

"Things are changed. "

"Changed? How?" Blondel's tone sank to one of unnatural calm; but hisframe shook and his face was purple with the pressure he put uponhimself. "What is changed? Who has changed it?" he continued; to see hischance of life hang on the will of this imbecile was almost more than hecould bear. "Speak out! Let me know what has happened. "

"You know what happened as well as I do, " Claude answered slowly. He hadgiven his word to the girl that he would not interfere, but he began tosee difficulties of which he had not thought. "It was enough for me! Hemay be all you said he was, Messer Syndic, but----"

"But you no longer burn to break the spell?" Blondel cried. "You nolonger desire to snatch from him the woman you love? You will stand byand see her perish body and soul in this web of iniquity? You arefrightened, and will leave her to the law!" He thrust out his thinflushed face, his pointed beard wagging malignantly. "For that is whatwill come of it! To the law, you understand! I warn you, the magistratesin Geneva bear not the sword in vain. "

The young man's brow grew damp. The crisis was nearer than he hadfeared. "But--she has done nothing!" he faltered. 

"The tool with the hand that uses it! The idol and him who made it!" theSyndic cried, swaying himself to and fro. 

Claude stared. "But you know nothing!" he made shift to say after apause. "You have nothing against her, Messer Blondel. He may be all yousay, but she----"

"I have ears!"

The tone said more than the words, and Claude trembled. He knew thewidth of the net where witchcraft or blasphemy was in question. He knewthat, were Basterga seized, all in the house would be taken with him, and though men often escaped for the fright, it was seldom that womenwent free so cheaply. The knowledge of this tied his tongue; and urgentas he felt the need to be, he could only glare helplessly at themagistrate. 

Blondel, on his part, saw the effect of his words, and desperatelyresolved to force the young man to his will, he followed up the blow. "If you would see her burn, well and good!" he cried. "It is for you tochoose. Either break the spell, bring me the box, and set her free; orsee the law take its course! Last night----"

"Last night, " Claude replied, hurt to the quick, "you were not so bold, Messer Blondel!"

The Syndic winced, but merged his wrath in an anxiety a thousand timesdeeper. "Last night is not to-day, " he answered. "Midnight is notdaylight! I have told you where the spell is, where, at least, it isreputed to be, what it does, and under what sway it lays her; you wholove her--and I see you do--you who have access to the house at allhours, who can watch him out----"

"We watched him out last night!" Claude muttered. 

"Ay, but day is day! In the daylight----"

"But it is not laid on me to do this! I am not the only one----"

"You love her!"

"Who has access to the house. "

"Are you a coward?"

Claude breathed hard. He was driven to the wall. Between his promise toher, and the Syndic's demand, he found himself helpless. And the demandwas not so unreasonable. For it was true that he loved her, and that hehad access to the house; and if the plan suggested seemed unusual, if itwas not the course most obvious or most natural, it was hardly for himto cavil at a scheme which promised to save her, not only from the evilinfluence which mysteriously swayed her, but from the law, and thedanger of an accusation of witchcraft. Apart from his promise he wouldhave chosen this course; as it had been his first impulse to pursue itthe evening before. But now he had given his word to her that he wouldnot interfere, and he was conscious that he understood but in part howshe stood. That being so----

"A coward!" the Syndic repeated, savagely and coarsely. He had waited inintolerable suspense for the other's answer. "That is what you are, withall your boasting!--A coward! Afraid of--why, man, of what are youafraid? Basterga?"

"It may be, " Claude answered sullenly. 

"Basterga? Why----" But on the word Blondel stopped; and over his facecame a startling change. The rage died out of it and the flush; andfear, and a cringing embarrassment, took the place of them. In the sameinstant the change was made, and Claude saw that which caused it. Basterga himself stood in the half-open doorway, looking towards them. 

For a few seconds no one spoke. The magistrate's tongue clave to theroof of his mouth, as the scholar advanced, cap in hand, and bowed toone and the other. The florid politeness of his bearing thinly veilingthe sarcasm of his address when he spoke. 

"O mire conjunctio!" he said. "Happy is Geneva where age thinks no shameof consorting with youth! And youth, thrice happy, imbibes wisdom at thefeet of age! Messer Blondel, " he continued, looking to him, and droppingin a degree the irony of his tone, "I have not seen you for so long, Ifeared that something was amiss, and I come to inquire. It is not so, Ihope?"

The Syndic, unable to mask his confusion, forced a sickly phrase ofdenial. He had dreaded nothing so much as to be surprised by Basterga inthe young man's company: for his conscience warned him that to find himwith Mercier and to read his plan, would be one and the same thing tothe scholar's astuteness. And here was the discovery made, and made soabruptly and at so unfortunate a moment that to carry it off was out ofhis power, though he knew that every halting word and guilty look borewitness against him. 

"No? that is well, " Basterga answered, smiling broadly as he glancedfrom one face to the other. "That is well!" He had the air of agood-natured pedagogue who espies his boys in a venial offence, and willnot notice it save by a sly word. "Very well! And you, my friend, " hecontinued, addressing Claude, "is it not true what I said, Terque Quaterque redit!

You fled in haste last night, but we meet again! Your method in affairsis the reverse, I fear, of that which your friend here would advise:namely, that to carry out a plan one should begin slowly, and endquickly; thereby putting on the true helmet of Plato, as it has beencalled by a learned Englishman of our time. "

Claude glowered at him, almost as much at a loss as the Syndic, but foranother reason. To exchange commonplaces with the man who held the womanhe loved by an evil hold, who owned a power so baneful, so foul--tobandy words with such an one was beyond him. He could only glare at himin speechless indignation. 

"You bear malice, I fear, " the big man said. There was no doubt that hewas master of the situation. "Do you know that in the words of the samelearned person whom I have cited--a marvellous exemplar amid thatfog-headed people--vindictive persons live the life of witches, who asthey are mischievous, so end they unfortunate. "

The blood left Claude's face. "What do you mean?" he muttered, findinghis voice at last. 

"Who hates, burns. Who loves, burns also. But that is by the way. "

"Burns?"

"Ay, " with a grin, "burns! It seems to come home to you. Burns! Fie, young man; you hate, I fear, beyond measure, or love beyond measure, ifyou so fear the fire. What, you must leave us? It is not very mannerly, "with sarcasm, "to go while I speak!"

But Claude could bear no more. He snatched his cap from the table, andwith an incoherent word, aimed at the Syndic and meant forleave-taking, he made for the door, plucked it open and disappeared. 

The scholar smiled as he looked after him. "A foolish young man, " hesaid, "who will assuredly, if he be not stayed, end unfortunate. It isthe way of Frenchmen, Messer Blondel. They act without method and strikewithout intention, bear into age the follies of youth, and wear thegravity neither of the north nor of the south. But that reminds me, " hecontinued, speaking low and bending towards the other with a look ofsympathy--"you are better, I hope?"

The words were harmless, but they conveyed more than their surfacemeaning, and they touched the Syndic to the quick. He had begun tocompose himself; now he had much ado not to gnash his teeth in thescholar's face. "Better?" he ejaculated bitterly. "What chance have I ofbeing better? Better? Are you?" He began to tremble, his hands on thearms of his chair. "Otherwise, if you are not, you will soon have causeto know what I feel. "

"I am better, " Basterga answered with fervour. "I thank Heaven for it. "

Blondel rose to his feet, his hands still clutching the chair. "What!"he cried. "You--you have not tried the----"

"The _remedium_?" The scholar shook his head. "No, on the contrary, I amrelieved from my fears. The alarm was baseless. I have it not, I thankHeaven. I have not the disease. Nor, if there be any certainty inmedicine, shall have it. "

The Syndic, alas for human nature, could have struck him in the face!

"You have it not?" he snarled. "You have it not?" And then regainingcontrol of himself, "I suppose I ought, " with a forced and ghastlysmile, "to felicitate you on your escape. "

"Rather to felicitate yourself, " Basterga answered. "Or so I had hopedtwo days ago. "

"Myself?"

"Yes, " Basterga replied lightly. "For as soon as I found that I had noneed of the _remedium_, I thought of you. That was natural. And itoccurred to me--nay, calm yourself!"

"Quick! Quick!

"Nay, calm yourself, my dear Messer Blondel, " Basterga repeated withoutward solicitude and inward amusement. "Be calm, or you will doyourself an injury; you will indeed! In your state you should beprudent; you should govern yourself--one never knows. And besides, thethought, to which I refer--I see you recognise what it was----"

"Yes! yes! Go on! Go on!"

"Proved futile. "

"Futile?"

"Yes, I am sorry to say it. Futile. "

"Futile!" The wretched man's voice rose almost to a scream as herepeated the word. He rose and sat down again. "Then how did you--whydid you----" He stopped, fighting for words, and, unable to frame them, clutched the air with his hands. A moment he mouthed dumbly, then "Tellme!" he gasped. "Speak, man, speak! How was it? Cannot you see--that youare killing me?"

Basterga saw indeed that he had gone nearer to it than he had intended:for a moment the starting eyes and purple face alarmed him. In allhaste, he gave up playing with the others fears. "It occurred to me, " hesaid, "that as I no longer needed the medicine myself, there was onlythe Grand Duke to be considered, I thought that he might be willing towaive his claim, since he is as yet free from the disease. And fourdays ago I despatched a messenger whom I could trust to him at Turin. Ihad hopes of a favourable reply, and in that event, I should not havelost a minute in waiting upon you. For I am bound to say, MesserBlondel"--the big man rubbed his chin and eyed the otherbenevolently--"your case appealed to me in an especial manner. I feltmyself moved, I scarcely know why, to do all I could on your behalf. Alas, the answer dashed my hopes. "

"What was it?" Blondel's voice sounded hollow and unnatural. Sunk in thehigh-backed chair, his chin fallen on his breast, it was in his eyesalone, peering from below bent brows, that he seemed to live. 

"He would not waive his claim, " Basterga answered gently, "save ona--but in substance that was all. "

Blondel raised himself slowly and stiffly in the chair. His lips parted. "In substance?" he muttered hoarsely, "There was more then?"

Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "There was. Save, the Grand Duke added, on the condition--but the condition which followed was inadmissible. "

Blondel gave vent to a cackling laugh. "Inadmissible?" he muttered. "Inadmissible. " And then, "You are not a dying man, Messer Basterga, oryou would think--few things inadmissible. "

"Impossible, then. "

"What was it? What was it?"--with a gesture eloquent of the impatiencethat was choking him. 

"He asked, " Basterga replied reluctantly, "a price. "

"A price?"

The big man nodded. 

The Syndic rose up and sat down again. "Why did you not say so? Why didyou not say so at once?" he cried fiercely. "Is it about that you havebeen fencing all this time? Is that what you were seeking? And Ifancied--A price, eh? I suppose"--in a lower tone, and with a gleam ofcunning in his eyes--"he does not really want--the impossible? I am nota very rich man, Messer Basterga--you know that; and I am sure you wouldtell him. You would tell him that men do not count wealth here as theydo in Genoa or Venice, or even in Florence. I am sure you would put himright on that, " with a faint whine in his tone. "He would not strip aman to the last rag. He would not ask--thousands for it. "

"No, " Basterga answered, with something of asperity and even contempt inhis tone. "He does not ask thousands for it, Messer Blondel. But heasks, none the less, something you cannot give. "

"Money?"

"No. "

"Then--what is it?" Blondel leant forward in growing fury. "Why do youfence with me? What is it, man?"

Basterga did not answer for a moment. At length, shrugging hisshoulders, and speaking between jest and earnest, "The town of Geneva, "he said. "No more, no less. "

The Syndic started violently, then was still. But the hand which in thefirst instant of surprise he had raised to shield his eyes, trembled;and behind it great drops of sweat rose on his brow, and bore witness tothe conflict in his breast. 

"You are jesting, " he said presently, without removing his hand. 

"It is no jest, " Basterga answered soberly. "You know the Grand Duke'skeen desire. We have talked of it before. And were it only a matter, " heshrugged his shoulders, "of the how--of ways and means in fact--thereneed be no impossibility, your position being what it is. But I knowthe feeling you entertain on the subject, Messer Blondel; and though Ido not agree with you, for we look at the thing from different sides, Ihad no hope that you would come to it. "

"Never!"

"No. So much so, that I had it in my mind to keep the condition tomyself. But----"

"Why did you not, then?"

"Hope against hope, " the big man answered, with a shrug and a laugh. "After all, a live dog is better than a dead lion--only you will not seeit. We are ruled, the most of us, by our feelings, and die for our sidewithout asking ourselves whether a single person would be a ducat theworse if the other side won. It is not philosophical, " with anothershrug. "That is all. "

Apparently Blondel was not listening, for "The Duke must be mad!" heejaculated, as the other uttered his last word. 

"Oh no. "

"Mad!" the Syndic repeated harshly, his eyes still shaded by his hand. "Does he think, " with bitterness, "that I am the man to run through thestreets crying 'Viva Savoia!' To raise a hopeless _émeute_ at the headof the drunken ruffians who, since the war, have been the curse of theplace! And be thrown into the common jail, and hurried thence to thescaffold! If he looks for that----"

"He does not. "

"He is mad. "

"He does not, " Basterga repeated, unmoved. "The Grand Duke is as sane asI am. "

"Then what does he expect?"

But the big man laughed. "No, no, Messer Blondel, " he said. "You push metoo far. You mean nothing, and meaning nothing, all's said and done. Iwish, " he continued, rising to his feet, and reverting to the tone ofsympathy which he had for the moment laid aside, "I wish I mightendeavour to show you the thing as I see it, in a word, as a philosophersees it, and as men of culture in all ages, rising above the prejudicesof the vulgar, have seen it. For after all, as Persius says, Live while thou liv'st! for death will make us all, A name, a nothing, but an old wife's tale. 

But I must not, " reluctantly. "I know that. "

The Syndic had lowered his hand; but he still sat with his eyes averted, gazing sullenly at the corner of the floor. 

"I knew it when I came, " Basterga resumed after a pause, "and thereforeI was loth to speak to you. "

"Yes. "

"You understand, I am sure?"

The Syndic moved in his chair, but did not speak, and Basterga took uphis cap with a sigh. "I would I had brought you better news, MesserBlondel, " he said, as he rose and turned to go. "But _Cor ne edito!_ Iam the happier for speaking, though I have done no good!" And with agesture of farewell, not without its dignity, he bowed, opened the door, and went out, leaving the Syndic to his reflections. 

CHAPTER XI. 

BY THIS OR THAT. 

Long after Basterga, with an exultant smile and the words "I have limedhim!" on his lips, had passed into the Bourg du Four and gone to hislodging, the Syndic sat frowning in his chair. From time to time a sighdeep and heart-rending, a sigh that must have melted even Petitot, evenBaudichon, swelled his breast; and more than once he raised his eyes tohis painted effigy over the mantel, and cast on it a look that claimedthe pity of men and Heaven. 

Nevertheless with each sigh and glance, though sigh and glance lost nowhit of their fervour, it might have been observed that his face grewbrighter; and that little by little, as he reflected on what had passed, he sat more firmly and strongly in his chair. 

Not that he purposed buying his life at the price which Basterga had puton it. Never! But when a ship is on the lee-shore it is pleasant to knowthat if one anchor fails to hold there is a second, albeit a borrowedone. The knowledge steadies the nerves and enables the mind to deal morefirmly with the crisis. Or--to put the image in a shape nearer to thefact--though the power to escape by a shameful surrender may sap thecourage of the garrison, it may also enable it to array its defenceswithout panic. The Syndic, for the present at least, entertained nothought of saving himself by a shameful compliance; it was indeedbecause the compliance was so shameful, and the impossibility ofstooping to it so complete, that he sighed thus deeply, and raised eyesso piteous to his own portrait. He who stood almost in the position ofPater Patriæ to Geneva, to betray Geneva! He the father of his countryto betray his country! Perish the thought! But, alas, he too mustperish, unless he could hit on some other way of winning the _remedium_. 

Still, it is not to be gainsaid that the Syndic went about the searchfor this other way in a more cheerful spirit; and revolved this plan andthat plan in a mind more at ease. The ominous shadow of the night, thesequent gloom of the morning were gone; in their place rode an almostgiddy hopefulness to which no scheme seemed too fanciful, no planwithout its promise. Betray his country! Never, never! Though, be itnoted, there was small scope in the Republic for such a man as himself, and he had received and could receive but a tithe of the honour hedeserved! While other men, Baudichon and Petitot for instance, to saynothing of Fabri and Du Pin, reaped where they had not sown. 

That, by the way; for it had naught to do with the matter in hand--thediscovery of a scheme which would place the _remedium_ within his grasp. He thought awhile of the young student. He might make a second attemptto coerce him. But Claude's flat refusal to go farther with the matter, a refusal on which, up to the time of Basterga's abrupt entrance, theSyndic had made no impression, was a factor; and reluctantly, after somethought, Blondel put him out of his mind. 

To do the thing himself was his next idea. But the scare of the nightbefore had given him a distaste for the house; and he shrank from theattempt with a timidity he did not understand. He held the room inabhorrence, the house in dread; and though he told himself that in thelast resort--perhaps he meant the last but one--he should venture, while there was any other way he put that plan aside. 

And there was another way: there were others through whom the thingcould be done. Grio, indeed, who had access to the room and the box, wasBasterga's creature; and the Syndic dared not tamper with him. But therewas a third lodger, a young fellow, of whom the inquiries he had maderespecting the house had apprised him. Blondel had met Gentilis morethan once, and marked him; and the lad's weak chin and shifty eyes, noless than the servility with which he saluted the magistrate had notbeen lost on the observer. The youth, granted he was not underBasterga's thumb, was unlikely to refuse a request backed by authority. 

As he reflected, the very person who was in his thoughts passed thewindow, moving with the shuffling gait and sidelong look which betrayedhis character. The Syndic took his presence for an omen: tempted by it, he rose precipitately, seized his head-gear and cane, and hurried intothe street. He glanced up and down, and saw Louis in the distance movingin the direction of the College. He followed. Three or four youths, bearing books, were hastening in the same direction through the narrowstreet of the Coppersmiths, and the Syndic fell in behind them. He darednot hasten over-much, for a dozen curious eyes watched him from thenoisy beetle-browed stalls on either side; and presently, finding thathe did not gain, he was making up his mind to await a better occasion, when Louis, abandoning a companion who had just joined him, dived intoone of the brassfounders' shops. 

The Syndic walked on slowly, returning here and there a reverentialsalute. He was nearly at the gate of the College, when Louis, late andin haste, overtook him, and hurried by him. Blondel doubted an instantwhat he should do; doubted now the moment for action was come thewisdom of the step he had in his mind. But a feverish desire to act hadseized upon him, and after a moment's hesitation he raised his voice. "Young man, " he said, "a moment! Here!"

Louis, not quite out of earshot, turned, found the magistrate's eye uponhim, wavered, and at last came to him. He cringed low, wondering what hehad done amiss. 

"I know your face, " Blondel said, fixing him with a penetrating look. "Do you not lodge, my lad, in a house in the Corraterie? Near the PorteTertasse?"

"Yes, Messer Syndic, " Louis answered, overpowered by the honour of thegreat man's address, and still wondering what evil was in store for him. 

"The Mère Royaume's?"

"Yes, Messer Syndic. "

"Then you can do me--or rather"--with an expression of growingseverity--"you can do the State a service. Step this way, and listen tome, young man!" And his asperity increased by the fear that he wastaking an unwise step, he told the youth, in curt stiff sentences, suchfacts as he thought necessary. 

The young student listened thunderstruck, his mouth open, and anexpression of fatuous alarm on his face. "Letters?" he muttered, whenthe Syndic had come to a certain point in the story he had decided totell. 

"Yes, papers of importance to the State, " the Syndic replied weightily, "of which it is necessary that possession should be taken as quietly aspossible. "

"And they are----"

"They are in the steel box chained to the wall of his apartment. Be ityour task, young man, to bring the box and the letters unread anduntouched to me. Opportunities of securing them in Messer Basterga'sabsence cannot but occur, " he continued more benignly. "Choose onewisely, use it boldly, and the care of your fortunes will be in betterhands than yours! A word to Basterga, on the other hand, " Blondelcontinued slowly, and with a deadly look--he had not failed to noticethat Louis winced at the name of Basterga--"and you will find yourselfin the prison of the Two Hundred, destined to share the fate of theconspirators. "

The young man began to shake. "Conspirators?" he cried faintly. The wordbrought vividly before him the horrors of the scaffold and the wheel. "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Why did I go to that house to lodge?"

"Do your duty, " the Syndic said, "and you need fear nothing. "

"But if I cannot--do it?" the youth stammered, his teeth chattering. Heto penetrate to Basterga's room unbidden! He to rob the formidable manand perhaps be caught in the act! He to deceive him and meet his eye atmeals! Impossible! "But if I cannot--do it?" he repeated, cowering. 

"The State knows no such word!" the Syndic returned grimly. "Cannot, " hecontinued slowly, "means will not. Do your duty and fear nothing. Do itnot, pause, hesitate, breathe but a syllable of that which I have toldyou, and you will have all to fear. All!"

He saw too late that it was he himself who had all to fear; that intaking the lad before him into his confidence, he had placed himself inthe hands of a craven. But he had done it. He had gone too far, moved bythe foolish impulse of the moment, to retreat. His sole chance lay inshowing the lad on which side danger pressed him most closely; onfrightening him completely. And when Louis did not reply:--

"You do not answer me?" Blondel said in his sternest tones. "You do notreply? Am I to understand that you decline? That you refuse to performthe task which the State assigns to you? In that case be sure you willperish with those whom the Two Hundred know to be the enemies of Geneva, and for whom the rack and the wheel are at this moment prepared. "

"No!" Louis cried passionately; he almost fell on his knees in the openstreet. "No, no! I will go anywhere, do anything, Messer Syndic! I swearI will; I am no enemy! No conspirator!"

"You may be no enemy. But you must show yourself a friend!"

"I will! I will indeed. "

"And no syllable of this will pass your lips?"

"As I live, Messer Syndic! Nothing! Nothing!"

When he had repeated this several times with the earnestness of extremeterror, and appeared to have laid to heart such particulars as Blondelthought he should know, the Syndic dismissed him, letting him go with alast injunction to be silent and a last threat. 

By mere force of habit the lad would have gone forward and entered theCollege; but on the threshold he felt how unfit he was to meet hisfellows' eyes, and he turned and hastened as fast as his trembling limbswould carry him towards his home. The streets, to his excitedimagination, were full of spies; he fancied his every movement watched, his footsteps counted. If he lingered they might suppose him lukewarm, if he paused they might think him ill-affected. His speed must show hiszeal. His poor little heart beat in his breast as if it would springfrom it, but he did not stay nor look aside until the door of the housein the Corraterie closed behind him. 

Then within the house there fell upon him--alas! what a thing it is tobe a coward--a new fear. The fear was not the fear of Basterga, thebully and cynic, whom he had known and fawned on and flattered; but ofBasterga the dark and dangerous conspirator, of whom he now heard, readyto repay with the dagger the least attempt to penetrate his secrets! Onhis entrance he had flung himself face downward on his pallet in thelittle closet in which he slept; but at that thought he sprang up, suffocated by it; already he fancied himself in the hands of thedesperadoes whom he had betrayed, already he pictured slow and lingeringdeaths. But again, at the remembrance of the task laid upon him, heflung himself prostrate, writhing, and cursing his fate, and sheddingtears of panic. He to beard Basterga! He to betray him! Impossible! Yetif he failed, the rack and the wheel awaited him. Either way lay danger, on either side yawned torture and death. And he was a coward. He weptand shuddered, abandoning himself to a very paroxysm of terror. 

When his door was pushed open a minute later, he did not hear themovement; with his head buried in the pillow he did not see the face ofwonder, mingled with alarm, which viewed him from the doorway. He hadforgotten that it was Anne Royaume's custom to attend to the young men'srooms during their absence at the afternoon lecture; and when her voice, asking in startled accents what was amiss and if he were ill, reachedhis ears, he sought, with a smothered shriek, to cover his head with thebedclothes. He fancied that Basterga was upon him!

"What is the matter?" she repeated, advancing slowly to the side of thebed. Then, getting no answer, she dragged the coverlet off him. "What isit? Don't you know me?"

He sat up then, saw who it was and came gradually to himself, but withmany sighs and tears. She stood, looking down on him with contempt. "Hassome one been beating you?" she asked, and searched with hard eyes--hehad been no friend to her--for signs of ill-treatment. 

He shook his head. "Worse, " he sobbed. "Far worse! Oh, what will becomeof me? What will become of me? Lord, have mercy upon me! Lord, havemercy upon me!"

Her lip curled. Perhaps she was comparing him with another youth who hadspoken to her that morning in a different strain. 

"I don't think it matters much, " she said scornfully, "what becomes ofyou. "

"Matters?" he exclaimed. 

"If you are such a coward as this! Tell me what it is. What hashappened? If it is not that some one has beaten you, I don't know whatit is--unless you have been doing something wrong, and they have put youout of the University? Is it that?"

"No!" he cried fretfully. "Worse, worse! And do you leave me! You can donothing! No one can do anything!"

She had her own troubles, and to-day was almost sinking under them. Butthis was not her way of bearing them. She shrugged her shoulderscontemptuously. "Very well, " she said, "I will go if I can do nothing. "

"Do?" he cried vehemently. "What can you do?" And then, in the act ofturning from him, she stood; so startling was the change, so marvellousthe transformation which she saw come over his face. "Do, " he repeated, trembling violently, and speaking in a tone as much altered as hisexpression. He rose to his feet. "Do? Perhaps you--you can dosomething--still. Wait. Please wait a minute! I--I was not quitemyself. " He passed his hand across his brow. She did not know thatbehind his face of frightened stupor his mind was working cunningly, following up the idea that had occurred to him. 

She began to think him mad. But though she held him in distaste, she hadno fear of him; and even when he closed the door with a cringing air, and a look that implored indulgence, she held her ground. "Only, youneed not close the door, " she said coldly. "There is no one in the houseexcept my mother. "

"Messer Basterga?"

"He has gone out. Is it of him, " in sudden enlightenment, "that you areafraid?"

He nodded sullenly. "Yes, " he said; and then he paused, eyeing her indoubt if he could trust her. At last, "It is, but, if you dared do it, Iknow how I could draw his teeth! How I could"--with the cruel grin ofthe coward--"squeeze him! squeeze him!" and he went through the act withhis nervous, shaking fingers. "I could hold him like that! I could holdhim powerless as the dog that would bite and dare not!"

She stared at him. "You?" she said; it was hard to say whetherincredulity or scorn were written more plainly on her face. "You?"

"I! I!" he replied, with the same gesture of holding something. "And Iknow how to put him in your power also!"

"In my power!"

"Ay. "

Her face grew hard as if she too held her enemy passive in her grip. Then her lip curled, and she laughed in scorn. "Ay! And what must I doto bring that about? Something, I suppose, you dare not, Louis?"

"Something you can do more easily than I, " he answered doggedly. "Asmall thing, too, " he continued, clasping his hands in his eagerness andlooking at her with imploring eyes. "A nothing, a mere nothing!"

"And yet it will do so much?"

"I swear it will. "

"Then, " she retorted, eyeing him shrewdly, "if it is so easy to do whywere you undone a minute ago? And puling like a child in arms?"

"Because, " he said, flushing under her eyes, "it--it is not easy for meto do. And I did not see my way. "

"It looked like it. "

"But I see it now if you will help me. You have only to take a packet ofletters from his room--and you go there when you please--and he isyours! While you have the letters he dare not stir hand or foot, lestyou bring him to the scaffold!"

"Bring him to the scaffold?"

"Get the letters, give them to me, and I will answer for the rest. "Louis' voice was low, but he shook with excitement. "See!" he continued, his eyes at all times prominent, almost starting from his head, "itmight be done this minute. This minute!"

"It might, " the girl replied, watching him coldly. "But it will not bedone either this minute or at all unless you tell me what is in theletters, and how you come to know about them. "

Should he tell her? He fancied that he had no choice. "Messer Blondelthe Syndic wants the letters, " he answered sullenly. And, urged fartherby her expression of disbelief, he told the astonished girl the storywhich Blondel had told him. The fact that he believed it went far withher; why, for the rest, doubt a story so extraordinary that it seemed tobear the stamp of truth?

"And that is all?" she said when he came to the end. 

"Is it not enough?"

"It may be enough, " she replied, her resolute manner in strange contrastwith his cowardly haste. "Only there is a thing not clear. If the Syndicknows what is in the letters, why does he not seize them and Bastergawith them--the traitor with the proof of his treason?"

"Because he is afraid of the Grand Duke, " Louis cried. "If he seizeBasterga and miss the proof of his treason, what then?"

"Then he is not sure that the letters are there?" Anne replied keenly. 

"He is not sure that they would be there when he came to seize them, "Louis answered. "Basterga might have a dozen confederates in the houseready at a sign to destroy the letters. "

She nodded. 

"And that is what they will make us out to be, " he continued, his voicesinking as his fears returned upon him. "The Syndic threatened as much;and such things have happened a hundred times. I tell you, if we do notdo something, we shall suffer with him. But do it, and he is in yourpower! And if he has any hold on you, it is gone!"

The blood surged to her face. Hold upon her? Ah! Rage--or was ithope?--lightened in her eyes and transformed her face. She was thinking, he guessed, of the hundred insults she had undergone at Basterga'shands, of the shame-compelling taunts to which she had been forced tolisten, of the loathed touch she had been forced to bear. If there wasaught in her mind beyond this, any motive deeper or more divine, he didnot perceive it; enough, that he saw that she wavered, and he pressedher. 

"You will be free, " he cried passionately. "Freed from him! Freed fromfear of him! Say you will do it! Say that you will do it, " he continuedfervently, and he made as if he would kneel before her. "Do it, and Iswear that never shall a word to displease you pass my lips. "

With a glance of scorn that pierced even his selfishness, "Swear only, "she said, "that you have told me the truth! I ask no more. "

"I swear it on my salvation!"

She drew a deep breath. 

"I will do it, " she said. "The steel box which is chained to the wall?"

"Yes, yes, " he panted, "you cannot mistake it. The key----"

"I know where he keeps it. "

She said no more, but turned, and regarding his thanks as little as ifthey had been the wind passing by her, she opened the door, crossed theliving-room, and vanished up the staircase. He followed her as far asthe foot of the stairs, and there stood listening and shifting his feetand biting his nails in an agony of suspense. She had not deigned to bidhim watch for Basterga's coming, but he did so; his eyes on the outerdoor, through which the scholar must enter, and his tongue and feet inreadiness to warn her or save himself, according as the pressure ofdanger directed the one or the other step. 

Meanwhile his ears were on the stretch to catch what she did. He heardher try the door of the room. It was locked. He heard her shake it. Thenhe guessed that she fetched a key, for after an interval, which seemedan age, he caught the grating of the wards in the lock. After that, shewas quiet so long, that but for the apprehensions of Basterga's coming, which weighed on his coward soul, he must have gone up in sheer jealousyso see what she was doing. 

Not that he distrusted her. Even while he waited, and while the thinghung in the balance, he smiled to think how cleverly he had contrivedit. On the side of the authorities he would gain favour by deliveringthe letters: on the other side, if Basterga retained power to harm, itwas not he who had taken the letters, nor he who would be exposed to thefirst blast of vengeance--but the girl. The blame for her, the creditfor him! From the nettle danger his wits had plucked the flower safety. But for his fears he could have chuckled; and then he heard her leavethe room, and relock the door. With a gasp of relief, he retired a paceor two, and waited, his eyes fixed on the doorway through which she mustenter. 

She was long in coming, and when she came his hand, extended to receivethe letters, fell by his side, the whispered question died on his lips. Her face told him that she had failed. It might have told him also thatshe had built far more on the attempt than she had let him perceive. Butwhat was that to him? It was enough for him that she had not theletters. He could have torn her with his hands. "Where are they? Whereare they?" he cried, advancing upon her. "You have not got them?"

"Got them?" And then she straightened herself, and with a passionateglance at the door, "No! And he has not come in time to take me in theact, it seems. As I have no doubt you planned, you villain! That I mightbe more and deeper in his power!"

"No! No!" he cried, recoiling. "I never thought of it!"

"Yes, yes!" she retorted. 

He wrung his hands. How was he to make her understand? "I swear, " hecried, and he fell on his knees with uplifted hands. "I swear on myknees I thought of no such thing. The tale I told you was true! True, every word of it! And the letters----"

"There are no letters!" she said. 

"In the box?"

"None. "

He sprang to his feet. He shook his fist at her in low ignoble rage. "You lie!" he cried. "You have not looked. You have played with me. Youhave gone into the room and come out again, but you have not looked, youhave not dared to look. "

"I have looked, " she answered quietly. "In the box that is chained tothe wall. There are no papers in it. There is nothing in it except asmall phial. "

"A phial?"

"Of some golden liquid. "

"That is all?"

"All!"

Louis Gentilis stared at her, open-mouthed. Had the Syndic deceived him?Or had some one deceived the Syndic?

CHAPTER XII. 

THE CUP AND THE LIP. 

Blondel could not hide the agitation he felt as he listened to hisunexpected visitors, and saw whither their errand tended. Fabri, who wasleader of the deputation of three who had come upon him without warning, discerned this; much more Baudichon and Petitot, whose eyes were on thewatch for the least sign of weakness. And Blondel was conscious thatthey saw it, and on that account strove the more to mask his feelingsunder a show of decision. "I have little doubt that I shall have newswithin the hour, " he said. "Before night, I must have news. " And noddingwith the air of a man who knew much which he could not impart, he leantback in the old abbot's chair. 

But Fabri had not come for that, nor was he to be satisfied with that;and, after a pause, "Yes, " he replied, "I know. That may be so. But yousee, Messer Blondel, this affair is not quite where it was yesterday, orwe should not have come to you to-day. The King of France--I am sure weare much indebted to him--does not write on light occasions, and hiswarning is explicit. From Paris, then, we get the same story as fromTurin. And this being so, and the King's tale agreeing with ouragent's----"

"He does not mention Basterga!" Blondel objected. He repented the momenthe had said it. 

"By name, no. But he says----"

"Enough for any one with eyes!" Petitot exclaimed. 

"He says, " Fabri repeated, requesting the other by a gesture to besilent, "that the Grand Duke's emissary is a Paduan expelled from Veniceor from Genoa. That is near enough. And I confess, were I in your place, Messer Blondel----"

"With your responsibilities, " Petitot muttered through closed teeth. 

"I should want to know--more about him. " This from Baudichon. 

Fabri nodded assent. "I think so, " he said. "I really think so. In fact, I may go farther and say that were I in your place, Messer Blondel, Ishould seize him to-day. "

"Ay, within the hour!"

"This minute!" said Baudichon, last of the three. And all three, theirultimatum delivered, looked at Blondel, a challenge in their eyes. If hestood out longer, if he still declined to take the step which prudencedemanded, the step on which they were all agreed, they would know thatthere was something behind, something of which he had not told them. 

Blondel read the look, and it perturbed him. But not to the point ofsapping the resolution which he had formed at the Council Table, and towhich, once formed, he clung with the obstinacy of an obstinate man. The_remedium_ first; afterwards what they would, but the _remedium_ first. He was not going to risk life, warm life, the vista of sunny unendingto-morrows, of springs and summers and the melting of snows, for acraze, a scare, an imaginary danger! Why at that very minute the ladwhom he had commissioned to seize the thing might be on the way with it. At any minute a step might sound on the threshold, and herald thepromise of life. And then--then they might deal with Basterga as theypleased. Then they might hang the Paduan high as Haman, if they pleased. But until then--his mind was made up. 

"I do not agree with you, " he said, his underlip thrust out, his headtrembling a little. 

"You will not arrest him?"

"No, I shall not arrest him, " he replied, hardening himself to meettheir protestant and indignant eyes. "Nor would you, " he continued withbravado, "in my place. If you knew as much as I do. "

"But if you know, " Baudichon said, "I would like to know also. "

"The responsibility is mine. " Blondel swayed himself from side to sidein his chair as he said it. "The responsibility is mine, and I amwilling to bear it. It is the old difference of policy between us, " hecontinued, addressing Petitot. "You are willing to grasp at every pettyadvantage, I am willing----"

"To risk much to gain much, " Petitot exclaimed. 

"To take some risk to gain a real advantage, " Blondel retorted, correcting him with an eye to Fabri; whom alone, as the one impartialhearer, he feared. "For to what does the course which you are so eagerto take amount? You seize Basterga: later, you will release him at theGrand Duke's request. What are we the better? What is gained?"

"Safety. "

"No, on the other hand, danger. Danger! For, warned that we havedetected their plot, they will hatch another plot, and instead ofworking as at present under our eyes, they will work below the surfacewith augmented care and secrecy: and will, perhaps, deceive us. No, myfriends"--throwing himself back in his chair with an air of patronage, almost of contempt--for by dint of repeating his argument he had come tobelieve it, and to plume himself upon it--"I look farther ahead thanyou do, and for the sake of future gain am willing to take--presentresponsibility. "

They were silent awhile: his old mastery was beginning to assert itself. Then Petitot spoke. "You take a heavy responsibility, " he said, "a heavycharge, Messer Blondel. What if harm come of it?"

Blondel shrugged his shoulders. 

"You have no wife, Messer Blondel. "

The Fourth Syndic stared. What did the man mean?

"You have no daughters, " Petitot continued, a slight quaver in his tone. "You have no little children, you sleep well of nights, the fall ofwood-ash does not rouse you, you do not listen when you awake. You donot----" he paused, the last barrier of reserve broken down, the tearsstanding openly in his eyes--"it is foolish perhaps--you do not yearn, Messer Blondel, to take all you love in your arms, and shelter them andcover them from the horrors that threaten us, the horrors that may fallon us--any night! You do not"--he looked at Baudichon and the stoutman's face grew pale, he averted his eyes--"you do not dream of thesethings, Messer Blondel, nor awake to fancy them, but we do. We do!" herepeated in accents which went to the hearts of all, "day and night, rising and lying down, waking and sleeping. And we--dare run no risks. "

In the silence which followed Blondel's fingers tapped restlessly on thetable. He cleared his throat and voice. 

"But there, I tell you there are no risks, " he said. He was movednevertheless. 

Petitot bowed, humbly for him. "Very good, " he said. "I do not say thatyou are not right. But----"

"And moment by moment I expect news. It might come at this minute, itmight come at any minute, " the Syndic continued. With a glance at thewindow he moved his chair, as if to shake off the spell that Petitothad cast over him. "Besides--you do not expect the town to be taken inan hour from now?"

"No. "

"In broad daylight?"

Petitot shook his head, "God knows what I expect!" he murmureddespondently. 

"When the information we have points to a night attack?"

Fabri nodded. "That is true, " he said. 

"And the walls are well guarded at night. "

Fabri nodded again. "Yes, " he said, "it is true. I think, MesserPetitot, " he went on, turning to him, "we are a little over-fearful. "

The two others were silent, and Blondel eyed them harshly, aware that hehad mastered them, yet hating them. Petitot's appeal to hisfeelings--which had touched and moved Blondel even while he resented itas something cruel and unfair--had lacked but a little of success. Butmissing, failing by ever so little, it left the three ill-equipped tocontinue the struggle on lower grounds. They sat silent, Fabri almostconvinced, the others dejected: and Blondel sat silent also, hardened byhis victory, and hating them for the manner of it. Was not his life asdear to him as their wives and children were to them? And was it not atstake? Yet he did not whine and pule to them. God! they whine, theycomplain, who had long years to live and rose of mornings withoutcounting the days, and, at the worst and were Geneva taken, had but thecommon risks to run and many a chance of escape! While he--yet he didnot pule to them! He did not stab them unfairly, cruelly, striving toreach their tender spots, to take advantage of their kindness of heart. He had no thought, no notion of betraying them; but, had he such, itwould serve them right! It would repay them selfishness forselfishness, greed for greed! In his place they would not hesitate. Hecould see at what a price they set their petty lives, and how littlethey would scruple to buy them in the dearest market. Well was it forGeneva that it was he and not they whom God saw fit to try. And heglowered at them. Wives and daughters! What were wives and daughtersbeside life, warm life, life stretching forward pleasantly, indefinitely, morning after morning, day after day--life and acontinuance of good things?

Immersed as he was in this train of thought, it was none the less he whofirst caught the sound of a foot on the threshold, and a summons at thedoor. He rose to his feet. Already in his mind's eye he saw Bastergacast to the lions: and why not? The sooner the better if the _remedium_were really at the door. "There may be news even now, " he said, strivingto master his emotion, and to speak with the superiority of a fewminutes before. "One moment, by your leave! I will see and let you knowif it be so, Messer Fabri. "

"Do by all means, " Fabri answered earnestly. "You will greatly relieveme. "

"Ay, indeed, I hope it is so, " Petitot murmured. 

"I will see, and--and return, " Blondel repeated, beginning to stammer. "I--I shall not be a minute. " The struggle for composure was vain; hishead was on fire, his limbs twitched. Had it come?

Yet when he reached the door he paused, afraid to open. What if it werenot the _remedium_, what if it were some trifle? What if--but as hehesitated, his hand, half eager, half reluctant, rested on the latch, the door slid ajar, and his eyes met the complacent smirking face of hismessenger. He fancied that he read success in Gentilis' looks, and hisheart leapt up. "I shall be back in a moment, " he babbled, speaking overhis shoulder to those whom he left. "In a moment, gentlemen, onemoment!" And going out he closed the door behind him--closed itjealously, that they might not hear. 

"I hope he has news will decide him, " Petitot muttered lowering hisvoice involuntarily. "Messer Blondel is over-courageous for me!" Heshook his head dismally. 

"He is very courageous, " Fabri assented in the same undertone. "Perhapseven--a little rash. "

Baudichon grunted. "Rash!" he repeated. "I would like to know what heexpects? I would like to know----"

A cry as of a wild beast cut short the word: a blow, a shriek of painfollowed, the door flew open; as they rose to their feet in wonder, intothe room fell a lad--it was Louis--a red weal across his face, his armraised to protect his head. Close on him, his eyes flaming, his canequivering in the air, pressed Messer Blondel. In their presence he aimedanother blow at the lad: but the blow fell short, and before he couldraise his stick a third time the astonished looks of the three in theroom reminded him where he was, and in a measure sobered him. But he wasstill unable to articulate: and the poor smarting wretch cowering behindthe magistrates was not more deeply or more visibly moved. 

"Steady, steady, Messer Blondel!" Fabri said. "I fear something untowardhas happened. What is it?" And he put himself more decidedly betweenthem. 

"He has ruined us!"

"Not that, I hope?"

"Ruined us! Ruined us!" Blondel panted, his rage almost choking him. "Hehad it in his hands and let it go. He let it go!"

"That which you----"

"That which I"--a pause--"commissioned him to get. "

"But you did not! Oh, worshipful gentlemen, " Gentilis wailed, turning tothem, "indeed, he did not tell me to bring aught but papers! I swear hedid not. "

"Whatever was there, I said! Whatever was there!" the Syndic screamed. 

"No, worshipful sir!" amid a storm of sobs. "No, no! Indeed no! And howwas I to know? There was naught but that in the box, and who would thinktreason lay in a----"

"Mischief lay in it!"

"In a bottle!"

"And treason, " Blondel thundered, drowning his last word, "for aught youknew! Who are you to judge where treason lies, or may lie? Oh, pig, dog, fool, " he continued, carried away by a fresh paroxysm of rage, at thethought that he had had it in his grasp and let it go! "If I could scoreyour back!" And he brandished his cane. 

"You have scored his face pretty fairly, " Baudichon muttered. "To scorehis back too----"

"Were nothing for the offence! Nothing! As you would say if you knewit, " Blondel panted. 

"Indeed?"

"Ay. "

"Then I would like to know it. What is it he has done?"

"He has left undone that which he was ordered to do, " Blondel answeredmore soberly than he had yet spoken. He had recovered something of hispower to reason. "That is what he has done. But for his default weshould at this moment be in a position to seize Basterga. "

"Ay?"

"Ay, and to seize him with proof of his guilt! Proof and to spare. "

"But I could not know, " Louis whimpered. "Worshipful gentlemen, I couldnot know. I could not know what it was you wanted. "

"I told you to bring the contents of the box. "

"Letters, ay! Letters, worthy sir, but not----"

"Silence, and go into that room!" Blondel pointed with a shaking fingerto a small inner serving-room at the end of the parlour. "Go!" herepeated peremptorily, "and stay there until I come to you. "

Then, but not until the lad had taken his tear-bedabbled face into thecloset and had closed the door behind him, the Syndic turned to thethree. "I ask your pardon, " he said, making no attempt to disguise theagitation which still moved him. "But it was enough, it was more thanenough, to try me. " He paused and wiped his brow, on which the sweatstood in beads. "He had under his hand the papers, " looking at them alittle askance as if he doubted whether the explanation would pass, "that we need! The papers that would convict Basterga. And because theydid not wear the appearance he expected--because they were disguised, you understand--they were in a bottle in fact--and were not preciselywhat he expected----"

"He left them?"

"He left them. " There was something like a tear, a leaden drop, in thecorner of the Fourth Syndic's eye. 

"Still if he had access to them once, " Petitot suggested briskly, "whathas been done once may be done twice. He may gain access to them again. Why not?"

"He may, but he may not. Still, I should have thought of that and--andmade allowance, " Blondel answered with a fair show of candour. "But toooften an occasion let slip does not return, as you well know. The leastdisorder in the box he searched may put Basterga on the alert, and wreckmy plans. "

They did not answer. They felt one and all, Petitot and Baudichon noless than Fabri, that they had done this man an injustice. His passion, his chagrin, his singleness of aim, the depth of his disappointment, disarmed even those who were in the daily habit of differing from him. Was this--this the man whom they had secretly accused of lukewarmness?And to whom they had hesitated to entrust the safety of the city? Theyhad done him wrong. They had not credited him with a tithe of thefeeling, the single-mindedness, the patriotism which it was plain hepossessed. 

They stood silent, while Blondel, aware of the precipice, to the vergeof which his improvident passion had drawn him, watched them out of thecorner of his eye, uncertain how far their comprehension of the scenehad gone. He trembled to think how nearly he had betrayed his secret;and took the more shame to himself, inasmuch as in cooler blood he sawthe lad's error to be far from irremediable. As Petitot said, that whichcould be done so easily and quickly could be done a second time. If onlyhe had not struck the lad! If only he had commanded himself, and spokenhim fairly and sent him back! Almost by this time the _remedium_ mightbe here. Ay, here, in the palm of his hand! The reflection stabbedBlondel so poignantly, the sense of his folly went so deep, he groanedaloud. 

That groan fairly won over Baudichon, who was by nature of a kind heart. "Tut, tut, " he said; "you must not take it to heart, Messer Blondel. Tryagain. "

"Unless, indeed, " Petitot murmured, but with respect, "Messer Blondelknows the mistake to be fraught with consequences more grave than wesuppose. "

The Fourth Syndic smiled awry: that was precisely what he did know. But"No, " he said, "the thing can be cured. I am sorry I lost my temper. Nota moment must be wasted, however. I will see this young man: if heraises any difficulty, I have still another agent whom I can employ. Andby to-morrow at latest----"

"You may still have the thing in your hands. "

"I think so. I certainly think so. "

"Good. Then till to-morrow, " Fabri answered, as he took his cap from thetable and with the others turned towards the door. "Good luck, MesserBlondel. We are reassured. We feel that our interests are in goodhands. "

"Yes, " said Petitot almost warmly. "Still, caution, caution! MesserBlondel. One bad man within the gates----"

"May be hung!" Blondel cried gaily. 

"Ay, may be! But unhung is a graver foe than five hundred men without!It is that I would have you bear in mind. "

"I will bear it in mind, " the Fourth Syndic answered. "And when I canhang him, " with a vindictive look, "be sure I will--and high as Haman!"

He attended them with solicitude to the door, being set by what hadhappened a little more upon his behaviour. That done and the outer doorclosed upon them, he returned to the parlour, but did not at once seekthe young man, upon whom he had taken the precaution of turning the key. 

Instead he stood a while, pondering with a pale face; a haggard, palerreplica he seemed of the stiff, hard portrait on the panel over themantel. He was wondering why he had let himself go so foolishly; he wasrecognising with a sinking heart that it was to his illness he owed itthat he had so frequently of late lost control of himself. 

For a man to discover that the power of self-mastery is passing from himis only a degree less appalling than the consciousness of insanityitself; and Blondel cowered, trembling under the thought. If aughtcould strengthen his purpose it was the suspicion that the insidiousdisease from which he suffered was already sapping the outworks of thatmind on whose clever combinations he depended for his one chance ofcure. 

Yet while the thought strengthened, it terrified him. "I must make nosecond mistake--no second mistake!" he muttered, his eyes on the door ofthe serving-room. "No second mistake!" And he waited a while consideringthe matter in all its aspects. Should he tell Louis more than he hadtold him already? It seemed needless. To send the lad with curt, sternwords to fetch that which he had omitted to bring--this seemed the morestraight-forward way: and the more certain, too, since the lad had nowseen the other magistrates, and could have no doubt of their concurrenceor of the importance of the task entrusted to him. Blondel decided onthat course, and advancing to the door he opened it and called to hisprisoner to come out. 

To his credit be it said the sight of the lad's wealed face gave theSyndic something of a shock. He was soon to be more gravely shaken. Instigated partly by curiosity, partly by the desire to fix Louis'scared faculties, he began by asking what was the aspect of the phialwhich the lad had omitted to bring. "What was its colour and size, andhow full was it?" he proceeded, striving to speak gently and to makeallowance for the cowering weakness of the youth before him. "Do youhear?" he urged. "Of what shape was it? You can tell that at least. Youhandled it, I suppose? You took it out of the metal box?"

Louis burst into tears. 

Blondel had much ado--for it was true, he had small command ofhimself--not to strike the lad again. Instead, "Fool, " he said, "what doyour tears help you or advance me? Speak, I tell you, and answer myquestion! What was the appearance of this flask or bottle, or what itwas--that you left there?"

The lad sank to his knees. Fear and pain had robbed him of the pettycunning he possessed. He no longer knew what to tell nor what towithhold. And in a breath the truth was out. "Don't strike me!" hewailed, guarding his smarting face with his arm. "And I'll tell you all!I will indeed!"

The Syndic knew then that there was more to learn. "All?" he repeated, aghast. 

"Ay, the truth. All the truth, " Louis moaned. "I didn't see it. I didnot go to it! I dared not! I swear I dared not. '"

"You did not see it?" the Syndic said slowly. "The phial? You did notsee the phial?"

"No. "

This time Messer Blondel did not strike. He leant heavily upon thetable; his face, which a moment before had been swollen with impatience, turned a sickly white. "You--you didn't see it?" he muttered--his tonehad sunk to a whisper. "You didn't see it? Then all you told me was alie? There was nothing--no bottle in the box? But how, then, did youknow anything of a bottle? Did he"--with a sharp spasm of pain--"sendyou here to tell me this?"

"No, no! She told me. She looked--for me in the box. "

"Who?"

"Anne. Anne Royaume! I was afraid, " the lad continued, speaking with alittle more confidence, as he saw that the Syndic made no movement tostrike him, "and she said that she would look for me. She could go tohis room, and run little risk. But if he had caught me there he wouldhave killed me! Indeed he would!" Louis repeated desperately, as heread the storm-signs that began to darken the Syndic's face. 

"You told her then?"

"I could not do it myself! I could not indeed. "

He cowered lower; but he fared better than he expected. The Syndic drewa long fluttering breath, a breath of returning life, of returning hope. The colour, too, began to come back to his cheeks. After all, it mighthave been worse. He had thought it worse. He had thought himselfdiscovered, tricked, discomfited by the man against whom he had pittedhis wits, with his life for stake. Whereas--it seemed a small thing incomparison--this meant only the inclusion of one more in the secret, therunning of one more risk, the hazarding another tongue. And the lad hadnot been so unwise. She had easier access to the room than he, and ranless risk of suspicion or detection. Why not employ her in place of thelad?

The youth grovelling before him wondered to see him calm, and pluckingup spirit stood upright. "You must go back to her, and ask her to get itfor you, " Blondel said firmly. "You can be back within the half-hour, bringing it. "

Louis began to shrink. His eyes sank. "She will not give it me, " hemuttered. 

"No?" Blondel, as he repeated the word, wondered at his own moderation. But the shock had been heavy; he felt the effect of it. He was languid, almost half-hearted. Moreover, a new idea had taken root in his mind. "You can try her, " he said. 

"I can try her, but she will not give it me, " Louis repeated with a newobstinacy. As the Syndic grew mild he grew sullen. The change was in theother, not in himself. Subtly he knew that the Syndic was no longer inthe mood to strike. 

Blondel ruminated. It might be better, it might even be safer, if he sawthe girl himself. The story--of treason and a bottle--which had imposedon his colleagues might not move her much. It might be wiser to attackher on other grounds, grounds on which women lay more open. Andself-pity whispered with a tear that the truth, than which he couldconceive nothing more moving, nothing more sublimely sad, might gofarther with a woman than bribes or threats or the most skilfulinventions. He made up his mind. He would tell the truth, or somethinglike it, something as like it as he dared tell her. 

"Very well, " he said, "you can go! But be silent! A word to him--I shalllearn it sooner or later--and you perish on the wheel! You can go now. Ishall put the matter in other hands. "

CHAPTER XIII. 

A MYSTERY SOLVED. 

Whether Basterga, seeing that Claude was less pliant than he had lookedto find him, shunned occasion of collision with him, or the Paduan beingin better spirits was less prone to fall foul of his companions, certainit is that life for a time after the outbreak at supper ran more quietlyin the house in the Corraterie. Claude's gloomy face--he had notforgiven--bade beware of him; and little save on the subject of Louis'disfigured cheek--of which the most pointed questions could extract noexplanation--passed among them at table. But outward peace was preservedand a show of ease. Grio's brutal nature broke out once or twice when hehad had wine; but discouraged by Basterga, he subsided quickly. AndLouis, starting at a voice and trembling at a knock, with the fear ofthe Syndic always upon him, showed a nervousness which more than oncedrew the Italian's eye to him. But on the whole a calm prevailed; astranger entering at noon or during the evening meal might have deemedthe party ill-assorted and silent, but lacking neither in amity norease. 

Meantime, under cover of this calm, destined to be short-lived andholding in suspense the makings of a storm of no mean violence, twopersons were drawing nearer to one another. A confidence, even aconfidence not perfect, is a tie above most. Nor does love play at anytime a higher part than when it repeats "I do not understand--I trust". By the common light of day, which showed Anne moving to and fro abouther household tasks, at once the minister and the providence of thehome, the dark suspicion that had for a moment--a moment only!--masteredClaude's judgment, lost shape and reality. It was impossible to see herbending over the hearth, or arranging her mother's simple meal, it wasimpossible to witness her patience, her industry, her deftness, tobehold her, ever gentle yet supporting with a man's fortitude the trialsof her position, trials of the bitterness of which she had given himproof--it was impossible, in a word, to watch her in her daily life, without perceiving the wickedness as well as the folly of the thoughtwhich had possessed him. 

True, the more he saw of her the graver seemed the mystery; and the moredeeply he wondered. But he no longer dreaded the answer to the riddle;nor did he fear to meet at some turn or corner a Megæra head that shouldfreeze his soul. Wickedness there might be, cruelty there might be, andshame; but the blood ran too briskly in his veins and he had looked toooften into the girl's candid eyes--reading something there which had notbeen there formerly--to fear to find either at her door. 

He had taken to coming to the living-room a little before nightfall;there he would seat himself beside the hearth while she prepared theevening meal. The glow of the wood-fire, reflected in rows of burnishedpewters, or given back by the night-backed casements, the savour of thecoming meal, the bubbling of the black pot between which and the tableher nimble feet carried her a dozen times in as many minutes, thepleasant, homely room with its touches of refinement and its wintercomfort, these were excuses enough had he not brought the book which layunheeded on his knee. 

But in truth he offered her no excuse. With scarce a word anunderstanding had grown up between them that not a million words couldhave made more clear. Each played the appropriated part. He looked andshe bore the look, and if she blushed the fire was warrant, and if hestared it was the blind man's hour between day and night, and why shouldhe not sit idle as well as another? Soon there was not a turn of herhead or a line of her figure that he did not know; not a trick of herwalk, not a pose of her hand as she waited for a pot to boil that hecould not see in the dark; not a gleam from her hair as she stooped tothe blaze, nor a turn of her wrist as she shielded her face that was notas familiar to him as if he had known her from childhood. 

In these hours she let the mask fall. The apathy, which had been theleast natural as it had been the most common garb of her young face, andwhich had grown to be the cover and veil of her feelings, dropped fromher. Seated in the shadow, while she moved, now in the glow of theburning embers, now obscured, he read her mind without disguise--save inone dark nook--watched unrebuked the eye fall and the lip tremble, or inrarer moments saw the shy smile dimple the corner of her cheek. Notseldom she stood before him sad: sad without disguise, her bowed headand drooping shoulders the proof of gloomy thoughts, that strayed, hefancied, far from her work or her companion. And sometimes a tear felland she wiped it away, making no attempt to hide it; and sometimes shewould shiver and sigh as if in pain or fear. 

At these times he longed for Basterga's throat; and the blood of oldEnguerrande de Beauvais, his ancestor, dust these four hundred years at"Damietta of the South, " raced in him, and he choked with rage andgrief, and for the time could scarcely see. Yet with this pulse of wrathwere mingled delicious thrills. The tear which she did not hide fromhim was his gage of love. The brooding eye, the infrequent smile, thestart, the reverie were for him only, and for no other. They were thegift to him of her secret life, her inmost heart. 

It was an odd love-making, and bizarre. To Grio, even to men moredelicate and more finely wrought, it might have seemed no love-making atall. But the wood-smoke that perfumed the air, sweetened it, thefirelight wrapped it about, the pots and pans and simple things of life, amid which it passed, hallowed it. His eyes attending her hither andthither without reserve, without concealment, unabashed, laid his heartat her feet, not once, but a hundred times in the evening; and as often, her endurance of the look, more rarely her sudden blush or smile, accepted the offering. 

And scarce a word said: for though they had the room to themselves, theyknew that they were never alone or unheeded. Basterga, indeed, sat abovestairs and only descended to his meals; and Grio also was above when hewas not at the tavern. But Louis sulked in his closet beside them, divided from them only by a door, whence he might emerge at any minute. As a fact he would have emerged many times, but for two things. Thefirst was his marked face, which he was chary of showing; the second, the notion which he had got that the balance of things in the house waschanging, and the reign of petty bullying, in which he had so muchdelighted, approaching its end. With Basterga exposed to arrest, and thegirl's help become of value to the authorities, it needed little acumento discern this. He still feared Basterga; nay, he lived in such terror, lest the part he had played should come to the scholar's ears, that heprayed for his arrest night and morning, and whenever during the day anespecial fit of dread seized him. But he feared Anne also, for she mightbetray him to Basterga; and of young Mercier's quality--that he was noTissot to be brow-beaten, or thrust aside--he had had proof on the nightof the fracas at supper. Essentially a coward, Louis' aim was to be onthe stronger side; and once persuaded that this was the side on whichthey stood, he let them be. 

On several consecutive evenings the two passed an hour or more in thissilent communion. On the last the door of Louis' room stood open, theyoung man had not come in, and for the first time they were reallyalone. But the fact did not at once loosen Claude's tongue; and if thegirl noticed it, or expected aught to come of it, more than had come oftheir companionship on other evenings, she hid her feelings with awoman's ease. He remarked, however, that she was more thoughtful anddowncast than usual, and several times he saw her break off in themiddle of a task and listen nervously as for something she expected. Presently:--

"Are you listening for Louis?" he asked. 

She turned on him, her eyes less kind than usual. "No, " she said, almostdefiantly. "Was I listening?"

"I thought so, " he said. 

She turned away again, and went on with her work. But by-and-by as shestooped over the fire a tear fell and pattered audibly in the wood-ashon the hearth; and another. With an impatient gesture she wiped away athird. He saw all--she made no attempt to hide them--and he bit his lipand drove his finger-ends into his palms in the effort to be silent. Presently he had his reward. 

"I am sorry, " she said in a low tone. "I was listening, and I knew Iwas. I do not know why I deceived you. "

"Why will you not tell me all?" he cried. 

"I cannot!" she answered, her breast heaving passionately. "I cannot!"For the first time in his knowledge of her, she broke down completely, and sinking on a bench with her back to the table she sobbed bitterly, her face in her hands. For some minutes she rocked herself to and fro ina paroxysm of trouble. 

He had risen and stood watching her awkwardly, longing to comfort her, but ignorant how to go about it, and feeling acutely his helplessnessand his _gaucherie_. Sad she had always been, and at her bestdespondent, with gleams of cheerfulness as fitful as brief. But thisevening her abandonment to her grief convinced him that something morethan ordinary was amiss, that some danger more serious than ordinarythreatened. He felt no surprise therefore when, a little later, shearrested her sobbing, raised her head, and with suspended breath andtear-stained face listened with that scared intentness which hadimpressed him before. 

She feared! He could not be mistaken. Fear looked out of her strainedeyes, fear hung breathless on her parted lips. He was sure of it. And"Is it Basterga?" he cried. "Is it of him that you are afraid? If youare----"

"Hush!" she cried, raising her hand in warning. "Hush!" And then, "Youdid not--hear anything?" she asked. For an instant her eyes met his. 

"No. " He met her look, puzzled; and, obeying her gesture, he listenedafresh. "No, I heard nothing. But----"

He heard nothing even now, nothing; but whatever it was sharpened herhearing to an abnormal pitch, it was clear that she did. She was on herfeet; with a startled cry she was round the table and half-way acrossthe room, while he stared, the word suspended on his lips. A second, andher hand was on the latch of the staircase door. Then as she opened it, he sprang forward to accompany her, to help her, to protect her ifnecessary. "Let me come!" he said. "Let me help you. Whatever it is, Ican do something. "

She turned on him fiercely. "Go back!" she said. All the confidence, the gentleness, the docility of the last three days were gone; and intheir place suspicion glared at him from eyes grown spiteful as a cat's. "Go back!" she repeated. "I do not want you! I do not want any one, orany help! Or any protection! Go, do you hear, and let me be!"

As she ceased to speak, a sound from above stairs--a sound which thistime, the door being open, did reach his ears, froze the words on hislips. It was the sound of a voice, yet no common voice, Heaven bethanked! A moment she continued to confront him, her face one mute, despairing denial! Then she slammed the door in his teeth, and he heardher panting breath and fleeing footsteps speed up the stairs and alongthe passage, and--more faintly now--he heard her ascend the upperflight. Then--silence. 

Silence! But he had heard enough. He paused a moment irresolute, uncertain, his hand raised to the latch. Then the hand fell to his side, he turned, and went softly--very softly back to the hearth. Thefirelight playing on his face showed it much moved; moved and softenedalmost to the semblance of a woman's. For there were tears in hiseyes--eyes singularly bright; and his features worked, as if he had someado to repress a sob. In truth he had. In a breath, in the time it takesto utter a single sound, he had hit on the secret, he had come to thebottom of the mystery, he had learnt that which Basterga, favoured bythe position of his room on the upper floor, had learned two monthsbefore, that which Grio might have learned, had he been anything but thedull gross toper he was! He had learned, or in a moment of intuitionguessed--all. The power of Basterga, that power over the girl which hadso much puzzled and perplexed him, was his also now, to use or misuse, hold or resign. 

Yet his first feeling was not one of joy; nor for that matter hissecond. The impression went deeper, went to the heart of the man. Aninfinite tenderness, a tenderness which swelled his breast to bursting, a yearning that, man as he was, stopped little short of tears, thesewere his, these it was thrilled his soul to the point of pain. The roomin which he stood, homely as it showed, plain as it was, seemedglorified, the hearth transfigured. He could have knelt and kissed thefloor which the girl had trodden, coming and going, serving and makingready--under that burden; the burden that dignified and hallowed thebearer. What had it not cost her--that burden? What had it not meant toher, what suspense by day, what terror of nights, what haggardawakenings--such as that of which he had been the ignorant witness--whatwatches above, what slights and insults below! Was it a marvel that thecheeks had lost their colour, the eyes their light, the whole face itslife and meaning? Nay, the wonder was that she had borne the weight solong, always expecting, always dreading, stabbed in the tenderestaffection; with for confidant an enemy and for stay an ignorant! Viewedthrough the medium of the man's love, which can so easily idealise whereit rests, the love of the daughter for the mother, that must havetouched and softened the hardest--or so, but for the case of Basterga, one would have judged--seemed so holy, so beautiful, so pure a thingthat the young man felt that, having known it, he must be the better forit all his life. 

And then his mind turned to another point in the story, and he recalledwhat had passed above stairs on that day when he had entered a stranger, and gone up. With what a smiling face of love had she leant over hermother's bed. With what cheerfulness had she lied of that which passedbelow, what a countenance had she put on all--no house more prosperous, no life more gay--how bravely had she carried it! The peace and neatnessand comfort of the room with its windows looking over the Rhone valley, and its spinning-wheel and linen chest and blooming bow-pot, all cameback to him; so that he understood many things which had passed beforehim then, and then had roused but a passing and a trifling wonder. 

Her anxiety lest he should take lodging there and add one more to thechances of espial, one more to the witnesses of her misery; her secretnods and looks, and that gently checked outburst of excitement on MadameRoyaume's part, which even at the time had seemed odd--all were plainnow. Ay, plain; but suffused with a light so beautiful, set in anatmosphere so pure and high, that no view of God's earth, even from theeyrie of those lofty windows, and though dawn or sunset flung itsfairest glamour over the scene, could so fill the heart of man withgratitude and admiration!

Up and down in the days gone by, his thoughts followed her through thehouse. Now he saw her ascend and enter, and finding all well, mask--butat what a cost--her aching heart under smiles and cheerful looks andsoft laughter. He heard the voice that was so seldom heard downstairsmurmur loving words, and little jests, and dear foolish trifles; heardit for the hundredth time reiterate the false assurances that affectionhallowed. He was witness to the patient tendance, the pious offices, thetireless service of hand and eye, that went on in that room under thetiles; witness to the long communion hand in hand, with the world shutout; to the anxious scrutiny, to the daily departure. A sad departure, though daily and more than daily taken; for she who descended carried aweight of fear and anxiety. As she came down the weary stairs, stage bystage, he saw the brightness die from eye and lip, and pale fear or dulldespair seize on its place. He saw--and his heart was full--the slenderfigure, the pallid face enter the room in which he stood--it might be atthe dawning when the cold shadow of the night still lay on all, from thedead ashes on the hearth to the fallen pot and displaced bench; or itmight be at mid-day, to meet sneers and taunts and ignoble looks; andhis heart was full. His face burned, his eyes filled, he could havekissed the floor she had walked over, the wooden spoon her hand hadtouched, the trencher-edge--done any foolish thing to prove his love. 

Love? It was a deeper thing than love, a holier, purer thing--that whichhe felt. Such a feeling as the rough spearsmen of the Orléannais had forJoan the maid; or the great Florentine for the girl whom he saw for thefirst time at the banquet in the house of the Portinari; or as that man, who carried to his grave the Queen's glove, yet had never touched itwith his bare hand. 

Alas, that such feelings cannot last, nor such moments endure; that inthe footsteps of the priest, be he never so holy, treads ever thegrinning acolyte with his mind on sweet things. They pass, thesefeelings, and too quickly. But once to have had them, once to have livedsuch moments, once to have known a woman and loved her in such wiseleaves no man as he was before; leaves him at the least with a memory ofa higher life. 

That the acolyte in Claude's case took the form of Louis Gentilis madehim no more welcome. Claude was still dreaming on his feet, stillviewing in a kind of happy amaze the simple things about him, thingsthat for him wore

 The light that never was on land or sea, and that this world puts on but once for each of us, when Gentilisopened the door and entered, bringing with him a rush of rain, and agust of night air. He breathed quickly as if he had been running, yethaving closed the door, he paused before he advanced into the room; andhe seemed surprised, and at a nonplus. After a moment, "Supper is notready?" he said. 

"It is not time, " Claude answered curtly. The vision of an angel doesnot necessarily purify at all points, and he had small stomach forMaster Louis at any time. 

The youth winced under the tone, but stood his ground. 

"Where is Anne?" he asked, something sullenly. 

"Upstairs. Why do you ask?"

"Messer Basterga is not coming to supper. Nor Grio. They bade me tellher. And that they would be late. "

"Very well, I will tell her. "

But it was evident that that was not all Louis had in his mind. Heremained fidgeting by the door, his cap in his hand; and his face, hadClaude marked it--but he had already turned a contemptuous shoulder onhim--was a picture of doubt and indecision. At length, "I've a messagefor you, " he muttered nervously. "From Messer Blondel the Syndic. Hewants to see you--now. "

Claude turned, and if he had not looked at the other before, he made upfor it now. "Oh!" he said at last, after a stare that bespoke bothsurprise and suspicion. "He does, does he? And who made you hismessenger?"

"He met me in the street--just now. "

"He knows you, then?"

"He knows I live here, " Louis muttered. 

"He pays us a vast amount of attention, " Claude replied with politeirony. "Nevertheless"--he turned again to the fire--"I cannot pleasurehim, " he continued curtly, "this time. "

"But he wants to see you, " Gentilis persisted desperately. It was plainthat he was on pins and needles. "At his house. Cannot you believe me?"in a querulous tone. "It is all fair and above board. I swear it is. "

"Is it?"

"It is--I swear it is. He sent me. Do you doubt me?" he added withundisguised eagerness. 

Claude was about to say, with no politeness at all, that he did, and torepeat his refusal in stronger terms, when his ear caught the same soundwhich had revealed so much to him a few minutes earlier at the foot ofthe stairs. It came more faintly this time, deadened by the closed doorof the staircase, but to his enlightened senses it proclaimed so clearlywhat it was--the echo of a cracked, shrill voice, of a laugh insane, uncanny, elfish--that he trembled lest Louis should hear it also andgain the clue. That was a thing to be avoided at all costs; and even asthis occurred to him he saw the way to avoid it. Basterga and Grio wereabsent: if this fool could be removed, even for an hour or two, Annewould have the house to herself, and by midnight the crisis might beoverpast. 

"I will come with you, " he said. 

Louis uttered a sigh of relief. He had expected--and he had very nearlyreceived--another answer. "Good, " he said. "But he does not want me. "

"Both or neither, " Claude replied coolly. "For all I know 'tis anambush. "

"No, no!"

"In which event I shall see that you share it. Or it may be a scheme todraw me from here, and then if harm be done while I am away----"

"Harm? What harm?" Louis muttered. 

"Any harm! If harm be done, I say, I shall then have you at hand to payme for it. So--both or neither!"

For a moment Louis' hang-dog face--none the handsomer for the mark ofthe Syndic's cane--spelt refusal. Then he changed his mind. He noddedsulkily. "Very well, " he said. "But it is raining, and I have no greatwish to--Hush! What is that?" He raised his hand in the attitude of onelistening and his eyes sought his companion's. "What is that? Did younot hear something--like a scream upstairs?"

"I hear something like a fool downstairs!" Claude retorted gruffly. 

"But it was--I certainly heard something!" Louis persisted, raising hishand again. "It sounded----"

"If we are to go, let us go!" Claude cried with temper. "Come, if youwant me to go! It is not my expedition, " he continued, moving noisilyhither and thither in search of his staff and cloak. "It is your affair, and--where is my cap?"

"I should think it is in your room, " Louis answered meekly. "It was onlythat I thought it might be Anne. That there might be----"

"Two fools in the house instead of one!" Claude broke in, emergingnoisily, and slamming the door of his closet behind him. "There, come, and we may hope to be back to supper some time to-night! Do you hear?"And jealously shepherding the other out of the house, he withdrew thekey when both had passed the threshold. Locking the door on the outside, he thrust the key under it. "There!" he said, smiling at his cleverness, "now, who enters--knocks!"

CHAPTER XIV. 

"AND ONLY ONE DOSE IN ALL THE WORLD!"

In his picture of the life led by the two women on the upper floor ofthe house in the Corraterie, that picture which by a singular intuitionhe had conceived on the day of his arrival, Claude had not gone farastray. In all respects but one the picture was truly drawn. Than thelove between mother and daughter, no tie could be imagined at once moresimple and more holy; no union more real and pure than that which boundtogether these two women, left lonely in days of war and trouble in themidst of a city permanently besieged and menaced by an enduring peril. Almost forgotten by the world below, which had its own cares, itsalarums and excursions, its strivings and aims, they lived for oneanother. The weak health of the one and the brave spirit of the otherhad gradually inverted their positions; and the younger was mother, theelder, daughter. Yet each retained, in addition, the pious instincts ofthe original relation. To each the welfare of the other was the primethought. To give the other the better portion, be it of food or wine, offreedom from care, or ease of mind, and to take the worse, was to eachthe ground plan of life, as it was its chiefest joy. 

In their eyrie above the anxious city they led an existence all theirown. Between them were a hundred jests, Greek to others; and whimsicalways, and fond sayings and old smiles a thousand times repeated. Andthings that must be done after one fashion or the sky would fall; andothers that must be done after another fashion or the world would end. When the house was empty of boarders, or nearly empty--though at suchtimes the cupboard also was apt to be bare--there were long hours spentupstairs and surveys of household gear, carried up with difficulty, andreviews of linen and much talk of it, and small meals, taken at the openwindows that looked over the Rhone valley and commanded the sunset view. Such times were times of gaiety though not of prosperity, and far fromthe worst hours of life--had they but persisted. 

But in the March of 1601 a great calamity fell on these two. A fire, which consumed several houses near the Corraterie, and flung widethrough the streets the rumour that the enemy had entered, struck thebedridden woman--aroused at midnight by shouts and the glare offlames--with so dire a terror, not on her own account but on herdaughter's, that she was never the same again. For weeks at a time sheappeared to be as of old, save for some increase of weakness andtremulousness. But below the surface the brain was out of poise, andunder the least pressure of excitement she betrayed the change in amanner so appalling--by the loud negation of those beliefs which insaner moments were most dear to her, and especially by a denial of theProvidence and goodness of God--that even her child, even the being whoknew her and loved her best, shuddered lest Satan, visible andtriumphant, should rise to confront her. 

Fortunately the fits of this mysterious malady were short as they wereappalling, and to the minds of that day, suspicious. And in thebeginning Anne had the support of an old physician, well-nigh their onlyintimate. True, even he was scared by a form of disease, new and beyondhis science; but he prescribed a sedative and he kept counsel. He wentfurther: for sufficiently enlightened himself to believe in theinnocence of these attacks, he none the less explained to the daughterthe peril to which her mother's aberrations must expose her were theyknown to the vulgar; and he bade her hide them with all the careimaginable. 

Anne, on this would fain have adopted the safest course and kept thehouse empty; to the end that to the horror of her mother's fits ofdelirium might not be added the chance of eavesdropping. But to do thiswas to starve, as well as to reveal to Madame Royaume the fact of thoseseizures of which no one in the world was more ignorant than the goodwoman who suffered under them. It followed that to Anne's burden ofdread by reason of the outer world, whom she must at all costs deceive, was added the weight of concealment from the one from whom she had neverkept anything in her life. A thing which augmented immeasurably theloneliness of her position and the weight of her load. 

Presently the drama, always pitiful, increased in intensity. The oldleech who had been her stay and helper died, and left her to face thedanger alone. A month later Basterga discovered the secret andhenceforth held it over her. From this time she led a life of whichClaude, in his dreams upon the hearth, exaggerated neither the tragedynor the beauty. The load had been heavy before. Now to fear was addedcontumely, and to vague apprehensions the immediate prospect ofdiscovery and peril. The grip of the big scholar, subtle, cruel, tightening day by day and hour by hour, was on her youth; slowly itparalysed in her all joy, all spirit, all the impulses of life and hope, that were natural to her age. 

That through all she showed an indomitable spirit, we know. We have seenhow she bore herself when threatened from an unexpected quarter on themorning when Claude Mercier, after overhearing her mother's ravings, hadhis doubts confirmed by the sight of her depression on the stairs. Howboldly she met his attack, unforeseen as it was, how bravely sheshielded her other and dearer self, how deftly she made use of thechance which the young man's soberer sense afforded her, will beremembered. But not even in that pinch, no, nor in that worse hour whenBasterga, having discovered his knowledge to her, gave her--as a catplays with a mouse which it is presently to tear to pieces--a little lawand a little space, did she come so near to despair as on this eveningwhen the echo of her mother's insane laughter drew her from theliving-room at an hour without precedent. 

For hitherto Madame Royaume's attacks had come on in the night only. With a regularity not unknown in the morbid world they occurred aboutmidnight, an hour when her daughter could attend to her and when thehouse below lay wrapped in sleep. A change in this respect doubled thedanger, therefore. It did more: the prospect of being summoned at anyhour shook, if it did not break, the last remains of Anne's strength. Tobe liable at all times to such interruptions, to tremble while serving ameal or making a bed lest the dreadful sound arise and reveal all, tolisten below and above and never to feel safe for a minute, never!never!--who could face, who could endure, who could lie down and rise upunder this burden?

It could not be. As Anne ascended the stairs she felt that the end wascoming, was come. Strive as she might, war as she might, with all theinstinct, all the ferocity, of a mother defending her young, the end wascome. The secret could not be kept long. Even while she administered themedicine with shaking hands, while with tears in her voice she stroveto still the patient and silence her wild words, even while sherestrained by force the feeble strength that would and could not, whilein a word she omitted no precaution, relaxed no effort, her heart toldher with every pulsation that the end was come. 

And presently, when Madame was quiet and slept, the girl bowed her headover the unconscious object of her love and wept, bitterly, passionately, wetting with her tears the long grey hair that strewed thepillow, as she recalled with pitiful clearness all the stages ofconcealment, all the things which she had done to avert this end. Vainly, futilely, for it was come. The dark mornings of winter recurredto her mind, those mornings when she had risen and dressed herself byrushlight, with this fear redoubling the chill gloom of the cold house;the nights, too, when all had been well, and in the last hour beforesleep, finding her mother sane and cheerful, she had nursed the hopethat the latest attack might be the last. The evenings brightened bythat hope, the mornings darkened by its extinction, the rare hours ofbrooding, the days and weeks of brave struggle, of tendance neverfailing, of smiles veiling a sick heart--she lived all these again, looking pitifully back, straining tenderly in her arms the dear beingshe loved. 

And then, stabbing her back to life in the midst of her exhaustion, thethought pierced her that even now she was hastening the end by herabsence. They would be asking for her below; they must be asking for heralready. The supper-time was come, was past, perhaps; and she was notthere! She tried to picture what would happen, what already must behappening; and rising and dashing the tears from her face she stoodlistening. Perhaps Claude would make some excuse to the others; or, perhaps--how much had he guessed?

Her mother was passive now, sunk in the torpor which followed theattack and from which the poor woman would awake in happyunconsciousness of the whole. Anne saw that her charge might be left, and hastily smoothing the tangle of luxuriant hair which had fallenabout her face, she opened the door. Another might have stayed to allaythe fever of her cheeks, to remove the traces of her tears, to stay thequivering of her hands; but such small cares were not for her, nor forthe occasion. She could form no idea of the length of time she had spentupstairs, a half-hour, or an hour and a half; and without more ado sheraised the latch, slipped out, and turning the key on her patient randown the upper flight of stairs. 

She anticipated many things, but not that which she encountered--silenceon the upper landing, and below when she had descended and opened thestaircase door--an empty room. The place was vacant; the tables were asshe had left them, half laid; the pot was gently simmering over thefire. 

What had happened? The supper-hour was past, yet none of the four whoshould have sat down to the meal were here. Had they overheard hermother's terrible cry--those words which voiced the woman's despair onfinding, as she fancied, the city betrayed? And were they gone todenounce her? The thought was discarded as soon as formed; and beforeshe could hit on a second explanation a hasty knocking on the doorturned her eyes that way. 

The four who lodged in the house were not in the habit of knocking, forthe door was only locked at night when the last retired. She approachedit then, wondering, hesitated an instant, and at last, collecting hercourage, raised the latch. The door resisted her impulse. It was locked. 

She tried it twice, and it was only as she drew back the second timethat she saw the key lying at the foot of the door. That deepened themystery. Why had they locked her in? Why, when they had done so, hadthey thrust the key under the door and so placed it in her power? HadClaude Mercier done it that the others might not enter to hear what hehad heard and discover what he had discovered? Possibly. In which casethe knocker--who at that instant made a second and more earnest attackupon the door--must be one of the others, and the sooner she opened thedoor the less would be the suspicion created. 

With an apology trembling on her lips she hastened to open. Then shestood bewildered; she saw before her, not one of the lodgers, but MesserBlondel. "I wish to speak to you, " the magistrate said with firmness. Before she knew what was happening he had motioned to her to go beforehim into the house, and following had locked the door behind them. 

She knew him by sight, as did all Geneva; and the blood, which surpriseat the sight of a stranger had brought to her cheeks, fled as sherecognised the Syndic. Had they betrayed her, then, while she lingeredupstairs? Had they locked her in while they summoned the magistrate? Andwas he here to make inquiries about--something he had heard?

His voice cut short her thoughts without allaying her fears. "I wish tospeak to you alone, " he said. "Are you alone, girl?" His manner wasquiet, but masked excitement. His eyes scrutinised her and searched theroom by turns. 

She nodded, unable to speak. 

"There is no one in the house with you?"

"Only my mother, " she murmured. 

"She is bedridden, is she not? She cannot hear us?" he added, frowning. 

"No, but I am expecting the others to return. "

"Messer Basterga?"

"Yes. "

"He will not return before morning, " the Syndic replied with decision, "nor his companion. The two young men are safe also. If you are alone, therefore, I wish to speak to you. "

She bowed her head, trembling and wondering, fearing what the nextmoment might disclose. 

"The young man who lodges here--of the name of Gentilis--he came to yousome time ago and told you that the State needed certain letters whichthe man Basterga kept in a steel box upstairs? That is so, is it not?"

"Yes, Messer Syndic. "

"And you looked for them?"

"Yes, I--I was told that you desired them. "

"You found a phial? You found a phial?" the Syndic repeated, passing histongue over his lips. His face was flushed; his eyes shone with apeculiar brightness. 

"I found a small bottle, " she answered slowly. "There was nothing else. "

He raised his hand. If she had known how the delay of a second torturedhim! "Describe it to me!" he said. "What was it like?"

Wondering, the girl tried to describe it. "It was small and of a strangeshape, of thin glass, Messer Syndic, " she said. "Shot with gold, orthere was gold afloat in the liquid inside. I do not know which. "

"It was not empty?"

"No, it was three parts full. "

His hand went to his mouth, to hide the working of his lips. "And therewas with it--a paper, I think?"

"No. "

"A scrap of parchment then? Some words, some figures?" His voice roseas he read a negative in her face. "There was something, surely?"

"There was nothing, " she said. "Had there been a scrap even ofwriting----"

"Yes, yes?" He could not control his impatience. 

"I should have sent it to you. I should have thought, " she continuedearnestly, "that it was that you needed, Messer Syndic; that it was thatthe State needed. But there was nothing. "

"Well, be there papers with it or be there not, I must have that phial!"

Anne stared. "But I do not think"--she ventured with hesitation--andthen as she gained courage, she went on more firmly--"that I can takeit! I dare not, Messer Syndic. "

"Why not?"

"Papers for the State--were one thing, " she stammered in confusion; "butto take this--a bottle--would be stealing!"

The Syndic's eyes sparkled. His passion overcame him. "Girl, don't playwith me!" he cried. "Don't dare to play with me!" And then as she shrankback alarmed by his tone, and shocked by this sudden peeping forth ofthe tragic and the real, lo, in a twinkling he was another man, trembling, and holding out shaking hands to her. "Get it for me!" hesaid. "Get it for me, girl! I will tell you what it is! If I had toldyou before, I had had it now, and I should be whole and well! whole andwell. You have a heart and can pity! Women can pity. Then pity me! I amrich, but I am dying! I am a dying man, rising up and lying down, counting the days as I walk the streets, and seeing the shroud risehigher and higher upon my breast!"

He paused for breath, endeavouring to gain some command of himself;while she, carried off her feet by this rush of words, stared at him instupefaction. Before he came he had made up his mind to tell her thetruth--or something like the truth. But he had not intended to tell thetruth in this way until, face to face with her and met by her scruples, he let the impulse to tell the whole carry him away. 

He steadied his lips with a shaking hand. "You know now why I want it, "he resumed, speaking huskily and with restrained emotion. "'Tis life!Life, girl! In that"--he fought with himself before he could bring outthe word--"in that phial is my life! Is life for whoever takes it! It isthe _remedium_, it is strength, life, youth, and but one--but one dosein all the world! Do you wonder--I am dying!--that I want it? Do youwonder--I am dying!--that I will have it? But"--with a strange grimaceintended to reassure her--"I frighten you, I frighten you. "

"No!" she said, though in truth she had unconsciously retreated almostto the door of the staircase before his extended hands. "But I--Iscarcely understand, Messer Blondel. If you will please to tell me----"

"Yes, yes!"

"What Messer Basterga--how he comes to have this?" She must parley withhim until she could collect her thoughts; until she could make up hermind whether he was sane or mad and what it behoved her to do. 

"Comes to have it!" he cried vehemently. "God knows! And what matter?'Tis the _remedium_, I tell you, whoever has it! It is life, strength, youth!" he repeated, his eyes glittering, his face working, and theimpulse to tell her not the truth only, but more even than the truth, ifhe might thereby dazzle her, carrying him away. "It is health of body, though you be dying, as I am! And health of mind though you bepossessed of devils! It is a cure for all ills, for all weaknesses, alldiseases, even, " with a queer grimace, "for the Scholar's evil! Thinkyou, if it were not rare, if it were not something above the common, ifit were not what leeches seek in vain, I should be here! I should havemore than enough to buy it, I, Messer Blondel of Geneva!" He ceased, lacking breath. 

"But, " she said timidly, "will not Messer Basterga give it to you? Orsell it to you?"

"Give it to me? Sell it to me? He?" Blondel's hands flew out and clawedthe air as if he had the Paduan before him, and would tear it from him. "He give it me? No, he will not. Nor sell it! He is keeping it for theGrand Duke! The Grand Duke? Curse him; why should he escape more thananother?"

Anne stared. Was she dreaming or had her brain given way? Or was thisreally Messer Blondel the austere Syndic, this man standing before her, shaking in his limbs as he poured forth this strange farrago of_remedia_ and scholars and princes and the rest? Or if she were not madwas he mad? Or could there be truth, any truth, any fact in the medley?His clammy face, his trembling hands, answered for his belief in it. Butcould there be such a thing in nature as this of which he spoke? She hadheard of panaceas, things which cured all ills alike; but hitherto theyhad found no place in her simple creed. Yet that he believed she couldnot doubt; and how much more he knew than she did! Such things might be;in the cabinets of princes, perhaps, purchasable by a huge fortune andby the labour, the engrossment, the devotion of a life. She did notknow; and for him his acts spoke. 

"It was this that Louis Gentilis was seeking?" she murmured. 

"What else?" he retorted, opening and shutting his hands. "Had I toldhim the truth, as I have told you, the thing had been in my grasp now!"

"But are you sure, " she ventured to ask with respect, "that it will dothese things, Messer Blondel?"

He flung up his hands in a gesture of impatience. "And more! And more!"he cried. "It is life and strength, I tell you! Health and youth! Forbody or mind, for the old or the young! But enough! Enough, girl!" heresumed in an altered tone, a tone grown peremptory and urgent. "Get itme! Do you hear? Stand no longer talking! At any moment they may return, and--and it may be too late. "

Too late! It was too late already. The door shook even as he spoke underan angry summons. As he stiffened where he stood, his eyes fixed uponit, his hand still pointing her to his bidding, a face showed white atthe window and vanished again. An instant he imagined it Basterga's; andhand, voice, eyes, all hung frozen. Then he saw his mistake--towhomsoever the face belonged, it was not Basterga's; and finding voiceand breath again, "Quick!" he muttered fiercely, "do you hear, girl? Getit! Get it before they enter!"

Her hand was on the latch of the inner door. Another second and, swayedby his will, she would have gone up and got the thing he needed, and thestout door would have shielded them, and within the staircase he mighthave taken it from her and no one been the wiser. But as she turned, there came a second attack on the door, so loud, so persistent, sofurious, that she faltered, remembering that the duplicate key ofBasterga's chamber was in her mother's room, and that she must mount tothe top of the house for it. 

He saw her hesitation, and, shaken by the face which had looked in outof the night, and which still might be watching his movements, hisresolution gave way. The habit of a life of formalism prevailed. Thething was as good as his, she would get it presently. Why, then, causetalk and scandal by keeping these persons--whoever they were--outside, when the thing might be had without talk?

"To-night!" he cried rapidly. "Get it to-night, then! Do you hear, girl?You will be sure to get it?" His eyes flitted from her to the door andback again. "Basterga will not return until to-morrow. You will get itto-night!"

She murmured some form of assent. 

"Then open the door! open the door!" he urged impatiently. And with astifled oath, "A little more and they will rouse the town!"

She ran to obey, the door flew open, and into the room bundled firstLouis without his cap; and then on his heels and gripping him by thenape, Claude Mercier. Nor did the latter seem in the least degreeabashed by the presence in which he found himself. On the contrary, helooked at the Syndic, his head high; as if he, and not the magistrate, had the right to an explanation. 

But Blondel had recovered himself. "Come, come!" he said sternly. "Whatis this, young man? Are you drunk?"

"Why was the door locked?"

"That you might not interrupt me, " Blondel replied severely, "while Iasked some questions. I have it in my mind to ask you some also. Youtook him to my house?" he continued, addressing Louis. 

Louis whined that he had. 

"You were late then?" His cold eye returned to Claude. "You were late, Iwarrant. Attend me to-morrow at nine, young man. Do you hear? Do youunderstand?"

"Yes. "

"Then have a care you are there, or the officers will fetch you. Andyou, " he continued, turning more graciously to Anne, "see, young woman, you keep counsel. A still tongue buys friends, and is a service to theState. With that--good-night. "

He looked from one to the other with a sour smile, nodded, and passedout. 

He left Claude staring, and something bewildered in the middle of theroom. The love, the pity, the admiration of which the lad's heart hadbeen full an hour before, still hungered for expression; but it was noteasy to vent such feelings before Louis, nor at a moment when theSyndic's cold eye and the puzzle of his presence there chilled for thetime the atmosphere of the room. 

Claude, indeed, was utterly perplexed by what he had seen; and before hecould decide what he would do, Anne, ignoring the need of explanation, had taken the matter into her own hands. She had begun to set out themeal; and Louis, smiling maliciously, had seated himself in his place. To speak with any effect then, or to find words adequate to the feelingsthat had moved him a while before, was impossible. A moment later, theopportunity was gone. 

"You must please to wait on yourselves, " the girl said wearily. "Mymother is not well, and I may not come down again this evening. " As shespoke, she lifted from the table the little tray which she had prepared. 

He was in time to open the door for her; and even then, had she glancedat him, his eyes must have told her much, perhaps enough. But she didnot look at him. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts; pressingthoughts they must have been. She passed him as if he had been astranger, her eyes on the tray. Worshipping, he stood, and saw her turnthe corner at the head of the flight; then with a full heart he wentback to his place. His time would come. 

And she? At the door of Basterga's room she paused and stood long inthought, gazing at the rushlight she carried on the tray--yet seeingnothing. A sentence, one sentence of all those which Blondel had pouredforth--not Blondel the austere Syndic, who had set the lads aside as ifthey had been schoolboys, but Blondel the man, trembling, holding outsuppliant hands--rang again and again in her ears. 

"It is health of body, though you be dying as I am, and health of mind, though you be possessed of devils!" Health of body! Health of mind!Health of body! Health of mind! The words wrote themselves before hereyes in letters of fire. Health of Body! Health of Mind!

And only one dose in all the world. Only one dose in all the world! Sherecalled that too. 

CHAPTER XV. 

ON THE BRIDGE. 

To say that the Syndic, as soon as he had withdrawn, repented of hisweakness and wished with all his heart that he had not opened until the_remedium_ was in his hand, is only to say that he was human. He didmore than this, indeed. When he had advanced some paces in the directionof the Porte Tertasse he returned, and for a full minute he stood beforethe Royaumes' door irresolute; half-minded to knock and, casting thefear of publicity to the winds, to say that he must have at once thatfor which he had come. He would get it, if he did, he was certain ofthat. And for the rest, what the young men said or thought, or whatothers who heard their story might say or think, mattered not a strawnow that he came to consider it; since he could have Basterga seized onthe morrow, and all would pass for a part of his affair. 

Yet he did not knock. A downward step on the slope of indecision is hardto retrace. He reflected that he would get the _remedium_ in themorning. He would certainly get it. The girl was won over, Basterga wasaway. Practically, he had no one to fear. And to make a stir when thematter could be arranged without a stir was not the part of a wise manin the position of a magistrate. Slowly he turned and walked away. 

But, as if his good angel touched him on the shoulder, under the PorteTertasse he had qualms; and again he stood. And when, after a shorterinterval and with less indecision, he resumed his course, it was by nomeans with the air of a victor. He would receive what he needed in themorning: he dared not admit a doubt of that. And yet--was it a vaguepresentiment that weighed on him as he walked, or only the wintry nightwind that caused the blood to run more slowly and more tamely in hisveins? He had not fared ill in his venture, he had made success certain. And yet he was unreasonably, he was unaccountably, he was undefinablydepressed. 

He grew more cheerful when he had had his supper and seated before ahalf-flagon of wine gave the reins to his imagination. For the space ofa golden hour he held the _remedium_ in his grasp, he felt itslife-giving influence course through his frame, he tasted again ofhealth and strength and manhood, he saw before him years of success andpower and triumph! In comparison to it the bath of Pelias, thoughendowed with the virtues which lying Medea attributed to it, had notseemed more desirable, nor the elixir of life, nor the herb of Anticyra. Nor was it until he had taken the magic draught once and twice andthrice in fancy, and as often hugged himself on health renewed and liferestored that a thought, which had visited him at an earlier period ofthe evening, recurred and little by little sobered him. 

This was the reflection that he knew nothing of the quantity of thepotion which he must take, nothing of the time or of the manner oftaking it. Was it to be taken all at once, or in doses? Pure, or dilutedwith wine, or with water, or with _aqua vitæ_? At any hour, or atmidnight, or at a particular epoch of the moon's age, or when this orthat star was in the ascendant?

The question bulked larger as he considered it; for in life no troubleis surmounted but another appears to confront us; nor is the mostperfect success of an imperfect world without its drawback. Now that heheld the elixir his, now that in fancy he had it in his grasp, theproblem of the mode and the quantity which had seemed trivial andnegligible a few days or hours before, grew to formidable dimensions;nor could he of himself discover any solution of it. He had counted onfinding with the potion some scrap of writing, some memorandum, somehieroglyphics at least, that, interpreted by such skill as he couldcommand, would give him the clue he sought. But if there was nothing, asthe girl asserted, not a line nor a sign, the matter could be resolvedin one way only. He must resort to pressure. With the potion and the manin his possession, he must force the secret from Basterga; force it bythreats or promises or aught that would weigh with a man who layhelpless and in a dungeon. It would not be difficult to get the truth inthat way: not at all difficult. It seemed, indeed, as if Providence--andFabri and Petitot and Baudichon--had arranged to put the man in hispower _ad hoc_. 

He hugged this thought to him, and grew so enamoured of it that hewondered that he had not had the courage to seize Basterga in thebeginning. He had allowed himself to be disturbed by phantoms; there laythe truth. He should have seen that the scholar dared not for his ownsake destroy a thing so precious, a thing by which he might, at theworst, ransom his life. The Syndic wondered that he had not discernedthat point before: and still in sanguine humour he retired to bed, andslept better than he had slept for weeks, ay, for months. The elixir washis, as good as his; if he did not presently have Messer Basterga by thenape he was much mistaken. 

He had had the scholar watched and knew whither he was gone and that hewould not return before noon. At nine o'clock, therefore, the hour atwhich he had directed Claude to come to him at his house, he approachedthe Royaumes' door. Pluming himself on the stratagem by which twice inthe twenty-four hours he had rid himself of an inconvenient witness, heopened the door boldly and entered. 

On the hearth, cap in hand, stood not Claude, but Louis. The lad worethe sneaking air as of one surprised in a shameful action, which suchcharacters wear even when innocently employed. But his actions provedthat he was not surprised. With finger on his lip, and eyes enjoiningcaution, he signed to the Syndic to be silent, and with head aside setthe example of listening. 

The Syndic was not the man to suffer fools gladly, and he opened hismouth. He closed it--all but too late. All but too late, if--the thoughtsent cold shivers down his back--if Basterga had returned. With an airalmost as furtive as that of the lad before him, he signed to him toapproach. 

Louis crossed the room with a show of caution the more strange as theearly December sun was shining and all without was cheerful. "Has hecome back?" Blondel whispered. 

"Claude?"

"Fool!" Low as the Syndic pitched his tone it expressed a world ofcontempt. "No, Basterga?"

The youth shook his head, and again laying his finger to his lipslistened. 

"What! He has not?" Blondel's colour returned, his eyes bulged out withpassion. What did the imbecile mean? Because he knew certain things didhe think himself privileged to play the fool? The Syndic's fingerstingled. Another second and he had broken the silence with a vengeance, when--

"You are--too late!" Louis muttered. "Too late!" he repeated withprotruded lips. 

Blondel glared at him as if he would annihilate him. Too late? What didthis creature know? Or how could it be too late, if Basterga had notreturned? Yet the Syndic was shaken. His fingers no longer tingled forthe other's cheek; he no longer panted to break the silence in a waythat should startle him. On the contrary, he listened; while his eyespassed swiftly round the room, to gather what was amiss. But all seemedin order. The lads' bowls and spoons stood on the table, the great rollof brown bread lay beside them, and a book, probably Claude's, lay facedownwards on the board. The door of one of the bedrooms stood open. TheSyndic's suspicious gaze halted at the closed door. He pointed to it. 

Louis shook his head; then, seeing that this was not enough, "There isno one there, " he whispered. "But I cannot tell you here. I will followyou, honoured sir, to----"

"The Porte Tertasse. "

"Mercier would meet us, by your leave, " Louis rejoined with a faintgrin. 

The magistrate glared at the tool who on a sudden was turned adviser. Still, for the time he must humour him. "The mills, then, on thebridge, " he muttered. And he opened the door with care and went out. With a dreadful sense of coming evil he went along the Corraterie andtook his way down the steep to the bridge which, far below, curbed theblue rushing waters of the Rhone. The roar of the icy torrent and of thebusy mills, stupendous as it was, was not loud enough to deaden the twowords that clung to his ears, "Too late! Too late!" Nor did the frostysunshine, gloriously reflected from the line of snowy peaks to eastward, avail to pierce the gloom in which he walked. For Louis Gentilis, if itshould turn out that he had inflicted this penance for naught, there waspreparing an evil hour. 

The magistrate turned aside on a part of the bridge between two mills. With his back to the wind-swept lake and its wide expanse of ruffledwaves, he stood a little apart from the current of crossers, on a spacekept clear of loiterers by the keen breeze. He seemed, if any curiouseye fell on him, to be engaged in watching the swirling torrent pourfrom the narrow channel beneath him, as in warmer weather many a onestood to watch it. Here two minutes later Louis found him; and ifBlondel still cherished hope, if he still fought against fear, ormaintained courage, the lad's smirking face was enough to end all. 

For a moment, such was the effect on him, Blondel could not speak. Atlast, with an effort, "What is it?" he said. "What has happened?"

"Much, " Louis replied glibly. "Last night, after you had gone, honouredsir, I judged by this and that, that there was something afoot. Andbeing devoted to your interests, and seeking only to serve you----"

"The point! The point!" the Syndic ejaculated. "What has happened?"

"Treachery, " the young man answered, mouthing his words with enjoyment;it was for him a happy moment. "Black, wicked treachery!" with a glancebehind him. "The worst, sir, the worst, if I rightly apprehend thematter. "

"Curse you, " Blondel cried, contrary to his custom, for he was noswearer, "you will kill me, if you do not speak. "

"But----"

"What has happened. What has happened, man!"

"I was going to tell you, honoured sir, that I watched her----"

"Anne? The girl?"

"Yes, and an hour before midnight she took that which you wished me toget--the bottle. She went to Basterga's room, and----"

"Took it! Well? Well?" The Syndic's face, grey a moment before, wasdangerously suffused with blood. The cane that had inflicted the bruiseLouis still wore across his visage, quivered ominously. Public as thebridge was, open to obloquy and remark as an assault must lay him, Blondel was within an inch of striking the lad again. "Well? Well?" herepeated. "Is that all you have to tell me?"

"Would it were!" Louis replied, raising his open hands withsanctimonious fervour. "Alas, sir!"

"You watched her?"

"I watched her back to her room. "

"Upstairs?"

"Yes, the room which she occupies with her mother. And kneeling andlistening, and seeing what I could for your sake, " the knave continued, not a feature evincing the shame he should have felt, "I saw her handlethe phial at a little table opposite the door, but hidden by a curtainfrom the bed. "

The Syndic's eyes conveyed the question his lips refused to frame. Noman, submitted to the torture, has ever suffered more than he wassuffering. 

But Louis had as much mind to avenge himself as the bravest, if he coulddo so safely; and he would not be hurried. "She held it to the light, "he said, dwelling on every syllable, "and turned it this way and that, and I could see bubbles as of gold----"

"Ah!"

"Whirling and leaping up and down in it as if they lived--God guard usfrom the evil one! Then she knelt----"

The Syndic uttered an involuntary cry. 

"And prayed, " Louis continued, confirming his astonishing statement by anod. "But whether to it--'twas on the table before her--or to the devil, or otherwise, I know not. Only"--with damnatory candour--"it had astrange aspect. Certainly she knelt, and it was on the table in front ofher, and her forehead rested on her hands, and----"

"What then? What then? By Heaven, the point!" gasped Blondel, writhingin torture. "What then? blind worm that you are, can you not see thatyou are killing me? What did she do with it? Tell me!"

"She poured it into a glass, and----"

"She drank it?"

"No, she carried it to her mother, " Louis replied as slowly as he dared. Fawning on the hand that had struck him, he would fain bite it if hecould do so safely. "I did not see what followed, " he went on, "theywere behind the screen. But I heard her say that it was Madame'smedicine. And I made out enough----"

"Ah!"

"To be sure that her mother drank it. "

Blondel stared at him a moment, wide-eyed; then, with a cry of despair, bitter, final, indescribable, the Syndic turned and hurried away. He didnot hear the timid remonstrances which Louis, who followed a few pacesbehind, ventured to utter. He did not heed the wondering looks of thosewhom he jostled as he plunged into the current of passers and thrust hisway across the bridge in the direction whence he had come. The oneimpulse in his blind brain was to get home, that he might be alone, tothink and moan and bewail himself unwatched; even as the first instinctof the wounded beast is to seek its lair and lie hidden, there to awaitwith piteous eyes and the divine patience of animals the coming ofdeath. 

But this man had the instinct only, not the patience. In his case wouldcome with thought wild rages, gnawings of regret, tears of blood. Thathe might have, and had not, that he had failed by so little, that hehad been worsted by his own tools--these things and the bitter irony oflife's chances would madden and torment him. In an hour he would live alifetime of remorse; yet find in his worst moments no thought morepoignant than the reflection that had he played the game with courage, had he grasped the nettle boldly, had he seized Basterga while it wasyet time, he might have lived! He might have lived! Ah, God!

Meanwhile Louis, though consumed with desire to see what would happen, remained on the bridge. He had tasted a fearful joy and would fainsavour more of it if he could do so with a whole skin. But to followseemed perilous; he held the Syndic's mood in too great awe for that. Hedid the next best thing. He hastened to a projecting part of the bridgea few paces from the spot where they had conferred; there he raisedhimself on the parapet that he might see which way Blondel turned at theend of the bridge. If he entered the town no more could be made of it:but if he turned right-handed and by the rampart to the Corraterie, Louis' mind was made up to risk something. He would follow to theRoyaumes' house. The magistrate could hardly blame him for going to hisown lodging!

It was a busy hour, and, cold as it was, a fair number of people werepassing between the island and the upper town. For a moment, look as hemight, he could not discern the Syndic's spare figure; and he wasbeginning to think that he had missed him when he saw something that ina twinkling turned his thoughts. On the bank a little beside the end ofthe bridge stood Claude Mercier. He carried a heavy stick in his hand, and he was waiting: waiting, with his eyes fixed on our friend, and alook in those eyes that even at that distance raised a gentle sweat onLouis' brow. 

It required little imagination to follow Claude's past movements. He hadgone to the Syndic's house at nine, and finding himself tricked a secondtime had returned hot-foot to the Corraterie. Thence he had tracked thetwo to this place. But how long had he been waiting, Louis wondered; andhow much had he seen? Something for certain. His face announced that;and Louis, hot all over, despite the keen wind and frosty air, auguredthe worst. Cowards however have always one course open. The way wasclear behind him. He could cross the island to the St. Gervais bank, andif he were nimble he might give his pursuer the slip in the maze ofsmall streets beside the water. It was odd if the lapse of a few hoursdid not cool young Mercier's wrath, and restore him to a frame of mindin which he might be brought to hear reason. 

No sooner planned than done. Or rather it would have been done ifturning to see that the way was clear behind him, Louis had notdiscovered a second watcher, who from a spot on the edge of the islandwas marking his movements with grim attention. This watcher wasBasterga. Moreover the glance which apprised Louis of this showed himthat the scholar's face was as black as thunder. 

Then, if the gods looked down that day upon any mortal with pity, theymust have looked down on this young man; who was a coward. At the oneend of the bridge, Claude, with an ugly weapon and a face to match! Atthe other, Basterga, with a black brow and Heaven alone could say howmuch knowledge of his treachery! The scholar could not know of the lossof the phial, indeed, for it was clear that he had just returned to thecity by the St. Gervais gate. But that he soon would know of it, that heknew something already, that he had been a witness to the colloquy withthe Syndic--this was certain. 

At any rate Louis thought so, and his knees trembled under him. He hadno longer a way of retreat, and out of the corner of his eye he sawClaude beginning to advance. What was he to do? The perspiration burstout on him. He turned this way and that, now casting wild eyes at thewhirling current below, now piteous eyes--the eyes of a calf on its wayto the shambles, and as little regarded--on the thin stream of passers. How could they go on their way and leave him to the mercies of thismadman?

He smothered a shriek as Claude, now less than twenty paces away, sped alook at him. Claude, indeed, was thinking of Anne and her wrongs; and ofa certain kiss. His face told this so plainly, and that passion was hismaster, that Louis' cheek grew white. What if the ruffian threw him intothe river? What if--and then like every coward, he chose the remoterdanger. With Claude at hand, he turned and fled, dashed blindly throughthe passers on the bridge, flung himself on Basterga, and, seizing thebig scholar by the arm, strove to shelter himself behind him. 

"He is mad!" he gasped. "Mad! Save me! He is going to throw me over!"

"Steady!" Basterga answered; and he opposed his huge form to Claude'srush. "What is this, young man? Coming to blows in the street? Forshame! For shame!" He moved again so as still to confront him. 

"Give him up!" Claude panted, scarcely preventing himself from attackingboth. "Give him up, I say, and----"

"Not till I have heard what he has done! Steady, young man, keep yourdistance!"

"I will tell you everything! Everything!" Louis whined, clinging to hisarm. 

"Do you hear what he says?" Basterga replied. "In the meantime, I tellyou to keep your distance, young man. I am not used to be jostled!"

Claude hesitated a moment, scowling. Then, "Very well!" he said, drawingoff with a gesture of menace. "It is only put off: I shall pay himanother time. It is waiting for you, sneak, bear that in mind!" Andshrugging his shoulders he turned with as much dignity as he could andmoved off. 

Basterga wheeled from him to the other. "So!" he said. "You havesomething to tell me, it seems?" And taking the trembling Louis by thearm, he drew him aside, a few paces from the approach of the bridge. Indoing this he hung a moment searching the bridge and the farther bankwith a keen gaze. He knew, and for some hours had known, on what anarrow edge of peril he stood, and that only Blondel's influenceprotected him from arrest. Yet he had returned: he had not hesitated toput his head again into the lion's mouth. Still if Louis' words meantthat certain arrest awaited him, he was not too proud to save himself. 

He could discern no officers on the bridge, and satisfied on the pointof immediate danger, he turned to his shivering ally. "Well, what isit?" he said. "Speak!"

"I'll tell you the truth, " Louis gabbled. 

"You had better!" Basterga replied, in a tone that meant much more thanhe said. "Or you will find me worse to deal with than yonder hot-head! Iwill answer for that. "

"Messer Blondel has been at the house, " Louis murmured glibly, his mindcentred on the question how much he should tell. "Last night and againthis morning. He has been closeted with Anne and Mercier. And there hasbeen some talk--of a box or a bottle. "

"Were they in my room?" Basterga asked, his brow contracting. 

"No, downstairs. "

"Did they get--the box or the bottle?" There was a dangerous note inBasterga's voice; and a look in his eyes that scared the lad. 

Louis, as his instinct was, lied again, fleeing the more pressing peril. "Not to my knowledge, " he said. 

"And you?" The scholar eyed him with bland suavity. "You had nothing todo--with all this, I suppose?"

"I listened. I was in my room, but they thought I was out. When I went, "the liar continued, "they discovered me; and Messer Blondel followed meand overtook me on the bridge and threatened--that he would have mearrested if I were not silent. "

"You refused to be silent, of course?"

But Louis was too acute to be caught in a trap so patent. He knew thatBasterga would not believe in his courage, if he swore to it. "No, Isaid I would be silent, " he answered. "And I should have been, " hecontinued with candour, "if I had not run into your arms. "

"But if you assented to his wish, " Basterga retorted, eyeing him keenly, "why did he depart after that fashion?"

"Something happened to him, " Louis said. "I do not know what. He seemedto be in distress, or to be ill. "

"I could see that, " the scholar answered dryly. "But Master Claude? Whatof him? And why was he so enamoured of you that he could not be partedfrom you?"

"It was to punish me for listening. They followed me different ways. "

"I see. And that is the truth, is it?"

"I swear it is!"

The scholar saw no reason why it should not be the truth. Louis, afacile tool, had always been of his, the stronger, party. If Blondeltampered with any one, he would naturally, if he knew aught of thehouse, suborn Claude or Anne. And Louis, spying and fleeing, and whenovertaken, promising silence, was quite in the picture. The only thing, indeed, which stood out awkwardly, and refused to fall into place, wasthe fashion in which the Syndic had turned and gone off the bridge. Andfor that there might be reasons. He might have been seized with a suddenattack of his illness, or he might have perceived Basterga watching himfrom the farther bank. 

On the whole, the scholar, forgetting that cowards are ever liars, sawno reason to doubt Louis' story. It did but add one more to the motiveshe had for action: immediate, decisive, striking action, if he wouldsave his neck, if he would succeed in his plans. That the Syndic alonestood between him and arrest, that by the Syndic alone he lived, he hadlearned at a meeting at which he had been present the previous night atthe Grand Duke's country house four leagues distant. D'Albigny had beenthere, and Brunaulieu, Captain of the Grand Duke's Guards, and FatherAlexander, who dreamed of the Episcopate of Geneva, and others--thechiefs of the plot, his patrons. To his mortification they had been ableto tell him things he had not learned, though he was within the city, and they without. Among others, that the Council had certain knowledgeof him and his plans, and but for the urgency of Blondel would havearrested him a fortnight before. 

His companions at the midnight supper had detected his dismay, and hadderided him, thinking that with that there was an end of the mysteriousscheme which he had refused to impart. They fancied that he would notreturn to the city, or venture his head a second time within the lion'sjaws. But they reckoned without their man, Basterga with all his faultswas brave; and he had failed in too many schemes to resign this onelightly. 

 "Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinæ, "

he murmured; and he had ventured, he had passed the gates, he was here. Here, with his eyes open to the peril, and open to the necessity ofimmediate action if the slender thread by which all hung were not tosnap untimely. 

Blondel! He lived by Blondel. And Blondel--why had he left the bridge inthat strange fashion? Abruptly, desperately, as if something hadbefallen him. Why? He must learn, and that quickly. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

A GLOVE AND WHAT CAME OF IT. 

Meanwhile, Claude, robbed of his prey, had gone into the town in greatdisgust. As he passed from the bridge, and paused before he entered thehuddle of narrow streets that climbed the hill, he had on his left theglittering heights of snow, rising ridge above ridge to the blue; andmost distant among them Mont Blanc itself, etherealised by the frostysunshine and clear air of a December morning. But Mont Blanc might havebeen a marsh, the Rhone, pouring its icy volume from the lake, mighthave been a brook, for him. Aware, at length, of the peril in which Annestood, and not doubting that these colloquies of Messers Blondel andLouis, these man[oe]uvrings to be rid of his presence, were part of aconspiracy against her, he burned with the desire to thwart it. They hadmade a puppet of him; they had sent him to and fro at their will andpleasure; and they had done this, no doubt, in order that in his absencethey might work--Heaven knew what vile and miserable work! But he wouldknow, too! He was going to know! He would not be so tricked thrice. 

His indignation went beyond the Syndic. The smug-faced towns-folk whomhe met and jostled in the narrow ways, and whose grave starched looks hecountered with hot defiant glances--he included them in his anathema. Heextended to them the contempt in which he held Blondel and Louis and therest. They were all of a breed, a bigoted breed; all dull, blind worms, insensible to the beauty of self-sacrifice, or the purity of affection. All, self-sufficient dolts, as far removed, as immeasurably divided fromher whom he loved, as the gloomy lanes of this close city lay below theclear loveliness of the snow-peaks! For, after all, he had lifted hiseyes to the mountains. 

One thing only perplexed him. He understood the attitude of Basterga andGrio and Louis towards the girl. He discerned the sword of Damocles thatthey held over her, the fear of a charge of witchcraft, or of some vileheresy, in which they kept her. But how came Blondel in the plot? Whatwas his part, what his object? If he had been sincere in that attempt onBasterga's secrets, which Madame's delirious words had frustrated, washe sincere now? Was his object now as then--the suppression of thedevilish practices of which he had warned Claude, and in the punishmentof which he had threatened to include the girl with her tempter?Presumably it was, and he was still trying to reach the goal by otherways, using Louis as he had used Claude, or tried to use him. 

And yet Claude doubted. He began to suspect--for love is jealous--thatBlondel had behind this a more secret, a more personal, a more selfishaim. Had the young girl, still in her teens, caught the fancy of the manof sixty? There was nothing unnatural in the idea; such things were, even in Geneva; and Louis was a go-between, not above the task. In thatcase she who had showed a brave front to Basterga all these months, whohad not blenched before the daily and hourly persecution to which shehad been exposed in her home, was not likely to succumb to the senileadvances of a man who might be her grandfather!

If he did not hold her secret. But if he did hold it? If he did holdit, and the cruel power it gave? If he held it, he who had only to lifthis hand to consign her to duress on a charge so dark and dangerous thatinnocence itself was no protection against it? So plausible that evenher lover had for a short time held it true? What then?

Claude, who had by this time reached the Tertasse gate and passedthrough it from the town side, paused on the ramparts and bared hishead. What then?

He had his answer. Framed in the immensity of sky and earth that laybefore him, he saw his loneliness and hers, his insignificance and hers, his helplessness and hers; he, a foreigner, young, without name orreputation, or aught but a strong right hand; she, almost a child, aloneor worse than alone, in this great city--one of the weak things whichthe world's car daily and hourly crushes into the mud, their very criesunheard and unheeded. Of no more account than the straw which the turbidRhone, bore one moment on its swirling tide, and the next swallowed fromsight beneath its current!

They were two--and a mad woman! And against them were Blondel andBasterga and Grio and Louis, and presently all the town of Geneva! Allthese gloomy, narrow, righteous men, and shrieking, frightenedwomen--frightened lest any drop of the pitch fall on them and destroythem! Love is a marvellous educator. Almost as clearly as we of a laterday, he saw how outbreaks of superstition, such as that which hedreaded, began, and came to a head, and ended. A chance word at a door, a spiteful rumour or a sick child, the charge, the torture, the wideningnet of accusation, the fire in the market-place. So it had been inBamberg and Wurzburg, in Geneva two generations back, in Alsace scarceas many years back: at Edinburgh in Scotland where thirty persons hadsuffered in one day--ten years ago that; in the district of Como, wherea round thousand had suffered!

Nobility had not availed to save some, nor court-favour others; norwealth, nor youth, nor beauty. And what had he or she to urge, what hadthey to put forward that would in the smallest degree avail them? Thatcould even for a moment stem or avert the current of popular madnesswhich power itself had striven in vain to dam. Nothing!

And yet he did not blench, nor would he; being half French and of goodblood, at a time when good French blood ran the more generously for ahalf century of war. He would not have blenched, even if he had not, from the sunlit view of God's earth and heaven which lay before hiseyes, drawn other thoughts than that one of his own littleness andinsignificance. As this view of vale and mountain had once before liftedhis judgment above the miasma of a cruel superstition, so it raised himnow above creeping fears and filled him with confidence in somethingmore stable than magistrates or mobs. Love, like the sunlight, shoneaslant the dark places of the prospect and filled them with warmth. Sacrifice for her he loved took on the beauty of the peaks, cold butlovely; and hope and courage, like the clear blue of the vault above, looked smiling down on the brief dangers and the brief troubles of man'smaking. 

The clock of St. Gervais was striking eleven as, still in exalted mood, he turned his back on the view and entered the house in the Corraterie. He had entered on his return from his fruitless visit to Blondel, andhad satisfied himself that Anne was safe. Doubtless she was still safe, for the house was quiet. 

In his new mood he was almost inclined to quarrel with this. In theardour of his passion he would gladly have seen the danger immediate, the peril present, that he might prove to her how much he loved her, how deeply he felt for her, what he would dare for her. To die on thehearth of the living-room, at her feet and saving her, seemed for amoment the thing most desirable--the purest happiness!

That was denied him. The house was quiet, as in a morning it commonlywas. So quiet that he recalled without effort the dreams which he haddreamed on that spot, and the thoughts which had filled his heart tobursting a few hours before. The great pot was there, simmering on itshook; and on the small table beside it, the table that Basterga and Griooccupied, stood a platter with a few dried herbs and a knife fresh fromher hand. Claude made sure that he was unobserved, and raising the knifeto his lips, kissed the haft gently and reverently, thinking what shehad suffered many a day while using it! What fear, and grief andhumiliation, and----

He stood erect, his face red: he listened intently. Upstairs, breakingthe long silence of the house, opening as it were a window to admit thesun, a voice had uplifted itself in song. The voice had some of thetones of Anne's voice, and something that reminded him of her voice. Butwhen had he heard her sing? When had aught so clear, so mirthful, or soyoung fallen from her as this; this melody, laden with life and youthand abundance, that rose and fell and floated to his ears through thehalf-open door of the staircase?

He crept to the staircase door and listened; yes, it was her voice, butnot such as he had ever heard it. It was her voice as he could fancy itin another life, a life in which she was as other girls, darkened by nofear, pinched by no anxiety, crushed by no contumely; such as her voicemight have been, uplifted in the garden of his old home on the Frenchborder, amid bees and flowers and fresh-scented herbs. Her voice, doubtless, it was; but it sorted so ill with the thoughts he had beenthinking, that with his astonishment was mingled something of shock andof loss. He had dreamed of dying for her or with her, and she sang! Hewas prepared for peril, and her voice vied with the lark's in joyoustrills. 

Leaning forward to hear more clearly, he touched the door. It was ajar, and before he could hinder it, it closed with a sharp sound. The singingceased with an abruptness that told, or he was much mistaken, ofself-remembrance. And presently, after an interval of no more than a fewseconds, during which he pictured the singer listening, he heard herbegin to descend. 

Two men may do the same thing from motives as far apart as the poles. Claude did what Louis would have done. As the foot drew near thestaircase door, treading, less willingly, less lightly, more like thatof Anne with every step, he slid into his closet, and stood. Through thecrack between the hinges of the open door, he would be able to view herface when she appeared. 

A second later she came, and he saw. The light of the song was still inher eyes, but mingled, as she looked round the room to learn who wasthere, with something of exaltation and defiance. Christian maidensmight have worn some such aspect, he thought--but he was in love--asthey passed to the lions. Or Esther, when she went unbidden into theinner court of the King's House, and before the golden sceptre moved. Something had happened to her. But what?

She did not see him, and after standing a moment to assure herself thatshe was alone, she passed to the hearth. She lifted the lid of the pot, bent over it, and slowly stirred the broth; then, having covered itagain, she began to chop the dried herbs on the platter. Even in hermanner of doing this, he fancied a change; a something unlike the Annehe had known, the Anne he had come to love. The face was more animated, the action quicker, the step lighter, the carriage more free. She beganto sing, and stopped; fell into a reverie, with the knife in her hand, and the herb half cut; again roused herself to finish her task; finallyhaving slid the herbs from the platter to the pot, she stood in a secondreverie, with her eyes fixed on the window. 

He began to feel the falseness of his position. It was too late to showhimself, and if she discovered him what would she think of him? Wouldshe believe that in spying upon her he had some evil purpose, some lowmotive, such as Louis might have had? His cheek grew hot. And then--heforgot himself. 

Her eyes had left the window and fallen to the window-seat. It was thething she did then which drew him out of himself. Moving to thewindow--he had to stoop forward to keep her within the range of hissight--she took from it a glove, held it a moment, regarding it; thenwith a tender, yet whimsical laugh, a laugh half happiness, halfridicule of herself, she kissed it. 

It was Claude's glove. And if, with that before his eyes he could haverestrained himself, the option was not his. She turned in the act, andsaw him; with a startled cry she put--none too soon--the table betweenthem. 

They faced one another across it, he flushed, eager, with love in hiseyes, and on his lips; she blushing but not ashamed, her new-found joyin her eyes, and in the pose of her head. 

"Anne!" he cried. "I know now! I know! I have seen and you cannotdeceive me!"

"In what?" she said, a smile trembling on her lips. "And of what, MesserClaude, are you so certain, if you please?"

"That you love me!" he replied. "But not a hundredth part"--he stretchedhis arms across the table towards her "as much as I love you and haveloved you for weeks! As I loved you even before I learned lastnight----"

"What?" Into her face--that had not found one hard look to rebuke hisboldness--came something of her old silent, watchful self. "What did youlearn last night?"

"Your secret!"

"I have none!" Quick as thought the words came from her lips. "I havenone! God is merciful, " with a gesture of her open arms, as if she putsomething from her, "and it is gone! If you know, if you guess aught ofwhat it was"--her eyes questioned his and read in them if not that whichhe knew, that which he thought of her. 

"I ask you to be silent. "

"I will, after I have----"

"Now! Always!"

"Not till I have spoken once!" he cried. "Not till I have told you oncewhat I think of you! Last night I heard. And I understood. I saw whatyou had gone through, what you had feared, what had been your life allthese weeks, rising and lying down! I saw what you meant when you bademe go anywhere but here, and why you suffered what you did at theirhands, and why they dared to treat you--so! And had they been here Iwould have killed them!" he added, his eyes sparkling. "And had you beenhere----"

"Yes?" she did not seek to check him now. Her bearing was changed, hereyes, soft and tender, met his as no eyes had ever met his. 

"I should have worshipped you! I should have knelt as I kneel now!" hecried. And sinking on his knees he extended his arms across the tableand took her unresisting hands. "If you no longer have a secret, youhad one, and I bless God for it! For without it I might not have knownyou, Anne! I might not have----"

"Perhaps you do not know me now, " she said; but she did not withdraw herhands or her eyes. Only into the latter grew a shade of trouble. "I havedone--you do not know what I have done. I am a thief. "

"Pah!"

"It is true. I am a thief. "

"What is it to me?" He laughed a laugh as tender as her eyes. "You are athief, for you have stolen my heart. For the rest, do you think that Ido not know you now? That I can be twice deceived? Twice take gold fordross, and my own for another thing? I know you!"

"But you do not know, " she said tremulously, "what I have done--what Idid last night--or what may come of it. "

"I know that what comes of it will happen, not to one but to two, " hereplied bravely. "And that is all I ask to know. That, and that you arecontent it shall be so?"

"Content?"

"Yes. "

"Content!"

There are things, other than wine, that bring truth to the surface. Thatwhich had happened to the girl in the last few hours, that which hadmelted her into unwonted song, was of these things; and the tone of hervoice as she repeated the word "Content!" the surrender of her eyes thatplaced her heart in his keeping, as frankly as she left her hands inhis, proclaimed it. The reserves of her sex, the tricks of coyness andreticence men look for in maids, were shaken from her; and as man to manher eyes told him the truth, told him that if she had ever doubted sheno longer doubted that she loved him. In the heart which a singlepassion, the purest of which men and women are capable, had engrossedso long, Nature, who, expel her as you will, will still return, had wonher right and carved her kingdom. 

And she knew that it was well with her--whatever the upshot of lastnight. To be lonely no more; to be no longer the protector, but theprotected; to know the comfort of the strong arm as well as of thefollowing eye, the joy of receiving as well as of giving; to know that, however dark the future might lower, she had no longer to face it alone, no longer to plan and hope and fear and suffer alone, but with_him_--the sense of these things so mingled with her gratitude on hermother's account that the new affection, instead of weakening the oldbecame as it were part of it; while the old stretched onwards its pioushand to bless the new. 

If Claude did not read all this in her eyes, and in that one word"Content?" he read so much that never devotee before relic rose moregently or more reverently to his feet. Because all was his he would takenothing. "As I stand by you, may God stand by me, " he said, stillholding her hands in his, and with the table between them. 

"I have no fear, " she replied in a low voice. "Yet--if you fail, may Heforgive you as fully as I must forgive you. What shall I say to you onmy part, Messer Claude?"

"That you love me. "

"I love you, " she murmured with an intonation which ravished the youngman's heart and brought the blood to his cheeks. "I love you. Whatmore?"

"There is no more, " he cried. "There can be no more. If that be true, nothing matters. "

"No!" she said, beginning to tremble under a weight of emotion too heavyfor her, following as it did the excitement of the night. "No!" shecontinued, raising her eyes which had fallen before the ardour of hisgaze. "But there must be something you wish to ask me. You must wish toknow----"

"I have heard what I wished to know. "

"But----"

"Tell me what you please. "

She stood in thought an instant: then, with a sigh, "He came to me lastevening, " she said, "when you were at his house. "

"Messer Blondel?"

"Yes. He wished me to procure for him a certain drug that MesserBasterga kept in his room. "

Claude stared. "In a steel casket chained to the wall?" he asked. 

"Yes, " she whispered with some surprise. "You knew of it, then? He hadtried to procure it through Louis, and on the pretence that the boxcontained papers needed by the State. Failing in that he came lastevening to me, and told me the truth. "

"The truth?" Claude asked, wondering. "But was it the truth?"

"It was. " Her eyes, like stars on a rainy night, shone softly. "I haveproved it. " Again, with a ring of exultation in her voice, "I haveproved it!" she cried. 

"How?"

"There was in the box a drug, he told me, possessed of an almostmiraculous power over disease of body and mind; so rare and so wonderfulthat none could buy it, and he knew of but this one dose, of whichMesser Basterga had possessed himself. He begged me to take it and togive it to him. He had on him, he said, a fatal illness, and if he didnot get this--he must die. " Her voice shook. "He must die! Now God helphim!"

"You took it. "

"I took it. " Her face, as her eyes dropped before his, betrayed troubleand doubt. "I took it, " she continued, trembling. "If I have done wrong, God forgive me. For I stole it. "

His face betrayed his amazement, but he did not release her hands. "Why?" he said. 

"To give it to her, " she answered. "To my mother. I thought then that itwas right--it was a chance. I thought--now I don't know, I don't know!"she repeated. The shade on her face grew deeper. "I thought I was rightthen. Now--I--I am frightened. " She looked at him with eyes in which herdoubts were mirrored. She shivered, she who had been so joyous a momentbefore, and her hands, which hitherto had lain passive in his, returnedhis pressure feverishly. "I fear now!" she exclaimed. "I fear! What isit? What has happened--in the last minute?"

He would have drawn her to him, seeing that her nerves were shaken; butthe table was between them, and before he could pass round it, a soundcaught his ear, a shadow fell between them, and looking up he discoveredBasterga's face peering through the nearer casement. It was pressedagainst the small leaded panes, and possibly it was this which byflattening the huge features imparted to them a look of malignity. Orthe look--which startled Claude, albeit he was no coward--might havebeen only the natural expression of one, who suspected what was afootbetween them and came to mar it. Whatever it meant, the girl's cry ofdismay found an echo on Claude's lips. Involuntarily he dropped herhands; but--and the action was symbolical of the change in her life--hestepped at the same moment between her and the door. Whatever she haddone, right or wrong, was his concern now. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE _REMEDIUM_. 

We have seen that for Claude, as he hurried from the bridge, the faceshe met in the narrow streets of the old town were altered by the mediumthrough which he viewed them; and appeared gloomy, sordid and fanatical. In the eyes of Blondel, who had passed that way before him, the samefaces wore a look of selfishness, stupendously and heartlessly cruel. And not the faces only; the very houses and ways, the blue sky overhead, and the snow-peaks--when for an instant he caught sight of them--borethe same aspect. All wore their every-day air, and mocked the despair inhis heart. All flung in his teeth the fact, the incredible fact, thatwhether he died or lived, stayed or went, the world would proceed; thatthe eternal hills, ay, and the insensate bricks and mortar, that hadseen his father pass, would see him pass, and would be standing when hewas gone into the darkness. 

There are few things that to the mind of man in his despondent moods aremore strange, or more shocking, than the permanence of trifles. Thesmall things to which his brain and his hand have given shape, which hecan, if he will, crush out of form, and resolve into their primitiveatoms, outlive him! They lie on the table when he is gone, are unchangedby his removal, serve another master as they have served him, preach toanother generation the same lesson. The face is dust, but the canvassmiles from the wall. The hand is withered, but the pencil is still inthe tray and is used by another. There are times when the irony of thisthought bites deep into the mind, and goads the mortal to revolt. HadBlondel, as he climbed the hill, possessed the power of Orimanes toblast at will, few of those whom he met, few on whom he turned thegloomy fire of his eyes, would have reached their houses that day orseen another sun. 

He was within a hundred paces of his home, when a big man, passing alongthe Bourg du Four, but on the other side of the way, saw him and cameacross the road to intercept him. It was Baudichon, his double chin morependulent, his massive face more dully wistful than ordinary; for thetimes had got upon the Councillor's nerves, and day by day he grew moreanxious, slept worse of nights, and listened much before he went to bed. 

"Messer Blondel, " he called out, in a voice more peremptory than wasoften addressed to the Fourth Syndic's ear. "Messer Syndic! One moment, if you please!"

Blondel stopped and turned to him. Outwardly the Syndic was cool, inwardly he was at a white heat that at any moment might impel him tothe wildest action. "Well?" he said. "What is it, M. Baudichon?"

"I want to know----"

"Of course!" The sneer was savage and undisguised. "What, this time, ifI may be so bold?"

Baudichon breathed quickly, partly with the haste he had made across theroad, partly in irritation at the gibe. "This only, " he said. "How faryou purpose to try our patience? A week ago you were for delaying thearrest you know of--for a day. It was a matter of hours then. "

"It was. "

"But days have passed, and are passing! and we have no explanation;nothing is done. And every night we run a fresh risk, and everymorning--so far--we thank God that our throats are still whole; andevery day we strive to see you, and you are out, or engaged, or about todo it, or awaiting news! But this cannot go on for ever! Nor, " puffingout his cheeks, "shall we always bear it!"

"Messer Baudichon!" Blondel retorted, the passion he had so farrestrained gleaming in his eyes, and imparting a tremor to his voice, "are you Fourth Syndic or am I?"

"You! You, certainly. Who denies it?" the stout man said. "But----"

"But what? But what?"

"We would know what you think we are, that we can bear this suspense. "

"I will tell you what I think you are!"

"By your leave?"

"_A fat hog!_" the Syndic shrieked. "And as brainless as a hog fit forthe butcher! That for you! and your like!"

And before the astounded Baudichon, whose brain was slow to take in newfacts, had grasped the full enormity of the insult flung at him, theSyndic was a dozen paces distant. He had eased his mind, and that forthe moment was much; though he still ground his teeth, and, hadBaudichon followed him, would have struck the Councillor without thoughtor hesitation. The pigs! The hogs! To press him with their wretchedaffairs: to press him at this moment when the grave yawned at his feet, and the coffin opened for him!

To be sure he might now do with Basterga as he pleased without thoughtor drawback; but for their benefit--never! He paused at his door, andcast a haggard glance up and down; at the irregular line of gableswhich he had known from childhood, the steep, red roofs, the cobblepavement, the bakers' signs that hung here and there and with the wideeaves darkened the way; and he cursed all he saw in the frenzy of hisrage. Let Basterga, Savoy, d'Albigny do their worst! What was it to him?Why should he move? He went into his house despairing. 

Unto this last hour a little hope had shone through the darkness. Attimes the odds had seemed to be against him, at one time Heaven itselfhad seemed to declare itself his foe. But the _remedium_ had existed, the thing was still possible, the light burned, though distant, feeble, flickering. He had told himself that he despaired; but he had not knownwhat real despair was until this moment, until he sat, as he saw now, among the Dead Sea splendours of his parlour, the fingers of his righthand drumming on the arm of the abbot's chair, his shaggy eyelidsdrooping over his brooding eyes. 

Ah, God! If he had stayed to take the stuff when it lay in his power! Ifhe had refused to open until he held it in his hand! If, even after thatact of folly, he had refused to go until she gave it him! Howinconceivable his madness seemed now, his fear of scandal, his thoughtof others! Others? There was one of whom he dared not think; for when hedid his head began to tremble on his shoulders; and he had to clutch thearms of the chair to stay the palsy that shook him. If _she_, the girlwho had destroyed him, thought it was all one to him whom the drugadvantaged, or who lived or who died, he would teach her--before hedied! He would teach her! There was no extremity of pain or shame sheshould not taste, accursed witch, accursed thief, as she was! But hemust not think of that, or of her, now; or he would die before his time. He had a little time yet, if he were careful, if he were cool, if hewere left a brief space to recover himself. A little, a very littletime!

Whose were that foot and that voice? Basterga's? The Syndic's eyesgleamed, he raised his head. There was another score he had to pay! Hisown score, not Baudichon's. Fool, to have left his treasure unguardedfor every thieving wench to take! Fool, thrice and again, for puttinghis neck back into the lion's mouth. Stealthily Blondel pulled thehandbell nearer to him and covered it with his cloak. He would haveadded a weapon, but there was no arm within reach, and while hehesitated between his chair and the door of the small inner room, theouter door opened, and Basterga appeared and advanced, smiling, towardshim. 

"Your servant, Messer Syndic, " he said. "I heard that you had beeninquiring for me in my absence, and I am here to place myself at yourdisposition. You are not looking----" he stopped short, in feignedsurprise. "There is nothing wrong, I hope?"

Had the scholar been such a man as Baudichon, Blondel's answer wouldhave been one frenzied shriek of insults and reproaches. But face toface with Basterga's massive quietude, with his giant bulk, with thatair, at once masterful and cynical, which proclaimed to those with whomhe talked that he gave them but half his mind while reading theirs, thewrath of the smaller man cooled. A moment his lips writhed, withoutsound; then, "Wrong?" he cried, his voice harsh and broken. "Wrong? Allis wrong!"

"You are not well?" Basterga said, eyeing him with concern. 

"Well? I shall never be better! Never!" Blondel shrieked. And after apause, "Curse you!" he added. "It is your doing!"

Basterga stared. He was in the dark as to what had happened, though theSyndic's manner on leaving the bridge had prepared him for something. "My doing, Messer Blondel?" he said. "Why? What have I done?"

"Done?"

"Ay, done! It was not my fault, " the scholar continued, with a touch ofsternness, "that I could not offer you the _remedium_ on easy terms. Normine, that hard as the terms were, you did not accept them. Besides, " hecontinued, slowly and with meaning, "Terque quaterque redit!

You remember the Sibylline books? How often they were offered, and theterms? It is not too late, Messer Blondel--even now. While there is lifethere is hope, there is more than hope. There is certainty. "

"Is there?" Blondel cried; he extended a lean hand, shaking withvindictive passion. "Is there? Go and look in your casket, fool! Go andlook in your steel box!" he hissed. "Go! And see if it be not too late!"

For a moment Basterga peered at him, his brow contracted, his eyesscrewed up. The blow was unexpected. Then, "Have you taken the stuff?"he muttered. 

"I? No! But she has!" And on that, seeing the change in the other'sface--for, for once, the scholar's mask slipped and suffered hisconsternation to appear--Blondel laughed triumphantly: in torturehimself, he revelled in a disaster that touched another. "She has! Shehas!"

"She? Who?"

"The girl of the house! Anne you call her! Curse her! child ofperdition, as she is! She!" And he clawed the air. 

"She has taken it?" Basterga spoke incredulously, but his brow was damp, his cheeks were a shade more sallow than usual; he did not deceive theother's penetration. "Impossible!" he continued, striving to rally hisforces. "Why should she take it? She has no illness, no disease!Try"--he swallowed something--"to be clear, man. Try to be clear. Whohas told you this cock-and-bull story?"

"It is the truth. "

"She has taken it?"

"To give to her mother--yes. "

"And she?"

"Has taken it? Yes. "

The scholar, ordinarily so cool and self-contained, could not withholdan execration. His small eyes glittered, his face swelled with rage; fora moment he was within a little of an explosion. Of what mad, whatinsensate folly, unworthy of a schoolboy, worthy only of a sot, animbecile, a Grio, had he been guilty! To leave the potion, that if ithad not the virtues which he ascribed to it, had virtue--or it had notserved his purpose of deceiving the Syndic during some days or hours--toleave the potion unprotected, at the mercy of a chance hand, of atreacherous girl! Safeguarded, in appearance only, and to blind hisdupe! It seemed incredible that he could have been so careless!

True, he might replace the stuff at some expense; but not in a day or anhour. And how--with one dose in all the world!--keep up the farce? Thedose consumed, the play was at an end. An end--or, no, was he losing hiswits, his courage? On the instant, in the twinkling of an eye, he shapeda fresh course. 

He cursed the girl anew, and apparently with the same fervour. "Amonth's work it cost me!" he cried. "A month's work! and ten goldpieces!"

The Syndic, pale, and almost in a state of collapse--for the bittersatisfaction of imparting the news no longer supported him--stared. "Amonth's work?" he muttered. "A month? Years you told me! And a fortune!"

"I told you? Never!" Basterga opened his eyes in seeming amazement. "Never, good sir, in all my life!" he repeated emphatically. "But"--returning grimly to his former point--"ten gold pieces, or afortune--no matter which, she shall pay dearly for it, the thievingjade!"

The Syndic sat heavily in his seat, and, with a hand on either arm ofthe abbot's chair, stared dully at the other. "A fortune, you told me, "he said, in a voice little above a whisper. "And years. Was it afiction, all a fiction? About Ibn Jasher, and the Physician of Aleppo, and M. Laurens of Paris, and--and the rest?"

Basterga deliberately took a turn to the window, came back, and stoodlooking down at him. "Mon Dieu!" he muttered. "Is it possible?"

"Eh?"

"I can scarcely believe it!" The scholar spoke with a calmness halfcynical, half compassionate. "But I suppose you really think that of me, though it seems incredible! You are under the impression that the drugthis jade stole was the _remedium_ of Ibn Jasher, the one incomparableand sovereign result of long years of study and research? You believethat I kept this in a mere locked box, the key accessible by all whoknew my habits, and the treasure at the mercy of the first thief! MonDieu! Mon Dieu! If I said it a thousand times I could not express myastonishment. I might be the vine grower of the proverb, Cui saepe viator Cessisset magna compellans voce cucullum!"

The Syndic heard him without changing the attitude of weakness andexhaustion into which he had fallen on sitting down. But midway in theother's harangue, his lips parted, he held his breath, and in his eyesgrew a faint light of dawning hope. "But if it be not so?" he mutteredfeebly. "If this be not so, why----"

"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!"

"Why did you look so startled a moment ago?"

"Why, man? Because ten pieces of gold are ten pieces! To me at least!And the potion, which was made after a recipe of that same MesserLaurens of Paris, cost no less. It is a love-philtre, beneficent to theyoung, but if taken by the old so noxious, that had you swallowed it, "with a grin, "you had not been long Syndic, Messer Blondel!"

Blondel shook his head. "You do not deceive me, " he muttered. For thoughhe was anxious to believe, as yet he could not. He could not; he hadseen the other's face. "It is the _remedium_ she has taken! I feel it. "

"And given to her mother?"

Blondel inclined his head. 

The scholar laughed contemptuously. "Then is the test easy, " he said. "If it be the _remedium_ you will find her mother, who has not left herbed for three years, grown strong and well and vigorous, and like to himwho lifted up his bed and walked. But if it be the love-philtre, youhave but to come with me, and you will find her----" He did not finishthe sentence, but a shrug of his shoulders and a mysterious smile filledthe gap. 

Imperceptibly Blondel had raised himself in his chair. The gleam ofhope, once lighted in his eyes, was growing bright. "How?" he asked. "How shall we find her? If it be the philtre only that she has taken--asyou say?"

"If it be the philtre? The mother, you mean?"

"Yes. "

"Mad! Mad!" Basterga repeated with decision, "and beside herself. As youhad been, " he continued grimly, "had you by any chance taken the _aquaMedeæ_. "

"That you kept in the steel box?"

"Ay. "

"You are sure it was not the _remedium_?" Blondel leaned forward. Ifonly he could believe it, if only it were the truth, how great thedifference! No wonder that the muscles of his lean throat swelled, andhis hands closed convulsively on the arms of his great chair, as hestrove to read the other's mind. 

He had as soon read a printed page without light. The scholar saw thatit needed but a little to convince him, and took his line withconfidence; nor without some pride in the wits that had saved him. "The_remedium_?" he repeated with impatient wonder. "Do you know that the_remedium_ is unique? That it is a man's life? That in the world'shistory it scarce appears once in five hundred years? That all thewealth of kings cannot produce it, nor the Spanish Indies furnish it? Doyou remember these things, Messer Blondel, and do you ask if I keep itlike a common philtre in a box in my lodgings?" He snorted in contempt, and going disdainfully to the hearth spat in the fire as if he could notbrook the idea. Then returning to the Syndic's side, he took up hisstory in a different tone. "The _remedium_, " he said, "my good friend, is in the Grand Duke's Treasury at Turin. It is in a steel box, it istrue, but in one with three locks and three keys, sealed with the GrandDuke's private signet and with mine; and laid where the Treasurerhimself cannot meddle with it. "

The Syndic sat up straight, and with his eyes fixed sullenly on thefloor fingered his beard. He was almost persuaded, but not quite. Couldit be, could it really be that the thing still existed? That it wasstill to be obtained, that life by its means was still possible?

"Well?" Basterga said, when the silence had lasted some time. 

"The proof!" Blondel retorted, excitement once more over-mastering him. "Let me have the proof! Let me see, man, if the woman be mad. "

But the scholar, leaning Atlas-like, against the wall beside the longlow window, with his arms crossed, and his great head sunk on hisbreast, did not move. He saw that this was his hour and he must use it. "To what purpose?" he answered slowly: and he shrugged his shoulders. "Why go to the trouble? The _remedium_ is in Turin. And if it be not, itis the Grand Duke's affair only, and mine, since you will not come tohis terms. I would, I confess, " he continued, in a more kindly tone, "that it were your affair also, Messer Blondel. I would I could havemade you see things as they are and as I see them. As, believe me, Messer Petitot would see them were he in your place; as Messer Fabri andMesser Baudichon--I warrant it--do see them; as--pardon me--all who rankthemselves among the wise and the illuminate, see them. For all such, believe me, these are times of enlightening, when the words which pastgenerations have woven into shackles for men's minds fall from them, andare seen to be but the straw they are; when men move, like childrenawaking from foolish dreams, and life----"

The Syndic's eyes glowed dully. 

"Life, " Basterga continued sonorously, "is seen to be that which it is, the one thing needful which makes all other things of use, and withoutwhich all other things are superfluities! Bethink you a minute, MesserBlondel! Would Petitot give his life to save yours?"

The Syndic smiled after a sickly fashion. Petitot? The stickling pedant!The thin, niggling whipster!

"Or Messer Fabri?"

Blondel shook his head. 

"Or Messer Baudichon?"

"I called him but now--a fat hog!"

It was Basterga's turn to shake his head. "He is not one to forget, " hesaid gravely. "I fear you will hear of that again, Messer Blondel. Ifear it will make trouble for you. But if these will not, is there anyman in Geneva, any man you can name, who would give his life for you?"

"Do men give life so easily?" Blondel answered, moving painfully in hischair. 

"Yet you will give yours for them! You will give yours! And who will bea ducat the better?"

"I shall at least die for freedom, " the Syndic muttered, gnawing hismoustache. 

"A word!"

"For the religion, then. "

"It is that which men make it!" the scholar retorted. "There have beengood men of all religions, though we dare not say as much in public, orin Geneva. 'Tis not the religion. 'Tis the way men live it! Was JohnBernardino of Assisi, whom some call St. Francis, a worse man thanArnold of Brescia, the Reformer? Or is your Beza a better man thanMesser Francis of Sales? Or would the heavens fall if Geneva embracedthe faith of the good Archbishop of Milan? Words, Messer Blondel, believe me, words!"

"Yet men die for them!"

"Not wise men. And when you have died for them, who will thank you?" TheSyndic groaned. "Who will know, or style you martyr?" Basterga continuedforcibly. "Baudichon, whom you have called a fat hog? He will sit inyour seat. Petitot--he said but a little while ago that he would buythis house if he lived long enough. "

"He did?" The Syndic came to his feet as if a spring had raised him. 

"Certainly. And he is a rich man, you know. "

"May the Bise search his bones!" Blondel cried, trembling with fury. Forthis was the realisation of his worst fears. Petitot to live in hishouse, lie warm in his bed, sneer at his memory across the table thathad been his, rule in the Council where he had been first! Petitot, thatmiserable crawler who had clogged his efforts for years, who had shared, without deserving, his honours, who had spied on him and carped at himday by day and hour by hour! Petitot to succeed him! To be all and ownall, and sun himself in the popular eye, and say "Geneva, it is I!"While he, Blondel, lay rotting and forgotten, stark, beneath snow andrain, winter wind and summer drought!

Perish Geneva first! Perish friend and foe alike!

The Syndic wavered. His hand shook, his thin dry cheek burned withfever, his lips moved unceasingly. Why should he die? They would not diefor him. Nay, they would not thank him, they would not praise him. Atraitor? To live he must turn traitor? Ay, but try Petitot, and see ifhe would not do the same! Or Baudichon, who could not sleep of nightsfor fear--how would he act with death staring him in the face? Thebravest soldiers when disarmed, or called upon to surrender or die, capitulate without blame. And that was his position. 

Life, too; dear, warm life! Life that might hold much for him still. Hitherto these men and their fellows had hampered and thwarted him, marred his plans and balked his efforts. Freed from them and supportedby an enlightened and ambitious prince, he might rise to heightshitherto invisible. He might lift up and cast down at will, might rulethe Council as his creatures, might live to see Berne and the Cantons athis feet, might leave Geneva the capital of a great and wealthy country. 

All this, at his will; or he might die! Die and rot and be forgottenlike a dog that is cast out. 

He did not believe in his heart that faith and honour were words;fetters woven by wise men to hamper fools. He did not believe that allreligions were alike, and good or bad as men made them. But on the oneside was life, and on the other death. And he longed to live. 

"I would that I could make you see things as I see them, " Bastergaresumed, in a gentle tone. Patiently waiting the other's pleasure he hadnot missed an expression of his countenance, and, thinking the momentripe, he used his last argument. "Believe me, I have the will, all thewill, to help you. And the terms are not mine. Only I would have youremember this, Messer Blondel: that others may do what you will not, sothat after all you may find that you have cast life away, and no one thebetter. Baudichon, for instance, plays the Brutus in public. But he is afearful man, and a timid; and to save himself and his family--he thinksmuch of his family--he would do what you will not. "

"He would do it!" the Syndic cried passionately. And he struck thetable. "He would, curse him!"

"And he would not forget, " Basterga continued, with a meaning nod, "thatyou had miscalled him!"

"No! But I will be before him!" The Syndic was on his feet again, shaking like a leaf. 

"Ay?" Basterga blew his nose to hide the flash of triumph that shone inhis eyes. "You will be wise in time? Well, I am not surprised. I thoughtthat you would not be so mad--that no man could be so mad as to throwaway life for a shadow!"

"But mind you, " Blondel snarled, "the proof. I must have the proof, " herepeated. He was anxious to persuade himself that his surrender dependedon a condition; he would fain hide his shame under a show of bargaining. "The proof, man, or I will not take a step. "

"You shall have it. "

"To-day?"

"Within the hour. "

"And if she be not mad--I believe you are deceiving me, and it was the_remedium_ the girl took--if she be not mad----" The Syndic, stammeringand repeating himself, broke off there. He could not meet the other'seyes; between a shame new to him and the overpowering sense of what hehad done, he was in a pitiable state. "Curse you, " with violence, "Ibelieve you have laid a trap for me!" he cried. "I say if she be notmad, I have done. "

"Let it stand so, " Basterga answered placidly. "Trust me, if she hastaken the philtre she will be mad enough. Which reminds me that I alsohave a crow to pick with Mistress Anne. "

"Curse her!"

"We will do more than that, " Basterga murmured. "If she be not very goodwe will burn her, my friend. 

 Uritur infelix Dido, totaque videtur Urbe furens!"

His eyes were cruel, and he licked his lips as he applied thequotation. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE BARGAIN STRUCK. 

Claude, at the first sign of peril, had put himself between Anne and thedoor; and, had not the fear which seized the girl at the sight ofBasterga robbed her of the power to think, she must have thrilled with anew and delicious sensation. She, who had not for years known what itwas to be sheltered behind another, was now to know the bliss of beingprotected. Nor did her lover remain on the defensive. It was he whochallenged the intruders. 

"What is it?" he asked, as the Syndic crossed the threshold; which wasdarkened a moment later by the scholar's huge form. "What is yourbusiness here, Messer Syndic, if it please you?"

"With you, none!" Blondel answered; and pausing a little within thedoor, he cast a look, cold and searching, round the apartment. Hisoutward composure hid a tumult of warring passions; shame and rage wereat odds within him, and rising above both was a venomous desire to exactretribution from some one. "Nothing with you!" he repeated. "You maystand aside, young man, or, better, go to your classes. What do you hereat this hour, and idle, were the fitting question; and not, what is mybusiness! Do you hear, sirrah?" with a rap of his staff of office on thefloor. "Begone to your work!"

But Claude, who had been thirsting this hour past for realms to conquerand dragons to subdue, and who, with his mistress beside him, felthimself a match for any ten, was not to be put aside. His manhoodrebelled against the notion of leaving Anne with men whose looks bodedthe worst. "I am at home, " he replied, breathing a little more quickly, and aware that in defying the Syndic he was casting away the scabbard. "I am at home in this house. I have done no wrong. I am in no inn now, and I know of no right which you have to expel me without cause from myown lodging. "

Blondel's lean face grew darker. "You beard me?" he cried. 

"I beard no one, " Claude answered hardily. "I am at home here, that isall. If you have lawful business here, do it. I am no hindrance to you. If you have no lawful business--and as to that, " he continued, recallingwith indignation the tricks which had been employed to remove him, "Ihave my opinion--I have as much right to be here as you! The more, as itis not very long, " he went on, with a glance of defiance, directed atBasterga, "since you gave the man who now accompanies you the foulest ofcharacters! Since you would have me rob him! Since you called himreprobate of the reprobate! Is he reprobate now?"

"Silence!"

"A corrupter of women, as you called him?"

"Liar!" the Syndic cried, trembling with passion. "Be silent!" The blowfound him unprepared. "He lies!" he stammered, turning to his ally. 

Basterga laughed softly. He had guessed as much: none the less hethought it time to interfere, lest his tool be put too much out ofcountenance. "Gently, young man, " he said, "or perhaps you may go toofar. I know you. "

"He is a liar!" Blondel repeated. 

"Probably, " Basterga said, "but it matters not. It is enough that ourbusiness here lies not with him, but with this young woman. You seem tohave taken her under your protection, " he continued, addressing Claude, "and may choose, if you please, whether you will see her haled throughthe streets, or will suffer her to answer our questions here. As youplease. "

"Your questions?" Claude cried, recalling with rage the occasions onwhich he had heard this man insult her. "Hear me one moment, and I willvery quickly prove----"

He was silent with the word on his lips. Her hand on his sleeve recalledthe necessity of prudence. He bit his lip and stood glowering at them. It was she who spoke. 

"What do you wish?" she asked in a low voice. 

Naturally courageous as she was, she could not have spoken but for thesupport of her lover. For the unexpected conjunction of these two, andtheir entrance together, smote her with fear. "What is your desire?" sherepeated. 

"To see your mother, " Basterga answered. "We have no business withyou--at present, " he added, after a perceptible pause, and with a slightemphasis. 

She caught her breath. "You want to see my mother?" she faltered. 

"I spoke plainly, " Basterga replied with sternness. "That was what Isaid. "

"What do you want with her?"

"That is our affair. "

Pale to the lips, she hesitated. Yet, after all, why should they not goup and see her mother? Things were not to-day as they had beenyesterday: or she had done in vain that which she had done, had sinnedin vain if she had sinned. And that was a thing not to be considered. If they found her mother as she had left her, if they found the promiseof the morning fulfilled, even their unexpected entrance would do noharm. Her mother was sane to-day: sane and well as other people, thankGod! It was on that account she had let her heart rise like a bird's toher lips. 

Yet, when she opened her mouth to assent, she found the words withdifficulty. "I do not know what you want, " she said faintly. "Still ifyou wish to see her you can go up. "

"Good!" Basterga replied, and advancing, he opened the staircase door, then stood aside for the Syndic to ascend first. "Good! The uppermostfloor, Messer Blondel, " he continued, holding the door wide. "The stairsare narrow, but I think I can promise you that at the top you will findwhat you want. "

He could not divest his tone of the triumph he felt. Slight as thewarning was, it sufficed; while the last word was still on his lips, shesnatched the door from his grasp, closed it and stood panting before it. What inward monition had spoken to her, what she had seen, what she hadheard, besides that note of triumph in Basterga's voice, matters not. Her mind was changed. 

"No!" she cried. "You do not go up! No!"

"You will not let us see her?" Basterga exclaimed. 

"No!" Her breast heaving, she confronted them without fear. 

In his surprise at her action the scholar had recoiled a step: he wasfiercely angry. "Come, girl, no nonsense, " he said roughly and brutally. "Make way! Or we shall have a little to say to you of what you did in myroom last night! Do you mark me?" he continued. "I might have youpunished for it, wench! I might have you whipped and branded for it! Doyou mind me? You robbed me, and that which you took----"

"I took at his instigation!" she retorted, pointing an accusing fingerat Blondel, who stood gnawing his beard, hating the part he was playing, and hating still more this white-faced girl who had come so near toruining, if she had not ruined, his last chance of life. Hate her? TheSyndic hated her for the hour of anguish through which he had justpassed, hated her for the price--he shuddered to think of it--which hemust now pay for his life. He hated her for his present humiliation, hehated her for his future shame. She seemed to blame for all. 

"You took it, " Basterga answered, acknowledging her words only by adisdainful shrug, "and gave it to your mother. Why, I care not. Now thatyou see we know so much, will you let us go up!"

"No!" She faced him bravely and steadfastly. "No. If you know so much, you know also why I took it, and why I gave it to her. " And then, theradiance of unselfish love illuminating her pallid face, "I would do itagain were it to do, " she said. "And again, and yet again! For you, Ihave done you wrong; I have robbed you, and you may punish me. I mustbear it. But as to him, " pointing to Messer Blondel, "I am innocent!Innocent, " she repeated firmly. "For he would have done it himself andfor himself; it was he who would have me do it. And if I have done it, Ihave done it for another. I have robbed you, if need be I must pay theprice; but that man has naught against me in this! And for the rest, mymother is well. "

"Ah?"

"Ay, well! well!" she repeated, the light of joy softening her eyes asshe repeated the word. "Well! and I fear nothing. "

Basterga laughed cruelly. "Well?" he said. "Well, is she? Then let us goup and see her. If she be well, why not?"

"No!"

"Why not?"

She did not answer, but she did not make way. 

"Why not? I will tell you, if you please, " he said. "And it will makeyou pipe to another tune. You have given her, young woman, that whichwill make her worse, and not better!"

"She is better!"

"For an hour, or for twelve hours!" he retorted. "That certainly. Thenworse. "

"No!"

"No? But I see what it is, " he continued--and, alas, his voicestrengthened the fear that like a dead hand was closing on her heart andstaying it; deepened the terror that like a veil was falling before hereyes and darkening the room; so that she had much ado, grippingfinger-nails into palms, to keep her feet and let herself from fainting. "I see what it is. You would fain play Providence, " he continued--"thatis it, is it? You would play Providence? Then come! Come then, and seewhat kind of Providence it is you have played. We will see if you areright or I am right! And if she be well, or if she be ill!" And again hemoved towards the staircase. 

But she stood obstinately between him and the door. "No, " she said. "Youdo not go up!" She was resolute. The fear that as she listened to hisgibing tones had driven the colour from her face, had hardened it too. For, if he were right? If for that fear there were foundation? If thatwhich the Syndic had led her to give and that which she had given, proved--though for a few hours it had seemed to impart marvellousvigour--useless or worse than useless? Then the need to keep these menfrom her mother was the greater, the more desperate. How they could bekept, for how long it was possible to keep them, she did not pause toconsider, any more than the she-wolf that crouches, snarling, betweenher whelps and the hunt, counts odds. It was enough for her that if theywere right the worst had come, and naught lay between her mother'sweakness and their cruel eyes and judgments but her own feeble strength. 

Or no! she was wrong in that; she had forgotten! As she spoke, and asBasterga with a scowl repeated the order to stand aside, Claude put hergently but irresistibly by, and took her place. The young man's eyeswere bright, his colour high. "You will not go up!" he said, a mockingnote of challenge, replying to Basterga's tone, in his voice. "You willnot go up. "

"Fool! Will you prevent us?"

"You will not go up! No!"

In the very act of falling on the lad, Basterga recoiled. Claude had notbeen idle while the others disputed. He had gone to the corner for hissword, and it was the glittering point, suddenly whipped out andflickered before his eyes that gave the scholar pause, and made him leapback. "Pollux!" he cried, "are you mad? Put down! Put down! Do you seethe Syndic? Do you know, " he continued, stamping his foot, "that it ispenal to draw in Geneva?"

"I know that you are not going upstairs!" Claude answered gently. He wasradiant. He would not have exchanged his position for a crown. She waslooking, and he was going to fight. 

"You fool, " Basterga returned, "we have but to call the watch from theTertasse and you will be haled to the lock-up, and jailed and whipped, if not worse! And that jade with you! _Stultus es?_ Do you hear? MesserSyndic, will you be thwarted in this fashion? Call these lawbreakers toorder and bid them have done!"

"Put up!" the Syndic cried, hoarse with rage. He was beside himself, when he thought of the position in which he had placed himself. Helooked at the two as if he would fain have slain them where they stood. "Or I call the watch, and it will be the worse for you, " he continued. "Do you hear me? Put up?"

"He shall not go upstairs!" Claude answered, breathing quickly. He waspale, but utterly and fixedly resolved. If Basterga made a movement toattack him, he would run him through whatever the consequences. 

"Then, fool, I will call the watch!" Blondel babbled, fairly besidehimself. 

Claude had no answer to that; only they should not go up. It was thegirl's readier wit furnished the answer. 

"Call them!" she cried, in a clear voice. "Call the watch, MesserSyndic, and I will tell them the whole story. What Messer Blondel wouldhave had me do, and get, and give. "

"It was for the State!" the Syndic hissed. 

"And is it for the State that you come to-day with that man?" sheretorted, and with her outstretched finger she accused Basterga ofunspoken things. "That man! Last night you would have had me rob him. The day before he was a traitor. To-day he and you are one. Are one!What are you plotting together?"

The Syndic shrank from the other's side under the stab of herwords--words that, uttered at random, flew, straight as the arrow thatslew Ahab, to the joint of his armour. "To-day you and that man areone, " she repeated. "One! What are you plotting together?"

She knew as much as that, did she? She knew that they were one, and thatthey were plotting together; while in the Council men were clamouringfor the Paduan's arrest, and were growing suspicious because he was notarrested--Baudichon, whom he had called a fat hog, and Petitot, thatslow, plodding sleuth-hound of a patriot. What if light fell on the truestate of things--and less than the girl had said might cast that light?Then the warrant might go, not for the Paduan only, but for himself. Ay, for him! For with an enemy ever lying within a league of the gateswarrants flew quickly in Geneva. Men who sleep ill of nights, and takethe cock-crow for war's alarum, are suspicious, and, once roused, without ruth or mercy. 

There was the joint in his harness. Once let his name be published withBasterga's, --as must happen if the watch were summoned and the girlspoke out--and no one could say where the matter might end, or whatsuspicions might not be awakened. Nay, the matter was worse, moreperilous and more lightly balanced; for, setting himself aside, none theless was a brawl that brought up Basterga's name, a thing to be shunned. The least thing might precipitate the scholar's arrest; his arrest mustlead to the loss of the _remedium_, if it existed; and the loss of the_remedium_ to the loss of that which Messer Blondel had come to valuethe more dearly the more he sacrificed to keep it--the Syndic's life. 

He dared not call the watch, and he dared not use violence. As he awoketo those two facts, he stood blinking in dismayed silence, swallowinghis rage, and hating the girl and hating the man with a dumb hatred. Though the reasons which weighed with him were unknown to the two, theycould not be blind to his fear and his baffled mien; and had he beenalone they might have taken victory for certain. But Basterga was notone to be so lightly thwarted. His intellect, his wit, his very massintimidated. Therefore it was with as much relief as surprise that Anneread in his face the reflection of the other's doubts, and saw that he, too, gave back. 

"You are two fools!" he said. "Two great, big fools!" There wasresignation, there was something that was almost approval in his tones. "You do not know what you are doing! Is there no way of making you hearreason?"

"You cannot go up, " Anne said. She had won, it seemed, without knowinghow she had won. 

Basterga grunted; and then, "Ah, well, " he said, addressing Claude, "ifI had you in the fields, my lad, it would not be that bit of metal wouldsave you!" And he spouted with appropriate gesture--

 "--Illum fidi aequales, genua aegra trahentem Jactantemque utroque caput, crassumque cruorem Ore ejectantem mixtosque in sanguine dentes Ducunt ad navis!

Half an hour in my company, and you would not be so bold. "

Claude smiled with pardonable contempt, but made no reply, nor did hechange his attitude. 

"Come!" Blondel muttered, addressing his ally with his eyes averted. "Ihave reasons at present for letting them be!" They were strange reasons, to judge by the hang-dog look of the proud magistrate. "But I shall knowhow to deal with them by-and-by. Come, man, come!" he repeatedimpatiently. And he turned towards the door and unlocked it. 

Basterga moved reluctantly after him. "Ay, we go now, " he said, with alook full of menace. "But wait a while! Cæsar Basterga does not forget, and his turn will come! Where is my cap?"

He had let it fall on the floor, and he turned to pick it up, stoopingslowly and with difficulty as stout men do. As he raised himself, hishead still low, he butted it suddenly and with an activity for which noone would have given him credit full into Claude's chest. The unluckyyoung man, who had lowered his weapon the instant before, fell back witha "sough" against the wall, and leant there, pale and breathless. Anneuttered one scream, then the scholar's huge arm enfolded her neck anddrew her backwards against his breast. 

"Up! up! Messer Blondel!" he cried. "Now is your chance! Up and surpriseher!" And with his disengaged hand he gripped Claude, for furthersafety, by the collar. "Up; I will keep them quiet!"

The Syndic wasted a moment in astonishment, then he took in thesituation and the other's cleverness. Before Basterga had ceased tospeak, he was at the door of the staircase, and had dragged it open. Butas he set his foot on the lowest stair, Anne, held as she was againstBasterga's breast, and almost stifled by the arm which covered hermouth, managed to clutch the Syndic by his skirts, and, once havingtaken hold, held him with the strength of despair. In vain he struggledand strove and wrestled to jerk himself free; in vain Basterga, hamperedby Claude, tried to drag the girl away--Blondel came away with her! Sheclung to him, and even, freeing her mouth for a moment, succeeded inuttering a scream. 

"Curse her!" Basterga foamed: and had he had a hand to spare, he wouldhave struck her down. "Pull, man, have you no strength! Let go, youvixen! Let go, or----"

He tried to press her throat, but in changing his hold allowed her toutter a second scream, louder, more shrill, more full of passion thanthe other. At the same instant a chair, knocked down by Blondel in hisefforts, fell with a crash, throwing down a pewter platter; and Claude, white and breathless as he was, began to struggle, seeing his mistressso handled. The four swayed to and fro. Another moment, and either theSyndic must have jerked himself free, or the contest must have attainedto dimensions that could not escape the notice of the neighbours, when asound--a sound from within, from upstairs--stayed the tumult as bymagic. 

Blondel ceased to struggle, and stood aghast. Basterga relaxed his holdupon his prisoners and listened. Claude leant back against the wall. Thegirl alone--she alone moved. Without speaking, without looking, as abird flies to its young, she sprang to the stairs and fled up them. 

The maniacal laugh, the crazy words--a moment only, they heard them: andthen the door above, which the poor woman, so long bedridden, hadcontrived in her frenzy of fear to open, closed on the sounds andstifled them. But enough had been heard: enough to convince Blondel, enough to justify Basterga, enough to change the fortunes of more thanone in the room. The scholar's eyes met the Syndic's. 

"Are you satisfied?" he asked, in a low voice. 

Blondel, breathing hard, nodded. 

"You heard?"

He nodded a second time. He looked scared. 

"Then you have enough to burn the old witch and the young one with her!"Basterga replied. He turned his small eyes, sparkling with malignity, onthe young man, who stood against the wall, pale, and but half recoveredfrom the blow he had sustained. "You thought to thwart me, did you, Messer Claude? You thought yourself clever enough to play with CæsarBasterga, did you? To hold at bay--oh, clever fellow--a magistrate and ascholar! And defy us both! Now I will tell you what will come of it!" Heshook his great finger in front of the young man. "Your pretty bit ofpink and white will burn! Burn, see you! A show for the little boys, aholiday for the young men and the young women, a treat for the old men, who will see her white limbs writhe in the smoke! Ha!" as Claude, with aface of horror, would have waved him away, "that touches you, does it?You had not thought of that? Nay, you had not thought of other things. Itell you, before the sun sets this evening, this house shall beanathema! Before night what we have heard will be known abroad, andthere will be much added to it. There was a child died in the fourthhouse from this on Sunday! It will be odd if she did not overlook it. And the young wife of the Lieutenant at the Porte Tertasse, who hasailed since her marriage--a pale thing; who knows but he looked this wayonce and Mistress Anne thought ill of his defection? Ha! Ha! You wouldcross Cæsar Basterga, would you? No, Messer Claude, " he set his hugefoot on the fallen sword which Claude had made a movement to recover. "Ifight with other weapons than that! And if you lay a finger on me"--heextended his arms to their widest extent--"I will crush the life out ofyou. That is better, " as Claude stood glaring helplessly at him--"Iteach you prudence, at any rate. And as, " with a sneer, "you are so aptat learning, I will do you, if you choose, a greater kindness that manever did you, or woman either!"

The young man, breathing quickly, did not speak. Perhaps his eyes werewatching for an opening; at the least appearance of one he would haveflung himself upon his enemy. 

"You do not choose. And yet, I will do it. In one word--Go!

 Teque his, puer, eripe flammis!"

He pointed to the door with a gesture tragic enough. "Go and live, forif you stay you die! Wait not until the chain is drawn before the door, until boards darken the windows, and men cross the street when theywould pass! Until women hide their heads as they go by, and the marketwill not sell, nor the water run for you! For then, as surely as shewill perish, you will perish with her!"

"So be it!" Claude cried. And in his turn he pointed, not withoutdignity, to the door. "Go you, and our blood be upon your head!"

Basterga shrugged his shoulders, and in one moment put the thing and hisgrand manner away from him. "Enough! we will go, " he said. "You aresatisfied, Messer Syndic? Yes. Farewell, young sir, you have my lastword. " And while the young man stood glowering at him, he opened thestreet door, and the two passed out. 

"You will not go on with this?" Blondel muttered with a backwardgesture, as the two paused. 

"Nothing, " Basterga answered in a low voice, "will suit our purposebetter. It will amuse Geneva and fill men's mouths till the time come. For you too, Messer Blondel, " he continued, with a piercing look, "willlive and not die, I take it?"

The other knew then that the hour had come to set his seal to thebargain: and equally, that if at this eleventh hour he would return, thepath was open. But _facilis_--known is the rest, and the grip which astrong nature gains on a weaker, and how hardly fear, once admitted, iscast out. Within the Syndic's sight rose one of the gates, almost withintouch rose the rampart of the city, long his own, which he was asked tobetray. The mountains of his native land, pure, cold and sunlit, stoodup against the blue depth of winter sky, eloquent of the permanence ofthings, and the insignificance of men. The contemplation of them turnedhis cheek a shade paler and struck terror to his heart; but did not stayhim. His eyes avoiding the other's gaze, his face shrinking andpitiable, shame already his portion, he nodded. 

"Precisely, " Basterga said. "Then nothing can better serve our purposethan this. Let your officers know what you have heard, and know that youwould hear more--of this house. That, and a hint of evil practices andwitch's spells dropped here and there, will give your townsfolksomething to talk of and stare at and swallow--till our time come. "

"But if I bid them watch this house, " Blondel muttered weakly--how fast, how fast the thing was passing out of his hands!--"attention will becalled to you, and then, Messer Basterga----"

"My work is done here, " Basterga replied calmly. "I have crossed thatthreshold for the last time. When I leave you--and it is time weparted--I go out of the gates, not again to return until--until thingshave been brought to the point at which we would have them, MesserBlondel. "

"And that, " the Syndic said with a shudder, "will be?"

"Towards the longest night. Say, in a week or so from now. The precisemoment--that and other things, I will let you know by a safe mouth. "

"But the _remedium_? That first!" the Syndic muttered, a scowl, for asecond, darkening his face. 

Basterga smiled. "Have no fear, " he replied. "That first, by all means. And afterwards--Geneva. "

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE DEPARTURE OF THE RATS. 

The wood-ash on the hearth had sunk lower and grown whiter. The lastflame that had licked the black sides of the great pot had died downamong the expiring embers. Only under the largest log glowed a tinycavern, carbuncle-hued; and still Claude walked restlessly from thewindow to the door, or listened with a frowning face at the foot of thestairs. One hour, two hours had passed since the Syndic's departure withBasterga; and still Anne remained with her mother and made no sign. Once, spurred by anxiety and the thought that he might be of use, Claudehad determined to mount and seek her; but half-way up the stairs hiscourage had failed he had recoiled from a scene so tender, and sosacred. He had descended and fallen again to moving to and fro, andlistening, and staring remorsefully at the weapon--it lay where he haddropped it on the floor--that had failed him in his need. 

He had their threats in his ears, and by-and-by the horror of inaction, the horror of sitting still and awaiting the worst with folded hands, overcame him; and in a panic planning flight for them all, flight, however hopeless, however desperate, he hurried into his bed-closet, andbegan to pack his possessions. He packed impulsively until even the fattext-books bulked in his bundle, and the folly of flying for life with aCæsar and Melancthon on his back struck him. Then he turned all out onthe floor in a fury of haste lest she should surprise him, and thinkthat he had had it in his mind to desert her. 

Back he went on that to the living-room with its dying fire andlengthening shadows; and there he resumed his solitary pacing. The roomlay silent, the house lay silent; even the rampart without, which thebiting wind kept clear of passers. He tried to reason on the position, to settle what would happen, what steps Basterga and Blondel would take, how the blow they threatened would fall. Would the officers of theSyndic enter and seize the two helpless women and drag them to theguard-house? In that case, what should he do, what could he do, since itwas most unlikely that he would be allowed to go with them or see them?For a time the desperate notion of bolting and barring the house andholding it against the law possessed his mind; but only to be quicklydismissed. He was not yet mad enough for that. In the meantime was thereany one to whom he could appeal? Any course he could adopt?

The sound of the latch rising in its socket drew his eyes to the outerdoor. It opened, and he saw Louis Gentilis on the threshold. Holding thedoor ajar, the young man peered in. Meeting Claude's eyes, he looked tothe stairs, as if to seek the protection of Anne's presence; failing tofind her, he made for an instant as if he would shut the door again, andgo. But apparently he saw that Claude, thoroughly dispirited, was makingno motion to carry out his threats of vengeance; and he thought betterof it. He came in slowly, and closed the door after him. Turning his capin his hand, and with his eyes slyly fixed on Claude, he made without aword for his bed-closet, entered it, and closed the door behind him. 

His silence was strange, and his furtive manner impressed Claudeunpleasantly. They seemed to imply a knowledge that boded ill; nor wasthe impression they made weakened when, two minutes later, the closetdoor opened again, and he came out. 

"What is it?" Claude asked, speaking sharply. He was not going to put upwith mystery of this sort. 

For answer Louis' eyes met his a moment; then the young man, withoutspeaking, slid across the room to a chair on which lay a book. He tookup the volume; it was his. Next he discovered another possession--or soit seemed--approached it and took seisin of it in the same dumb way; andso with another and another. Finally, blinking and looking askance, hepassed his eyes from side to side to learn if he had overlookedanything. 

But Claude's patience, though prolonged by curiosity, was at an end. Hetook a step forward, and had the satisfaction of seeing Louis drop hisair of mystery, and recoil two paces. "If you don't speak, " Claudecried, "I will break every bone in your body! Do you hear, you sneakingrogue? Do you forget that you are in my debt already? Tell me in twowords what this dumb show means, or I will have payment for all!"

Master Louis cringed, divided between the desire to flee and the fear oflosing his property. "You will be foolish if you make any fuss here, " hemuttered, his arm raised to ward off a blow. "Besides, I'm going, " hecontinued, swallowing nervously as he spoke. "Let me go. "

"Going?"

"Yes. "

"Do you mean, " Claude exclaimed in astonishment, "that you are going forgood?"

"Yes, and if you will take my advice"--with a look of sinistermeaning--"you will go too. That is all. "

"Why? Why?" Claude repeated. 

Louis' only answer was a shudder, which told Claude that if the otherdid not know all, he knew much. Dismayed and confounded, Mercierstepped back, and, with a secret grin of satisfaction, Louis turnedagain to his task of searching the room. He found presently that forwhich he had been looking--his cloak. He disentangled it, with apeculiar look, from a woman's hood, contact with which he avoided withcare. That done, he cast it over his arm, and got back into his closet. Claude heard him moving there, and presently he emerged a second time. 

Precisely as he did so Claude caught the sound of a light footstep onthe stairs, the stair door opened, and Anne, her face weary, butcomposed, came in. Her first glance fell on Louis, who, with his sackand cloak on his arm, was in the act of closing the closet door. Habitcarried her second look to the hearth. 

"You have let the fire go out, " she said. Then, turning to Louis, in avoice cold and free from emotion, "Are you going?" she asked. 

He muttered that he was, his face a medley of fear and spite and shame. 

She nodded, but to Claude's astonishment expressed no surprise. Meanwhile Louis, after dropping first his cloak and then his sack, inhis haste to be gone, shuffled his way to the door. The two looked on, without moving or speaking, while he opened it, carried out his bag, and, turning about, closed the door upon himself. They heard hisfootsteps move away. 

At length Claude spoke. "The rats, I see, are leaving, " he muttered. 

"Yes, the rats!" she echoed, and carried for a moment her eyes to his. Then she knelt on the hearth, and uncovering the under side of the log, where a little fire still smouldered, she fed it with two or threefir-cones, and, stooping low, blew steadily on them until they caughtfire and blazed. He stood looking down at her, and marvelled at thestrength of mind that allowed her to stoop to trifles, or to think offires at such a time as this. He forgot that habit is of all stays thestrongest, and that to women a thousand trifles make up--God reward themfor it--the work of life: a work which instinct moves them to pursue, though the heavens fall. 

Several hours had elapsed since he had entered hotfoot to see her; andthe day was beginning to wane. The flame of the blazing fir-cones, ahundred times reflected in the rows of pewter plates and the surface ofthe old oaken dressers, left the corners of the room in shadow. Immediately within the windows, indeed, the daylight held its own; butwhen she rose and turned to him her back was towards the casement, andthe firelight which lit up her face flickered uncertainly, and left himin doubt whether she were moved or not. 

"You have eaten nothing!" she said, while he stood pondering what shewould say. "And it is four o'clock! I am sorry!" Her tone, which tookshame to herself, gave him a new surprise. 

He stopped her as she turned to the dresser. "Your mother is better?" hesaid gently. 

"She is herself now, " she replied, with a slight quaver, and withoutlooking at him. And she went about her work. 

Did she know? Did she understand? In his world was only one fact, in hismind only one tremendous thought: the fact of their position, thethought of their isolation and peril. In her treatment of Louis she hadseemed to show knowledge and a comprehension as wide as his own. But ifshe knew all, could she be as calm as she was? Could she go about herdaily tasks? Could she cut and lay and fetch with busy fingers, and allin silence?

He thought not; and though he longed to consult her, to assure her andcomfort her, to tell her that the very isolation, the very peril inwhich they stood were a happiness and a joy to him, whatever the issue, because he shared them with her, he would not, by reason of that doubt. He did not yet know the courage which underlies the gentlest natures:nor did he guess that even as it was a joy to him to stand beside her inperil, so it was a joy to her, even in that hour, to come and go forhim, to cut his bread and lay for him, to draw his wine from the greatcask under the stairs, and pour for him in the tall horn mug. 

And little said. By him, because he shrank from opening her eyes to thedanger of their position; by her, because her mind was full and shecould not trust herself to speak calmly. But he knew that she, too, hadfasted since morning, and he made her eat with him: and it was in thethoughts of each that they had never eaten together before. For commonlyAnne took her meal with her mother, or ate as the women of her timeoften ate, standing, alone, when others had finished. There are momentswhen the simplest things put on the beauty and significance of rites, and this first eating together at the small table on the fire-lit hearthwas one of such moments. He saw that she did eat; and this care for her, and the reverence of his manner, so moved her, that at last tears roseand choked her, and to give her time and to hide his own feelings, hestood up and affected to get something from the fireside. 

Before he turned again, the latch rattled and the door flew open. Thefreezing draught that entered, arrested him between the table and thefire. The intruder was Grio. He stood an instant scowling on them, thenhe entered and closed the door. He eyed the two with a sneering laugh, and, turning, flung his cloak on a chair. It was ill-aimed and fell tothe ground. 

"Why the devil don't you light?" he cried violently. "Eh?" He addedsomething in which the words "Old hag's devilry!" were alone audible. "Do you hear?" he continued, more coherently. "Why don't you light? Whatblack games are you playing, I'd like to know? I want my things!"

Claude's fingers tingled, but danger and responsibility are sureteachers, and he restrained himself. Neither of them answered, but Annefetched the lamp, and kindling a splinter of wood lighted it, and placedit on the table. Then bringing the Spaniard's rushlight from the threeor four that stood on the dresser, she lighted it and held it out tohim. 

"Set it down!" he said, with tipsy insolence. He was not quite sober. "Set it down! I am not going to--hic!--risk my salvation! Avaunt, Satan!It is possible to palm the evil one, like a card I am told, and--hic!--soul out, devil in, all lost as easy as candle goes out!"

He had taken his candle with an unsteady hand, and unconsciously hadblown it out himself. She restrained Claude by a look, and patientlytaking the rushlight from Grio, she re-lit it and set it on the tablefor him to take. 

"As a candle goes out!" he repeated, eyeing it with drunken wisdom. "Candle out, devil in, soul lost, there you have it in threewords--clever as any of your long-winded preachers! But I want mythings. I am going before it is too late. Advise you to go too, youngman, " he hiccoughed, "before you are overlooked. She is a witch! She'sthe devil's mark on her, I tell you! I'd like to have the finding it!"And with an ugly leer he advanced a step as if he would lay hands onher. 

She shrank back, and Claude's eyes blazed. Fortunately, the bully's mindpassed to the first object of his coming; or it may be that he was soberenough to read a warning in the younger man's face. 

"Oh! time enough, " he said. "You are not so nice always, I'll be bound. And things come--hic!--to those who wait! I don't belong to yourSabbaths, I suppose, or you'd be freer! But I want my things, and I amgoing to have them! I defy thee, Satan! And all thy works!"

Still growling under his breath he burst open the staircase door, andstumbled noisily upwards, the light wavering in his hand. Anne's eyesfollowed him; she had advanced to the foot of the stairs, and Claudeunderstood the apprehension that held her. But the sounds did notpenetrate to the room on the upper floor, or Madame Royaume did not takethe alarm; perhaps she slept. And after assuring herself that Grio hadentered his room the girl returned to the table. 

The Spaniard had spoken with brutal plainness; it was no longer possibleto ignore what he had said, or to lie under any illusion as to thegirl's knowledge of her peril. Claude's eyes met hers: and for a momentthe anguished human soul peered through the mask of constancy, for amoment the woman in her, shrinking from the ordeal and the fire, fromshame and death, thrust aside the veil, and held out quivering, piteoushands to him. But it was for a moment only. Before he could speak shewas brave as before, quiet as he had ever seen her, patient, mistress ofherself. "It is as you said, " she muttered, smiling wanly, "the rats areleaving us. "

"Vermin!" he whispered. He could not trust himself to say more. Hisvoice shook, his eyes were full. 

"They have not lost time, " she continued in a low tone. She did notcease to listen, nor did her eyes leave the staircase door. "Louisfirst, and now Grio. How has it reached them so quickly, do you think?"

"Louis is hand in glove with the Syndic, " he murmured. 

"And Grio?"

"With Basterga. "

She nodded. "What do you think they will do--first?" she whispered. Andagain--it went to his heart--the woman's face, fear-drawn, showed as itwere beneath the mask with which love and faith and a noble resignationhad armed her. "Do you think they will denounce us at once?"

He shook his head in sheer inability to foresee; and then, seeing thatshe continued to look anxiously for his answer, that answer which heknew to be of no value, for minute by minute the sense of hishelplessness was weighing upon him, "It may be, " he muttered. "Godknows. When Grio is gone we will talk about it. "

She began, but always with a listening ear and an eye to the open door, to remove from the table the remains of their meal. Midway in her task, she glanced askance at the window, under the impression that some onewas looking through it; and in any case now the lamp was lit it exposedthem to the curiosity of the rampart. She was going to close theshutters when Claude interposed, raised the heavy shutters and boltedand barred them. He was turning from them when Grio's step was hearddescending. 

Strange to say the Spaniard's first glance was at the windows, and helooked genuinely taken aback when he saw that they were closed. "Why thedevil did you shut?" he exclaimed, in a rage; and passing Anne with asidelong movement, he flung a heavy bundle on the floor by the door. Ashe turned to ascend again he met her eyes, and backing from her he madewith two of his fingers the ancient sign which southern people still useto ward off the evil eye. Then, half shamefacedly, half recklessly, heblundered upstairs again. A moment, and he came stumbling down; but thistime he was careful to keep the great bundle he bore between himselfand her eyes, until he had got the door open. 

That precaution taken, as if he thought the free cold air which enteredwould protect him from spells, he showed himself at his ease, threw downhis bundle and faced her with an air of bravado. 

"I need not have feared, " he said with a tipsy grin, "but I hadforgotten what I carry. I have a hocus-pocus here "--he touched hisbreast--"written by a wise man in Ravenna, and sealed with a dead Goth'shand, that is proof against devil or dam! And I defy thee, mistress. "

"Why?" she cried. "Why?" And the note of indignation in her voice, thepassionate challenge of her eyes, enforced the question. In the humanmind is a desire for justice that will not be denied; and even from thisdrunken ruffian a sudden impulse bade her demand it. "Why should youdefy me or fear me? What have I done to you, what have I done to anyone, " she continued, with noble resentment, "that you should spread thisof me? You have eaten and drunk at my hand a hundred times; have Ipoisoned or injured you? I have looked at you a hundred times; have Ioverlooked you? You have lain down under this roof by night a hundredtimes; have I harmed you sleeping or waking, full moon or no moon?"

For answer he leered at her slyly. "Not a whit, " he said. "No. "

"No?" Her colour rose. 

"No; but you see"--with a grin--"it never leaves me, my girl. " Hetouched his breast. "While I wear that I am safe. "

She gasped. "Do you mean that I----"

"I do not know what you would have done--but for that!" he retorted. "Maimed me or wizened me, perhaps! Or, may be, made me waste away asyou did the child that died three doors away last Sunday!"

Her face changed slowly. Prepared as she had been for the worst by manyan hour of vigil beside her mother's bed, the horror of this preciseaccusation--and such an accusation--overcame her. "What?" she cried. "You dare to say that I--that I----" She could not finish. 

But her eyes lightened, her form dilated with passion; and tipsy, ignorant, brutish as he was, the Spaniard could not be blind to theindignation, the resentment, the very wonder which stopped her breathand choked her utterance. At the sight some touch of shame, some touchof pity, made itself felt in the dull recesses even of that brain. "Idon't say it, " he muttered awkwardly. "It is what they are saying in thestreet. "

"In the street?"

"Ay, where else?" He knew who said it, for he knew whence his orderscame: but he was not going to tell her. Yet the spark of kindlinesswhich she had kindled still lived--how could it be otherwise in presenceof her youth and gentleness? "If you'll take my advice, " he continuedroughly, "you'll not show yourself in the streets unless you wish to bemishandled, my girl. It will be time enough when the time comes. Evennow, if you were to leave your old witch of a mother and get goodprotection, there is no knowing but you might be got clear! You are afair bit of red and white, " with a grin. "And it is not far to Savoy!Will you come if I risk it?"

A gesture, half refusal, half loathing, answered him. 

"Oh, very well!" he said. The short-lived fit of pity passed from him;he scowled. "You'll think differently when they have the handling ofyou. I'm glad to be going, for where there's one fire there are apt tobe more; and I am a Christian, no matter who's not! Let who will burn, I'll not!"

He picked up one bundle and, carrying it out, raised his voice. A man, who had shrunk, it seemed, from entering the house, showed his face inthe light which streamed from the door. To this fellow he gave thebundle, and shouldering the other, he went heavily out, leaving the doorwide open behind him. 

Claude strode to it and closed it; but not so quickly that he had not aglimpse of three or four pairs of eyes staring in out of the darkness;eyes so curious, so fearful, so quickly and noiselessly withdrawn--foreven while he looked, they were gone--that he went back to the hearthwith a shiver of apprehension. 

Fortunately, she had not seen them. She stood where he had left her, inthe same attitude of amazement into which Grio's accusation had casther. As she met his gaze--then, at last, she melted. The lamplightshowed her eyes brimming over with tears; her lips quivered, her breastheaved under the storm of resentment. 

"How dare they say it?" she cried. "How dare they? That I would harm achild? A child?" And, unable to go on, she held out protesting hands tohim. "And my mother? My mother, who never injured any one or harmed ahair of any one's head! That she--that they should say that of her! Thatthey should set that to her! But I will go this instant, " impetuously, "to the child's mother. She will hear me. She will know and believe me. A mother? Yes, I will go to her!"

"Not now, " he said. "Not now, Anne!"

"Yes, now, " she persisted, deaf to his voice. She snatched up her hoodfrom the ground on which it had fallen, and began to put it on. 

He seized her arm. "No, not now, " he said firmly. "You shall not go now. Wait until daylight. She will listen to you more coolly then. "

She resisted him. "Why?" she said. "Why?"

"People fancy things at night, " he urged. "I know it is so. If she sawyou enter out of the darkness"--the girl with her burning eyes, her wetcheeks, her disordered hair looked wild enough--"she might refuse tobelieve you. Besides----"

"What?"

"I will not have you go now, " he said firmly. That instant it hadflashed upon him that one of the faces he had seen outside was the faceof the dead child's mother. "I will not let you go, " he repeated. "Go inthe daylight. Go to-morrow morning. Go then, if you will!" He did notchoose to tell her that he feared for her instant safety if she wentnow; that, if he had his will, the streets would see her no more formany a day. 

She gave way. She took off her hood, and laid it on the table. But forseveral minutes she stood, brooding darkly and stormily, her handsfingering the strings. To foresee is not always to be forearmed. She hadlived for months in daily and hourly expectation of the blow which hadfallen; but not the more easily for that could she brook the concretecharge. Her heart burned, her soul was on fire. Justice, give us justicethough the heavens fall, is an instinct planted deep in man's nature! Ofthe Mysterious Passion of our Lord our finite minds find no part worsethan the anguish of innocence condemned. A child? She to hurt a child?And her mother? Her mother, so harmless, so ignorant, so tormented! Sheto hurt a child?

After a time, nevertheless, the storm began to subside. But with it diedthe hope which is inherent in revolt; in proportion as she grew morecalm the forlornness of her situation rose more clearly before her. Atlast that had happened which she had so long expected to happen. Thething was known. Soon the full consequences would be upon her, theconsequences on which she dared not dwell. Shudderingly she tried toclose her eyes to the things that might lie before her, to the things atwhich Grio had hinted, the things of which she had lain thinking--evenwhile they were distant and uncertain--through many a night of bitterfear and fevered anticipation. 

They were at hand now, and though she averted her thoughts, she knew it. But the wind is tempered to the shorn. Even as the prospect of futureill can dominate the present, embitter the sweetest cup, and renderthorny the softest bed, so, sometimes, present good has the power toobscure the future evil. As Anne sank back on the settle, her tremblinglimbs almost declining to bear her, her eyes fell on her companion. Failing to rouse her, he had seated himself on the other side of thehearth, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his hands, in an attitudeof deep thought. And little by little, as she looked at him, her cheeksgrew, if not red, less pale, her eyes lost their tense and hopelessgaze. She heaved a quivering sigh, and slowly carried her look round theroom. 

Its homely comfort, augmented by the hour and the firelight, seemed tolap them round. The door was locked, the shutters were closed, the lampburned cheerfully. And he sat opposite--sat as if they had been longmarried. The colour grew deeper in her face as she gazed; she breathedmore quickly; her eyes shone. What evil cannot be softened, whatmisfortune cannot be lightened to a woman by the knowledge that she isloved by the man she loves? That where all have fled, he remains, andthat neither fear of death nor word of man can keep him from her side?

He looked up in the end, and caught the look on her face, the look thata woman bestows on one man only in her life. In a moment he was on hisknees beside her, holding her hands, covering them with kisses, vowingto save her, to save her--or to die with her!

CHAPTER XX. 

IN THE DARKENED ROOM. 

Claude flung the cloak from his head and shoulders, and sat up. It wasmorning--morning, after that long, dear sitting together--and he staredconfusedly about him. He had been dreaming; all night he had sleptuneasily. But the cry that had roused him, the cry that had started thatquick beating of the heart, the cry that still rang in his waking earsand frightened him, was no dream. 

As he rose to his feet, his senses began to take in the scene; heremembered what had happened and where he was. The shutters were loweredand open. The cold grey light of the early morning at this deadestseason of the year fell cheerlessly on the living-room; in which for thegreater safety of the house he had insisted on passing the night. Anne, whose daily task it was to open the shutters, had been down then: shemust have been down, or whence the pile of fresh cones and splintersthat crackled, and spirted flame about the turned log. Perhaps it washer mother's cry that had roused him; and she had re-ascended to herroom. 

He strode to the staircase door, opened it softly and listened. No, allwas silent above; and then a new notion struck him, and he glancedround. Her hood was gone. It was not on the table on which he had seenit last night. 

It was so unlikely, however, that she had gone out without telling him, that he dismissed the notion; and, something recovered from the strangeagitation into which the cry had cast him, he yawned. He returned to thehearth and knelt and re-arranged the sticks so that the air might havefreer access to the fire. Presently he would draw the water for her, andfill the great kettle, and sweep the floor. The future might be gloomy, the prospect might lower, but the present was not without its pleasures. 

All his life his slowness to guess the truth on this occasion was apuzzle to him. For the materials were his. Slowly, gradually, as hecrouched sleepily before the fire, it grew upon him that there was anoise in the air; a confused sound, not of one cry, but of many, thatcame from the street, from the rampart. A noise, now swelling a little, now sinking a little, that seemed as he listened not so distant as ithad sounded a while ago. Not distant at all, indeed; quite close--now! Asound of rushing water, rather soothing; or, as it swelled, a sound of acrowd, a gibing, mocking crowd. Yes, a crowd. And then in one instantthe change was wrought. 

He was on his feet; he was at the door. He, who a moment before hadnodded over the fire, watching the flames grow, was transformed in fiveseconds into a furious man, tugging at the door, wrestling madly withthe unyielding oak. Wrestling, and still the noise rose! And still hestrained in vain, back and sinew, strained until with a cry of despairhe found that he could not win. The door was locked, the key was gone!He was a prisoner!

And still the noise that maddened him, rose. He sprang to the right-handwindow, the window nearest the commotion. He tore open a panel of thesmall leaded panes, and thrust his head between the bars. He saw acrowd; for an instant, in the heart of the crowd and raised above it, he saw an uplifted arm and a white woman's face from which blood wasflowing. He drew in his head, and laid his hands to one of the bars andflung his weight this way and that, flung it desperately, heedless ofinjury. But in vain. The lead that soldered the bar into the strongstone mullion held, and would have held against the strength of four. With heaving breast, and hands from which the blood was starting, hestood back, glared round him, then with a cry flung himself upon theother window, tore it open and seized a bar--the middle one of thethree. It was loose he remembered. God! why had he not thought of itbefore? Why had he wasted time?

He wasted no more, with those shouts of cruel glee in his ears. The barcame out in his hands. He thrust himself feet first through theaperture. Slight as he was, it was small for him, and he stuck fast atthe hips, and had to turn on his side. The rough edges of the barsscraped the skin, but he was through, and had dropped to his feet, thebar which he had plucked out still in his hands. For a fraction of asecond, as he alighted, his eyes took in the crowd, and the girl at bayagainst the wall. She was raised a little above her tormentors by thesteps on which she had taken refuge. 

On one side her hair hung loose, and the cheek beneath it was cut andbleeding, giving her a piteous and tragic aspect. Four out of five ofher assailants were women; one of these had torn her face with hernails. Streaks of mud were mingled with the blood which ran down herneck; and even as Claude recovered himself after the drop from thewindow, a missile, eluding the bent arm with which she strove to shieldher face, struck and bespattered her throat where the collar of herfrock had been torn open--perhaps by the same rough clutch which haddragged down her hair. The ring about her--like all crowds in thebeginning--were strangely silent; but a yell of derision greeted thissuccess, and a stone flew, narrowly missing her, and another, andanother. A woman, holding a heavy Bible after the fashion of a shield, was stooping and striking at her knees with a stick, striving to bringher to the ground; and with the cruel laughter that hailed the hag'sungainly efforts were mingled other and more ugly sounds, low curses, execrations, and always one fatal word, "Witch! Witch!"--fatal word spatat her by writhing mouths, hissed at her by pale lips, tossed broadcaston the cold morning wind, to breed wherever it flew fear and hate andsuspicion. For, even while they mocked her they feared her, and shieldedthemselves against her power with signs and crossings and the Holy Book. 

To all, curse and blow and threat, she had only one word. Strivingpatiently to shield her face, "Let me go!" she wailed pitifully. "Let mego! Let me go!" Strange to say, she cried even that but softly; as whoshould say, "If you will not, kill me quietly, kill me without noise!"Ay, even then, with the blood running down her face, and with those eyesmore cruel than men's eyes hemming her in, she was thinking of themother whom she had sheltered so long. 

"Let me go! Let me go!" she repeated. 

"Witch, you shall go!" they answered ruthlessly. "To hell!"

"Ay, with her dam! To the water with her! To the water!"

"Look for the devil's mark! Search her! Again, Martha! Bring her down!Bring her down, and we'll soon see whether----"

Then he reached them. The man, one of the few present, who had biddenthem search her fell headlong on his face in the gutter, struck behindas by a thunder-bolt. The great Bible flew one way, the hag's stick flewanother--and in its flight felled a second woman. In a twinkling Claudewas on the steps, and in the heart of the crowd stood two people, notone; in a twinkling his arm was round the girl, his pale, furious faceconfronted her tormentors, his blazing eyes beat down theirs! More thanall, his iron bar, brandished recklessly this way and that, threatenedthe brains of the man or the woman who was bold enough to withstand him. 

For he was beside himself with rage. He learned in that moment that hewas of those who fight with joy and rejoicing, and laugh where othersshake. The sight of that white, bleeding face, of that hanging hair, ofthat suppliant arm, above all, the sound of that patient "Let me go! Letme go!" that expected nothing and hoped nothing, had turned his blood tofire. The more numerous his opponents--if they were men--the better hewould be pleased; and if they were women, such women, unsexed by hateand superstition, as he saw before him, women looking a millionfold morelike witches than the girl they accused, the worse for them! His armwould not falter!

It seemed of steel indeed. The bar quivered like a reed in his grasp, his eyes darted hither and thither, he stood an inch taller than atother times. He was like the war-horse that sniffs the battle. 

And yet he was cool after a fashion. He must get her home, and to do sohe must not lose a moment. The vantage of the steps on which they stood, raised a hand's breath above their assailants, was a thing to beweighed; but it would not serve them if these cursed women mustered, andthe cowardly crew before him throve to a mob. He must home with her. Butthe door was locked, and she could only go in as he had come out. Still, she must go. 

He thought all this between one stride and another--and other thoughtsthick as leaves falling in a wind. Then, "Fools!" he thundered, and hadher down the steps, and was dragging her towards her door before theyawoke from their surprise, or thought of attacking him. The woman withthe big Bible had had her fill--though he had not struck her but herstick--and sat where she had fallen in the mud. The other woman huggedherself in pain. The man was in no hurry to be up, having once feltClaude's knee in the small of his back. For a few seconds no one moved;and when they recovered themselves he was half-way to the Royaumes'door. 

They snatched up mud, then, and flung it after the pair with shrillexecrations. And the woman who had picked up the stick hurled it in afrenzy after them, but wide of the mark. A dozen stones fell round them, and the cry of "The Witch! The Witch!"--cry so ominous, so cruel, cryfraught with death for so many poor creatures--followed hard on them. But they were within five paces of the door now, and if he could lifther to the window----

"The key, " she murmured in his ear. "The key is in the lock!"

She had her wits, too, then, and her courage! He felt a glow of pride, his arm pressed her more closely to him. "Unlock it!" he answered, andleaving her to it, having now no fear that she would faint or fall, heturned on the rabble with his bar. 

But they were for words, not blows, a rabble of cowards and women. Theyturned tail with screams and fled to a distance, more than one fallingin the sudden _volte-face_. He made no attempt to pursue them along therampart, but looked behind him, and found that she had opened the door. She had taken out the key, and was waiting for him to enter. 

He went up the steps, entered, and she closed the door quickly. It shutout in a moment the hootings of the returning women. While she locked iton the inside, he raised the bars and slid them into their places. Then, not till then, he turned to her. 

Her face averted, she was staunching the blood which trickled from hercheek. "It was the child's mother!" she faltered, a sob in her voice. "Iwent to her. I thought--that she would believe. Get me some water, please! I must go upstairs. My mother will be frightened. "

He was astonished: on fire himself, with every pulse beating madly, hewas prepared for her to faint, to fall, to fling herself into his armsin gratitude; prepared for everything but this self-forgetfulness. "Water?" he said doubtfully, "but had you not better--take some wine, Anne?"

"To wash! To wash!" she replied sharply, almost angrily. "How can I goto her in this state? And do you shut the shutters. "

A stone had that moment passed through a pane of one of the windows. Therout of women were gathering before the house; the step she advised wasplainly necessary. Fortunately the Royaumes' house, like all in theCorraterie--which formed an inner line of defence pierced by theTertasse gate--had outside shutters of massive thickness, capable ofbeing lowered from within. He closed these in haste and found, when heturned from the task and looked for her--a small round hole in eachshutter made things dimly visible--that she was gone to soothe hermother. 

He could not but love her the more for it. He could not but respect herthe more for her courage, for her thoughtfulness, her self-denial. Butwhen the heart is full and would unburden itself, when the brain teemswith pent-up thoughts, when the excitement of action and of peril wanesand the mind would fain tell and hear and compare and remember--then tobe alone, to be solitary, is to sink below one's self. 

For a time, while his pulses still beat high, while the heat of battlestill wrought in him, and the noise without continued, and there seemeda prospect of things to be done, he stood up against this. Thump! Thump!They were stoning the shutters. Let them! He placed the settle acrossthe hearth, and in this way cut off the firelight that might havebetrayed those in the room to eyes peeping through the holes. By-and-bythe shrill vixenish cries rose louder, he caught the sound of voices inaltercation, and of hoarse orders: and slowly and reluctantly the babelseemed to pass away. An anxious moment followed: fearfully he listenedfor the knock of the law, the official summons which must make all hisefforts useless. But it did not come. 

It was when the silence which ensued had lasted some minutes that thestrangeness and aloofness of his position in this darkened room began toweigh on his spirits. His eyes had adapted themselves to the gloom, andhe could make out the shapes of the furniture. But it was morning! Itwas day! Outside, the city was beginning to go about its ordinary work, its ordinary life. The streets were filling, the classes were mustering. And he sat here in the dark! The longer he stared into the strange, depressing gloom, the farther he seemed from life; the more solitary, the more hopeless, the more ominous seemed the position. 

Alone with two women whom the worst of fates threatened! Whose pains andultimate lot the brawl in which he had taken part foreshadowed tooclearly. For thus and with as little cause perished in those daysthousands of the helpless and the friendless. Alone with these two, under the roof from which all others had fled, barred with them behindthe gloomy shutters until the hour came, and their fellows, shuddering, cast them out--what chance had he of escaping their lot?

Or what desire to escape it? None, he told himself. None! But he whofights best when blows are to be struck and things can be done finds ithard to sit still where it is the inevitable that must be faced. Andwhile Claude told himself that he had no desire to escape, since escapefor her was impossible, his mind sought desperately the means of savingall. The frontier lay but a league away. Conceivably they might lowerthemselves from the wall by night; conceivably his strength might availto carry her mother to the frontier. But, alas! the crime of witchcraftknew no frontier; the reputation of a witch once thrown abroad, flewfast as the swiftest horse. Before they had been three days in Savoy, the women would be reported, seized and examined; and their fate atFaucigny or Bonneville would be no less tragic than in the Bourg du Fourof Geneva. 

Yet, something must be done, something could surely be done. But what?The bravest caught in a net struggles the most desperately, and involveshimself the most hopelessly. And Claude felt himself caught in a net. Hefelt the deadly meshes cling about his limbs, the ropes fetter andbenumb him. From the sunshine of youth, from freedom, from a lifewithout care, he had passed in a few days into the grip of this [Greek:anagkê], this dire necessity, this dark ante-chamber of death. Was itwonderful that for a moment, recognising the sacrifice he was calledupon to make and its inefficacy to save, he rebelled against the lovethat had drawn him to this fate, that had led him to this, that inothers' eyes had ruined him? Ay, but for a moment only. Then with aheart bursting with pity for her, with love for her, he was himself. Ifit must be, it must be. The prospect was dark as the room in which hestood, confined and stifling, sordid and shameful; the end one whichwould make his name a marvel and an astonishment. But the prospect andthe end were hers too; they would face them together. Haply he mightspare her some one pang, haply he might give her some one moment ofhappiness, the support of one at least who knew her pure and spotless. And while he thought of it--surprise of surprises--he bowed his head onhis folded arms and wept. 

Not in pity for himself, but for her. It was the thought of hergentleness, her loving nature, her harmlessness--and the end this, thereward this--which overcame him; which swelled his breast until onlytears could relieve it. He saw her as a dove struggling in cruel hands;and the pity which, had there been chance or hope, or any to smite, would have been rage, could find no other outlet. He wept like a woman;but it was for her. 

And she, who had descended unheard, and stood even now at the door, witha something almost divine in her face--a something that was neither lovenor compassion, maid's fancy nor mother's care, but a mingling of allthese, saw. And her heart bled for him; her arms in fancy went roundhim, in fancy his head was on her breast, she comforted him. She, who amoment before had almost sunk down on the stairs, worn out by hersufferings and the strain of hiding them from her mother's eyes, forgother weakness in thought for him. 

She had no contempt for his tears. She had seen him stand betweenherself and her tormentors, she had seen the flash of his eye, heard hisvoice, knew him brave. But the fate, for which long thought and hours onher knees had prepared her--so that it seemed but a black and bitterpassage with peace beyond--appalled her for him; and might well appalhim. The courage of men is active, of women passive; with a woman'sinstinct she knew this, allowed for it, and allowed, too, for anotherthing--that he was fasting. 

When he looked up, startled by the tinkle of pewter and the rustle ofher skirt, she was kneeling between the settle and the fire, preparingfood. He flattered himself that in the dark she had not seen him, andwhen he had regained his self-control he stepped to the settle-back andlooked over it. 

"You did not see me?" he said. 

She did not answer at once, but finished what she was doing. Then shestood up and handed him a bowl. "The bread is on the table, " she said, indicating it. She was a woman, and, dark as it was, she kept thedisfigured cheek turned from him. 

He would have replied, but she made a sign to him to eat, and, seatingherself on a stool in the corner with her plate on her lap, she set himan example. Apart from her weary attitude, and the droop of her head, hemight have deemed the scene in which they had taken part a figment ofhis brain. But round them was the gloom of the closed room!

"You did not see me?" he repeated presently. 

She stood up. "I would I had never seen you!" she cried; and heranguished tone bore witness to the truth of her words. "It is the worst, it is the bitterest thing of all! of all!" she repeated. The settle wasbetween them, and she rested her hands on the back of it. He stooped, and, in the darkness, covered them with kisses, while his breast heavedwith the swell of the storm which her entrance had cut short. "For allbut that I was prepared, " she continued; "I was ready. I have seen forweeks the hopelessness of it, the certain end, the fate before us. Ihave counted the cost, and I have learned to look beyond for--for all wedesire. It is a sharp passage, and peace. But you"--her voice rested onthe same tragic note of monotony--"are outside the sum, and spoil all. Alittle suffering will kill my mother, a little, a very little fear. Idoubt if she will live to be taken hence. And I--I can suffer. I haveknown all, I have foreseen all--long! I have learned to think of it, andI can learn by God's help to bear it! And in a little while, a verylittle while, it will be over, and I shall be at rest. But you--you, mylove----"

Her voice broke, her head sunk forward. His lips met hers in a firstkiss; a kiss, salted by the tears that ran unchecked down his face. Fora long minute there was silence in the room, a silence broken only bythe low, inarticulate murmur of his love--love whispered brokenly on hertear-wet lips, on her cold, closed eyelids. She made no attempt towithdraw her face, and presently the murmur grew to words of defiance, of love that mocked at peril, mocked at shame, mocked at death, havingassurance of its own, having assurance of her. 

They fell on her ears as warm thaw-rain on frozen sward; and slowly intothe pallor of her face, the whiteness of her closed eyelids, crept atender blush. Strange that for a few brief moments they were happy;strange, proof marvellous of the dominance of the inner life over theouter, of love over death. 

"My love, my love!"

"Again!"--he murmured. 

"My love, my love!"

But at length she came to herself, she remembered. "You will go?" shesaid. She put him from her and held him fondly at arm's length, herhands on his shoulders. "You will go? It is all you can do for me. Youwill go and live?"

"Without you?"

"Yes. Better, a hundred times better so--for me. "

"And for me? Why may I not save you and her?"

"It is impossible!"

"Nothing is impossible to love, " he answered. "The nights are long, thewall is not too high! No wall is too high for love! It is but a leagueto the frontier, and I am strong. "

"Who would receive us?" she asked sadly. "Who would shelter us? InSavoy, if we were not held for sorcery, we should be delivered to theInquisition. "

"We might gain friends?"

"With what? No, " she continued, her hands cleaving more tightly to him;"you must go, dear love! Dear love! You must go! It is all you can dofor me, and it is much! Oh, indeed, it is much! It is very much!"

He drew her to him as near as the settle would permit, until she waskneeling on it, and in spite of her faint resistance he could look intoher eyes. "Were you in my place, would you leave me?" he asked. 

"Yes, " she lied bravely, "I would. "

But the flash of resentment in her eyes gave her voice the lie, and helaughed joyfully. "You would not!" he said. "You would not leave me onthis side of death!"

She tried to protest. 

"Nor will I you, " he continued, stopping her mouth with fresh kisses. "Nor will I you till death! Did you think me a coward?" He held her fromhim and looked into her reproachful eyes. "Or a Tissot? Tissot left you. Or Louis Gentilis?"

But she made him know that he was none of these in a way that satisfiedhim; and a moment later her mother's voice called her from the room. Hethought, having no experience of a woman's will, that he had done withthat; and in her absence he betook himself to examining the defences ofthe house. He replaced the bar which he had wrested from the window;wedging it into its socket with a morsel or two of molten lead. Thewindows of the bedrooms, his own and Louis', looked into a narrow lane, the Rue de la Cité, that ran at the back of the Corraterie in a linewith the ramparts; but not only were they almost too small to permit thepassage of a full-grown man, they were strongly barred. Against such arabble, as had assaulted Anne, or even a more formidable mob, the housewas secure. But if the law intervened neither bar nor bolt could savethem. 

He fell to thinking of this, and stood, arrested in the middle of thedarkened room that, as the hours went by, was beginning to take on afamiliar look. The day was passing, all without remained quiet, nothinghad happened. Was it possible that nothing would happen? Was it possiblethat the girl through long brooding exaggerated the peril? And that theworst to be feared was such an outbreak as had occurred that morning?Such an outbreak as might not take place again, since mobs were ficklethings. 

He dwelt a while on this more hopeful view of things. Then he recalledBasterga's threats, the Syndic's face, the departure of Louis and Grio;and his heart sank as lead sinks. The rumour so quickly spread--by whathints, what innuendoes, what cunning inquiries, what references to theold, invisible, bedridden woman, he could but guess--that rumour borewitness to a malice and a thirst for revenge which were not likely tostop at words. And Louis' flight? And Grio's? And Basterga's?--for hedid not return. To believe that all these, taken together, these and theoutrage of the morning, portended anything but danger, anything but theworst, demanded a hopefulness that even his youth and his love could notcompass. 

Yet when she descended he met her with brave looks. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE _REMEDIUM_. 

Blondel's thin lips were warrant--to such of the world as had eyes tosee--that in the ordinary things of life he would have been one of thelast to put faith in a man of Basterga's stamp: and one of the first, had the case been other than his own, to laugh at the credulity he wasdisplaying. He would have seen--no one more clearly--that, in making thebargain he had made, he was in the position of a drowning man whoclutches at a straw; not because he believes that the straw will supporthim, but because he has no other hope, and is loth to sink. 

He would have seen, too, another thing, which indeed he did see dimly. This was that, talk as he might, make terms as he might, repeat asfirmly as he pleased, "The _remedium_ first and then Geneva, " he wouldbe forced when the time came to take the word for the deed. If he darednot trust Basterga, neither dared the scholar trust him. Once safe, oncesnatched from the dark fate that scared him, he would laugh at thenotion of betraying the city. He would snap his fingers in the Paduan'sface; and Basterga knew it. The scholar, therefore, dared not trust him;and either there was an end of the matter or he must trust Basterga, must eat his own words, and, content with the possession of something, must wait for proof of its efficacy until the die was cast!

In his heart he knew this. He knew that on the brink of the extremityto which circumstances and Basterga were slowly pushing him it might notbe in his power to check himself: that he must trust, whether he wouldor no, and where instinct bade him place no trust. And this doubt, thissuspicion that when all was done he might find himself tricked, andlearn that for nothing he had given all, added immeasurably to thetorment of his mind; to the misery of his reflections when he awoke inthe small hours and saw things coldly and clearly, and to the fever andsuspense in which he passed his days. 

He clung to one thought and got what consolation he could from it; abitter and saturnine comfort it was. The thought was this: if it turnedout that, after all, he had been tricked, he could but die; and die hemust if he made no bargain. And to a dead man what matter was it whatprice he had paid that he might live! What matter who won or who lostGeneva, who lived, who died, who were slaves, who free!

And again, the very easiness of the thing he was asked to do temptedhim. It was a thing that to one in his position presented no difficultyand scarcely any danger. He had but to withdraw the guards, or thegreater part of them, from a portion of the wall, and to stop on onepretext or another--the bitter cold of the wintry weather wouldavail--the rounds that at stated intervals visited the various posts. That was all; as a man of tried loyalty, intrusted with the safeguardingof the city, and to whom the officer of the watch was answerable, hemight make the necessary arrangements without incurring, even after thecatastrophe, more than a passing odium, a breath of suspicion. 

And Baudichon and Petitot? He tasted, when he thought of them, the onlymoments of comfort, of pleasure, of ease, that fell to his lotthroughout these days. They would thwart him no more. Petty worms, whose vision went no farther than the walls of the city, he would havedone with them when the flag of Savoy fluttered above St. Pierre; andwhen for the confines of a petty canton was substituted, for those whohad eyes to see and courage to adapt themselves, the wide horizon of theItalian Kingdom. When he thought of them--and then only--he warmed tothe task before him; then only he could think of it without a shiver andwithout distaste. And not the less because on that side, in theirsuspicion, in their grudging jealousy, in their unwinking integrity, laythe one difficulty. 

A difficulty exasperated by the insult that, in a moment of bitterdisappointment, he had flung in Baudichon's face. That hasty word hadrevealed to the speaker a lack of self-control that terrified him, evenas it had revealed to Baudichon a glimpse of something underneath theFourth Syndic's dry exterior that might well set a man thinking as wellas talking. This matter Blondel saw plainly he must deal with at once, or it might do harm. To absent himself from the next day's council mightrouse a storm beyond his power to weather, or short of that might giverise at a later period to a dangerous amount of gossip and conjecture. 

He was early at the meeting, therefore, but to his surprise found it insession before the hour. This, and the fact that the hubbub of voicesand discussion died down at his entrance--died down and was succeeded bya chilling silence--put him on his guard. He had not come unprepared foropposition; to meet it he had wound himself to a pitch, telling himselfthat after this all would be easy; that he had this one peril to face, this one obstacle to surmount, and having succeeded might rest. Nevertheless, as he passed up the Great Council Chamber amid thatsilence, and met strange looks on faces which were wont to smile, hiscourage for one moment, even in that familiar scene--conscience makescowards of all--wavered. His smile grew sickly, his nerves seemedsuddenly unstrung, his knees shook under him. It was a dreadful instantof physical weakness, of mental terror, under the eyes of all. Tohimself, he seemed to stand still; to be self-betrayed, self-convicted!

Then--and so brief was the moment of weakness no eye detected it--hemoved on to his place, and with his usual coolness took his seat. Helooked round. 

"You are early, " he said, ignoring the glances, hostile or doubtful, that met his gaze. "The hour has barely struck, I believe?"

"We were of opinion, " Fabri answered, with a dry cough, "that minuteswere of value. "

"Ah!"

"That not even one must be lost, Messer Blondel!"

"In doing?" Blondel asked in a negligent tone, well calculated to annoythose who were eager in the matter. "In doing what, if I may ask?"

"In doing, Messer Syndic, " Petitot answered sharply, "that which shouldhave been done a week ago; and better still a fortnight ago. In issuinga warrant for the arrest of the person whose name has been several timesin question here. "

"Messer Basterga?"

"The same. "

"You may save yourselves the trouble, " the Syndic replied, with a littlecontempt. "The warrant has been issued. It was issued yesterday, andwould have been executed in the afternoon, if he had not got wind of it, and left the town. And on this let me say one more word, " Blondelcontinued, leaning forward and speaking in sudden heat, before any onecould take up the question. "That word is this. If it had not been forthe importunity of some who are here, the warrant had _not_ been issued, the man had still been within the walls, and we had been able still totrace his plans! We had not been as we now are, and as I foretold weshould be, in the dark, ignorant from which quarter the blow may fall, and not a whit the wiser for the hint given us. "

"You have let him escape!" The words were Petitot's. 

"I? No! I have not let him escape, but those who forced my hand!"Blondel retorted in passion, so real, or so well simulated, that itswept away the majority of his listeners. "They have let him escape!Those who had no patience or craft! Those whose only notion ofstatesmanship, whose only method of making use of the document we hadunder our hand was to tear it up. Only yesterday morning I was withhim----"

"Ay?" Baudichon cried, his eyes glowing with dull passion. "You werewith him! And he went in the afternoon! Mark that!" He turned quickly tohis fellows. "He went in the afternoon! Now, I would like to know----"

Blondel stood up. "Whether I am a traitor?" he said, in a tone of fury;and he extended his arms in protest. "Whether I am in league with thisItalian, I, Philibert Blondel of Geneva? That is what you ask, what youwish to know! Whether I sought him yesterday in the hope of worming hissecrets from him, and doing what I could for the benefit of the State ina matter too delicate to be left to underlings? Or went there, one withhim, to betray my country? To sell the Free City? That--that is what youask?"

His passion was full, overpowering, convincing; so convincing--it almoststopped his speech--that he believed in it himself, so convincing thatit swept away all but his steady and professed opponents. "No, no!"cried a dozen voices, in tones that reflected his indignation. "No, no!Shame!"

"No?" Blondel took up the word, his eyes sparkling, his adust complexionheated and full of fire. "But it is--yes, they say! Yes, they say whomyou have to thank if we have lost our clue, they who met me going to himbut yesterday and threatened me! Threatened me!" he repeated, in a voiceof astonishment. "Me, who desired only, sought only, was going only todo my duty! I used, I admit the fault, " he allowed his voice to drop toa tone more like his own, "words on that occasion that I now regret. Butis blood water? Does no man besides Councillor Baudichon love hiscountry? Is the suspicion, the open suspicion of such an one, no insult, that he must cavil if he be repaid in insult? I have given my proofs. Ifany man can be trusted to sound the enemy, it is I! But I have done! HadMesser Baudichon not pressed me to issue the warrant, not driven mebeyond my patience, it had not been issued yesterday. It had been in theoffice, and the man within the walls! Ay, and not only within the walls, but fresh from a conference with the Sieur d'Albigny, primed with all weneed to know, and in doubt by which side he could most profit!"

"It was about that you saw him?" Petitot said slowly, his eyes fixedlike gimlets to the other's face. 

"It was about that I saw him, " Blondel answered. "And I think in a fewhours more I had won him. But in the street he had some secret word orwarning; for when I handed the warrant--against my better sense--to theofficers, they, who had never lost sight of him between gate and gate, answered that he had crossed the bridge and left the town an hourbefore. Mon Dieu!"--he struck his two hands together and snapped histeeth--"when I think how foolish I was to be over-ridden, I could--Icould say more, Messer Baudichon"--with a saturnine look--"than I saidyesterday!"

"At any rate the bird is flown!" Baudichon replied, with sullen temper. "That is certain! And it was you who were set to catch him!"

"But it was not I who scared him, " Blondel rejoined. 

"I don't know what you would have had of him!"

"Oh, I see that plainly enough, " said Fabri. He was an honest man, without prejudice, and long the peace-maker between the two parties. 

"I thank you, " Blondel replied dryly. "But, by your leave, I will makeit clear to Messer Baudichon also, who will doubtless like to know. Iwould have had of him the time and place and circumstance of the attack, if such be in preparation. And then, when I knew all, I would have madedispositions, not only to safeguard the city, but to give the enemy sucha reception that Italy should ring with it! Ay, and such as should putan end for the rest of our lives to these treacherous attacks!"

The picture which he drew thus briefly of a millennium of safety, charmed not only his own adherents, but all who were neutral, all whowavered. They saw how easily the thing might have been done, howcompletely the treacherous blow might have been parried and returned. Veering about they eyed Baudichon, on whom the odium of the lostopportunity seemed to rest, with resentment--as an honest man, but asimpleton, a dullard, a block! And when Blondel added, after a pause, "But there, I have done! The office of Fourth Syndic I leave to you tofill, " they barely allowed him to finish. 

"No! No!" came from almost all mouths, and from every part of thecouncil table. 

"No, " Fabri said, when silence was made. "There is no provision for achange, unless a definite accusation be laid. "

"But Messer Baudichon may have one to make, " Blondel said proudly. "Inthat case, let him speak. "

Baudichon breathed hard, and seemed to be on the point of pouring fortha torrent of words. But he said nothing. Instinct told him that hisenemy was not to be trusted, but he had the wit to discern that Blondelhad forestalled him, and had drawn the sting from his charges. He couldhave wept in dull, honest indignation; but for accusations, he saw thatthe other held the game, and he was silent. "Fat hog!" the man hadcalled him. "Fat hog!" A tear gathered slowly in his eye as he recalledit. 

Fabri gave him time to speak; and then with evident relief, "He has noneto make, I am sure, " he said. 

"Let him understand, then, " Blondel replied firmly, "let all understand, that while I will do my duty I am no longer in the position to guardagainst sudden strokes, in which I should have been, had I been allowedto go my own way. If a misfortune happen, it is not on me the blame mustrest. " He spoke solemnly, laughing in his sleeve at the cleverness withwhich he was turning his enemy's petard against him. "All that man cando in the dark shall be done, " he continued. "And I do not--I am free toconfess that--anticipate anything while the negotiations with thePresident Rochette are in progress. "

"No, it is when they are broken off, they will fall back on the otherplan, " one of the councillors said with an air of much wisdom. 

"I think that is so. Nor do I think that anything will be done duringthe present severe weather. "

"They like it no better than we do!"

"But the roads are good in this frost, " Fabri said. "If it be a questionof moving guns or wagons----"

"But it is not, by your leave, Messer Fabri, as I am informed, " the manwho had spoken before objected; supporting his opinion simply because hehad voiced it, a thing seen every day in such assemblies. Fabri repliedon him in the other sense: and presently Blondel had the satisfaction oflistening to a discussion in which the one party said a dozen thingsthat he saw would be of use to him--some day. 

One only said not a word, and that was Petitot. He listened to all witha puzzled look. He resented the insult which Blondel had flung at hisfriend Baudichon, but he saw all going against them, and no chance ofredress; nay, capital was being made out of that which should have beena disadvantage. Worst of all, he was uneasy, fancying--he was veryshrewd--that he caught a glimpse, under the Fourth Syndic's manner, ofanother man: that he detected signs of emotion, a feverishness andimperiousness not quite explained by the circumstances. 

He got the notion from this that the Fourth Syndic had learned more fromBasterga than he had disclosed. His notion, even so, went no furtherthan the suspicion that Blondel was hiding knowledge out of a desire toreap all the glory. But he did not like it. "He was always for risking, for risking!" he thought. "This is another case of it. God grant it gowell!" His wife, his children, his daughters, rose in a picture beforehim, and he hated Blondel, who had none of these. He would have put himto death for running the tithe of a risk. 

When the council broke up, Fabri drew Blondel aside. "The bird is flown, but what of the nest?" he asked. "Has he left nothing?"

"Between you and me, " Blondel replied under his breath, as his eyessought the other's, "I hope to make him speak yet. But not a word!"

"Ah!"

"Not a word! But there is just a chance. And it will be everything to usif I can induce him to speak. "

"I see that. But the house? Could you not search it?"

"That would be to scare him finally. "

"You have made no perquisition there?"

"None. I have heard, " Blondel continued, hesitating as if he had notquite made up his mind to speak, "some things--strange things in respectto the house. But I will tell you more of that when I know more. "

He was too clever to state that he held the house in suspicion forsorcery and kindred things. Charges such as that spread, he knew, upwards from the lower classes, not downwards to them. The poison, disseminated as he had known how to disseminate it, by hints andinnuendoes dropped among his officers and ushers, was already in theair, and would do its work. Fabri, a man of sense, might laugh to-day, and to-morrow; but the third day, when the report came to him from adozen quarters, mainly by women's mouths, he would not laugh. Andpresently he would shrug his shoulders and stand aside, and leave thematter in more earnest hands. 

Blondel dropped no more than that hint, therefore, and as he passedhomeward applauded his discretion. He was proud of the turn things hadtaken at the Council; elated by the part he had played, and the proof hehad given of his mastery, he felt able to carry anything through. Hismind, leaping over the immediate future, pictured a wider theatre, inwhich his powers would have full scope, and a larger stage on which hemight aspire to play the first part. He saw himself not only wealthy, but ennobled, the fount of honour, the favourite, and, in time, themaster of princes. Such as he was to-day the Medicis had been, and manyanother whom the world held noble. He had but to live and to dare; onlyto live and to dare! Only in order to do the one he must--it was nochoice of his--do the other!

Before he was five minutes older he was reminded of the necessity. Atthe door of his house the pains of the disease from which hesuffered--aggravated, perhaps, by the excitement through which he hadjust passed, or by the cold of the weather--seized him with unusualviolence. He leant, pale and almost fainting, against the door-jamb, unable at the moment to do so much as raise the latch. The golden dreamsin which he had lost himself by the way, the visions of power and fame, vanished as he had so many times seen the after-glow vanish from thesnow-peaks; leaving only cold images of death and desolation. Presently, with an effort, he staggered within doors, poured out such medicine ashe had, and, bent double and almost without breath, swallowed it; andso, by-and-by, a wan and wild-eyed image of himself came out of the fit. 

He told himself in after days that it was that decided him; that but forthat sharp fit of pain and the prospect of others like it, he would nothave yielded to the temptation, no, not to be the Grand Duke'sfavourite, not to be Minister of Savoy! He ignored, in his lookingbackward, the visions of glory and ambition in which he had revelled. Hesaw himself on the rack, with life and immunity from pain drawing himone way, the prospect of a miserable death the other; and he pleadedthat no man would have decided otherwise. After that experience thestraw did not float, so thin that he was not ready to grasp it ratherthan die, rather than suffer again. Nor did the fact that the straw atthat moment lay on the table beside him go for much. 

It did lie there. When he felt a little stronger and began to look abouthim, he found a note at his elbow. It was a small, common-lookingletter, sealed with a B, that might signify Blondel or Basterga, or, forthe matter of that, Baudichon. He did not know the handwriting, and heopened it idly, in the scorn of small things that pain induced. 

He had not read a line of the contents, before his countenance changed. The letter was from Basterga, and cunningly contrived. It gave him thedirections he needed, yet it was so worded that even after the event itmight pass for a trifling communication from a physician. The place andthe hour were specified--the latter so near that for a moment his cheekgrew pale. On that ensued the part which interested him most; but as thewhole was brief, the whole may be given. 

 "Sir" (here followed a cabalistic sign such as physicians were in the habit of using to impose on the vulgar). "After paying a visit in the Corraterie, where I have an appointment on Saturday evening next between late and early, I will be with you. But the mixture with the necessary directions shall be sent to you twelve hours in advance, so that before my visit you may experience its good effects. As surely as the wrong potion in the case you wot of deprived of reason, so surely (as I hope for salvation) will this potion have the desired effect. 

 "The Physician of Aleppo. "

"Saturday next, between late and early!" Blondel muttered, gazing at thewords with fascinated eyes. "It is for the day after to-morrow! The dayafter to-morrow!" And in his thoughts he passed again over the road hehad travelled since his first visit to Basterga's room, since the hourwhen the scholar had unrolled before him the map of the town he called"Aurelia, " and had told him the story of Ibn Jasher and the Physician ofAleppo. 

"No, I am not well, " he answered. He sat, warmly wrapped up, in the highchair in his parlour, his face so drawn with want of sleep that CaptainBlandano of the city guard, who had come to take his orders, had nodifficulty in believing him. "I am not well, " he repeated peevishly. "Itis the weather. " He had some soup before him. Beside it stood a tinyphial of medicine; a phial strangely shaped and strange looking, containing something not unlike the green cordial of the Carthusians. 

"It troubles me a good deal, too, " Blandano said. "There are seven menabsent in the fourth ward. And two men, whose wives are urgent with methat they should have leave. "

"Leave?" the Syndic cried. "Do they think naught"--leaning forward in apassion--"of the safety of the city? If I were not ill, I would takeservice on the wall myself to set an example!"

"There is no need of that, " the Captain answered respectfully, "if Imight have permission to withdraw a few men from the west side so as tofill the places on the east----"

"Ay, ay!"

"From the Rhone side of the town----"

"From the Corraterie? That is least open to assault. "

"Yes, from that part perhaps would be best, " Blandano assented, nodding. "Yes, I think so. If I might do that, I think I could manage. "

"Well, then do it, " Blondel answered. "And make a note that I assentedto your suggestion to take them from the Corraterie and put them on thelower part of the wall. After all, the nights are very bitter now, andthere are limits. Do the men grumble much?"

"It is as much as I can do to make them go the rounds, " Blandanoanswered. "Some plead the weather; and some argue that, with PresidentRochette, whose word is as good as his bond, on the point of coming toan agreement with us, the rounds are a farce!"

The Syndic shrugged his shoulders. "Well!" he muttered, rubbing his chinand looking thoughtfully before him, "we must not wear the men out. There is no moon now, is there?"

"No. "

"And the enemy can attempt nothing without light, " Blondel continued, thinking aloud. "See here, Blandano, we must not put too heavy a burdenon our people. I see that. As it is so cold, I think you may pass theword to pretermit the rounds to-night--save two. At what hours would yousuggest?"

Blandano considered his own comfort--as the other expected he would--andanswered, "Early and late, say an hour before midnight and an hourbefore dawn". 

"Then let be it as you suggest. But see"--with returning asperity--"thatthose rounds go, and at their hours. Let there be no remissness. I willmake a note, " he continued, "of the hours fixed. An hour before midnightand an hour before dawn". 

He extended his arm and drew the ink-horn towards him. Midway in theact, whether it was that his hand shook by reason of his illness, orthat he was in a hurry to close an interview which tried him moreseverely than appeared, his sleeve caught the little phial of greenwater that stood beside the soup on the table. It reeled an instant onits edge, toppled on its side, and rolling, in one-tenth of the time ittakes to tell the tale, to the verge of the table--fell over. 

Messer Blondel made a strange noise in his throat. 

But the Captain had seen what was happening. Dexterously he caught thebottle in his huge palm, and with an air of modest achievement was goingto set it on the table, when he saw that the Syndic had fallen back inhis chair, his face ghastly. Blandano was more used to death in thefield than in the house; and in a panic he took two steps towards thedoor to call for help. Before he could take a third, Blondel gasped, andmade an uncertain movement with his hand, as if he would reassure him. 

Blandano returned and leant over him. "You are ill, Messer Syndic, " hesaid anxiously. "Let me call some one. "

The Syndic could not speak, but he pointed to the table. And whenBlandano, unable to make out what he wanted, and suspecting a stroke ofa mortal disease, turned again to the door, persisting in his intentionof getting aid, the Syndic found strength to seize his sleeve, andalmost instantly regained his speech. "There!" he gasped, "there! Thephial! Put it down!"

Captain Blandano placed it on the table, wondering much. "I was afraidyou were ill, Messer Blondel, " he said. 

"I was ill, " the Syndic answered; and he pushed his chair back so thatno part of him was in contact with the table. He looked at the littlebottle with fascinated eyes, and slowly, as he looked, the colourreturned to his face. "I--was ill, " he repeated, with a sigh that seemedto relieve his breast. "I had a fright!"

"You thought it was broken?" Blandano said, wondering much, and lookingin his turn at the phial. 

"Yes, I thought that it was broken. I am much obliged to you. Much, verymuch obliged to you, " the Syndic repeated, with a deep sigh, his handsstill moving nervously about his dress. Then, after a moment's pause, "Will you ring the bell?" he said. 

The Captain, marvelling much, rang the hand-bell which lay on aneighbouring table. He marvelled still more when he heard MesserBlondel order the servant to place six bottles of his best wine in abasket and take them to the Captain's lodging. 

Blandano stared. He knew the wine to be choice and valuable; and he eyedthe tiny phial respectfully. "It is something rare, I expect?" he said. 

The Syndic nodded. 

"And costly too, I doubt not?" with an admiring glance. 

"Costly?" Messer Blondel repeated the word, and when he had done soturned on the other a look that led the Captain to think that he wasgoing to be ill again. Then, "It cost me--it will cost me"--again aspasm contorted the Syndic's face--"I don't know what it will not havecost me before it is paid for, Messer Blandano!"

CHAPTER XXII. 

TWO NAILS IN THE WALL. 

The long day during which the lovers had drained a cup at once so sweetand so bitter, and one of the two had felt alike the throb of pain andthe thrill of kisses, came to an end at last; and without furtherincident. Encouraged by the respite--for who that is mortal does nothope against hope--they ventured on the following morning to lower theshutters, and this to a great extent restored the house to its normalaspect. Anne would have gone so far as to attend the morning preachingat St. Pierre, for it was Friday; but her mother awoke low and nervous, the girl dared not quit her side, and Claude had no field for the urgentdissuasions which he had prepared himself to use. 

The greater part of the day she remained above stairs, busied in thepetty offices, and moving to and fro--he could hear her tread--upon theerrands of love, to see her in the midst of which might well haveconfuted the slanders that crept abroad. But there were times in the daywhen Madame Royaume slept; and then, who can blame Anne, if she stoledown and sat hand in hand with Claude on the settle, whisperingsometimes of those things of which lovers whisper, and will whisper tothe world's end; but more often of the direr things before these twolovers, and so of faith and hope and the love that does not die. For themost part it was she who talked. She had so much to tell him of the longnightmare, the nightmare of months, that had oppressed her; of herprayers, and fears and fits of terror; of Basterga's discovery of thesecret and the cruel use he had made of it; of the slow-growingresignation, the steadfast resolve, the onward look to something, beyondthat which the world could do to her, that had come to be hers. With herface hidden on his breast she told him of her thoughts upon her knees, of the pain and obloquy through which, if the worst came, she knew shemust pass, and of her trust that she would be able to bear them;speaking in such terms, so simply, so bravely, and with so lofty acontemplation, that he who listened, and had been but a week before ayoung man as other young men, grew as he listened to another stature, and thought for himself thoughts that no man can have and remain as hewas, before the tongues of fire touched his heart. 

And then again, once--but that was in the darkening of the Fridayevening when the wound in her cheek burned and smarted and recalled thewretched moment of infliction--she showed him another side; as if shewould have him know that she was not all heroic. Without warning, shebroke down; overcome by the prospect of death, she clung to him, weepingand shuddering, and begging him and imploring him to save her. To saveher! Only to save her! At that sight and at those sounds, under thedespairing grasp of her arms about his neck, the young man's heart wasred-hot; his eyes burned. Vainly he held her closer and closer to him;vainly he tried to comfort her. Vainly he shed tears of blood. He felther writhe and shudder in his arms. 

And what could he do? He strove to argue with her. He strove to show herthat accusation of her mother, condemnation of her mother, dreadful asthey must be to her, so dreadful that he scarcely dared speak of them, need not involve her own condemnation. She was young, of blameless life, and without enemies. What could any cast up against her, what adduce inproof of a charge so dark, so improbable, so abnormal?

For answer she touched the pulsing wound in her cheek. 

"And this?" she said. "And the child that I killed?"--with a bitterlaugh unlike her own. "If they say so much already, if they say thatto-day, what will they say to-morrow? What will they say when they haveheard her ravings? Will it not be, the old and the young, the witch andher brood--to the fire? To the fire?"

The spasm that shook her as she spoke defied his efforts to soothe her. And how could he comfort her? He knew the thing to be too likely, theargument too reasonable, as men reasoned then; strange and foolish astheir reasoning seems to us now. But what could he do. What? He who satthere alone with her, a prisoner with her, witness to her agony, scaldedby her tears, tortured by her anguish, burning with pity, sorrow, indignation--what could he do to help her or save her?

He had wild thoughts, but none of them effectual; the old thoughts ofdefending the house, or of escaping by night over the town wall; andsome new ones. He weighed the possibility of Madame Royaume's deathbefore the arrest; surely, then, he could save the girl, and they two, young, active and of ordinary aspect, might escape some whither? Again, he thought of appealing to Beza, the aged divine, whom Geneva reveredand Calvinism placed second only to Calvin. He was a Frenchman, a man ofculture and of noble birth; he might stand above the commonsuperstition, he might listen, discern, defend. But, alas, he was so oldas to be bed-ridden and almost childish. It was improbable, nay, it wasmost unlikely, that he could be induced to interfere. 

All these thoughts Anne drove out of his head by begging him, in movingterms of self-reproach, to forgive her her weakness. She had regainedher composure as abruptly, if not as completely, as she had lost it; andwould have had him believe that the passion he had witnessed was lessdeep than it seemed, and rather a womanish need of tears than a proof ofsuffering. A minute later she was quietly preparing the evening meal, while he, with a sick heart, raised the shutters and lighted the lamp. As he looked up from the latter task, he found her eyes fixed upon him, with a peculiar intentness: and for a while afterwards he remarked thatshe wore an absent air. But she said nothing, and by-and-by, promisingto return before bed-time, she went upstairs to her mother. 

The nights were at their longest, and the two had closed and lightedbefore five. Outside the cold stillness of a winter night and a freezingsky settled down on Geneva; within, Claude sat with sad eyes fixed onthe smouldering fire. What could he do? What could he do? Wait and seeher innocence outraged, her tenderness racked, her gentle body given upto unspeakable torments? The collapse which he had witnessed gave him asit were a foretaste, a bitter savour of the trials to come. It did notseem to him that he could bear even the anticipation of them. He rose, he sat down, he rose again, unable to endure the intolerable thought. Heflung out his arms; his eyes, cast upwards, called God to witness thatit was too much! It was too much!

Some way of escape there must be. Heaven could not look down on, couldnot suffer such deeds in a Christian land. But men and women, girls andyoung children had suffered these things; had appealed and called Heavento witness, and gone to death, and Heaven had not moved, nor the angelsdescended! But it could not be in her case. Some way of escape theremust be. There must be. 

Why should she not leave her mother to her fate? A fate that could notbe evaded? Why need she, whose capacity for suffering was so great, whohad so much of life and love and all good things before her, remain toshare the pains of one whose span in any case was nearing its end? Ofone who had no longer power--or so it seemed--to meet the smallestshock, and must succumb before she knew more of suffering than the name. One whom a rude word might almost extinguish, and a rough push thrustout of life? Why remain, when to remain was to sacrifice two lives inlieu of one, to give and get nothing, to die for a prejudice? Whyremain, when by remaining she could not save her mother, but, on thecontrary, must inflict the sharpest pang of all, since she destroyed thebeing who was dearest to her mother, the being whom her mother would dieto save?

He grew heated as he dwelt on it. Of what use to any, the feebleflickering light upstairs, that must go out were it left for a momentuntended? The light that would have gone out this long time back had shenot fostered it and cherished it and sheltered it in her bosom? Of whatavail that weak existence? Or, if it were of avail, why, for its sake, waste this other and more precious life that still could not redeem it?

Why?

He must speak to her. He must persuade her, press her, convince her;carry her off by force were it necessary. It was his duty, his clearcall. He rose and walked the room in excitement, as he thought of it. Hehad pity for the old, abandoned and left to suffer alone; and anenlightening glimpse of the weight that the girl must carry through lifeby reason of this desertion. But no doubt, no hesitation--he toldhimself--no scruple. To die that her mother might live was one thing. To die--and so to die--merely that her mother's last hours might besheltered and comforted, was another, and a thing unreasonable. 

He must speak to her. He would not hesitate to tell her what he thought. 

But he did hesitate. When she descended half an hour later, and pausedat the foot of the stairs to assure herself that her passage downstairshad not roused her mother from sleep, the light fell on her listeningface and tender eyes; and he read that in them which checked the wordson his lips; that which, whether it were folly or wisdom--a wisdomhigher than the serpent's, more perfect than the most accuratecalculation of values and chances--drove for ever from his mind thethought that she would desert her charge. He said not a word of what hehad thought; the indignant reasoning, the hot, conclusive arguments fellfrom him and left him bare. With her hands in his, seeking no more tomove her or convince her, he sat silent; and by mute looks and dumblove--more potent than eloquence or oratory--strove to support andconsole her. 

She, too, was silent. Stillness had fallen on both of them. But herhands clung to his, and now and again pressed them convulsively; and nowand again, too, she would lift her eyes to his, and gaze at him with apathetic intentness, as if she would stamp his likeness on her brain. But when he returned the look, and tried to read her meaning in hereyes, she smiled. "You are afraid of me?" she whispered. "No, I shallnot be weak again. "

But even as she reassured him he detected a flicker of pain in her eyes, he felt that her hands were cold; and but that he feared to shake hercomposure he would not have rested content with her answer. 

This sudden silence, this new way of looking at him, were the onlythings that perplexed him. In all else, silent as they sat, theircommunion was perfect. It was in the mind of each that the women mightbe arrested on the morrow; in the mind of each that this was their lastevening together, the last of few, yet not so few that they did not seemto the man and the girl to bulk large in their lives. On that hearththey had met, there she had proved to him what she was, there he hadspoken, there spent the clouded never-to-be-forgotten days of theirtroubled courtship. No wonder that as they sat hand in hand, their hairalmost mingling, their eyes on the red glow of the smouldering log, and, not daring to look forward, looked back--no wonder that their love grewto be something other than the common love of man and maid, somethinghigher and more beautiful, touched--as the hills are touched atsunset--by the evening glow of parting and self-sacrifice. 

Silent amid the silence of the house; living moments never to beforgotten; welcoming together the twin companions, love and death. 

But from the darkest outlook of the mind, as of the eye, morning dispelssome shadows; into the most depressing atmosphere daylight brings hope, brings actuality, brings at least the need to be doing. Claude's heart, as he slipped from his couch on the settle next morning, and admittedthe light and turned the log and stirred the embers, was sad and full offoreboding. But as the room, its disorder abated, took on a morepleasant aspect, as the fire crackled and blazed on the hearth, and theflush of sunrise spread over the east, he grew--he could not but grow, for he was young--more cheerful also. He swept the floor and filled thekettle and let in the air; and had done almost all he knew how to do, before he heard Anne's foot upon the stairs. 

She had slept little and looked pale and haggard; almost more pale andwan than he had ever seen her look. And this must have sunk his heart tozero, if a certain item in her aspect had not at the same time divertedhis attention. "You are not going out?" he cried in astonishment. Shewore her hood. 

"I am not going to defend myself again, " she answered, smiling sadly. "Have no fear. I shall not repeat that mistake. I am only going----"

"You are not going anywhere!" he answered firmly. 

She shook her head with the same wan smile. "We must live, " she said. 

"Well?"

"And to live must have water. "

"I have filled the kettle. "

"And emptied the water-pot, " she retorted. 

"True, " he said. "But surely it will be time to refill it when we wantit. "

"I shall attract less attention now, " she answered quietly, "than laterin the day. There are few abroad. I will draw my hood about my face, andno one will heed me. "

He laughed in tender derision. "You will not go!" he said. "Did youthink that I would let you run a risk rather than fetch the water fromthe conduit. "

"You will go?"

"Where is the pot?"

He fetched the jar from its place under the stairs, snatched up his cap, and turning the key in the lock was in the act of passing out when sheseized his arm. "Kiss me, " she murmured. She lifted her face to his, hereyes half closed. 

He drew her to him, but her lips were cold; and as he released her shesank passively from his embrace, and was near falling. He hesitated. "You are not afraid to be left?" he said. "You are sure?"

"I am afraid of nothing if I know you safe, " she answered faintly. "Go!go quickly, and God be with you!"

"Tut! I run no danger, " he rejoined. "I have a strong arm and they willleave me alone. " He thought that she was overwrought, that the strainwas telling on her; his thoughts did not go beyond that. "I shall beback in five minutes, " he continued cheerfully. And he went, bidding herlock the door behind him and open only at his knock. 

He made the more haste for her fears, passed into the town through thePorte Tertasse, and hastened to the conduit. The open space in front ofthe fountain, which a little later in the day would be the favouriteresort of gossips and idlers, was a desert; the bitter morning wind sawto that. But about the fountain itself three or four women closelymuffled were waiting their turns to draw. One looked up, and, as hefancied, recognised him, for she nudged her neighbour. And then firstthe one woman and then the other, looking askance, muttered something;it might have been a prayer, or a charm, or a mere word of gossip. Buthe liked neither the glance nor the action, nor the furtive, curiouslooks of the women; and as quickly as he could he filled his pot andcarried it away. 

He had splashed his fingers, and the cold wind quickly numbed them. Atthe Tertasse Gate, where the view commanding the river valley openedbefore him, he was glad to set down the vessel and change hands. On hisleft, the watch at the Porte Neuve, the gate in the ramparts whichadmitted from the country to the Corraterie--as the Tertasse admittedfrom the Corraterie to the town proper--was being changed, and he pausedan instant, gazing on the scene. Then remembering himself, and the needof haste, he snatched up his jar and, turning to the right, hurried tothe steps before the Royaumes' door, swung up them and, with his eyeson the windows, set down his burden. 

He knocked gently, sure that she would not keep him waiting. But she didnot come at once; and by-and-by, seeing that a woman at an open door alittle farther down the Corraterie was watching him with scowlingeyes--and that strange look, half fear, half loathing, which he wasgrowing to know--he knocked more loudly, and stamped to warm his feet. 

Still, to his astonishment, she did not come; he waited, and waited, andshe did not come. He would have begun to feel alarmed for her, but, whatwith the cold and the early hour, the place was deserted; no idle gazerssuch as a commotion leaves behind it were to be seen. The wind, however, began to pierce his clothes; he had not brought his cloak, and heshivered. He knocked more loudly. 

Perhaps she had been called to her mother? That must be it. She had goneupstairs and could not on the instant leave her charge. He clothedhimself in reproaches; but they did not warm him, and he was beginningto stamp his feet again when, happening to look down, he saw beside thewater-can and partly hidden by its bulge, a packet about the size of aletter, but a little thicker. If he had not mounted the steps with hiseyes on the windows, searching for her face, he would have seen it atonce, and spared himself these minutes of waiting. He took it up inbewilderment, and turned it in his numbed hands; it was heavy, and fromit, leaving only a piece of paper in his grasp, his purse fell to theground. More and more astonished, he picked up the purse, and put it inhis pocket. He looked at the window, but no one showed; then at thepaper in his hand. Inside the letter were three lines of writing. 

His face fell as he read them. "_I shall not admit you_, " they ran. "_If you try to enter, you will attract notice and destroy me. Go, andGod bless and reward you. You cannot save me, and to see you perish werea worse pang than the worst. _"

The words swam before his eyes. "I will beat down the door, " hemuttered, tears in his voice, tears welling up in his heart and chokinghim. And he raised his hand. "I will----"

But he did nothing. "_You will attract notice and destroy me. _" Ah, shehad thought it out too well. Too well, out of the wisdom of great love, she had known how to bridle him. He dared not do anything that woulddirect notice to the house. 

But desert her? Never; and after a moment's thought he drew off, hisplans formed. As he retired, when he had gone some yards from the door, he heard the window closed sharply behind him. He looked back and sawhis cloak lying on the ground. Tears rose again to his eyes, as hereturned, took it up, donned it, and with a last lingering look at thewindow, turned away. She would think that he had taken her at her word;but no matter!

He walked along the Corraterie, and passing the four square watch-towerswith pointed roofs that stood at intervals along the wall, he came tothe two projecting demilunes, or bastions, that marked the angle wherethe ramparts met the Rhone; a point from which the wall descended to thebridge. In one of these bastions he ensconced himself; and selecting aplace whence he could, without being seen, command the length of theCorraterie, he set himself to watch the Royaumes' house. By-and-by hewould go into the town and procure food, and, returning, keep guarduntil nightfall. After dark, if the day passed without event, he wouldfind his way into the house by force or fraud. In a rapture ofanticipation he pictured his entrance, her reluctant joy, her tears andsmiles, and fond reproaches. As he loved her, as he must love her themore for the trick she had played him, she must love him the more forhis return in her teeth. And the next day was Sunday, when it wasunlikely that any steps would be taken. That whole day he would havewith her, through it he would sit with her! A whole day without fear? Itseemed an age. He did not, he would not look beyond it!

He had not broken his fast, and hunger presently drove him into thetown. But within half an hour he was at his post again. A glance at theRoyaumes' house showed him that nothing had happened, and, resuming hisseat in the deserted bastion, he began a watch that as long as he livedstood clear in his memory of the past. The day was cold and bright, andfrosty with a nipping wind. Mont Blanc and the long range of snow-cladsummits that flanked it rose dazzlingly bright against the blue sky. Themost distant object seemed near; the wavelets on the unfrozen water ofthe lake gave to the surface, usually so blue, a rough, grey aspect. Thebreeze which produced this appearance kept the ramparts clear ofloiterers; and even those who were abroad preferred the more shelteredstreets, or went hurriedly about their business. The guards were contentto shiver in the guardrooms of the gate-towers, and if Claude blessedonce the kind afterthought which had dropped his cloak from the window, he blessed it a dozen times. Wrapt in its thick folds, it was all hecould do to hold his ground against the cold. Without it he must havewithdrawn or succumbed. 

Through the morning he watched the house jealously, trembling at everymovement which took place at the Tertasse Gate; lest it herald theapproach of the officers to arrest the women. But nothing happened, andas the day wore on he grew more hopeful. He might, indeed, have begunto think Anne over-timid and his fears unwarranted, if he had not seen, a little before sunset, a thing which opened his eyes. 

Two women and some children came out of a house not far from thebastion. They passed towards the Tertasse Gate, and he watched them. Before they came to the Royaumes' house, the children paused, flungtheir cloaks over their heads, and, thus protected, ran past the house. The women followed, more slowly, but gave the house a wide berth, andeach passed with a flap of her hood held between her face and thewindows; when they had gone by they exchanged signals of abhorrence. Thesight was no more than of a piece with the outrage on Anne; but, comingwhen it did, coming when he was beginning to think that he had beenmistaken, when he was beginning to hope, it depressed Claude dismally. 

For comfort he looked forward to the hour when it would be dark. "Byhook or by crook, " he muttered, "I shall enter then. "

He had barely finished the sentence, when he observed moving along theramparts towards him a figure he knew. It was Grio. There was nothingstrange in the man's presence in that place, for he was an idler and asot; but Claude did not wish to meet him, and debated in his mindwhether he should retreat before the other came up. Pride said onething, discretion another. He wanted no fracas, and he was still hangingdoubtful, measuring the distance between them, when--away went histhoughts. What was Grio doing?

The Spaniard had come to a stand, and was leaning on the wall, lookingidly into the fosse. The posture would have been the most natural in theworld on a warm day. On that day it caught Claude's attention; and--washe mistaken, or were the hands that, under cover of Grio's cloak, rested on the wall busy about something?

In any case he must make up his mind whether he moved or stayed. ForGrio was coming on again. Claude hesitated a moment. Then he determinedto stay. The next he was glad he had so determined, for Grio afterstrolling on in seeming carelessness to a point not twenty yards fromhim, and well commanded from his seat, leant again on the wall, andseemed to be enjoying the view. This time Claude was sure, from themovement of his shoulders, that his hands were employed. 

"In what?" The young man asked himself the question; and noted thatbeside Grio's left heel lay a piece of broken tile of a peculiar colour. The next moment he had an inspiration. He drew up his feet on the seat, drew his cloak over his head and affected to be asleep. What Grio, whenhe came upon him, thought of a man who chose to sleep in the open insuch weather he did not learn, for after standing a while--as Claude'sears told him--opposite the sleeper, the Spaniard turned and walked backthe way he had come. This time, and though he now had the wind at hisback, he walked briskly; as a man would walk in such weather, or as aman might walk who had done his business. 

Claude waited until his coarse, heavy figure had disappeared through thePorte Tertasse; nay, he waited until the light began to fail. Then, while he could still pick out the red potsherd, he approached the wall, leant over it, and, failing to detect anything with his eyes, passed hisfingers down the stones. 

They alighted on a nail; a nail thrust lightly into the mortar below thecoping stone. For what purpose? His blood beginning to move more quicklyClaude asked himself the question. To support a rope? And so to enablesome one to leave the town? The nail, barely pushed into the mortar, would hardly support the weight of a dozen yards of twine. 

Perhaps the nail was there by chance, and Grio had naught to do with it. He could settle that doubt. In a few moments he had settled it. Undercover of the growing darkness, he walked to the place at which he hadseen Grio pause for the first time. A short search discovered a secondnail as lightly secured as the other. Had he not been careful it wouldhave fallen beneath his touch. 

What did the nails there? Claude was not stupid, yet he was long inhitting on an explanation. It was a fanciful, extravagant notion when hegot it, but one that set his chilled blood running, and his handstingling, one that might mean much to himself and to others. It wasunlikely, it was improbable, it was out of the common; but it was anexplanation. It was a mighty thing to hang upon two weak nails; but suchas it was--and he turned it over and over in his mind before he daredentertain it--he could find no other. And presently, his eyes alight, his pulses riotous, his foot dancing, he walked down theCorraterie--with scarce a look at the house which had held his thoughtsall day--and passed into the town. As he passed through the gateway hehung an instant and cast an inquisitive eye into the guard-room of theTertasse. It was nearly empty. Two men sat drowsing before the fire, their boot-heels among the embers, a black jack between them. 

The fact weighed something in the balance of probabilities: and ingrowing excitement, Claude hurried on, sought the cookshop at which hehad broken his fast--a humble place, licensed for the scholars--and atehis supper, not knowing what he ate, nor with whom he ate it. It wasonly by chance that his ear caught, at a certain moment, a new tone inthe goodwife's voice; and that he looked up, and saw her greet herhusband. 

"Ay!" the man said, putting off his bandoleer, and answering theexclamation of surprise which his entrance had evoked. "It's bed for meto-night. It's so cold they will send but half the rounds. "

"Whose order is that?" asked a scholar at Claude's table. 

"Messer Blondel's. "

"Shows his sense!" the goodwife cried roundly. "A good man, and knowswhen to watch and when to ha' done!"

Claude said nothing, but he rose with burning cheeks, paid his share--itwas seven o'clock--and, passing out, made his way back. It should besaid that in addition to the Tertasse Gate, two lesser gates, theTreille on the one hand and the Monnaye on the other, led from the townproper to the Corraterie; and this time he chose to go out by theTreille. Having ascertained that the guard-room there also was almostdenuded of men, he passed along the Corraterie to his bastion, huggingthe houses on his right, and giving the wall a wide berth. Although thecold wind blew in his face he paused several times to listen, nor did heenter his bastion until he had patiently made certain that it wasuntenanted. 

The night was very dark: it was the night of December the 12th, oldstyle, the longest and deadest of the year. Far below him in the blackabyss on which the wall looked down, a few oil lamps marked the islandand the town beyond the Rhone. Behind him, on his left, a glimmerescaping here and there from the upper windows marked the line of theCorraterie, of which the width is greatest at the end farthest from theriver. Near the far extremity of the rampart a bright light marked thePorte Neuve, distant about two hundred yards from his post, and aboutseventy or eighty from the Porte Tertasse, the inner gate whichcorresponded with it. Straight from him to the Porte Neuve ran therampart a few feet high on the inner side, some thirty feet high on theouter, but shrouded for the present in a black gloom that defied hiskeenest vision. 

He waited more than an hour, his ears on the alert. At the end of thattime, he drew a deep breath of relief. A step that might have been thestep of a sentry pacing the rampart, and now pausing, now moving on, began to approach him. It came on, paused, came on, paused--this timeclose at hand. Two or three dull sounds followed, then the sharper noiseof a falling stone. Immediately the foot of the sentry, if sentry itwas, began to retreat. 

Claude drove his nails into the palms of his hands and waited, waitedthrough an eternity, waited until the retreating foot had almostreached, as he judged, the Porte Tertasse. Then he stole out, groped hisway to the wall, and passed his hand along the outer side until he cameto the nail. He found it. It had been made secure, and from it dependeda thin string. 

He set to work at once to draw up the string. There was a small weightattached to it, which rose slowly until it reached his hand. It was astone about as large as the fist, and of a whitish colour. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

IN TWO CHARACTERS. 

After the wave, the trough of the wave; after action, passion. Not tosink a little after rising to the pitch of self-sacrifice, not to shed, when the deed is done, some bitter tears of regret and self-pity, wereto be cast in a mould above the human. 

When the cloak--dear garment!--had slipped from her hands and the headbent that its owner might raise the cloak had passed from sight--whenAnne had fled to the farther side of the room, to the farther side ofthe settle, and had heard his step die away, she would have given theworld to see him again, to feel his arm about her, to hear the sound ofhis voice. The tears streamed down her face; in vain she tried to staythem with her hands, in vain she chid herself for her weakness. "It isfor him! for him!" she moaned, and hid her face in her hands. But wordsstay no tears; and on the hearth which his coming had changed for her, standing where she had first seen him, where she had heard his firstwords of love, where she had tried him, she wept bitter tears for him. 

The storm died away at last--for after every storm falls a calm--but itleft the empty house, the empty heart, silence. Her mother? She hadstill her mother, and with lagging footsteps she went upstairs to her. But she found her in a deep sleep, and she descended again, and going tohis room began to put together his few belongings, the clothes he hadworn, the books he had read; that if the house were entered they mightnot be lost to him. She buried her face in his garments and kissed them, fondly, tenderly, passionately, lingering over the task, and at lastputting the things from her with reluctance. A knot of ribbon which shehad seen him wear in the neck of his shirt on holidays she took and hidin her bosom, and fetching a length of her own ribbon she put it inplace of the other. This she thought she could do without fear ofbringing suspicion on him, for he alone would discern the exchange. Would he notice it? Would he weep when he found the ribbon as she weptnow? And fondle it tenderly? At the thought her tears gushed forth. 

The day wore on. Supported by the knowledge that even a slight shockmight cast her mother into one of her fits, Anne hid her fears from her, though the effort was as the lifting of a great weight. On the pretextthat the light hurt the invalid's sight, she shaded the window, and sohid the hollows under her eyes and the wan looks that must have betrayedthe forced nature of her cheerfulness. As a rule Madame Royaume's eyes, quickened by love, were keen; but this day she slept much, and the nightwas fairly advanced when Anne, in the act of preparing to lie down, turned and saw her mother sitting erect in the bed. 

The old woman's eyes were strangely bright. Her face wore an intentexpression which arrested her daughter where she stood. 

"Mother, what is it?" she cried. 

"Listen!" Madame Royaume answered. "What is that?"

"I hear nothing, " Anne said, hoping to soothe her. And she approachedthe bed. 

"I hear much, " her mother retorted. "Go! Go and see, child, what itis!" She pointed to the door, but, before Anne could reach it, sheraised her hand for silence. "They are crossing the ditch, " shemuttered, her eyes dilated. "One, two, many, many of them! Many of them!They are throwing down hurdles, and wattles, and crossing on them! Andthere is a priest with them----"

"Mother!"

"A priest!" Her voice dropped a little. "The ladders are black, " shewhispered. "Black ladders! Ay, swathed in black cloth; and now they setthem against the wall. The priest absolves them, and they begin tomount. They are mounting! They are mounting now. "

"Mother!" There was sharp pain in Anne's voice. Who does not know theheartache with which it is seen that the mind of a loved one iswandering from us? And yet she was puzzled. She dreaded one of thosescenes in which her young strength was barely sufficient to control andsoothe the frail form before her. But they did not begin as a rule inthis fashion; here, though the mind wandered, was an absence of thewildness to which she had become inured. Here--and yet as she listened, as she looked, now at her mother, now into the dimly lighted corners ofthe room, where those dilated eyes seemed to see things unseen by her, black things, she found this phase no less disquieting than the other. 

"Hush!" Madame Royaume continued, heeding her daughter's interruption nofarther than by that word and an impatient movement of the hand. "Astone has fallen and struck one down. They raise him, he is lifeless!No, he moves, he rises. They set other ladders against the wall. Theymount now by tens and twenties--and--it is growing dark--dark, child. Dark!" She seemed to try to put away a curtain with her hands. 

"Mother!" Anne cried, bending over the bed and taking her mother'shand. "Don't, dear! Don't! You frighten me. "

The old woman raised her hand for silence, and continued to gaze beforeher. Anne's arm was round her; the girl marked with astonishment, almostwith awe, how strongly and stiffly she sat up. She marvelled still morewhen her mother murmured in the same tone, "I can see no more, " sighed, and sank gently back. Anne bent over her. "I can--see no more, " MadameRoyaume repeated; "I can----" She was asleep!

Anne bent over her, and after listening a while to her easy breathing, heaved a deep sigh of relief. Her mother had been talking in her sleep;and she, Anne had alarmed herself for nothing. Nevertheless, as sheturned from the bed she looked nervously over her shoulder. The other'swandering or dream, or what it was, had left a vague disquiet in hermind, and presently she took the lamp and, opening the door, passed out, and, with her hands still on the latch, listened. 

Suddenly her heart bounded, her startled eyes leapt upward to theceiling. Close to her, above her, she heard a sound. 

It came from a trap-door that led to the tiles; a trap that even as hereyes reached it, lifted itself with a rending sound. Save for thebedridden woman, Anne was alone in the house; and for one instant it wasa question whether she held her ground or fled shrieking into the roomshe had left. For an instant; then the instinct to shield her mother wonthe day, and with fascinated eyes she watched the legs of a man dropthrough the aperture, watched a body follow, and--and at last a face!

Claude's face! But changed. Even while she sank gasping against thewall--for the surprise was too much for her--even while he took the lampfrom her shaking hand and supported her, and relief and joy began torun like wine through her veins, she knew it. The forceful look, thetightened lips, the eyes gleaming with determination--all were new toher. They gave him an aspect so old, so strange, that when he had kissedher once she put him from her. 

"What is it?" she said. "Oh, Claude! What is it? What has happened?"

Letting a smile appear--but such a smile as did not reassure her--hesigned to her to go before him downstairs. She complied; but at the footof the first flight she stopped, unable to bear the suspense longer. Sheturned to him again. "What is it?" she cried. "Something has happened?"

"Something is happening, " he answered. His eyes shone, exultant. "But itis a matter for others! We may be easy!"

"What is it?"

"The Savoyards are in Geneva. "

She started incredulously. "In Geneva? Here?" she exclaimed. "Theenemy?"

He nodded. 

"Here? In Geneva?" she repeated. She could not have heard aright. 

"Yes. "

But she still looked at him; she could not reconcile his words with hismanner. This, the greatest calamity that could happen, this which shehad been brought up to fear as the worst and most awful ofcatastrophes--could he talk of it, could he announce it after thisfashion? With a smile, in a tone of pleasantry? He must be playing withher. She passed her hand over her eyes, and tried to be calm. "But allis quiet?" she said. 

"All is quiet now, " he answered. "After midnight the trouble willbegin. "

Still she could not understand him. His face said one thing, his voiceanother. Besides, the town was quiet: no sound of riot or disturbance, no clash of steel, no tramp of feet penetrated the walls. And the housestood on the ramparts where the first alarm must be given. "Do youmean, " she asked at last, her eyes fixed steadfastly on him, "that theyare going to attack the town after midnight?"

"They are here now, " he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "They scaledthe wall after the guard had gone round at eleven, and they are lying bytens and twenties along the outer side of the Corraterie, waiting forthe hour and the signal. "

She passed her hand across her closed eyes, and looked again, perplexedly. "And you, " she said, "you? I do not understand. If this beso, what are you doing here?"

"Here?"

"Ay, here! Why have you not given the alarm in the town?"

"Why should I give the alarm?" he retorted coolly. "To save those whohounded you through the streets two days ago? To save those whoto-morrow may put you to the torture and burn you like the vilest ofcreatures? Save them?" with a grim smile. "No, let them savethemselves!"

"But----"

"I would save you! not them! I would save your mother! not them! And itis done. Let the Grand Duke triumph to-night, let Savoy take Geneva, andour good townsfolk will have other matters to occupy their thoughtsto-morrow! Ay, and through many and many a morrow to come! Save them?"with a grim note in his voice; "no, I save you. Let them savethemselves! It is God's mercy on us, and His judgment on them! Or whyhappens it to-night? To-night of all nights in the year?"

She was very pale, and for a moment remained silent: whether she feltthe temptation to which he had succumbed, or was seeking what she shouldsay to move him, is uncertain. At last, "It is impossible, " shemurmured, in a low voice. "You have not thought of the women andchildren, of the fathers and mothers who will suffer. "

"And your mother!"

"Is one. God forbid that I should save her at the expense of all! Godforbid!" she wailed, as if she feared her own strength, as if thetemptation almost overcame her. And then laying her hand on his arm andlooking up to him--his face was set so hard--"You will not do this!" shesaid. "You will not do this! Could we be happy after? Could we be happywith blood on our heads, and on our hands, and on our hearts! Happy, ohno! Claude, dear heart, dear husband, we cannot buy happiness so, orlife so, or love so! We cannot save ourselves--so! We cannot play God'spart--so!"

"It is not we who do it, " he answered stubbornly. 

"It is we who may prevent it!" she answered, leaning more heavily on hisarm, looking up to him more earnestly; with pleading eyes which it washard to refuse. "Would you, to save us, have betrayed Geneva?"

He groaned--she had moved him. "God knows!" he answered. "To save you--Ithink I would!"

"You would not! You would not!" she repeated. "Neither must you do this!Honour, faith, duty, all forbid it!"

"And love?" he cried. 

"And love!" she answered. "For who would love dishonoured? Who wouldlove in shame? No; go as you have come, and give the alarm! And do, andhelp! Go, as you have come! But how"--with a startled look as shethought of the trap-door--"did you come?"

"By the Tertasse Gate, " he explained. "There were but two men on guard, and they were asleep. I passed them unseen, climbed the stairs to theleads--I have been up twice before--and crossed the roofs. I knew Icould come this way unseen, and if I had come by the door----"

She understood and cut him short. "Then go as you came and rouse thewatch in the gate!" she cried feverishly. "Rouse them and all, andHeaven grant you be not too late! Go, Claude, for the love of me, forthe love of God, go quickly!" Her hands on his arm shook with eagerness. "So that, if there be treachery here----"

"There is treachery!" he said darkly. "Grio----"

"We at least shall have no part in it! You will go? You will go?" sherepeated, clinging to his arm, trembling against him, looking up to himwith eyes which he could not resist. Love wrestled here, on the higher, the nobler, the unselfish side, and came the stronger out of thecontest. There were tears in his eyes as he answered. 

"I will go. You are right, Anne. But you will be alone. "

"I run no greater risk than others, " she answered. He held her to him, and their lips met once. And in that instant, her heart beating againsthis, she comprehended to what she was sending him, into what peril oflife, into what a dark hell of force and fire and blood; and her armsclung to him as if she could not let him go. Then, "Go, and God keepyou!" she murmured in a choked voice. And she thrust him from her. 

A moment later he was on the roof, and she was kneeling where he hadleft her, bowed down, with her face on the bare stairs in an agony ofprayer for him. But not for long; she had her part to do. She hurrieddown to the living-room and made sure that the strong shutters weresecured; then up to Basterga's room and to Grio's, and as far as herstrength went she piled the furniture against the iron-barred casementsthat looked on to the ramparts. While she worked her ears listened forthe alarm, but, until she had finished and was ascending with the lightto her mother's room she heard nothing. Then a distant cry, a faintchallenge, the drum-drum of running feet, a second cry--and silence. Itmight be his death-cry she had heard; and she stood with a white face, shivering, waiting, bearing the woman's burden of suspense. To lie downby her mother was impossible; rapine, murder, fire, all the horrors, allthe perils of a city taken by surprise, crowded into her mind. Yet theymoved her not so much as the dangers he ran, whom she had sent forth toconfront them, whom she had plucked from her own breast that he mightface them!

Meanwhile, Claude, after gaining the tiles, paused a moment to considerhis next step. Far below him, on the narrow, black triangle of theCorraterie, lay the Savoyards, some three hundred in number, who hadscaled the wall. Out of the darkness of the plain, beyond and belowthem, rose the faint, distant quacking of alarmed ducks, proving thatothers of the enemy moved there. Even as he listened, the whirr of awild goose winging its flight over the city came to his ear. On hisleft, with a dim oil lamp marking, here or there, the meeting of fourways, the town slept unsuspicious, recking nothing of the fate preparedfor it. 

It was a solemn moment, and Claude on the roof under the night sky, feltit to be so. Restored to his higher self, he breathed a prayer forguidance and for her, and was as eager now as he had before been cold. But not the less for that did he ply the wits that, working freely inthis hour of peril, proved him one of those whom battle owns for master. He had gathered enough, lying on his face in the bastion, to feel surethat the forlorn hope which had gained a footing on the wall would notmove until the arrival of the main body whom it was its plan to admit bythe Porte Neuve. To carry the alarm to the Porte Neuve, therefore, andsecure that gate, seemed to be the first and most urgent step; since tosecure the Tertasse and the other inner gates would be of little avail, if the main body of the enemy were once in possession of the ramparts. The course that at first sight seemed the most obvious--to enter thetown, give the alarm at the town hall, and set the tocsin ringing--herejected; for while the town was arming, the three hundred who hadentered might seize the Porte Neuve, and so secure the entrance of themain body. 

These calculations occupied no more than a few seconds: then, his mindmade up to the course he must pursue, he crawled as quickly, but also asquietly, as he could along the dark parapets until he gained the leadsof the Tertasse. Safe so far, he proceeded, with equal or greatercaution, to descend the narrow cork-screw staircase, that led to theguard-room on the ground floor. 

He forgot that it is more easy to ascend without noise than to descend. With all his care he stumbled when he was within three steps of thebottom. He tried to save himself, but fell against the half-open door, flung it wide, and, barely keeping his feet, found himself face to facewith the two watchmen, who, startled by the noise, had sprung to theirfeet, thinking the devil was upon them. One, with an oath upon his lips, reached for his half-pike; his fellow, less sober, steadied himself byresting a hand on the table. 

If they gave the alarm, his plan was gone. The enemy, finding themselvesdiscovered, would seize the Porte Neuve. "One minute!" he criedbreathlessly. "Let me explain!"

"You!" the more sober retorted, glaring fiercely at him. "Who the devilare you? And where have you been?"

"Quiet, man, quiet!"

"What is it?"

"Treason!" Claude answered, imploring silence by a gesture. "Treason!That is what it is! But for God's sake, no noise! No noise, man, or ourthroats are as good as cut! Savoy has the wall!"

The man stared, and no wonder. "You are mad, " he said, "or drunk!Savoy----"

"Fool, it is so!" Claude cried, beside himself with impatience. 

"Savoy?"

"They are under the trees on the ramparts within a few yards of us now!Three hundred of them! A word and you will feel their pikes in yourbreast! Listen to me!"

But with a laugh of derision the drunken man cut him short. "Savoyhere--on the wall!" he hiccoughed. "And we on guard!"

"It is so!" Claude urged. "Believe me, it is so! And we must be wary. "

"You lie, young man! And I'll--hic--I'll prove it! See here! Savoy onthe wall, indeed! Savoy? And we on guard?"

He lurched in two strides to the outer door, seized it, and supportedhimself by it. Claude leant forward to stop him, but could not reach, being on the other side of the table. He called to the other to do so. "Stop him!" he said. "Stop him!"

The man might have done so, but he did not stir; and "Stop him?" the sotanswered, his hand on the door. "Not--two of you--will stop him! Now, then! Savoy, indeed! On the wall? I'll show you!"

He let the door go, and reeled three paces into the darkness outside, waving his hands as if he drove chickens. "Savoy! Savoy!" he cried; butwhether in drunken bravado, in derision, or in pure disbelief, God onlyknows! For the word had barely passed his lips the second time before agurgling scream followed, freezing the hearts of the two listeners; and, before the second guard could close the door or move from his place onthe hearth, four men sprang in out of the darkness, and bore him back. Before he had struck a blow they had pinned him against the wall. 

Claude owed his escape to his position behind the door. They did not seehim as they sprang in, intent on the one they did see. He knewresistance to be futile, and a bound carried him into the darkness ofthe cork-screw staircase. Once there, he dared not move. Thence he sawand heard what followed. 

The man pinned against the wall, with the point of a knife flickeringbefore his eyes, begged piteously for his life. 

"Then silence!" Basterga answered--for the foremost who had entered washe. "A word and you die!"

"Better let me finish him at once!" Grio growled. The prisoner's facewas ashen, his eyes were starting from his head. "Dead men give noalarms. "

"Mercy! Mercy!" the man gasped. 

"Ay, ay, let him live, " Basterga said good-naturedly. "But he must begagged. Turn your face to the wall, my man!"

The poor wretch complied with gratitude. In a twinkling the Paduan'shuge fingers closed round his neck, and over his wind-pipe. "Nowstrike, " the big man hissed. "He will make no noise!"

With a sickening thud Grio's knife sank between the shoulders, a momentthe body writhed in Basterga's herculean grip, then it sank lifeless tothe floor. "Had you struck him, fool, " Basterga muttered wrathfully, wiping a little blood from his sleeve, "as you wanted to strike him, hehad squealed like a pig! Now 'tis the same, and no noise. Ha! Seizehim!"

He spoke too late. Claude had seen his opportunity, and as thetreacherous blow was struck had crept forth. At the moment the other sawhim he bounded over the threshold. Even as his feet touched the ground aman who stood outside lunged at him with a pike but missed him--achance, for Claude had not seen the striker. The next moment the youngman had launched himself into the darkness and was running for his lifeacross the Corraterie in the direction of the Porte Neuve. 

He knew that his foes were lying on every side of him, and the cry of"Seize him! Seize him!" went with him, making every step a separateperil. He could not see a yard, but he was young and fleet and active;and the darkness covering him, the men were confused. Over more than oneblack object he bounded like a deer. Once a man rising in front of himbrought him heavily to the ground, but by good fortune it was his footstruck the man, and on the head, and the fellow lay still and let himrise. A moment later another gripped him, but Claude and he felltogether, and the younger man, rolling nimbly sideways, got clear and tohis feet again, made for the wall on his right, turned left again, andalready thought himself over the threshold of the Porte Neuve. The cry"Aux Armes! Aux Armes!" was already on his lips, he thought he hadsucceeded, when between his eyes and the faintly lighted gateway adozen forms rose as by magic and poured in before him--so near to himthat, unable to check himself, he jostled the hindmost. 

He might have entered with them, so near was he. But he saw that he wastoo late; he guessed that the outcry behind him had precipitated theattack, and, arresting himself outside the ring of light, but within afew paces of the gateway, he threw himself on the ground and awaited theevent. It was not long in declaring itself. For a few seconds a dullroar of shots and shouts and curses filled the gate. Then out again, helter-skelter, with a flash of exploding powder and a whirl of steeland blows, came defenders and assailants in a crowd, the former bent onescaping, the latter on cutting them off from the Porte Tertasse and thetown. For an instant after they had poured out the gate seemed quiet, and with his eyes upon it, Claude rose, first to his knees and then tohis feet, paused a moment in doubt, then darted in and entered theguard-room. 

The firelight--the other lights in the small, dingy chamber had beentrampled under foot--showed him two wounded men groaning on the floor, and the body of a third who lay apparently dead. Claude bent over one, found what he wanted--a half-pike--and glided to the door of the stairsthat led to the roof. It was in the same position as in the Tertasse. Heopened it, passed through it, mounted two steps, and in the darknesscame plump against some one who seized him by the throat. 

The man had no weapon--at any rate he did not strike; and Claude, takenby surprise, could not level his pike in the narrow stairway. For amoment they wrestled, Claude striving to bring his weapon to bear on hisfoe, the latter trying to strangle him. But the advantage of the stairslay with the first comer, who was the uppermost, and gradually he boreClaude back and back. The young man, however, would not let go such holdas he had, and both were on the point of falling out on the floor of theguard-room when the light disclosed Claude's face. 

"You are of us!" his opponent panted. And abruptly he released his grip. 

"Geneva!"

"I know you!" The man was one of the guard who, in the alarm, hadescaped into the stairway. "I know you! You live in the Corraterie!"

Claude wasted not a second. "Up!" he cried. "We can hold the roof! Up, man, for your life! For your life! It is our only chance!"

With the fear of death upon him, the other needed no second telling. Heturned, and groped upwards in haste; and Claude followed, treading onhis heels; nor a moment too soon. While they were still within thestaircase, which their elbows rubbed on either side, they heard theenemy swarm into the room below. Cries of triumph, of "Savoy! Savoy!" of"Ville gagnée! gagnée!" hummed dully up to them, and proclaimed thenarrowness of their escape. Then the night air met their faces, theybent their heads and passed out upon the leads; they had above them thestars, and below them all the world of night, with its tramp of hiddenfeet, its swaying lights so tiny and distant, and here and there its cryof "Savoy! Savoy!" that showed that the enemy, relying on their captureof the Porte Neuve, were casting off disguise. 

Claude heard and saw all, but lost not a moment. He had not made thishaste for his life only: before he had risen to his knees or set foot inthe gate, he had formed his plan. "The Portcullis!" he cried. "ThePortcullis! Where are the chains? On this side?" Less than a weekbefore he had stood and watched the guard as they released it and raisedit again for practice. 

The soldier, familiar with the tower, should have been able to go to thechains at once. But though he had struggled for his life and was readyto struggle for it again, he had not recovered his nerve, and he shrankfrom leaving the stairs, in holding which their one chance consisted. Hemuttered, however, that the winch was on such and such a side, and, withhis head in the stairway, indicated the direction with his hand. Claudegroped his way to the spot, his breath coming fast; fortunately he laidhis hand almost at once on the chains and felt for the spike, which heknew he must draw or knock out. That done, the winch would fly round, and the huge machine fall by its own weight. 

On a sudden, "They are coming!" the soldier cried in a terrifiedwhisper. "My God, they are coming! Come back! Come back!" For Claude hadtheir only weapon, and the guard was defenceless. Defenceless by theside of the stairs up which the foe was climbing!

The hair rose on Claude's head, but he set his teeth; though the mandied, though he died, the portcullis must fall! More than his own life, more than the lives of both of them, more than lives a hundred or athousand hung on that bolt; the fate of millions yet unborn, the freedomand the future of a country hung on that bolt which would not giveway--though now he had found it and was hammering it. Grinding histeeth, the sweat on his brow, he beat on it with the pike, struck theiron with the strength of despair, stooped to see what was amiss--stillwith the frenzied prayers of the other in his ears--saw it, and struckagain and again--and again!

Whirr! The winch flew round, barely missing his head. With a harsh, grinding sound that rose with incredible swiftness to a scream, piercingthe night, the ponderous grating slid down, crashed home and barred allentrance--closed the Porte Neuve. It did more, though Claude did notknow it. It cut off the engineer from the outer gate, of which the keyswere at the Town Hall, and against which in another minute, anothersixty seconds, he had set his petard. That set and exploded, Geneva hadlain open to its enemies. As it was, so small was the margin, so fatallyaccurate the closing, that when the day rose, it disclosed a portent. When the victors came to examine the spot they found beneath theportcullis the mangled form of one of the engineers, and beside him layhis petard. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

ARMES! ARMES!

Claude did not know all that he had done, or the narrow margin of timeby which he had succeeded. But he did know that he had saved the gate;that gate on the outer side of which four thousand of the picked troopsof Savoy were waiting the word to enter. He knew that he had done itwith death at his elbow and with the cries of his panic-stricken comradein his ears. And in the moment of success he rose above the commonlevel. He felt himself master of fear, lord of death; in the exultationof his triumph he thought nothing too hard or too dangerous for him. 

It was well perhaps that he had this feeling, for he had not a moment towaste if he would save himself. As the portcullis struck the ground witha thunderous crash and rebounded, and he turned from the winch to thestairhead, a last warning, cut short in the utterance, reached him, andhe saw through the gloom that his companion was already in the grip of afigure which had succeeded in passing out of the staircase. Claude didnot hesitate. With a roar of rage he ran like a bull at the enemy, struck him full under the arm with his pike, and drove him doubled upinto the stairhead, with such force that the Genevese had much ado tofree himself. 

The man was struck helpless--dead for aught that appeared at the moment. But the pike coming in contact with the edge of his corselet had notpenetrated, and Claude recovered it quickly, and levelled it in waitingfor the next comer. At the same time he adjured his comrade to securethe fallen man's weapon. The guard seized it, and the two waited, withsuspended breath, for the sally which they were sure must come. 

But the stairs were narrow, the fallen body blocked the outlet, andpossibly the assailants had expected no resistance. Finding it, theythought better of it. A moment and they could be heard beating aretreat. 

"Pardieu! they are going!" the guard exclaimed; and he began to shake. 

"Ay, but they will return!" Claude answered grimly. "Have no fear ofthat! The portcullis is down, and the only way to raise it, is up thesestairs. But it will be hard if, armed as we are now, we cannot bafflethem! Has he no pistol?"

Marcadel--that was the soldier's name--felt about the prostrate man, butfound none; and bidding him listen and not move for his life--but therewas little need of the injunction--Claude passed over to the inner edgeof the roof, facing the Corraterie. Here he raised his voice and shoutedthe alarm with all the force of his lungs, hoping thus to supplement thecries which here and there had been raised by the Savoyards. 

"Aux Armes! Armes!" he cried. "The enemy is at the gate! To arms! Toarms!"

A man ran out of the gateway at the sound of his shouting, levelled amusket and fired at him. The slugs flew wide, and Claude, lifted abovehimself, yelled defiance, knowing that the more shots were fired themore quickly and widely would the alarm be spread. 

That it was spreading, that it was being taken up, his position on thegateway enabled him to discern, distant as the Porte Neuve lay from theheart of the town. A flare of light at the rear of the Tertasse, and aconfused hub-bub in that quarter, seemed to show that, though theSavoyards had seized the gate, they had not penetrated beyond it. Awayon his extreme left, where the Porte de la Monnaye, hard by his oldbastion, overlooked the Rhone and the island, were lights again, and asound of a commotion as though there too the enemy held the gate, butfound farther progress closed against them. On the Treille to his right, the most westerly of the three inner gates, and the nearest to the TownHall, the enemy seemed to be preparing an attack, for as he ceased toshout, muskets exploded in that direction; and as far as he could judgethe shots were aimed outwards. 

With such alarms at three inner points--to say nothing of the noise atthe more distant Porte Neuve--it seemed impossible that any part of thecity could remain in ignorance of the attack. In truth, as he stoodpeering down into the dark Corraterie, and listening to the heavy trampof unseen feet, now here, now there, and the orders that rose fromunseen throats--even as he prepared to turn, summoned by a warning cryfrom Marcadel, the first note of the alarm-bell smote his ear. 

One moment and the air hummed with its heavy challenge, and all ofGeneva that still slept awoke and stood upright. Men ran half naked fromtheir houses. Boys in their teens snatched arms and sallied forth. Whitefaces looked into the night from barred windows or lofty dormers; andacross narrow wynds and under dark Gothic entries men dragged hugechains and hooked them, and hurried on to where the alarm seemed loudestand the risk most pressing. In an instant in pitch-dark alleys lightsgleamed and steel jarred on stone; out of the darkness deep voicesshouted questions, or answered or gave orders, and from a thousandhouses, alike in the wealthy Bourg du Four with its three-storied pilesand in the sordid lanes about the water and the bridges, went up onewail of horror and despair. Men who had dreamed of this night for years, and feared it as they feared God's day, awoke to find their dream afact, and never while they lived forgot that awakening. While women leftalone in their homes bolted and barred and fell to prayers; or claspedto their breasts babes who prattled, not understanding the turmoil, orwhy their mothers looked strangely on them. 

Something of this, something of the horror of that sudden awakening, andof the confusion in the narrow streets, where voices cried that theenemy were here or there or in a third place, and the bravest knew notwhich way to turn, penetrated to Claude on the roof of the tower; and atthe thought of Anne and the perils that encircled her--for about thehouse in the Corraterie the uproar rose loudest--his heart melted. Buthe had not long to dwell on her peril; not long to dwell on anything. Before the great bell had hurled its warning abroad three times he hadto go. Marcadel's voice, urgent, insistent, summoned him to thestairhead. 

"They are mustering at the bottom!" the man whispered over his shoulder. He was on his knees, his head in the hood of the staircase. The woundedman, breathing stertorously, still cumbered the upper steps. Marcadelrested one hand on him. 

Claude thrust in his head and listened. He could hear, above the thickbreathing of the Savoyard, the stir of men muttering and moving in thedarkness below; and now the stealthy shuffle of feet, and again thefaint clang of a weapon against the wall. Doubtless it had dawned onsome one in command below, that here on this tower lay the keys ofGeneva: that by themselves three hundred men could not take, nor hold ifthey took, a town manned by five or six thousand; consequently that ifSavoy would succeed in the enterprise so boldly begun, she must by hookor crook raise this portcullis and open this gate. As a fact, Brunaulieu, the captain of the forlorn hope, had passed the word thatthe tower must be taken at any cost; and had come himself from the PorteTertasse, where a brisk conflict was beginning, to see the thing done. 

Claude did not know this, but had he known it, it would not have reducedhis courage. 

"Yes, I hear them, " he whispered in answer to the soldier's words. "Butthey have not mounted far yet. And when they come, if two pikes cannothold this doorway which they can pass but one at a time, there is notruth in Thermopylæ!"

"I know naught of that, " the other answered, rising nervously to hisfeet. "I don't favour heights. Give me the lee of a wall and fairodds----"

"Odds?" Claude echoed vain-gloriously--but only the stars attended tohim--"I would not have another man!"

Marcadel seized him by the sleeve. His voice rose almost to a scream. "But, by Heaven, there is another man!" he cried. "There!" He pointedwith a shaking hand to the outer corner of the leads, in theneighbourhood of the place where the winch of the portcullis stood. "Weare betrayed! We are dead men!" he babbled. 

Claude made out a dim figure, crouching against the battlement; and thethought, which was also in Marcadel's mind, that the enemy had set aladder against the wall and outflanked them, rendered him desperate. Atany rate there was but one on the roof as yet: and quick as thought theyoung man lowered his pike and charged the figure. 

With a shrill scream the man fell on his knees before him. "Mercy!"cried a voice he knew. "Mercy! Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"

It was Louis Gentilis. Claude halted, looked at him in amazement, spurned him with his foot. "Up, coward, and fight for your life then!"he said. "Or others will kill you. How come you here?"

The lad still grovelled. "I was in the guard-room, " he whimpered. "I hadcome with a message--from the Syndic. "

"The Syndic Blondel?"

"Yes! To remind the Captain that he was to go the rounds at elevenexactly. It was late when I got there and they--oh, this dreadfulnight--they broke in, and I, hid on the stairs. "

"Well, you can hide no longer. You have got to fight now!" Claudeanswered grimly, "There are no more stairs for any of us except toheaven! I advise you to find something, and do your worst. Take thewinch-bar if you can find nothing else! And----"

He broke off. Marcadel, who had remained at the stairhead, was callingto him in a voice that could no longer be resisted--a voice of despair. Claude ran to him. He found him with his head in the stairway, but withhis pike shortened to strike. "They are coming!" he muttered over hisshoulder. "They are more than half-way up now. Be ready and keep youreyes open. Be ready!" he continued after a pause. "They are nearly--herenow!" His breath began to come quickly; at last stepping back a pace andbringing his point to the charge. "They are here!" he shouted. "Onguard!"

Claude stooped an inch lower, and with gleaming eyes, and feet setwarily apart, waited the onset; waited with suspended breath for thecharge that must come. He could hear the gasps of the wounded man wholay on the uppermost step; and once close to him he caught a sound ofshuffling, moving feet, that sent his heart into his mouth. But secondspassed, and more seconds, and glare as he might into the black mouth ofthe staircase, from which the hood averted even the light of the stars, he could make out nothing, no movement, no sign of life!

The suspense was growing intolerable. And all the time behind him thealarm-bell was flinging "Doom! Doom!" down on the city, and a thousandsounds of fear and strife clutched at his mind and strove to draw itfrom the dark gap at which he waited, as a dog waits for a rat at themouth of its hole. His breath began to come quickly, his knees shook. Heheard his companion gasp--human nerves could stand it no longer. Andthen, just as he felt that, come what might, he must plunge his pikeinto the darkness, and settle the question, the shuffling sound cameanew and steadied him, and he set his teeth and waited--waited still. 

But nothing happened, nothing moved. Again the seconds, almost theminutes passed, and the deep note of the alarm-bell swelled louder andheavier, filling all the air, all the night, all the world, with itsiron tongue--setting the tower reeling, the head swimming. In spite ofhimself, in spite of the fact that he knew his life hung on hisvigilance, his thoughts wandered; wandered to Anne, alone anddefenceless in that hell below him, from which such wild sounds werebeginning to rise; to his own fate if he and Marcadel got the worst; tothe advantage a light properly shaded would have given them, had theyhad it. But, alas, they had no light. 

And then, while he thought of that, the world was all light. A sheet offlame burst from the hood, dazzled, blinded, scorched him; a crashingreport filled his ears; he recoiled. The ball had missed him, had gonebetween him and Marcadel and struck neither. But for a moment in pureamazement, he stood gaping. 

That moment had been his last had the defence lain with him only, oreven with him and Marcadel. It was the senseless form that cumbered theuppermost step which saved them. The man who had fired tripped over itas he sprang out. He fell his length on the roof. The next man, lesshasty or less brave, sank down on the obstacle, and blocked the way forothers. 

Before either could rise all was over. Claude brought down his pike onthe head of the first to issue, and laid him lifeless on the leads. Theguard, who was a better man at a pinch than in the anticipation of it, drove the other back--as he tried to rise--with a wound in the face. Then with a yell, assured that in the narrow stairhead the enemy couldnot use their weapons, the two charged their pikes into the obscurity, and thrust and thrust, and thrust again, in the cruelty of rage andfear. 

What they struck, or where they struck, they could not see; but theirears told them that they did not strike in vain. A shrill scream and thegurgling cry of a dying man proved it, and the wild struggle that ensuedon the stairs; where the uppermost, weighed down by the fallen men, turned in a panic on those below and fought with them to force them todescend. 

Claude shuddered as he listened, as he waited, his pike still levelled;shuddered at the pitiful groaning that issued from the blackness, shuddered at the blows he had struck, and the scream that still echoedin his ears. He had not trembled when he fought, but he trembled at thethought of it. 

"They are beaten, " he muttered huskily. 

"Ay, they are beaten!" Marcadel--he who had trembled before thefight--answered with exultation. "You were right. We wanted no more men!But it was near. If this rogue had not tripped our throats would havesuffered. "

"He was a brave man, " Claude answered, leaning heavily on his pike. Heneeded its support. 

Marcadel knelt down and felt the man over. "Ay, " he said, "he was, togive the devil his due! And that reminds me. We've a skulker here whohas escaped so far. He shall play his part now. We must have their arms, but it is dirty work groping in the dark for them; and maybe life enoughin one of them to drive a dagger between one's ribs. He shall do it. Where is he?"

Claude was feeling the reaction which ensues upon intense excitement. Hedid not answer. Nor did he interfere when Marcadel, pouncing on Louis, where he crouched in the darkest corner, forced him forward to the headof the staircase. There the lad fell on his knees weeping futilely, wailing prayers. But the guard kicked him forward. 

"In!" he said. "You know what you have to do! In, and strip them! Do youhear? And if you leave as much as a knife----"

"I won't! I daren't!" Louis screamed. And grovelling on his face on theleads he clung to whatever offered itself. 

But men who have just passed through a life and death struggle, arehard. "You won't?" Marcadel answered, applying his boot brutally, butwithout effect. "You will! Or you will feel my pike between your ribs!In! In, my lad!"

A scream answered each repetition of the word, and proved that thethreat was no empty one. Claude might have intervened, but he rememberedAnne and the humiliations she had suffered in this craven's presence. 

"In!" Marcadel repeated a third time. "And if you leave so much as aknife upon them I will throw you off the tower. You understand, do you?Then in, and strip them!"

And driven by sheer torture--for the pike had thrice drawn blood fromhis writhing body--Louis crept, weeping and quaking, into the staircase;and on one of her tormentors Anne was avenged. But Claude was thinkingmore of her present peril than of this; he had moved from the stairhead. A swell in the volume of sound which rose from the Corraterie had drawnhim to that side of the tower, where shaking off the exhaustion whichfor a time had overcome him, he was straining his eyes to learn what waspassing in the babel below. 

The sight was a singular one. The Monnaye Gate far to the left, theTertasse immediately before him, and the Treille on his right, were thecentres of separate conflagrations. In one place a house, fired by thepetard employed to force the door, was actually alight. In other placesso great was the conflux of torches, the flash and gleam of weapons, andthe babel of sounds that it wrought on the mind the impression of a fireblazing up in the night. Behind the Porte Tertasse, in the narrowstreets of the Tertasse and the Cité--immediately, therefore, behind theRoyaumes' house--the conflict seemed to rage most hotly, the shots to bemost frequent, the uproar greatest, even the light strongest; for thereflection of the combat below bathed the Tertasse tower in a luridglow. Claude could distinguish the roof of the Royaumes' house; and tosee so much yet to be cut off as completely as if he stood a hundredmiles away, to be so near yet so hopelessly divided, stung him to a newimpatience and a greater daring. 

He returned to Marcadel. "Are we going to stay on this tower?" he cried. "Shut up here, while this goes forward and we may be of use?"

"I think we have done our part, " the other answered soberly. "If any manhas saved Geneva, it is you! There, man, I give you the credit, " hecontinued, in a burst of generosity, "and it is no small thing! For itmight make my fortune. But I have done some little too!"

"Ay! But cannot we----"

"What would you have us do more?" the man continued, and with reason. "Leave the roof to them? 'Tis all they want! Leave them to raise the oldiron grate, and let in--what I hear yonder?" He indicated the darkerouter plain below the wall, whence rose the murmur of halted battalions, waiting baffled, and uncertain, the opening of the gate. 

"Ay, but if we descend?"

"May we not win the gate from a score?" Marcadel answered, betweencontempt and admiration. "Is that what you mean? And when we have wonit, hold it? No, not if each of us were Gaston of Foix, Bayard, and M. De Crillon rolled into one! But what is this? We are winning or we arelosing! Which is it?"

From the Treille Gate had burst a rabble of men; a struggling crowdillumined by the glare of three or four lights. Pikes and halberdsflashed in the heart of the mob as it swirled and struggled down theCorraterie in the direction of the gate from which the two men viewedit. Half-way thither, in the open, its progress seemed to be checked; ithung and paused, swaying this way and that; it recoiled. But at length, with a roar of triumph, it rolled on anew over half a dozen prostrateforms, and in a trice burst about the base of the Porte Neuve, swept, asit seemed to those above, into the gateway, and--in a twinkling brokeback, repelled by a crashing volley that shook the tower. 

"They are our people!" cried Claude. 

"Ay!"

"And now is our time!" The lad waved his weapon. "A diversion in therear--and 'tis done!"

"In Heaven's name stop!" cried Marcadel, and he gripped Claude's sleeve. "A diversion, ay!" he continued. "But a moment too soon or a moment toolate--and where will we be?"

He spoke in vain. His words were wasted on the air. Claude, not to berestrained, had entered the staircase. Pike in hand he felt his way overthe bodies that choked it; by this time he was half-way down the stairs. Marcadel hesitated, waited a moment, listened; then, partly becausesuccess begets success, and courage courage, partly because he would nothave the triumph taken from him, he too risked all. He snatched fromGentilis' feeble hands a long pistol, part of the spoils of thestaircase; and, staying only to assure himself that a portion of thepriming still lay in the pan, he hurried after his leader. 

By this time Claude was within four stairs of the guard-room. The lowdoor that admitted to it stood open; and towards it a man, hearing thehasty tread of feet, had that moment turned a startled face. There wasno room for anything but audacity, and Claude did not flinch. In twobounds, he hurled himself through the door on to the man, missed himwith his pike--but was himself missed. In a flash the two were rollingtogether on the floor. 

In their fall they brought down a third man, who, swearing horribly, made repeated stabs at Claude with a dagger. But the only light in theroom came from the fire, the three were interlaced, and Claude was youngand agile as an eel: he evaded the first thrust, and the second. Thethird went home in his shoulder, but desperate with pain he seized thehand that held the poniard, and clung to it; and before the man who hadbeen the first to fall could regain his pike, or a third man who waspresent, but who was wounded, could drag himself, swearing horribly, tothe spot, Marcadel fired from the stairs, and killed the wounded man. The next instant with a yell of "Geneva!" he sprang on the others undercover of the smoke that filled the room. 

The combat was still but of two to two; and without the guard-room butalmost within arm's length, were a dozen Savoyards, headed by Picot theengineer; any one of whom might, by entering, turn the scale. But thepistol-shot had come to the ears of the attacking party: that instant, guessing that they had allies within, they rallied and with loud criesreturned to the attack. Even while Marcadel having disposed of one more, stood over the struggling pair on the floor, doubting where to strike, the burghers burst a second time into the gateway--on which theguard-room opened--struck down Picot, and, hacking and hewing, withcries of "Porte Gagnée! Porte Gagnée!" bore the Savoyards back. 

For the half of a minute the low-groined archway was a whirl of arms andsteel and flame. Half a dozen single combats were in progress at once;amid yells and groans, and the jar and clash of a score of weapons. Butthe burghers, fighting bareheaded for their wives and hearths, were notto be denied; by-and-by the Savoyards gave back, broke, and savedthemselves. One fierce group cut its way out and fled into the darknessof the Corraterie. Of the others four men remained on the ground, whiletwo turned and tried to retreat into the guard-room. 

But on the threshold they met Claude, vicious and wounded, his eyes in aflame; and he struck and killed the foremost. The other fell under theblows of the pursuing burghers, and across the two bodies Claude andMarcadel met their allies, the leaders of the assault. Strange to say, the foremost and the midmost of these was a bandy-legged tailor, with agreat two-handed sword, red to the hilt; to such a place can valour onsuch a night raise a man. On his right stood Blandano, Captain of theGuard, bareheaded and black with powder; on his left Baudichon thecouncillor, panting, breathless, his fat face running with sweat andblood--for he bore an ugly wound--but with unquenchable courage in hiseyes. A man may be fat and yet a lion. 

It was a moment in the lives of the five men who thus met which none ofthem ever forgot. "Was it one of you two who lowered the portcullis?"Blandano gasped, as he leaned an instant on his sword. 

"He did, " Marcadel answered, laying his hand on Claude's shoulder. "AndI helped him. "

"Then he has saved Geneva, and you have helped him!" Blandano rejoinedbluntly. "Your name, young man. "

Claude told him. 

"Good!" Blandano answered. "If I live to see the morning light, it shallnot be forgotten!"

Baudichon leant across the dead, and shook Claude's hand. "For the womenand children!" he said, his fat face shaking like a jelly; though no manhad fought that night with a more desperate valour. "If I live to seethe morning inquire for Baudichon of the council. "

Jehan Brosse, the bandy-legged tailor with the huge sword--he was butfive feet high and no one up to that night had known him for ahero--squared his shoulders and looked at Claude, as one who takesanother under his protection. "Baudichon the councillor, whom all menknow in Geneva, " he said with an affectionate look at the great man--hewas proud of the company to which his prowess had raised him. "You willnot forget the name! no fear of that! And now on!"

"Ay, on!" Blandano answered, looking round on his panting followers, ofwhom some were staunching their wounds and some, with dark faces andgleaming eyeballs, were loading and priming their arms. "But I thinkthe worst is over and we shall win through now. We have this gate safe, and it is the key, as I told you. If all be well elsewhere, and the mainguards be held----"

"Ay, but are they?" Baudichon muttered nervously: he reeled a little, for the loss of blood was beginning to tell upon him. "That is thequestion!"

CHAPTER XXV. 

BASTERGA AT ARGOS. 

The fear that Blandano might postpone the night-round, to a time whichwould involve discovery, haunted Blondel; and late on this eventfulevening he despatched Louis, as we have seen, to the Porte Neuve toremind the Captain of his orders. That done--it was all he could do--theSyndic sat down in his great chair, and prepared himself to wait. Heknew that he had before him some hours of uncertainty almostintolerable; and a peril, a hundred times more hard to face, because inthe pinch of it he must play two parts; he must run with the hare andhunt with the hounds, and, a traitor standing forward for the city hehad betrayed, he must have an eye to his reputation as well as his life. 

He had no doubt of the success of Savoy, the walls once passed. Moreover, the genius of Basterga had imposed itself upon him as that ofa man unlikely to fail. But some resistance there must be, somebloodshed--for the town held many devoted men; one hour at least ofbutchery, and that followed, he shuddered to think it, by more than onehour of excess, of cruelty, of rapine. From such things the capturedcities of that day rarely escaped. In all that happened, the resistanceand the peril, he must, he knew, show himself; he must take his part andrun his risk if he would not be known for what he was, if he would notleave a name that men would spit on!

Strangely enough it was the moment of discovery and his conduct in thatmoment--it was the anticipation of this, that weighed most heavily onhis guilty mind as he sat in his parlour, his hour of retiring longpast, his household in bed. The city slept round him; how long would itsleep? And when it awoke, how long dared he, how long would it benatural for him to ignore the first murmur, the succeeding outcry, therising alarm? It was not his cue to do overmuch, to precipitatediscovery, or to assume at once the truth to be the truth. But on theother hand he must not be too backward. 

Try as he would he could not divert his thoughts from this. He sawhimself skulking in his house, listening with a white face to the rushof armed men along the street. He heard the tumult rising on all sides, and saw himself stand, guilty and irresolute, between hearth and door, uncertain if the time had come to go forth. Finally, and before he hadmade up his mind to go out, he fancied himself confronted by an enteringface, and in an instant detected. And this it was, this initialdifficulty, oddly enough--and not the subsequent hours of horror, confusion and danger, of dying men and wailing women--that rode hismind, dwelt on him and shook his nerves as the crisis approached. 

One consolation he had, and one only; but a measureless one. Bastergahad kept his word. He was cured. Six hours earlier he had taken the_remedium_ according to the directions, and with every hour that hadelapsed since he had felt new life course through his veins. He had hadno return of pain, no paroxysm; but a singular lightness of body, eloquent of the change wrought in him and the youth and strength thatwere to come, had done what could be done to combat the terrors of thesoul, natural in his situation. Pale he was, despite the potion; inspite of it he trembled and sweated. But he knew himself changed, andsick at heart as he was, he could only guess at the depths of nervousdespair to which he must have fallen had he not taken the wondrousdraught. 

There was that to the good. That to the good. He would live. And lifewas the great thing after all; life and health, and strength. If he hadsold his soul, his country, his friends, at least he would live--ifnaught happened to him to-night. If naught--but ah, the thought piercedhim to the heart. He who had proved himself in old days no mean soldierin the field, who had won honour in more than one fight, felt his browgrow damp, his knees grow flaccid, knew himself a coward. For the lifewhich he must risk was not the old life, but the new one which he hadbought so dearly; the new one for which he had given his soul, hiscountry, and his friends. And he dared not risk that! He dared not letthe winds of heaven blow too roughly on that! If aught befel him thisnight, the irony of it! The mockery of it! The deadly, deadly folly ofit!

He sweated at the thought. He cursed, cursed frantically his folly inomitting to give himself out for worse than he was; in omitting to taketo his bed early in the day! Then he might have kept it through thenight, through the fight; then he might have avoided risks. Now he feltthat every ball discharged at a venture must strike him; that if heshowed so much as his face at a window death must find its opportunity. He would not have dared to pass through a street on a windy day now--forif a tile fell it must fall on him. And he must fight! He must fight!

His manhood shrivelled within him at the thought. He shuddered. He wasstill shuddering, when on the shutter which masked the casement came aknock, thrice repeated. A cautious knock of which the mere sound impliedan understanding. 

The Syndic remained motionless, glaring at the window. Everything on anight like this, and to an uneasy conscience, menaced danger. At lengthit occurred to him that the applicant might be Louis, whom he had sentwith the message to the Porte Neuve: and he took the lamp and went toadmit him, albeit reluctantly, for what did the booby mean by returning?It was late, and only to open at this hour might, in the light cast byafter events, raise suspicions. 

But it was not Louis. The lamp flickering in the draught of the doorwaydisclosed a huge dusky form, glimmering metallic here and there, that ina trice pushed him back, passed by him, entered. It was Basterga. TheSyndic shut the door, and staggered rather than walked after him to theparlour. There the Syndic set down the lamp, and turned to the scholar, his face a picture of guilty terror. "What is it?" he muttered. "Whathas happened? Is--the thing put off?"

The other's aspect answered his question. A black corselet with shoulderpieces, and a feathered steel cap raised Basterga's huge stature almostto the gigantic. Nor did it need this to render him singular; to drawthe eye to him a second time and a third. The man himself in this hourof his success, this moment of conscious daring, of reliance on his starand his strength, towered in the room like a demi-god. "No, " heanswered, with a ponderous, exultant smile, slow to come, slow to go. "No, Messer Blondel. Far from it. It has not been put off. "

"Something has been discovered?"

"No. We are here. That is all. "

The Syndic supported himself by a hand pressed hard against the tablebehind him. "Here?" he gasped. "You are here? You have the town already?It is impossible. "

"We have three hundred men in the Corraterie, " Basterga answered. "Wehold the Tertasse Gate, and the Monnaye. The Porte Neuve is cut off, andat our mercy; it will be taken when we give the signal. Beyond it fourthousand men are waiting to enter. We hold Geneva in our grip atlast--at last!" And in an accent half tragic, half ironic, hedeclaimed:--

 "Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus Dardaniae! Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium et ingens Gloria Teucrorum! Ferus omnia Jupiter Argos Transtulit!"

And then more lightly, "If you doubt me, how am I here?" he asked. Andhe extended his huge arms in the pride of his strength. "Exercise yourwarrant now--if you can, Messer Syndic. Syndic, " he continued in a toneof mockery, "where is your warrant now? I have but this moment, " hepointed to wet stains on his corselet, "slain one of your guards. Dojustice, Syndic! I have seized one of your gates by force. Avenge it, Syndic! Syndic? ha! ha! Here is an end of Syndics. "

The Syndic gasped. He was a hard man, not to say an arrogant one, littleused to opposition; one who, times and again, had ridden rough-shod overthe views of his fellows. To be jeered at, after this fashion, to bescorned and mocked by this man who in the beginning had talked sosilkily, moved so humbly, evinced so much respect, played the poorscholar so well, was a bitter pill. He asked himself if it was for thishe had betrayed his city; if it was for this he had sold his friends. And then--then he remembered that it was not for this--not for this, butfor life, dear life, warm life, that he had done this thing. And, swallowing the rage that was rising within him, he calmed himself. 

"It is better to cease to be Syndic than cease to live, " he saidcoldly. 

But the other had no mind to return to their former relations. "True, Osage!" he answered contemptuously. "But why not both? Because--shall Itell you?"

"I hear----"

"Yes, and I hear too! The city is rising!" Basterga listened a moment. "Presently they will ring the alarm-bell, and----"

"If you stay here some one may find you!"

"And find me with you?" Basterga rejoined. He knew that he ought to go, for his own sake as well as the Syndic's. He knew that nothing was to bemade and much might be lost by the disclosure that was on his tongue. But he was intoxicated with the success which he had gained; with theclang of arms, and the glitter of his armed presence. The true spirit ofthe man, as happens in intoxication of another kind, rose to thesurface, cruel, waggish, insolent--of an insolence long restrained, theinsolence of the scholar, who always in secret, now in the light, pantedto repay the slights he had suffered, the patronage of leaders, thescoffs of power. "Ay, " he continued, "they may find me with you! But ifyou do not mind, I need not. And I was just asking you--why not both?Life and power, my friend?"

"You know, " Blondel answered, breathing quickly. How he hated the man!How gladly would he have laid him dead at his feet! For if the foolstayed here prating, if he were found here by those who within a fewmoments would come with the alarm, he was himself a lost man. All wouldbe known. 

That was the fear in Blondel's mind; the alarm was growing louder eachmoment, and drawing nearer. And then in a twinkling, in two or threesentences, Basterga put that fear into the second place, and set in itsseat emotions that brooked no rival. 

"Why not both?" he said, jeering. "Live and be Syndic, both? Because youhad the scholar's ill, eh, Messer Blondel? Or because your physician_said_ you had it--to whom I paid a good price--for the advice?" Thedevil seemed to look out of the man's eyes, as he spoke in shortsentences, each pointed, each conveying a heart-stab to its hearer. 

"To whom--you gave?" Blondel muttered, his eyes dilated. 

"A good price--for the advice! A good price to tell you, you had it. "

The magistrate's face swelled till it was almost purple, his handsgripped the front of his coat, and pressed hard against his breast. "But--the pains?" he muttered. "Did you--but no, " with a frightfulgrimace, "you lie! you lie!"

"Did I bribe him--to give you those too?" the other answered, with aruthless laugh. "You have alighted on it, most grave and reverend sage. You have alighted on the exact fact, so clever are you! That wasprecisely what I did some months back, after I heard that you, beingfearful as rich men are, had been to him for some fancied ill. You hadtwo medicines? You remember? The one gave, the other soothed yourtrouble. And now that you understand, now that your mind is free fromcare, and you can sleep without fear of the scholar's ill--will you notthank me for your cure, Messer Blondel?"

"Thank you?" the magistrate panted. "Thank you?" He stepped back twopaces, groping with his hands, as if he sought to support himself by thetable from which he had advanced. 

"Ay, thank me!"

"No, but I will pay you!" and with the word Blondel snatched from thetable a pistol which he had laid within his reach an hour earlier. Before the giant, confident in his size, discovered his danger, themuzzle was at his breast. It was too late to move then--three pacesdivided the men; but, in his haste to raise the pistol, Blondel had notshaken from it the handkerchief under which he had hidden it, and thelock fell on a morsel of the stuff. The next moment Basterga's huge handstruck aside the useless weapon, and flung Blondel gasping against thewall. 

"Fool!" the scholar cried, towering above the baffled, shrinking manwhose attempt had placed him at his mercy. "Think you that CæsarBasterga was born to perish by your hand? That the gods made me what Iam, I who carry to-night the fortunes of a nation and the fate of aking, that I might fall by so pitiful a creature as you! Ay, 'tis thealarm-bell, you are right. And by-and-by your friends will be here. Itis a wonder, " he continued, with a cruel look, "that they are not herealready; but perhaps they have enough to fill their hands! And come orstay--if they be like you, poor fool, weak in body as in wit--I carenot! I, Cæsar Basterga, this night lord of Geneva, and in the time tocome, and thanks to you----"

"Curse you!" Blondel gasped. 

"That which I dare be sworn you have dreamt of being!"--the scholarcontinued with a subtle smile. "The Grand Duke's _alter ego_, Mayor ofthe Palace, Adviser to his Highness! Yes, I hit you there? I touch youthere! Oh, vanity of little men, I thought so! "He broke off andlistened, as sharp on one another two gun-shots rang out at no greatdistance from the house. A third followed as he hearkened: and on it aswelling wave of sound that rose with each second louder and nearer. "Ay, 'tis known now!" Basterga resumed, in a tone more quiet, but notless confident. "And I must go, my dear friend--who thought a minuteago to speed me for ever. Know that it lies not in hands mean as yoursto harm Cæsar Basterga of Padua! And that to-night, of all nights, Ibear a charmed life! I carry, Syndic, a kingdom and its fortunes!"

He seemed to swell with the thought, and in comparison of the sickly manscowling darkly on him from the wall, he did indeed look a king, as heturned to the door, flung it wide and passed into the passage. With onlythe street door between him and the hub-bub that was beginning to fillthe night, he could measure the situation. He had stayed late. The beatof many feet hastening one way--towards the Porte Tertasse--the clatterof weapons as here and there a man trailed his pike on the stones, theroar of rising voices, the rattle of metal as some one hauled a chainacross the end of the Bourg du Four and hooked it--sounds such as thesemight have alarmed an ordinary man who knew himself cut off from hisparty, and isolated among foes. 

But Basterga did not quail. His belief in his star was genuine; he wasintoxicated with the success which he fancied lay within his grasp. Hecarried Cæsar and his fortunes! was it in mean men to harm him? Nay, soconfident was he, that when he had opened the door he stood an instanton the threshold viewing the strange scene, and quoted with anappreciation as strange--

 "At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu Miscetur, penitusque cavae plangoribus aedes Femineis ululant; ferit aurea sidera clamor"--

from his favourite poet. After which without hesitation but also withouthurry he turned and plunged into the stream of passers that was hurryingtowards the Porte Tertasse. 

He had been right not to quail. In the medley of light and shadow whichfilled the Bourg du Four and the streets about the Town Hall, in theconfusion, in the rush of all in one direction and with one intent, noone paid heed to him, or supposed him to belong to the enemy. Some cried"To the Treille! They are there! To the Treille!" And these wheeled thatway. But more, guided by the sounds of conflict, held on to the pointwhere the short, narrow street of the Tertasse turned left-handed out ofthe equally narrow Rue de la Cité--the latter leading onwards to thePorte de la Monnaye, and the bridges. Here, at the meeting of the twoconfined lanes, overhung by timbered houses, and old gables of strangeshapes, a desperate conflict was being fought. The Savoyards, masters ofthe gate, had undertaken to push their way into the town by the RueTertasse; not doubting that they would be supported by-and-by, upon theentrance of their main body through the Porte Neuve. They had proceededno farther, however, than the junction with the Rue de la Cité--a pointwhere darkness was made visible by two dim oil lamps--before, the alarmbeing given, they found themselves confronted by a dozen half-cladtownsfolk, fresh from their beds; of whom five or six were at once laidlow. The survivors, however, fought with desperation, giving back, footby foot; and as the alarm flew abroad and the city rose, every momentbrought the defenders a reinforcement--some father just roused fromsleep, armed with the chance weapon that came to hand, or some youthpanting for his first fight. The assailants, therefore, found themselvesstayed; slowly they were driven back into the narrow gullet of theTertasse. Even there they were put to it to hold their ground against anever-increasing swarm of citizens, whom despair and the knowledge thatthey were fighting on their hearths, for their wives, and for theirchildren, brought up in renewed strength. 

In the Tertasse, however, where it was not possible to outflank them, and no dark side-alley, vomiting now and again a desperate man, gave oneto death, a score could hold out against a hundred. Here then, with thegateway at their backs--whence three or four could fire over theirheads--the Savoyards stood stubbornly at bay, awaiting thereinforcements which they were sure would come from the Porte Neuve. They were picked troops not easily discouraged; and they had no fearthat aught serious had happened. But they asked impatiently whyD'Albigny with the main body did not come; why Brunaulieu with theMonnaye in his hands did not see that the time was opportune. Theychafed at the delay. Give the city time to array itself, let it recoverfrom its first surprise, and all their forces might scarcely avail tocrush opposition. 

It was at this moment, when the burghers had drawn back a little thatthey might deliver a decisive attack, that Basterga came up. Fabri theSyndic had taken the command, and had shouted to all who had windowslooking on the lane to light them. He had arrayed his men in some sortof order and was on the point of giving the word to charge, when heheard the steps of Basterga and some others coming up; he waited toallow them to join him. The instant they arrived he gave the word, andfollowed by some thirty burghers armed with half-pikes, halberds, anything the men had been able to snatch up, he charged the Savoyardsbravely. 

In the narrow lane but four or five could fight abreast, and the GrandDuke's men were clad in steel and well armed. Nevertheless Fabri boreback the first line, pressed on them stoutly, and amid a wild _mêlée_ ofstruggling men and waving weapons, began to drive the troop, in spite ofa fierce resistance, into the gate. If he could do this and enter withthem, even though he lost half his men, he might save the city. 

But the Savoyards, though they gave back, gave back slowly. Withintwenty paces of the gate the advance wavered, stopped, hung an instant. Of that instant Basterga took advantage. He had moved on undetected, with the rearmost burghers: now he saw his opportunity and seized it. Heflung to either side the man to right and left of him. He struck down, almost with the same movement, the man in front. He rushed on Fabri, whoin the middle of the first line was supporting, though far from young, asingle combat with one of the Savoyard leaders. On him Basterga's cowardweapon alighted without warning, and laid him low. To strike downanother, and turning, range himself in the van of the foreigners with amighty "Savoy! Savoy!" was Basterga's next action; and it sufficed. Thepanic-stricken burghers, apprised of treason in their ranks, gave backevery way. The Savoyards saw their advantage, rallied, and pressed them. Speedily the Italians regained the ground they had lost, and with thetall form of their champion fighting in the van, began to sweep thetowns-folk back into the Rue de la Cité. 

But arrived at the meeting of the ways, Basterga's followers paused, hesitating to expose their flank by entering this second street. TheGenevese saw this, rallied in their turn, and for a moment seemed to beholding their own. But three or four of their doughtiest fighters laystark in the kennel, they had no longer a leader, they were poorly armedand hastily collected; and devoted as they were, it needed little torenew the panic and start them in utter rout. Basterga saw this, andwhen his men still hung back, neglecting the golden opportunity, herushed forward, almost alone, until he stood conspicuous between the twobands--the one hesitating to come on, the other hesitating to fly. 

"Savoy!" he thundered, "Ville gagnée! The city is ours! Cowards, comeon!" And waving his halberd above his head, he beckoned to his followersto advance. 

Had they done so, had they charged on the instant, they had changed allfor him, and perhaps all for Geneva. But they hung a moment, and thenext, as in shame they drew themselves together for the charge, theirchampion stooped forward with a shrill scream. The next instant hereceived full on his nape a heavy iron pot, that descending withtremendous force from a window above him, rolled from him broken intothree pieces. 

He went down under the blow as if a sledge-hammer had struck him; and sosudden, so dramatic was the fall--his armour clanging about him--thatfor an instant the two bands held their hands and stood staring, asindifferent crowds stand and gaze in the street. A dozen on thepatriots' side knew the house from which the _marmite_ fell, and markedit; and half as many saw at the small window whence it came the greylocks and stern wrinkled face of an aged woman. The effect on theburghers was magical. As if the act symbolised not only the loved onesfor whom they fought, but the dire distress to which they were come, they rushed on the foreign men-at-arms with a spirit and a fury hithertounknown. With a ringing shout of "Mère Royaume! Mère Royaume!"--raisedby those who knew the old woman, and taken up by many who did not--theyswept the foe, shaken by the fall of their leader, along the narrowTertasse, pressed on them, and, still shouting the new war-cry, enteredthe gateway along with them. 

"Mère Royaume! Mère Royaume!" The name rang savagely in the groining ofthe arch, echoed dully in the obscurity in which the fierce strugglewent on. And men struck to its rhythm, and men died to it. And men whoheard it thus and lived never forgot it, nor ever went back in theirminds to that night without recalling it. 

To one man, flurried already, and a coward at heart, the name carried aparalysing assurance of doom. He had seen Basterga fall--by this woman'shand of all hands in the world--and he had been the first to flee. Butin the lane he tripped over Fabri, he fell headlong, and only raisedhimself in time to gain the gateway a few feet in front of the avengingpikes. Still, he might escape, he hoped to escape, through the gate andinto the open Corraterie. But the first to reach the gates had taken inhand to shut them, and so to prevent the townsfolk reaching theCorraterie. One of the great doors, half-closed, blocked his way, andinstinctively--ignorant how far behind him the pike-points were--hesprang aside into the guard-room. 

His one chance now--for he was cut off, and knew it--lay in reaching thestaircase and mounting to the roof. A bound carried him to the door, hegrasped the handle. But a fugitive who had only a second before savedhimself that way, took him for a pursuer, dragged the door close andheld it--held it in spite of his efforts and his imprecations. 

Five seconds, ten, perhaps, Grio--for he it was--wasted in strugglingvainly with the door. The man on the other side clung to it with adespair equal to his own. Five seconds, ten, perhaps; but in that spaceof time, short as it was, the man paid smartly for the sins of his life. When the time of grace had elapsed, with a pike-point a few inches fromhis back and the gleaming eyes of an avenging burgher behind it, he fledshrieking round the table. He might even yet have escaped by a chance;for all was confusion, and though there was a glare there was no light. But he stumbled over the body of the man whom he had slain without pitya few hours before. He fell writhing, and died on the floor, under adozen blows, as beasts die in the shambles. 

"Mère Royaume! Mère Royaume!" The cry--the last cry he heard--swelledlouder and louder. It swept through the gate, it passed through to theopen, and bore far along the Corraterie, far along the ramparts, ay, tothe open country, the earnest of victory, the earnest of vengeance. 

Geneva was saved. He who would have betrayed it, slain like Pyrrhus theEpirote by a woman's hand, lay dead in the dark lane behind the house inwhich he had lived. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE DAWN. 

Anne was but one of some thousands of women who passed through the trialof that night; who heard the vague sounds of disquiet that roused themat midnight grow to sharp alarms, and these again--to the dull, pulsingmusic of the tocsin--swell to the uproar of a deadly conflict waged bydesperate men in narrow streets. She was but one of thousands who thatnight heard fate knocking at their hearts; who praying, sick with fear, for the return of their men, showed white faces at barred windows, andby every tossing light that passed along the lane viewed long years ofloneliness or widowhood. 

But Anne had this burden also; that she had of herself sent her man intodanger; her man, who, but for her pleading, but for her bidding, mightnot have gone. And that thought, though she had done her duty, laid acold grip upon her heart. Her work it was if he lay at this moment starkin some dark alley, the first victim of the assault; or, sorely wounded, cried for water; or waited in pain where none but the stricken heardhim. The thought bowed her to the ground, sent her to her prayers, tookfrom her alike all memory of the danger that had menaced her thismorning, and all consciousness of that which now threatened her, ahelpless woman, if the town were taken. 

The house, having its back on the Rue de la Cité, at the point wherethat street joined the Tertasse, stood in the heart of the conflict; andalmost from the moment of the first attack on the Porte Neuve, whichClaude was in time to witness, was a centre of fierce and deadlyfighting. Anne dared not leave her mother, who, strange to say, sleptthrough the early alarms; and it was bowed on the edge of her mother'sbed--that bed beside which she had tasted so much of happiness and somuch of grief--that she passed, not knowing what the turning page mightshow, the first hour of anxiety and suspense. 

The report of a shot shook her frame. A scream stabbed her like a knife. Lower and lower she thrust her face amid the bed-clothes, striving toshut out sound and knowledge; or, woman-like, she raised her pale, beseeching face that she might listen, that she might hope. If he fellwould they tell her? And how he fell, and where? Or would they hold herstrange to him? Would she never hear?

Suddenly her mother opened her eyes, lay a while listening, then slowlysat up and looked at her. Anne saw the awakening alarm in the dear face, that in some mysterious way recalled its youth; and she fancied that toher other troubles, the misery of one of the old paroxysms was going tobe added. At such an hour, with such sounds of terror filling the night, with such a glare dancing on the ceiling the first attack had come on, years before. Then the alarm had been fictitious; to-night the calamitywhich the poor woman had imagined, was happening with every circumstanceof peril and alarm. 

But Madame Royaume's face, though anxious and serious, retained to anastonishing extent its sanity. Whether the strange dream which she hadhad earlier in the night had prepared her for the state of things towhich she awoke, or the weeks and months which had elapsed since thatold alarm of fire dropped in some inexplicable way from her--and as oneshock had upset, another restored the balance of her mind--certain it isthat Anne, watching her with a painful interest, found her sane. Nor didMadame Royaume's first words dispel the impression. 

"They hold out?" she asked, grasping her daughter's hand and pressingit. "They hold out?"

"Yes, yes, they hold out, " Anne answered, hoping to soothe her. And shepatted the hand that clasped hers. "Have no fear, dear, all will gowell. "

"If they have faith and hold out, " the aged woman replied, listening tothe strange medley of sounds that rose to them. 

"They will, they will, " Anne faltered. 

"But there is need of every one!"

"They are gone, dear, " the girl answered, repressing a sob withdifficulty. "We are alone in the house. "

"So it should be, " Madame Royaume replied, with sternness. "The man tothe wall, the maid to the pall! It was ever so!"

A low cry burst from Anne's lips. "God forbid!" she wailed. "God forbid!God have mercy!"

The next moment she could have bitten out her tongue; she knew that suchwords and such a cry were of all others the most likely to excite herpatient. But after some obscure fashion their positions seemed thisnight to be reversed. It was the mother who in her turn patted herdaughter's hand and sought to soothe her. 

"Ay, God forbid, " she said softly. "But man must do his part. I mindwhen----" She paused. Her eyes travelling round the room, fixed theirgaze on the fireplace. She seemed to be perplexed by something she sawthere, and Anne, still fearing a recurrence of her illness, asked herhurriedly what it was. "What is it; mother?" she said, leaning over her, and following the direction of her eyes. "Is it the great pot you arelooking at?"

"Ay, " Madame Royaume answered slowly. "How comes it here?"

"There was no one below, " Anne explained. "I brought it up this morning. Don't you remember? There is no fire below. "

"No?"

"That is all, mother. You saw me bring it up. "

"Ay?" And then after a pause: "Let it down a hook. "

"But----"

"Let it down, child!" And when Anne, to soothe her, had obeyed and letthe great pot down until the fire licked its sides, "Is it full?" Madameasked. 

"Half-full, mother. "

"It will do. " And for a time the woman in the bed was silent. 

Outside there was noise enough. The windows in the room looked into theCorraterie, from which side no more than passing sounds of conflict roseto them; the pounding of running feet, sharp orders, a shot, and thenanother. But the landing without the bedroom door looked down by ahigh-set window into the narrow Tertasse; and from this, though the doorwas shut, rose an inferno of noise, the clash of steel, the cries of thewounded, the shouts of the fighters. The townsfolk, rallying from theirfirst alarm, were driving the enemy out of the Rue de la Cité, penninghim into the Tertasse, and preparing to carry that street. 

On a sudden there came, not a cessation of the uproar, but a change inits character. It was as if the current of a river were momentarilystayed and pent up; and then with a mighty crashing of timbers andshifting of pebbles, and a din as of the world's end, began to run theother way. Anne's face turned a shade paler; so appalling was the noise, she would fain have stopped her ears. But her mother sat up. 

"What is it?" she asked eagerly. "What is it?"

"Dear mother, do not fret! It must be----"

"Go and see, child! Go to the window in the passage, and see!" MadameRoyaume persisted. 

Anne had no wish to go, no wish to see. She pictured her lover in the_mêlée_ whence rose those appalling cries; and gladly would she havehidden her head in the bedclothes and poured out her heart in prayer forhim. But Madame persisted, and she yielded, went into the passage andopened the small window. With the cold air entered a fresh volume ofsound. On the walls and timbered gables opposite her--and so near thatshe could well-nigh touch them with her extended arm--strange lightsplayed luridly; and here and there, at dormers on a level with her, palefaces showed and vanished by turns. 

She looked down. For a moment, in the confusion, in the medley of movingforms, she could discern little or nothing. Then, as her eyes becamemore accustomed to the sight, she made out that the tide of conflict wasrunning inward into the town, a sign that the invaders were gaining themastery. 

"Well?" Madame Royaume asked, her voice querulous. 

Anne strove to say something that would soothe her mother. But a sobchoked her, and when she regained her speech she felt herself impelled, she knew not why, to tell the truth. "I fear our people are fallingback, " she murmured, trembling so violently that she could barely stand. 

"How far? Where are they, child?" Her mother's voice was eager. "Whereare they?"

"They are almost under the window!" And then withdrawing her head with ashudder, while she clung for support to the frame of the window: "Theyare fighting underneath me now, " she said. "God pity them!"

"And who is--are we still getting the worst of it?"

Forced by a kind of fascination, Anne looked out again. "Yes, there isone man, a big man, leads them on, " she said, in the voice of one who, painfully absorbed in a sight, reports it involuntarily. "He is drivingour people before him. Ah! he has struck one down this moment. He isalmost underneath us now. But his people will not follow him! They arestanding. He--he waves them on!"

"He is beneath us?" Madame's voice sounded strangely near, strangelyinsistent. But Anne, wrapt in what she saw, did not heed it. 

"Yes! He is a dozen paces in front of his men. He is underneath us now. He urges them to follow him! He towers above them! He is----"

She broke off; close to her sounded a heavy breathing, that even abovethe babel of the street caught her ear. She drew in her head, looked, and, overwrought by that which she had been witnessing, she shriekedaloud. 

Beside her, bending under the weight of the great steaming pot, stoodher mother! Her mother, who had scarcely left her bedroom twice in atwelvemonth, nor crossed it as many times in a week. But it was hermother; endowed at this pass, and for the instant, with supernaturalstrength. For even as Anne recoiled thunderstruck, the old woman liftedthe huge _marmite_, half-full and steaming as it was, to the ledge ofthe window, steadied it there an instant, and then, with the gleamingeyes and set pale face of an avenging prophetess, thrust it forth. 

A second they gazed at one another with suspended breath. Then from thestreet below rose a wild shriek, a crash, and lo, the huge pot layshattered in the kennel beside the man whom, Heaven directed, it hadslain. As if the shock of its fall stayed for an instant even themovement of the world, a silence fell on all: then, as the roar ofconflict rose again, louder, more vengeful, with a new note in it, shecaught her mother in her arms. 

"Mother! Mother!" she cried. "Mother!"

The elder woman was white to the lips. "Get me to bed!" she muttered. "Get me to bed!" She had lost the power even to stand. That she had everborne, even for a yard, the great pot which it taxed Anne's utmoststrength to carry upstairs was a miracle. But a miracle were all thecircumstances connected with the act. 

Anne carried her back and laid her on the bed, greatly fearing for her. And thenceforth for a while the girl's horizon, so wide and stormy aninstant before, was narrowed to the bed beside which she stood, narrowedto the dear face on which the lamplight fell, disclosing its death-likepallor. For the time Anne forgot even her lover, was deaf to thestruggle outside, was unmindful of the flight of the hours. For her, Geneva might have lain at peace, the night been as other nights, thehouse below been heavy with the breathing of tired sleepers. She lookedneither to the right nor the left, until under her loving hands MadameRoyaume revived, opened her eyes and smiled--the smile she had for oneface only in the world. 

By that time Anne had lost count of the time. It might be hard onmorning, it might be a little after midnight. One thing only was clear, the lamp required oil, and to get it she must descend to the groundfloor. She opened the door and listened, wondering dully how theconflict had gone. She had lost count of that also. 

The small window at the head of the stairs remained open as they hadleft it; and through it a ceaseless hum, as of a hive of bees swarming, poured in from the night, and told of multitudes astir. The alarm-bellhad ceased to ring, the wilder sounds of conflict had died down; in theparts about the Tertasse the combat appeared to be at an end. But thismight be either because resistance had ceased, or because the battle hadrolled away to other quarters, or--which she scarcely dared tohope--because the foe had been driven out. 

As she stood listening, she shivered in the cold air that came from thewindow. She felt as if she had been beaten, and knew that this came ofthe shocks she had suffered and the long strain. She feared for hernerves, and hated to go down into the dark parts of the house as if somedanger lurked there. She longed for morning, for the light; and thoughtof Claude and his fate, and wondered why the thought of his danger didnot move her to weeping, as it had moved her a few hours earlier. 

In truth she was worn out. The effort to revive her mother had cost herthe last remains of strength. Her feet as she descended the stairs wereof lead, the brazen notes of the alarm-bell hummed in her ears. When shereached the living-room she set the lamp on one of the tables and satdown wearily, with her eyes on the cold, empty hearth and on the settlewhere she had sat with his arms about her. And now, if ever, she mustweep; but she could not. 

The lamp burned low, and cast smoky shadows on the ceiling and thewalls. The shuttered windows showed their dead faces. The cheerful soulof the room had passed from it with the fire, leaving the shell gloomy, lifeless, repellent. Anne drowsed a moment in sheer exhaustion, andwould have slept, if the lamp on the point of expiring had not emitteda sound and roused her. She rose reluctantly, dragged herself to thegreat cupboard under the stairs, and, having lighted a rushlight at thedying flame, put out the lamp and refilled it. 

She was about to re-light it, and had taken the rushlight in her handfor the purpose, when she heard through the shuttered windows and thebarred door a growing clamour; the tramp of heavy feet, the hum of manyvoices, the buzz of a crowd that, almost as soon as she awoke to itsnear presence, came to a stand before the house. The tumult of voicesraised all at once in different keys did not entirely drown the clash ofarms; and while she stood, sullenly regarding the door, and resigned tothe inevitable, whatever it might be, thin shafts of light pierced theshutters and stabbed the gloom about her. 

With that a hail-storm of knocks fell on the door and on the shutters. Adozen voices cried, "Open! Open!" The jangle of a halberd as its bearerlet the butt drop heavily on the stone steps added force to the summons. 

Anne's first impulse was to retreat upstairs, and leave them to do theirworst. Her next--she was in a state of collapse in which resistanceseemed useless--was to open. She moved to the door, and with cold handsremoved the huge bars and let down the chain. It was only when she haddone so much, when it remained only to unlock, that she wavered; thatshe trembled to think on what the crowd might be bent, and what might beher fate at their hands. She paused then, with her fingers on the key;but not for long. She remembered that, before she descended, she hadheard neither shot nor cry. Resistance therefore had ceased, and that ofa single house, held by two helpless women, could avail nothing, couldbut excite to fury and reprisals. 

She turned the key and opened. The lights dazzled her. The doorway, asshe stood faltering, almost fainting, before it, seemed to be full ofgrotesque dancing faces, some swathed in bandages, otherspowder-blackened, some hot with excitement, others pallid with fatigue. They were such faces, piled one above the other, as are seen in baddreams. 

On the intruders' side, those who pressed in first saw a girl strangelyquiet, who held the door wide for them. "My mother is ill, " she said ina voice that strove for composure; if they were the enemy, her onlyhope, her only safety, lay in courage. "And she is old, " she continued. "Do not harm her. "

"We come to do harm neither to you nor to her, " a voice replied. And theforemost of the troop, a thick dwarfish man with a huge two-handedsword, stood aside. "Messer Baudichon, " he said to one behind him, "thisis the daughter. "

She knew the fat, sturdy councillor--who in Geneva did not?--and throughher stupor she recognised him, although a great bandage swathed half hishead, and he was pale. And, beginning to have an inkling that thingswere well, she began also to tremble. By his side stood MesserPetitot--she knew him, too, he had been Syndic the year before--and aman in hacked and blood-stained armour with his arm in a sling and hisface black with powder. These three, and behind them a dozen others--menwhom she had seen on high days robed in velvet, but who now wore, oneand all, the ugly marks of that night's work--looked on her with astrange benevolence. And Baudichon took her hand. 

"We do not come to harm you, " he said. "On the contrary we come to thankyou and yours. In the name of the city of Geneva, and of all those herewith me----"

"Ay! Ay!" shouted Jehan Brosse, the tailor. And he rang his sword on thedoorstep. "Ay! Ay!"

"We come to thank you for the blow struck this night from this house!That it rid us of one of our worst foes was a small thing, girl. Butthat it put heart into our burghers and strength into their arms at acritical moment was another and a greater thing. Which shall not, ifGeneva stand--as stand by God's pleasure she shall, the stronger forthis night's work--be forgotten! The name of Mère Royaume will at thenext meeting of the Greater Council be inscribed among the names ofthose whom the Free City thanks for their services this night!"

A murmur of stern approval that began with those in the house rolledthrough the doorway and was echoed by the waiting throng that filled thestreet. 

She was weeping. All it meant, all it might mean, what warranty ofpowerful friends, what fame beyond the reach of dark stories, or awoman's spite, she could not yet understand, she could not yetappreciate. But something, the city's safety, the city's gratitude, thecountenance of these men who came to her door blood-stained, dark withsmoke, reeling with fatigue--came that they might thank her mother anddo her honour--something of this she did grasp as she wept before them. 

She had but one thing to ask, to desire; and in a moment it was givenher. 

"Nor is that all!" The voice that broke in was harsher and blunter thanBaudichon's. "If it be true, as I am told, that a young man of the nameof Mercier lives here? He does, does he? Ay, he lives, my girl. He issafe, have no fear. For the matter of that he has nine lives, and"--Captain Blandano continued with an oath--"he has had need of allthis night, God forgive me for the word! But, as I said, that is notall. For if there is any one man who has saved Geneva, it is he, the manwho let down the portcullis. And if the city does not dower you, mygirl----"

"The city shall dower her!" The speaker's voice came from somewhere inthe neighbourhood of the doorway, and was something tremulous anduncertain. But what it lacked in strength it made up in haste andeagerness. "The city shall dower her! If not, I will!"

"Good, Messer Blondel, and spoken like you!" Blandano answered heartily. And though one or two of the foremost, on hearing Blondel's voice, looked askance at one another, and here and there a whisper passed of"The Syndic of the guard? How came----" the majority drowned suchmurmurings under a chorus of applause. 

"We are of one mind, I think!" Baudichon said. And with that he turnedto the door. "Now, good friends, " he continued, "it wants but little ofdaylight, and some of us were best in our beds. Let us go. That we liedown in peace and honour"--he went on, solemnly raising his hand overthe happy weeping girl beside him, as if he blessed her--"that our wivesand children lie safe within our walls is due, under God, to this roof. And I call all here to witness that while I live the city of Genevashall never forget the debt that is due to this house and to the name ofRoyaume!"

"Ay, ay!" cried the bandy-legged tailor. "I too! The small with thegreat, the rich with the poor, as we have fought this night!"

"Ay! Ay!"

Some shook her by the hand, and some called Heaven to bless her, andsome with tears running down their faces--for no man there was hiscommon everyday self--did naught but look on her with kindness. And so, each having done after his fashion, they trooped out again into thestreet. A moment later, as the winter sun began to colour the distantsnows, and the second Sunday in December of the year 1602 broke onGeneva, the voices of the multitude rose in the one hundred andtwenty-fourth psalm; to the solemn thunder of which, poured fromthankful hearts, the assembly accompanied Baudichon to his home a littlefarther down the Corraterie. 

Anne was about to close the door and secure it after them--with feelingshow different from those with which she had opened that door!--when itresisted her shaking hands. She did not on the instant understand thereason or what was the matter. She pushed more strongly, still it cameback on her, it opened widely and more widely. And then one who hadheard all, yet had not shown himself, one who had entered withBaudichon's company, but had held himself hidden in the background, pushed in, uninvited. 

Uninvited? The rushlight still burned low and smokily, and she had notrelighted the lamp. The corners were dark with shadows, the hearth wascold and empty and ugly, the shutters still blinded the windows. But thecoming of this uninvited one--love comes ever unexpected anduninvited--how strangely, how marvellously, how beautifully did itchange all for her, light all, fill all. 

As she felt his arms about her, as she clung to him, and sobbed on hisshoulder, as she strove for words and could not utter them for thehappiness of her heart, as she felt his kisses rain on her face in joyand safety, who had not left her in sorrow, no, nor in the shadow ofdeath, nor for any fears of what man could do to him--let it be saidthat her reward was as her trial. 

Madame Royaume lived four years after that famous attack on the FreeCity of Geneva which is called the Escalade; and during that time sheexperienced no return of the mysterious malady that came with one shock, and passed from her with another. Nor, so far as can be ascertained atthe distant time at which I write, did the suspicions which the night ofthe Escalade found in the bud survive it. Probably the Corraterie andthe neighbouring quarter, ay, and the whole city of Geneva, had for manya week to come matter for gossip and to spare. It is certain, at anyrate, that whatever whispers were current in this house or that, notongue wagged openly against the favourites of the council, who werealso the favourites of the crowd. For Mère Royaume's act hitmarvellously the public fancy, and, passing from mouth to mouth, andfrom generation to generation, is still the first, the best loved, andthe most picturesque of the legends of Geneva. 

And Messer Blondel? Did he evade the penalty of his act? Ask any man inthe streets of Geneva, even to-day, and he will tell you the fate ofPhilibert Blondel, Fourth Syndic. He will tell you how the magistratetriumphed for a time, as he had triumphed in the council before, how heclosed the mouths of his accusers, how not once, but twice and thrice, by the sheer force and skill of a man working in a medium which heunderstood, he won his acquittal from his compeers. But thoughpunishment be slow to overtake, it does overtake at last; nor has theworld witnessed many instances more pertinent or more famous than thatof Messer Blondel. Strive as he might, tongues would wag within thecouncil, and without. Silence as he might Baudichon and Petitot, smallermen would talk; and their talk persisted and grew, and was vigorous whenmonths and even years had passed. What the great did not know the smallknew or guessed, and fixed greedy eyes on the head of the man who haddared to sell Geneva. The end came four years after the Escalade. Toconceal the old negotiation he committed a further crime, and beingbetrayed by the tool he employed was seized and convicted. On the 1stSeptember, 1606, he lost his head on a scaffold erected before his ownhouse in the Bourg du Four. 

The Merciers had at least one son--probably he was the eldest, for hebore his father's name--who lived into middle life, and proved himselftheir worthy descendant. For precisely fifty years after the date ofthese events a poor woman of the name of Michée Chauderon was put todeath in Geneva, on a charge of sorcery; and among those--and they werenot few--who strove most manfully and most obstinately to save her, wefind the name of a physician of great note in the Canton at thattime--one Claude Mercier. He did not prevail, though he struggledbravely; the long night of superstition, though nearing its close, stillreigned; that woman suffered. But he carried it so far and so boldlythat from that day to this--and the city may be proud of the fact--noperson has suffered death in Geneva on that dreadful charge. 

THE END. 

THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED