Count Hannibal Part 6

"Does Monsieur sup with us?" he said. "To complete the party? Or will he choose to sup with our friends yonder? It is for him to say. I confess, for my part," with an awful smile, "their hospitality seems a trifle crude, and boisterous."

Tignonville looked behind him and shuddered. The same horde which had so lately pressed about the door had found a victim lower down the street, and, as Tavannes spoke, came driving back along the roadway, a ma.s.s of tossing lights and leaping, running figures, from the heart of which rose the screams of a creature in torture. So terrible were the sounds that Tignonville leant half swooning against the door-post; and even the iron heart of Tavannes seemed moved for a moment.

For a moment only: then he looked at his companion, and his lip curled.

"You'll join us, I think?" he said, with an undisguised sneer. "Then, after you, Monsieur. They are opening the shutters. Doubtless the table is laid, and Mademoiselle is expecting us. After you, Monsieur, if you please. A few hours ago I should have gone first, for you, in this house"--with a sinister smile--"were at home! Now, we have changed places."

Whatever he meant by the gibe--and some smack of an evil jest lurked in his tone--he played the host so far as to urge his bewildered companion along the pa.s.sage and into the living-chamber on the left, where he had seen from without that his orders to light and lay were being executed. A dozen candles shone on the board, and lit up the apartment. What the house contained of food and wine had been got together and set on the table; from the low, wide window, beetle-browed and diamond-paned, which extended the whole length of the room and looked on the street at the height of a man's head above the roadway, the shutters had been removed--doubtless by trembling and reluctant fingers. To such eyes of pa.s.sers-by as looked in, from the inferno of driving crowds and gleaming weapons which prevailed outside--and not outside only, but throughout Paris--the brilliant room and the laid table must have seemed strange indeed!

To Tignonville, all that had happened, all that was happening, seemed a dream: a dream his entrance under the gentle impulsion of this man who dominated him; a dream Mademoiselle standing behind the table with blanched face and stony eyes; a dream the cowering servants huddled in a corner beyond her; a dream his silence, her silence, the moment of waiting before Count Hannibal spoke.

When he did speak it was to count the servants. "One, two, three, four, five," he said. "And two of them women. Mademoiselle is but poorly attended. Are there not"--and he turned to her--"some lacking?"

The girl opened her lips twice, but no sound issued. The third time--

"Two went out," she muttered in a hoa.r.s.e, strangled voice, "and have not returned."

"And have not returned?" he answered, raising his eyebrows. "Then I fear we must not wait for them. We might wait long!" And turning sharply to the panic-stricken servants, "Go you to your places! Do you not see that Mademoiselle waits to be served?"

The girl shuddered and spoke.

"Do you wish me," she muttered, in the same strangled tone, "to play this farce--to the end?"

"The end may be better, Mademoiselle, than you think," he answered, bowing. And then to the miserable servants, who hung back afraid to leave the shelter of their mistress's skirts, "To your places!" he cried.

"Set Mademoiselle's chair. Are you so remiss on other days? If so,"

with a look of terrible meaning, "you will be the less loss! Now, Mademoiselle, may I have the honour? And when we are at table we can talk."

He extended his hand, and, obedient to his gesture, she moved to the place at the head of the table, but without letting her fingers come into contact with his. He gave no sign that he noticed this, but he strode to the place on her right, and signed to Tignonville to take that on her left.

"Will you not be seated?" he continued. For she kept her feet.

She turned her head stiffly, until for the first time her eyes looked into his. A shudder more violent than the last shook her.

"Had you not better--kill us at once?" she whispered. The blood had forsaken even her lips. Her face was the face of a statue--white, beautiful, lifeless.

"I think not," he said gravely. "Be seated, and let us hope for the best. And you, sir," he continued, turning to Carlat, "serve your mistress with wine. She needs it."

The steward filled for her, and then for each of the men, his shaking hand spilling as much as it poured. Nor was this strange. Above the din and uproar of the street, above the crash of distant doors, above the tocsin that still rang from the reeling steeple of St. Germain's, the great bell of the Palais on the island had just begun to hurl its note of doom upon the town. A woman crouching at the end of the chamber burst into hysterical weeping, but, at a glance from Tavannes' terrible eye, was mute again.

Tignonville found voice at last. "Have they--killed the Admiral?" he muttered, his eyes on the table.

"M. Coligny? An hour ago."

"And Teligny?"

"Him also."

"M. de Rochefoucauld?"

"They are dealing with M. le Comte now, I believe," Tavannes answered.

"He had his chance and cast it away." And he began to eat.

The man at the table shuddered. The woman continued to look before her, but her lips moved as if she prayed. Suddenly a rush of feet, a roar of voices surged past the window; for a moment the glare of the torches, which danced ruddily on the walls of the room, showed a severed head borne above the mult.i.tude on a pike. Mademoiselle, with a low cry, made an effort to rise, but Count Hannibal grasped her wrist, and she sank back half fainting. Then the nearer clamour sank a little, and the bells, unchallenged, flung their iron tongues above the maddened city. In the east the dawn was growing; soon its grey light would fall on cold hearths, on battered doors and shattered weapons, on hordes of wretches drunk with greed and hate.

When he could be heard, "What are you going to do with us?" the man asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"That depends," Count Hannibal replied, after a moment's thought.

"On what?"

"On Mademoiselle de Vrillac."

The other's eyes gleamed with pa.s.sion. He leaned forward.

"What has she to do with it?" he cried. And he stood up and sat down again in a breath.

Tavannes raised his eyebrows with a blandness that seemed at odds with his harsh visage.

"I will answer that question by another question," he replied. "How many are there in the house, my friend?"

"You can count."

Tavannes counted again. "Seven?" he said. Tignonville nodded impatiently.

"Seven lives?"

"Well?"

"Well, Monsieur, you know the King's will?"

"I can guess it," the other replied furiously. And he cursed the King, and the King's mother, calling her Jezebel.

"You can guess it?" Tavannes answered; and then with sudden heat, as if that which he had to say could not be said even by him in cold blood, "Nay, you know it! You heard it from the archer at the door. You heard him say, 'No favour, no quarter for man, for woman, or for child. So says the King.' You heard it, but you fence with me. Foucauld, with whom his Majesty played to-night, hand to hand and face to face--Foucauld is dead! And you think to live? You?" he continued, las.h.i.+ng himself into pa.s.sion. "I know not by what chance you came where I saw you an hour gone, nor by what chance you came by that and that"--pointing with accusing finger to the badges the Huguenot wore. "But this I know! I have but to cry your name from yonder cas.e.m.e.nt, nay, Monsieur, I have but to stand aside when the mob go their rounds from house to house, as they will go presently, and you will perish as certainly as you have hitherto escaped!"

For the second time Mademoiselle turned and looked at him.

"Then," she whispered, with white lips, "to what end this--mockery?"

"To the end that seven lives may be saved, Mademoiselle," he answered, bowing.

"At a price?" she muttered.

"At a price," he answered. "A price which women do not find it hard to pay--at Court. 'Tis paid every day for pleasure or a whim, for rank or the _entree_, for robes and gewgaws. Few, Mademoiselle, are privileged to buy a life; still fewer, seven!"

She began to tremble. "I would rather die--seven times!" she cried, her voice quivering. And she tried to rise, but sat down again.

"And these?" he said, indicating the servants.