Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Part 36

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.

"Far, far rather!" she repeated pa.s.sionately.

"And Monsieur? And Monsieur!" he urged with stern persistence, while his eyes pa.s.sed lightly from her to Tignonville and back to her again, their depths inscrutable. "If you love Monsieur, Mademoiselle, and I believe you do----"

"I can die with him!" she cried.

"And he with you!"

She writhed in her chair.

"And he with you?" Count Hannibal repeated, with emphasis; and he thrust forward his head. "For that is the question. Think, think, Mademoiselle. It is in my power to save from death him whom you love; to save you; to save this _canaille_, if it so please you. It is in my power to save him, to save you, to save all; and I will save all--at a price! If, on the other hand, you deny me that price, I will as certainly leave all to perish, as perish they will, before the sun that is now rising sets to-night!"

Mademoiselle looked straight before her, the flicker of a dreadful prescience in her eyes. "And the price?" she muttered. "The price?"

"You, Mademoiselle."

"Yes, you! Nay, why fence with me?" he continued gently. "You knew it, you have said it. You have read it in my eyes these seven days."

She did not speak, move, or seem to breathe. As he said, she had foreseen, she had known the answer. But Tignonville, it seemed, had not. He sprang to his feet. "M. de Tavannes," he cried, "you are a villain!"

"Monsieur?"

"You are a villain! But you shall pay for this!" the young man continued vehemently. "You shall not leave this room alive! You shall pay for this insult!"

"Insult?" Tavannes answered in apparent surprise; and then, as if comprehension broke upon him, "Ah! Monsieur mistakes me," he said, with a generous sweep of his hand. "And Mademoiselle also, perhaps?

Oh! be content, she shall have bell, book, and candle; she shall be tied as tight as Holy Church can tie her! Or, if she please, and one survive, she shall have a priest of her own church--you call it a church? She shall have whichever of the two will serve her better.

'Tis one to me! But for paying me, Monsieur," he continued with irony in voice and manner; "when, I pray you? In Eternity! For if you refuse my offer, you have done with time. Now? I have but to sound this whistle"--he touched a silver whistle which hung at his breast--"and there are those within hearing will do your business before you make two pa.s.ses. Dismiss the notion, sir, and understand. You are in my power. Paris runs with blood, as n.o.ble as yours, as innocent as hers.

If you would not perish with the rest, decide! And quickly! For what you have seen are but the forerunners, what you have heard are but the gentle whispers that predict the gale. Do not parley too long; so long that even I may no longer save you."

"I would rather die!" Mademoiselle moaned, her face covered. "I would rather die!"

"And see him die?" he answered quietly. "And see these die? Think, think, child!"

"You will not do it!" she gasped. She shook from head to foot.

"I shall do nothing," he answered firmly. "I shall but leave you to your fate, and these to theirs. In the King's teeth I dare save my wife and her people; but no others. You must choose--and quickly."

One of the frightened women--it was Mademoiselle's tiring-maid, a girl called Javette--made a movement, as if to throw herself at her mistress's feet. Tignonville drove her to her place with a word. He turned to Count Hannibal. "But, M. le Comte," he said, "you must be mad! Mad, to wish to marry her in this way! You do not love her. You do not want her. What is she to you more than other women?"

"What is she to you more than other women?" Tavannes retorted in a tone so sharp and incisive that Tignonville started, and a faint touch of colour crept into the wan cheek of the girl, who sat between them, the prize of the contest. "What is she more to you than other women?

Is she more? And yet--you want her!"

"She is more to me," Tignonville answered.

"Is she?" the other retorted, with a ring of keen meaning. "Is she?

But we bandy words and the storm is rising, as I warned you it would rise. Enough for you that I _do_ want her. Enough for you that I will have her. She shall be the wife, the willing wife, of Hannibal de Tavannes--or I leave her to her fate, and you to yours!"

"Ah, G.o.d!" she moaned. "The willing wife!"

"Ay, Mademoiselle, the willing wife," he answered sternly. "Or no man's wife!"

CHAPTER VI.

WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES?

In saying that the storm was rising Count Hannibal had said no more than the truth. A new mob had a minute before burst from the eastward into the Rue St. Honore; and the roar of its thousand voices swelled louder than the importunate clangour of the bells. Behind its moving ma.s.ses the dawn of a new day--Sunday, the 24th of August, the feast of St. Bartholomew--was breaking over the Bastille, as if to aid the crowd in its cruel work. The gabled streets, the lanes, and gothic courts, the stifling wynds, where the work awaited the workers, still lay in twilight; still the gleam of the torches, falling on the house-fronts, heralded the coming of the crowd. But the dawn was growing, the sun was about to rise. Soon the day would be here, giving up the lurking fugitive whom darkness, more pitiful, had spared, and stamping with legality the horrors that night had striven to hide.

And with day, with the full light, killing would grow more easy, escape more hard. Already they were killing on the bridge where the rich goldsmiths lived, on the wharves, on the river. They were killing at the Louvre, in the courtyard under the King's eyes, and below the windows of the Medicis. They were killing in St. Martin and St. Denis and St. Antoine; wherever hate, or bigotry, or private malice impelled the hand. From the whole city went up a din of lamentation, and wrath, and foreboding. From the Cour des Miracles, from the markets, from the Boucherie, from every haunt of crime and misery, hordes of wretched creatures poured forth; some to rob on their own account, and where they listed, none gainsaying; more to join themselves to one of the armed bands whose business it was to go from street to street, and house to house, quelling resistance, and executing through Paris the high justice of the King.

It was one of these swollen bands which had entered the street while Tavannes spoke; nor could he have called to his aid a more powerful advocate. As the deep "A bas! A bas!" rolled like thunder along the fronts of the houses, as the more strident "Tuez! Tuez!" drew nearer and nearer, and the lights of the oncoming mult.i.tude began to flicker on the shuttered gables, the fort.i.tude of the servants gave way.

Madame Carlat, s.h.i.+vering in every limb, burst into moaning; the tiring-maid, Javette, flung herself in terror at Mademoiselle's knees, and, writhing herself about them, shrieked to her to save her, only to save her! One of the men moved forward on impulse, as if he would close the shutters; and only old Carlat remained silent, praying mutely with moving lips and a stern, set face.

And Count Hannibal? As the glare of the links in the street grew brighter, and ousted the sickly daylight, his form seemed to dilate.

He stilled the shrieking woman by a glance. "Choose! Mademoiselle, and quickly!" he said. "For I can only save my wife and her people! Quick, for the pinch is coming, and 'twill be no boy's play."

A shot, a scream from the street, a rush of racing feet before the window seconded his words.

"Quick, Mademoiselle!" he cried. And his breath came a little faster.