CHAPTER XVIII.

THE RIDE TOWARDS GUIENNE

I ordered the men to return to the courtyard, and, supporting Julie, I followed them from the chamber, leaving M. de la Chatre alone with his chagrin and the dead body of his secretary.

In the hall outside the governor's chamber, we found Jeannotte and Hugo, for Blaise had brought them with him, believing that we would not return to Maury. The gypsies had accompanied him as far as G.o.deau's inn, where we had first met them. He had even brought as much baggage and provisions as could be hastily packed on the horses behind the men. The only human beings left by him at Maury were the three rascals who had so blunderingly served De Berquin, but he had considerately unlocked the door of their cell before his departure.

I begged mademoiselle to rest a while in one of the chambers contiguous to the hall, and, when she and Jeannotte had left us, I told Blaise as much of the truth as it needed to show mademoiselle as she was. I then explained why he had found the draw-bridge down, the gate open, the chateau undefended. He grinned at the trick that fate had played on our enemies, but looked rather downcast at the lost opportunity of meeting them at Maury.

"But," said he, looking cheerful again, "they will come back to the chateau and find us here, and we may yet have some lively work with them."

"Perchance," I said, "for I fear that mademoiselle cannot endure another ride to-night. If she could, I would start immediately for Guienne. Our work in Berry is finished."

"Then you shall start immediately," said a gentle but resolute voice behind me. Mademoiselle, after a few minutes' repose, had risen and come to demand that no consideration for her comfort should further imperil our safety.

"But--" I started to object.

"Better another ride," she said, with a smile, "than another risking of your life. I swear that I will not rest till you are out of danger. It is not I who most need rest."

She looked, indeed, fresh and vigorous, as one will, despite bodily fatigue, when one has cast off a heavy burden and found promise of new happiness. When a whole lifetime of joy was to be won, it was no time to tarry for the sake of weary limbs.

So it was decided that we should start at once southward, not resting until we should be half-way across the mountains. As for my belated foragers, we should have to let them take their chances of rejoining us; and some weeks later they did indeed arrive at the camp in Guienne with rich spoil, having found Maury given over to the owls and bats as of yore.

The men cheered for joy at the announcement that we were at last to rejoin our Henri's flying camp. In the guard-house we found Pierre and the other guardsman, both securely bound by Frojac. We released Pierre and sent him to his mistress. I put Blaise at the head of my company, and we set forth, half of the troop going first, then mademoiselle and I, then Jeannotte and the two boys, and lastly the other half of my force.

Looking back, I saw the lighted window of the governor's chamber, that window whence I had looked out at Frojac and whence La Chatre had mistakenly taken my men for his own. Doubtless he still sat in his chamber, dazed and incapable of action, for after leaving him alone there I neither saw nor heard him. Nor did we see any more troops or any servants about the chateau. Some hasty scampering in distant apartments, after the entrance of my men, was the only indication of inhabitants that we had received. If there were other troops in the chateau than the six we had disposed of, they followed the example of the servants and lay close. As for the soldiers at the town guard-house, they must have heard my men ride to the chateau, but they had wisely refrained from appearing before a force greater than their own. I shall never cease to marvel that the very night that took me and my men to Clochonne by one road took La Chatre's guards and the town garrison to Maury by another.

When I sent Blaise to the head of the troops, I told him to set a good pace, for the governor's men had indeed had time sufficient to have gone to Maury, discovered their mistake, and come back, so much shorter is the river road than the forest way. There was a likelihood, therefore, of their reaching the point of junction, on their return, at any minute, and I wished to be past that point and well up the mountain-side before they should do so.

Julie rode very close to me, and as soon as we were out of the gate she began in a low tone to speak of a thing that required no more explanation to me; yet I let her speak on, for the relief of her heart. So, in a few minutes, as we rode with the soldiers in the night, she eased her mind forever of the matter.

"When I received word in Bourges," she said, "that my father was in prison, I thought that I would die of grief and horror. They would not let me see him, told me that his crime of harboring a Huguenot was a grave one, that he had violated the King's edict, and might be charged even with treason. The thought of how he must suffer in a dungeon was more than I could endure. Only M. de la Chatre, they told me, could order his release. La Chatre had left Fleurier to go northward. I started after him, not waiting even to refresh my horses. When we reached the inn at the end of the town, I had become sufficiently calm to listen to Hugo's advice that it would be best to bait the horses before going further. I began to perceive, too, that myself and Jeannotte needed some nourishment in order to be able to go on a journey. Thus it happened that I stopped at the inn where La Chatre himself was. He had not gone immediately north from Fleurier, but had been visiting an estate in the vicinity, and it was on regaining the main road that he had tarried at the inn, without reentering the town. I had never seen him, but the girl at the inn told me who he was.

"When I fell on my knees, and told him how incapable my father was of harm or disloyalty, he at first showed annoyance, and said that my pleading would be useless. My father must be treated as an example, he said. To succor traitors was treason, to shield heretics was heresy, and there was no doubt that the judges would condemn him to death, to furnish others a lesson. He was then going to leave me, but his secretary came forward and said that I had come at an opportune moment, an instrument sent by Heaven. Was I not, he asked the governor, some one who had much to gain or much to lose? Then La Chatre became joyful, and said that there was a way--one only--by which I might free my father. Eagerly I begged to know that way, but with horror I refused it when I learned that it was to--to hunt down a certain Huguenot captain, to make him trust me, and to betray him. For a time I would not hear his persuasions. Then he swore that, if I did not undertake this detestable mission, my father should surely die; and he told me that you were a deserter, a traitor, an enemy to the church and to the King, I had heard your name but once or twice, and I remembered it only as one who had worked with daring and secrecy in the interests of the Huguenots. He described my father tortured and killed, his body hanging at the gates of Fleurier, blown by the wind, and attacked by the birds. Oh, it was terrible! All this could be avoided, my father's liberty regained, by my merely serving the King and the church. He gave his word that, if I betrayed you, my father should be released without even a trial. You can understand, can you not?

You were then a stranger to me, and my father the most gentle and kindly of men, the most tender and devoted of fathers."

"I understood already when I stood behind the curtain, sweetheart," said I.

"When you came," she went on, "and asked whither I was bound, I made my first attempt at lying. I wonder that you did not perceive my embarra.s.sment and shame when I said that the governor had threatened to imprison me if I did not leave the province. It was the best pretext I could give for leaving Fleurier while my father remained there in prison, though they would not let me see him. It occurred to me that you must think me a heartless daughter to go so far from him, even if it were, indeed, to save my life."

"I thought only that you were an unhappy child, of whose inexperience and fears the governor had availed himself; and that, after all, was the truth. From the first moment when I knew that you were the daughter of M.

de Varion, I was resolved to attempt his rescue; but I kept my intention from you, lest I might fail."

"Oh, to think that all the while I was planning your betrayal, you were intending to save my father! Oh, the deception of which I was guilty!

What constant torture, what continual shame I felt! Often I thought I had betrayed myself. Did you not observe my agitation when you first mentioned the name of La Tournoire, and said that you would take me to him. I wonder that you did not hear my heart say, 'That is the man I am to betray!' And how bitter, yet sweet, it was to hear you commiserate my dejection, which was due in part to the shame of the treacherous task I had undertaken. It seemed to me that you ought to guess its cause, yet you attributed it all to other sources. What a weight was on me while we rode towards Clochonne, the knowledge that I was to betray the man whom I then thought your friend,--the friend of the gentleman who protected me and was so solicitous for my happiness! How glad I was when you told me the man was no great friend of yours, that you would sacrifice him for the sake of the woman you loved! After all, I thought you might not loathe me when you should learn that I had betrayed him! Yet, to perform my task in your presence, to make him love me--for I was to do that, if needs be and it could be done--while you were with me, seemed impossible.

This was the barrier between us, the fact that I had engaged to betray your friend, and you can understand now why I begged that you would leave me. How could I play the Delilah in your sight? It had been hard enough to question you about La Tournoire's hiding-place. And when I learned that you were La Tournoire himself, whom I had already half betrayed in sending Pierre to La Chatre with an account of your hiding-place; that you whom I already loved--why should I not confess it?--were the man whom I was to pretend to love; that you who already loved me were the man whom I was to betray by making him love me,--oh, what a moment that was, a moment when all hope died and despair overwhelmed me! Had I known from the first that you were he, I might have guarded against loving you--"

"And well it is," said I, interrupting, "that for a jest and a surprise I had kept that knowledge from you! Else you might indeed have--"

"Oh, do not think of it!" And she shuddered. "But you are right. Love alone has saved us. But at first even the knowledge that you were La Tournoire, and that none the less I loved you, did not make me turn back.

If my duty to my father had before required that I should sacrifice you, did my duty not still require it? Did it make any change in my duty that I loved you? What right had I, when devoted to a task like mine, to love any one? If I had violated my duty by loving you, ought I not to disregard my love, stifle it, act as if it did not exist? I had to forget that I was a woman who loved, remember only that I was a daughter. My filial duty was no less, my proper choice between my father and another was not altered by my having fallen in love. I must carry my horrible task to the end. What a night of struggle was that at the inn, after I had learned that the appointed victim was you! And now it was necessary that you should not leave me; therefore I spoke no more of the barrier between us. I fortified myself to hide my feelings and maintain my pretence. Surely you noticed the change in me, the forced composure and cheerfulness. How I tried to harden myself!

"And after that the words of love you so often spoke to me, what bliss and what anguish they caused me! I was to have made you love me, but you loved me already. I ought to have rejoiced at this, for the success that it promised my purpose. Yet, it was on that account that I shuddered at it; and if it did give me moments of joy it was because it was pleasant to have your love. My heart rose at the thought that I was loved by you, and fell at the thought that your love was to cause your death. Often, for your own sake, I wished that I might fail, that you would not love me; yet for my father's sake I had to wish that I should succeed, had to be glad that you loved me. To make you fall the more easily into the hands of your enemies, I had to show love for you. How easy it was to show what I felt; yet what anguish I underwent in showing it, when by doing so I led you to death! The more I appeared to love you, the more truly I disclosed my heart, yet the greater I felt was my treason! I do not think any woman's heart was ever so torn by opposing motives!"

"My beloved, all that is past forever!"

"In my dreams at Maury, we would be strolling together among roses, under cloudless skies, nothing to darken my joy. Then I would see you wounded, the soldiers of the governor gathered around you and laughing at my horror and grief. I would awake and vow not to betray you, and then I would see my father's face, pale and haggard, and my dead mother's wet with tears for his misery and supplicating me to save him!"

"My poor Julie!"

"And to-night,--yes, it was only to-night, it seems so long ago,--when you held my hand on the dial, and plighted fidelity, what happiness I should have had then, but for the knowledge of my horrible task, of the death that awaited you, of the treason I was so soon to commit! For I and Jeannotte had already arranged it, Hugo was soon to be sent to La Chatre.

And then came De Berquin. For telling only the truth of me, you killed him as a traducer. So much faith you had in me, who deserved so little! I could endure it no longer! Never would I look on your face again with that weight of shame on me. G.o.d must send other means of saving my father. They demanded too much of me. I would, as far as I could, make myself worthy of your faith, though I never saw you again. Yet I could not betray La Chatre. He had entrusted me with his design, and, detestable as it was, I could not play him false in it. But I could at least resign the mission. And I went, to undo the compact and claim back my honor! I little guessed that he would make use, without my knowledge, of the information I had sent him of your hiding-place. It seemed that, even though La Chatre did know your hiding-place, G.o.d would not let you be taken through me if I refused to be your betrayer."

"And so it has turned out," I said, blithely, "and now I no longer regret having kept from you my intention of attempting your father's release.

For had I told you of it, and events taken another course, that attempt might have failed, and it would perhaps have cost many lives, whereas the order that I got from La Chatre this night is both sure and inexpensive.

But for matters having gone as they have, I should not have been enabled to get that order. Ha! What is this!"

For Blaise had suddenly called a halt, and was riding back to me as if for orders.

"Look, monsieur!" and he pointed to where the river road appeared from behind a little spur at the base of the mountains. A body of hors.e.m.e.n was coming into view. At one glance I recognized the foremost riders as belonging to the troop I had seen four hours before.

"The devil!" said I. "La Chatre's soldiers coming back from Maury!"

We had ridden down the descent leading from the chateau along the town wall, and had left the town some distance behind, so that the mountains now loomed large before us. But we had not yet pa.s.sed the place where the roads converged.

"If we can only get into the mountain road before they reach this one, we shall not meet them," I went on. "Forward, men!"

"But," said Blaise, astonished and frowning, but riding on beside me, "they will reach this road before we pa.s.s the junction. Do you wish them to take us in the flank? See, they have seen us and are pressing forward!"

"If we reach our road in time, we shall lead them a chase. Go to the head and set the pace at a gallop!"

"And have them overtake us and fall on our rear?"

"You mutinous rascal, don't you see that they are three times our number?

We stand better chance in flight than in fight! But, no, you are right!

They are too near the junction. We must face them. I shall go to the head. Julie, my betrothed, I must leave you for a time. Roquelin and Sabray shall fall behind with you, Jeannotte, and the two boys."

"I shall not leave your side!" she said, resolutely.

"Oh, mademoiselle!" cried Jeannotte, in a great fright.

"You may fall back, if you like," said Julie to her. "I shall not."

All this time we were going forward and the governor's troops were rapidly nearing the junction. We could now plainly hear the noise they made, which, because of that made by ourselves, we had not heard sooner.

They were looking at us with curiosity, and were evidently determined to intercept us.

"Julie, consider! There may be great danger."