The Plowshare and the Sword Part 34

Roussilac strode towards the river, and in that hour found it in his heart to envy the meanest settler in the land. Like many a man who has risen from the ranks, he found himself dest.i.tute of friends. He had cut himself off from his own relations, lest they should hinder his ascent, and none had come to take their place; the captains of n.o.ble birth, his official equals, having refused to receive into friends.h.i.+p the son of a Normandy farmer. The home government was but using what military talents he possessed to their advantage; and when his services had been rendered, he would be cast aside by the proud priest who ruled the destinies of France, and another chosen in his stead.

"Courage!" he muttered. "'Tis but imagination which makes a weakling of me. I will to D'Archand, and inquire of him whether or no my name be yet in favour. Then to stand up like a man, and sweep away my enemies, let them be priests, relations, or demons."

D'Archand was idling upon deck, but at a word from the commandant entered his curtained cabin and produced a flask of Burgundy as an aid to conversation. First Roussilac sought to hear more particularly the news of the world, and induced the master to expatiate upon the revolution of the Scottish Covenanters, the struggle of Charles for money and s.h.i.+ps, the resolute stand of John Pym for just law, the prosperity of France under Richelieu, and the breaking of the short treaty between that country and Holland. D'Archand warmed to his discourse under the influence of the wine and a thrill of patriotism, as he concluded: "I have but recently crossed the high seas without sighting a hostile vessel. The Dutch privateers have gone home empty.

The English coffers are bare. France now holds the world. I drink to the Cardinal and our King."

Abstractedly Roussilac lifted his gla.s.s. When the master leaned over and emptied the flask between them, the commandant observed, with an a.s.sumption of indifference: "Didst hear any word of praise for my work in this land?"

"My stay was short," D'Archand answered. "I heard no talk of you, commandant--at least, not upon the streets, and to be spoken of in the street is the only fame, I take it. But there were rumours afloat regarding the Abbe La Salle."

"Perdition!" muttered Roussilac. "Shall these priests never confine themselves to their own affairs?"

"Your princes of the Church are statesmen now rather than priests,"

said the master. "The Abbe La Salle comes of a renowned family. 'Twas said that he is wasted in this colony. I also heard it said--accept the rumour as you will--that his Holiness has set a cross against his name."

"What means that?" asked the commandant hastily.

"Urbano the Eighth, who, I may tell you, has recently bestowed the t.i.tle of Eminence upon his Cardinals, having suitably enriched his family and acquired the Duchy of Urbino, now seeks strong men, priests who are fighters rather than scholars, to aid him in the execution of his plans, and he who has the cross set against his name may be a.s.sured of sudden promotion. A canon of Notre Dame, who is much in favour with Cardinal Richelieu, informed me that La Salle may immediately be recalled. His Holiness will raise a parish priest to the cardinalate, through the grades of canon, dean, and bishop, in a month or less, according to his necessity for that man's help."

"The _St. Wenceslas_ now bears for home with my despatches," said Roussilac moodily. "I have mentioned the abbe as instrumental in holding heretics at bay."

"His Holiness loves a fighter," muttered D'Archand significantly, as he opened another flask of Burgundy.

A light glimmered here and there when Roussilac made his way homeward, and the murmur of the forest brushed his ears as he pa.s.sed. The news of another man's advancement hurt his selfish nature as though it were a premonition of his own failure. He hesitated where the path split, then hastened to his house, entered, and immediately found himself in the presence of his aunt, who awaited his coming, knitting her fingers in the lamplight.

"So!" she snapped, her little face hard and wrinkled like a sour apple.

"We have now open treachery at headquarters. Treachery against Church and State. You, the representative of the King, the upholder of the faith! You shall be stripped of your power and be disgraced. And I will walk a hundred miles barefoot, if there be need, to see sentence executed upon you."

Her attack was ill-timed. The commandant was then in no mood to bear with a mutinous subject, though she had been his own mother.

"Out of my sight," he said fiercely. "Out, I say. Madame, my forbearance is at an end, and I will be obeyed. Would you have me forget that you are a woman and a relative?"

"Since you have forgot your duty to G.o.d and the King, forget that also," screamed the little woman. "Seducer, what have you done with my daughter? Where have you hidden her? Abductor! You shall learn what it means to defy Holy Church. Tell me, where have you taken her?"

Roussilac's anger cooled at that, and he lowered his voice as he answered: "I left my cousin not three hours ago in the place where she is confined as an impenitent by the judgment of the Abbe Laroche.

There you shall find her."

"Arnaud," shrieked Madame, "deceive your men, cheat a priest, you may, but you shall not so prevail upon me. I know your deeds and the vileness of your heart. As a child you were ever false; as a man you hated your own people, because you had risen and they remained obscure; and now you stand before the mother of the girl whose heart you have helped to harden, whom you have taken and hidden for your own purpose, and ask her what she means when she demands to know the truth."

"If you have information, I will in my official capacity hear it,"

Roussilac answered. "But forget not that my nature can be fiercer than yours, and do not tempt my power."

"Your power!" sneered Madame. "It has already departed from you. I thank you, Arnaud, for having disowned your honest family. How ill the cloak of innocence lies upon your shoulders! Madeleine's cell stands empty, as you know well. Beside the door the sentry lies stabbed through the heart, murdered by your hand as surely as though you yourself had driven home the dagger. I have but come from there, and none know what has been done, save you the doer, and I the accuser."

Roussilac caught up his cloak, and wrapped it about his shoulders.

"What took you to her prison?" he demanded, his own nature being no less suspicious than hers.

Madame laughed furiously.

"You are a brave rogue, Arnaud. You plot, and murder, and seduce, and smile through it all, and act the innocent like a mime. Know that Father St Agapit came to me--a haughty priest, with no respect for age--to recommend that Madeleine should be entrusted to his care, that he might obtain her conversion by a new method. 'Let her not be crossed,' quoth he. ''Tis human nature to offend more deeply in the front of opposition. I would let her go free, and win her by gentle persuasion to the fold.' What does a priest know of the pride of a girl's heart? 'Is the branch broken by persuasion for the fire?' said I. 'No, you shall take it in hand strongly and break it by force.' To that the abbe said, 'You shall not compare the inanimate thing with the living creature whom G.o.d has gifted with free-will. Go now to her and be gentle. Try her with mother's milk rather than with the strong meat of human nature. I have bidden the sentry admit you.' So I went to win my erring child as the priest taught me, for I never yet have disobeyed a Churchman, and what I found you know."

"You are right, Madame, if what you say be true," said Roussilac sternly. "There is treachery here."

"Behold my hand! It points at the traitor," screamed the pale woman, her fury surging back upon her. "You shall not escape with your fellow-sinner. You shall not go from me until I hear from your own lips where you have placed Madeleine, my child."

"Woman, I know nothing," he snarled. "Is my position nothing to me that I should play so loosely?"

A cry of animal rage broke that instant from his throat. Madame had dashed upon him, and, before he could beat her back, had clawed his face like a maddened bird from cheek-bones to chin.

At that terrible indignity the pusillanimous spirit of the commandant was sobered into resolution. He hurled her back screaming, and put up a hand to his burning face. The finger-tips came away reddened.

He s.h.i.+vered from head to foot. Madame was raving. Roussilac steadied himself, then walked from that place, a cold, sinister figure, the howling of the mad woman pealing into his ears.

Scarce a minute had elapsed before he returned, accompanied by two soldiers; and again facing Madame Labroquerie, whose bloodless face was distorted with the fury of her terrible nature, issued his orders in a pitiless voice:

"Secure that woman, and keep her in ward this night." He raised his hand, and smiled vengefully at the marks on his fingers, as he drew off his ring, which he extended to the man nearest him with the words: "Take your authority. Spare not force, if force be wanted. Restore this ring to me after sunrise, when you shall have hanged this woman upon the eastern side of the fortress."

Again Roussilac smiled, and, turning quickly, pa.s.sed outside. One terrible scream made him lift his hands to his ears, then he hurried up the steep path, to see with his own eyes the cold body of the sentry, and the empty cell, and to learn that Madame had not lied.

For a few moments he stood, like a man in a trance, seeing indeed his problem solved, but knowing that Madeleine was lost to him. He turned to the dead body, and commanded it to speak; and when he understood that the spirit had pa.s.sed for ever from his discipline, he spurned the cold matter with his foot, and in a fury cried: "I would give my position and all I have to hear this dead man speak."

"Listen, then," said a cold voice. "The dead are not silent." And Roussilac cried out with superst.i.tious fear, then started, when he beheld a tall figure proceeding from the shadow of the doorway, and recognised St Agapit, the priest.

"Who has done this?" he demanded. "What lover of this girl has dared to enter the fortress, to stab one of my guards, and carry her off beneath my eye?"

"I am no reader of riddles," said St Agapit. "I came here to reason with the maid, because it seemed to me that her heart, young as it is and tender, must surely respond to the message of love. Why she refuses the only faith by which mortals may be saved pa.s.sed my understanding. But now I know that she has been driven into heresy by the neglect of a father and the unnatural spirit of a mother, and strengthened in her sin by the persecution of a cousin."

"Father, I loved her."

"Not so. You shall find at your heart pa.s.sion, but not the warmth of love. It is not the ice which produces the plant and the flower. It is the warm rain and the suns.h.i.+ne. You offered her the storm, and wondered because she desired the sun."

"Where has she gone?" cried the blind man.

"To freedom. My blessing follows her, unbeliever though she be."

The ascetic moved forward, thin and stern, and made the sign of the cross over the fallen sentry.

"Bless me also," cried Roussilac, catching at his skirt. "Father, I have done much evil. Bless me before you go."

"I may pity where I may not bless," said St Agapit, and pa.s.sed with that same dignified step which awed the Iroquois into silence when on a distant day they led him out to die. His shadow flickered once upon the slope, went out, and the governor was alone with the dead.

The soldiers who had been left to execute their commander's unnatural order glanced fearfully at one another, and he who held the ring muttered a charm against the evil eye. That cry of impotent rage, which had caused Roussilac to stop his ears, fell from the lips of Madame Labroquerie so soon as her mind caught the meaning of her sentence; and when the men at length advanced to take her, she writhed and bit the air, and hurled after her nephew words of execration which caused the soldiers to draw back and cross themselves in terror. All the hate and madness of the unhappy woman's ruined mind poured forth in one awful torrent, until she sank to the floor and settled there to silence.

Then the men took courage to seize her, believing that the blood which they saw issuing from her mouth was produced by the wounds which her own teeth had inflicted; but when the body fell limp in their arms they realised that nature had intervened.

One at the head, the other at the feet, they carried through the night the silent shape of Madame Labroquerie, who was never to move, never to rave, again. Yet so blindly obedient to their officer's word of command were these men in the ranks, that they carried the body out and executed sentence upon it an hour after sunrise in the valley of St.

Charles.