"I have not yet decided," Baville said that night to Beauplan as they sat together in the new citadel1, "when the sentence will be carried out. Have my doubts as to whether I shall not release him."
"Release him!" the other echoed. "Release him! Such a thing is unheard of. He, an Englishman, a consorter with the Camisards, a man under the ban of Versailles! Surely you would not dare----"
"Dare!" exclaimed Baville, though very quietly, "dare! Monsieur Beauplan, you forget yourself. Since I have ruled in Languedoc no man has dared to use that word to me before."
"Yet," said the judge, a member of an ancient family in the south, who had always rebelled against the authority of this stranger to the customs, as well as the noblesse, of Languedoc, "though none here may question your authority, there are those in the capital who can do so."
"There are. But you are not of the number. Monsieur Beauplan, I have nothing more to say. I wish you a good-night."
"I understand," Beauplan replied, "understand very well. And your conduct is natural; also natural that there should be an exchange of prisoners, that your child's release should depend upon his. Yet beware, Monsieur l'Intendant! I was at Versailles two months ago, as you know, and--and--they said----" and he hesitated a moment while a slight smile came into his face.
"What did they say?"
"That not only might a substitute he sent in place of Montrevel, but of----"
"Baville! Is that it?"
"It is that."
"The substitute to be, perhaps, Amédée Beauplan."
"Nay2, that is impossible, as you are aware. In Languedoc none can rule as Intendant who are of the province. Yet I warn you, if you set free this man even in the desire to obtain the freedom of Urbaine Ducaire, neither Chamillart nor Madame de Maintenon will forgive."
"You mean well, doubtless," Baville replied, "yet I shall act as I see best. Beauplan, you have children of your own, also a high post. If the life of one of your girls were balanced against that post, which should you prefer to protect?"
To this the judge made no answer, leaving the Intendant alone a moment afterward3. Yet, as he sought his own great sumptuous4 coach, he acknowledged that, much as he detested5 Baville, what he was undoubtedly6 about to do was natural.
Left alone, the other took from his pocket a paper and glanced at it as, before the judge had appeared in his room, he had glanced at it a dozen times--a paper on which were written only a few words. They ran:
"Urbaine Ducaire will be restored unharmed to none other than the Englishman sentenced to death to-day. If he dies she dies too. Nothing can save her, even though she is a Huguenot. Decide, therefore, and decide quickly." And it was signed "Jean Cavalier."
"So," he mused7, "he was in the Court to-day, or sent this message by one of his followers8, knowing well what the sentence would be. Yet the decision was made ere this paper was smuggled9 in here, God knows how! It needed not this to determine me."
He struck upon the bell by his side as he thus reflected, and, on the servant appearing in answer to it, he asked:
"How came this paper here which I found upon my table?" and he touched with his finger the letter from Cavalier.
"It was left, monsieur, by a woman."
"A woman! Of what description?"
"Old, monsieur, gray and worn. She said, monsieur, that it was of the first importance. A matter of life and death."
Again, as the lackey10 spoke11, there came that feeling to the other's heart of icy coldness, the feeling of utter despair which had seized upon him earlier, as he saw her face in Court. For he never doubted that the bearer of the missive was the same woman who appeared as a spectre before him at the trial--the woman who could tell Urbaine all.
"Where have they disposed the man who was tried and sentenced to-day?" he asked next.
"In the same room he has occupied since he was brought here, monsieur."
"So! Let him be brought to this room. I have to speak with him."
"Here, monsieur!" the man exclaimed with an air of astonishment12 which he could not repress.
"Here."
Ten minutes later and Martin was before him, he having been conducted from the wing of the citadel in which he was confined to the adjacent one in which Baville's set of apartments were.
His escort consisted of two warders who were of the milice; nor was there any need that he should have more to guard him, for his hands were manacled with great steel gyves, the lower ends of which were attached by ring bolts to his legs above his knees. Yet, since they could have had no idea that there was any possibility of one so fettered13 as he escaping from their custody14, the careful manner in which these men stood by their prisoner could have been but assumed with a view to finding favour with the ruler of the province.
As Martin confronted the other, their eyes met in one swift glance; then Baville's were quickly lowered. Before that man, the man whom Urbaine loved, the man who had saved her life, who could restore her once more to his arms--if, knowing what she might know, she would ever return to them--the all-powerful Intendant felt himself abased15.
"Who," he said, addressing the warders, "has the key of those irons?"
"I, monsieur," one answered.
"Remove them."
"Monsieur!"
"Do as I bid you."
With a glance at his comrade (the fellow said afterward that the Intendant had gone mad) the one thus addressed did as he was ordered. A moment later and Martin and Baville were alone, the warders dismissed with a curt16 word, and hurrying off to tell their mates and comrades that the rebellion must be over since the trial of the morning could have been but a farce17.
Then Baville rose and, standing18 before Martin, said:
"You see, I keep my promise. You are free."
"Free! To do what? Rejoin Urbaine?"
"Ay, to rejoin Urbaine. For that alone, upon one stipulation19."
"What is the stipulation?"
"That--that--she and I meet again!"
"Meet again! Why not?"
Instead of replying to this question Baville asked Martin another.
"Was," he demanded, speaking swiftly, "Cavalier in Court to-day, dressed in a russet suit, disguised in a long black wig20?"
"Yes," the other replied, "he was there."
"And the woman with him, old, gray-haired, is she one of the dwellers21 in the mountains, one of his band?"
"Nay. Her I have never seen."
"She can not then have met, have come into contact with Urbaine?"
"How can I say? It is a week since I left Urbaine there, safe with him in those mountains. Since then many things have happened, among others the horrors of Mercier's mill."
"It was not my doing," Baville answered hotly. "Not mine; Montrevel is alone answerable for that. I was away at the beginning, on my road back from Valence. None can visit that upon my head. Yet--yet--rather should fifty such horrors happen, rather that I myself should perish in such a catastrophe22, than that this woman and Urbaine should ever meet."
As he spoke there came to Martin's memory the words that Cavalier had uttered to him. "Ere she leaves us there is something to be told her as regards Baville's friendship for her father, Ducaire. And when she has heard that, it may be she will never wish to return to him, to set eyes on her beloved Intendant again."
Was this woman of whom Baville spoke the one who could tell her that which would cause her the great revulsion of feeling which Cavalier had hinted at?
"Why should they never meet?" he asked, the question forced from him by the recollection of the Camisard's words joined to Baville's present emotion.
"Because," the other replied, his face once more the colour of death, the usually rich full voice dull and choked, "because--O God! that I should have to say it--because I am, though all unwittingly, her father's murderer. And that woman knows it."
"You! Her father's murderer!"
"Yes, I." Then he went on rapidly, his tones once more those of command, his bearing that of the ruler before whom stood a prisoner in his power. "But ask me no more. It was all a hideous23, an awful mistake. I loved Urbain Ducaire; would have saved him. And--and--by that mistake I slew24 him. Also, I love his child--his!--nay, mine, by all the years in which I have cherished, nurtured25 her. Oh, Urbaine, Urbaine, ma mie, ma petite!" he whispered, as though there were none other present to see him in this, his dark hour. "Urbaine, if you learn this you will come to hate me as all in Languedoc hate me."
"Be comforted," Martin exclaimed, touched to the heart by the man's grief, forgetful, too, of all the horrible instances of severity linked with his name, "be comforted. She must never meet that woman, never know. Only," he almost moaned, remembering all that the knowledge of this awful thing would bring to her, "how to prevent it. How to prevent it."
"I have it," Baville said, and he straightened himself, was alert, strong again, "I have it. I said but now I would, must, see her once more. But, God help me! I renounce26 that hope forever. To save her from that knowledge, to save her heart from breaking, I forego all hopes of ever looking on her face again, ever hearing her whisper 'Father' in my ear more. And you, you alone, can save her. You must fly with her, away, out of France. Then--God, he knows!--she and I will be far enough apart. Also she will be far enough away from that woman who can denounce me."
"But how, how, how? Where can we fly? All Languedoc, all the south, is blocked with the King's, with your, troops----"
"Nay, the Camisards can help you. Can creep like snakes across the frontier to Switzerland, to the Duke of Savoy's dominions27. You must go--at once. You are free, I say," and he stamped his foot in his excitement. "Go, go, go. I set you free, annul28 this trial, declare it void. Only go, for God's sake go, and find her ere it is too late."
"I need no second bidding," Martin answered, his heart beating high within him at the very thought of flying to Urbaine, of seeing her again and of clasping her to his arms, and, once across the frontier, of never more being parted from her; of his own freedom which would thereby29 be assured he thought not one jot30, the full joy of possessing Urbaine forever eclipsing the delight of that newly restored liberty entirely31; "desire naught32 else. Only, how will you answer for it?"
"Answer!" Baville exclaimed. "Answer! To whom shall I answer but to Louis? And though I pay with my head for my treachery, if treachery it is, she will be safe from the revelation of my fault. That before all."
"When shall I depart?" Martin asked briefly33.
"Now, to-night, at once. Lose no moment. A horse shall be prepared for you. Also a pass that will take you through any of the King's forces you may encounter on the road to the mountains. Once there, you are known to the Camisards and--and she will be restored to you."
"Will they let me pass the gate?"
"Let you pass the gate! Pass the gate! Ay, since I go with you as far as that. Let us see who will dare to stop you."
An hour later Martin was a free man.
Free, that is, in so far that he had passed the Porte des Carmes and was once more upon the road toward the mountains, toward where Urbaine Ducaire was. Yet with all around him the troops of Montrevel, the field marshal having sallied forth34 that morning intent upon more slaughter35 and bloodshed, and with, still farther off, the Camisards under Cavalier in one division and under Roland in another, descending36, if all accounts were true, upon N?mes and Alais with a full intention of avenging37 mercilessly the burning of their brethren in the mill.
Yet, sweet as was the sense of that freedom, sweet, too, as was the hope that ere many more hours would be passed he and Urbaine would have met once more never again to part, he could not but reflect upon the heartbrokenness of Baville as he bid him Godspeed.
"Save her, save her," he whispered as they stood at the Great Gate, "save her from France, above all from the knowledge of what happened so long ago. Fly with her to Switzerland and thence to your own land; there you can live happily. And--and--tell me ere you go that from your lips she shall never know aught. Grant me that prayer at the last."
"Out of my love for her, out of the hopes that in all the years which I pray God to let me spend with her, no sorrow may come near her, I promise. If it rests with me you shall be always the same in her memory as you have been in actual life. I promise. And perhaps when happier days shall dawn, you and your wife and she may all meet again."
"Perhaps," Baville replied, "perhaps." Then from the breast of this man whose name was execrated38 in every land to which French Protestants had fled for asylum39, this man of whom all said that his heart, if heart he had, was formed of marble, there issued a deep sob40 ere he moaned: "Be good to her. Shield her from harm, I implore41 you. She was all we had to love. Almost the only thing on earth that loved me. Farewell!"
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1
citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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2
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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3
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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sumptuous
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| adj.豪华的，奢侈的，华丽的 | |
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5
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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6
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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7
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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8
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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9
smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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10
lackey
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| n.侍从；跟班 | |
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11
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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12
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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13
fettered
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| v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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15
abased
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| 使谦卑( abase的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到羞耻； 使降低（地位、身份等）； 降下 | |
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16
curt
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| adj.简短的，草率的 | |
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farce
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| n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹 | |
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18
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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19
stipulation
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| n.契约，规定，条文；条款说明 | |
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20
wig
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| n.假发 | |
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21
dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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22
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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24
slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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25
nurtured
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| 养育( nurture的过去式和过去分词 )； 培育； 滋长； 助长 | |
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renounce
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| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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dominions
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| 统治权( dominion的名词复数 )； 领土； 疆土； 版图 | |
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28
annul
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| v.宣告…无效，取消，废止 | |
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29
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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jot
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| n.少量；vi.草草记下；vt.匆匆写下 | |
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31
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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32
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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36
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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37
avenging
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| adj.报仇的，复仇的v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 )；为…报复 | |
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38
execrated
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| v.憎恶( execrate的过去式和过去分词 )；厌恶；诅咒；咒骂 | |
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39
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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40
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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41
implore
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| vt.乞求，恳求，哀求 | |
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