CHAPTER XXVII.
ANOTHER ESCAPE
He alighted in the exact middle of the porch roof and fell with his ankles against the foot-high raised parapet. Then he paused a moment ere deciding what he should do next.
The sound of voices and clanking sabres were coming nearer – also it would soon now be light. And he wondered that he heard no noise from the man watching within; wondered that he was not staring about for those who were coming; almost wondered that he was not standing at the door with it open, ready to go out and meet them.
One thing St. Georges recognised as necessary to be done at once, viz., to quit the roof of the porch. There was no safety for him there; the instant André entered his room he would perceive he was flown, would rush to the window, and, looking out, would doubtless perceive him crouching and huddled up. He must quit that, and at once. But where? Then suddenly he bethought him of the stable that ran off at left angles from the house, close by the porch itself. That would be his best place of safety; moreover, he would have the horse to his hand; on it he might yet escape. And also from the open door of the stable he could reconnoitre, observe what happened, what must happen, in the next few moments. For now the voices of those who were approaching sounded very near. A little while, and his fate now trembling in the balance would be decided.
He lowered himself quickly over the side of the doorway roof – having but a distance of four or five feet to drop when hanging down – and observed that still the door was fast and that there was no sign of André about – doubtless he was waiting for the men to come, ere opening it! Immediately afterward he touched the ground and turned his steps to the alley leading to the stable and swiftly passed up to it, keeping under the shelter of a low wall. So far he was safe!
The horse whinnied a little as he entered – already the creature had come to know him well, perhaps because of his kindly treatment – but he silenced it at once by placing his arm over its mouth and nostrils, then seized the bridle and saddle and prepared it ready for mounting, doing so very quietly, for now the men were close at hand! This he did very rapidly, yet determinately, for, the animal once saddled, his chance would be still better. He had made his plans: if, when he was discovered missing, any should advance down the alley to seek for him, or to search if the horse was gone, he had resolved to mount as they advanced and to charge through them. Then, when he had done all that was necessary, he removed his sword from his back, drew it from the sheath and affixed the latter to his side. He was ready now.
And not too soon! In the now gathering light, sombre and lead-coloured, with, above, some clouds from which a misty rain was falling slightly, he saw three men belonging to the Garde de la Poste arrive in front of the door. One, a sergeant, struck lightly with his finger on the door and bent his ear against it.
"Si, si!" he heard this man say, a second after, evidently in reply to André from within, "quite ready. Send him forth." And still he kept his ear to the side post. A moment later he spoke again, also doubtless in answer to a question from within.
"Nay, have no fear," he said; "once outside he is ours," and he turned to the other two and gave them some orders which St. Georges could not overhear. He could see, however; and what he saw was, that under their superior's directions each of the others drew their heavy dragoon sabres – for to that branch of the army the Garde de la Poste belonged – and placed themselves one on either side of the porch.
Then all listened attentively.
A moment later, from the first and top floor, through the open window from which St. Georges had escaped, they heard the shouts of the man André; and St. Georges heard them, too, and grasped his sword more firmly, and with them came from the other side of the house a cry from the woman.
"Carogne!" exclaimed the sergeant, "the galley boy is giving trouble – André cannot induce him to descend. Yet, hark! he comes! listen to his tread on the stairs – he is rushing down. Be ready!" and as he spoke the two men raised their swords.
Again all heard the voice of André shouting within, the woman screaming, too; the door was fumbled at, and in the still, dim, misty light St. Georges saw a form rush out, and a minute later fall shrieking heavily to the ground, cut down by both sabres of the dragoons.
"We have him! we have him!" the sergeant shouted. "Come forth, man; he is ours!"
And as he spoke St. Georges leaped into the saddle, knowing that the time had almost come.
Another moment, and he heard one of the dragoons, who had been bending over the fallen man, exclaim:
"Mon dieu! What have we done? This is no galérien, but André himself!"
"What!" bawled the sergeant. "What! Mon dieu! it is." Then he said in a horror-stricken hoarse voice, "Is he dead?"
"Ma foi! I fear so. His head is in half," the man replied. And with a look of terror he addressed his comrade: "That was your stroke, not mine. I struck him on the shoulder. Thank God, his blood is on your head!"
"Fichte!" exclaimed the second, a man of harder mettle. "What matters? It is our duty. And the piége was his, not ours. He was a fool. But where – where is the galérien? We must have him!"
"Into the house," exclaimed the sergeant, "into the house! The woman screams no more – doubtless he has murdered her. In, I say, and seek for him; scour cellar and garret. In, in!" and together they rushed into the cabaret, finding, as they pushed the door further open, André's wife lying fainting in the passage. She had followed her husband down the stairs and witnessed his end.
That husband's greed – his withholding from the others the fact that the escaped galley slave had a good horse – led to that galley slave's escape. For, all unknowing that, not twenty paces off, the horse was there ready saddled to bear him away, they never thought of the stable, but, instead, plunged into the inn and commenced at once roaming from room to room searching for him.
As they did so, his opportunity came. Swiftly he led the animal down the alley to the door – it had no other exit, or he would have escaped by it – equally swiftly he led it some distance down the street, praying to God all the time that its hoofs striking on the stones might not reach their ears, and sweating with fear and apprehension as he heard their shouts and calls to one another. Then, when he was fifty yards away from the house, he jumped into the saddle, patted his horse on the neck, and rode swiftly for the East Gate.
Whether he would get through before the whole east part of the city was alarmed – as he knew it soon must be – he could not tell yet. If the gates were not open, he was as much lost as before; he must be taken. But would they be so open? Would they? As he prayed they might, the cathedral clock rang out again, struck four.
"O God!" he murmured, "grant this may be the hour. Grant it! grant it!"
It seemed to him as though his prayer was heard. Nearing the East Gate, placed on the west side of a branch of the river Eure, he saw the bascule descending; he knew that four o'clock was the hour. Also he saw several peasants standing by, ready to pass over it into the country beyond, doubtless either to fetch in produce for the city or going to their work. He was safe now, he felt; if none came behind, there would be no hindrance to his exit.
"You ride early, monsieur," the keeper said, glancing up at him from his occupation of throwing down some grain to his fowls, which he had just released for the day. Then, taking out a pocketbook, "Your name, monsieur, and destination?" he asked.
"Destination, Paris. Name – " and he paused. He had not anticipated this. Yet he must give a name and at once; at any moment from the city might appear a crowd, or the dragoons shouting to the man to bar his egress. "Name, Dubois. And I ride in haste. You have heard the news?"
"News! no," exclaimed the man, while even the peasants going to their toil pricked up their ears. "What news?"
"Tourville's fleet is ruined – burned – by the English! Stop me not. I ride to carry it. By orders!"
"Mon Dieu!" the man exclaimed, "by the English. Tourville defeated by them? It is impossible!"
"It is true," while as he spoke – still moving across the now lowered drawbridge as he did so – one of the peasants, an old woman, wailed: "My boy was there – in the Ambitieux! Is that burnt?"
"I do not know, good woman," he replied, unwilling to tell the poor old creature the worst. "I must not tarry."
And in a moment he had put the horse to the gallop. He had left Bayeux behind. Out of the jaws of death he had escaped once more. "But," he asked himself, "for how long? How long?"
That danger which he had escaped so soon after setting foot in France was not again equalled on the road, and a week later he neared the old fortified town of Rambouillet. He had progressed by obscure ways to reach it, avoiding every large city or town to which he had approached, and skirting, either on the north or south, Caen, Evreux, and Bernay. He was drawing nearer to Troyes now, nearer to where his child was, if still alive, nearer to the satisfaction he meant to have by his denunciation of the treachery of Aurélie de Roquemaure.
Yet, as he so progressed, he asked himself of what use would such denunciation be – of what importance in comparison with the regaining of Dorine? That was all in all to him; the supreme desire of his life now – to regain her, to escape out of France once more; to earn subsistence sufficient for them both in England. Beyond that, the satisfaction of taxing Mademoiselle de Roquemaure with her treachery – the treachery of, with her mother, appearing to sympathize with him when they first met at the manoir, of expressing that sympathy again in Paris during their brief encounter outside the Louvre, of her false and lying words to Boussac – would be little worth. Yet, small as that satisfaction would be, something within told him he must obtain it; must stand face to face with her and look into those clear gray eyes that had the appearance of being so honest and were so false; must ask her why, since she so coveted all that his and his child's life might deprive her of, she had stooped to the duplicity of pretending to sympathize with him; to the baseness of stealing his child from the man who had himself stolen it – he knew not why; to the foul meanness of accompanying her menial – herself masked to prevent detection – and urging him on to murder; herself, by complicity, a murderess! And as he so pondered, he reflected also with what eager, cruel pleasure – for he knew now, and almost shuddered at knowing, that the wrongs inflicted on him had turned him toward cruelty – he would tell her of how her vile brother had died before his eyes.
So, determinately, he rode on, nearing Rambouillet, yet feeling as though sometimes he could go no further, must drop from his horse into the road. In the week since he escaped from Bayeux he had been feeling that day by day he was becoming ill, that all he had gone through – the immersion in the sea, the intensity of his excitement at Bayeux, his long rides and exposure to the weather – was like ere long to overwhelm him. Sometimes for hours he rode almost unconscious of what was passing around him; he burned with a consuming fever, his limbs and head ached and his thirst was terrible.
Yet, urged on and on by the object he had in view, he still went forward until, at last, he halted outside the town he had now come to, beneath the walls of the old castle of Rambouillet.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE FLEUR-DE-LIS
The hot sun of those last days of May beat down on the white roads and the orchards and the pastures surrounding the town of Rambouillet, and shone also with unpleasant strength upon La Baronne de Louvigny, being driven back to her house within the walls. And madame's aristocratic countenance, handsome as she was, showed signs of irritation – perhaps from the effects of the heat, perhaps from other things – while her dark eyes, glancing out from under the hood of the summer calèche in which she was lying back, looked as though they belonged to a woman who was not, at the present moment at least, in the best of humours.
She was still a very young woman and was also a widow, the baron having been killed in a duel some few years ago, which had not grieved her in the least, since he was an old man who had married her for her good looks and, possibly, her more aristocratic connections than he himself possessed; yet, in spite of these advantages, there were things in her existence which annoyed her. Among these things was, for instance, one which was extremely irritating – namely, that for four years now she had been required to abstain from visiting Paris or the court, either at Versailles, Marley, or St. Germains, and this notwithstanding that her blood was of the most blue and that she claimed connection with the most aristocratic families in France.
Truly it was an annoying thing to be young, handsome, and very well to do – owing to her not too aristocratic husband, the late baron – and to be of the blue blood owing to her own family, and yet to be under a cloud in consequence of a scandal – of being mixed up in an affair, a scene, or tragedy, which it was impossible to altogether hush up. At least she found it annoying, and, so finding it, revolted a good deal at the ban laid on her. Still, revolt or repine as she might, Louis's word was law in all matters of social importance, and she was forced to bow to it, in the hopes that, as time passed on, the ban might be removed. But it was not strange, perhaps, that in so bowing, her temper, always a hot, passionate one, had grown a little uncertain.
It did not serve to improve that temper on this hot day that, at a moment when the calèche emerged into a particularly sunny portion of the road, unsheltered by either tree or bank, it should suddenly come to a stop and expose her to the full glare of the sun itself. Moreover, the jerk with which the horses were pulled up gave her a jar which did not tend to better matters.
"What are you stopping for?" she asked angrily of one of the lackeys who had by now jumped down from behind. "I bade you take me back as soon as possible. And why in this broad glare? Animal!" and she drew her upper lip back, showing her small white teeth.
"Pardon, my lady," the man said – he knowing the look well, and remembering also that, before to-day, it had boded punishment for him and his fellows – "but there is a man lying in the road, almost under the hoofs of the horses. And his own stands by his side."
"Well! What of that? Thrust them aside and drive on. Am I to be broiled here?"
"Pardon, my lady," the man again ventured to say submissively, "but it is not a peasant. He looks of a better class than that."
"What is he, then, a gentleman of the seigneurie?" And she deigned to lean out of the calèche somewhat, as though to obtain a glance of the person who had barred her way. "Has he been drinking?"
"I do not know, my lady. But his head is hurt. He may have been attacked or injured by his fall. He is plainly dressed, but carries a sword. He is young, too, and wears a mustache like an officer."
"I will see him. Open the door."
The lackey did as he was bidden, his fellow jumping down also from behind, and each of them offering an arm to their imperious mistress to aid her descent from the high vehicle; then madame la baronne advanced to the front of her horses' heads and gazed down at the unconscious man lying in the dust.
"Turn his face up," she said, "and let me see it." The servants doing as she bade them, and parting also the long hair that fell over the face, the woman gave a start and muttered under her lips, "My God!" And at the same time, beneath her patches and powder, she turned very pale. "Is he dead?" she asked a moment later, in a constrained voice, while still she gazed at him.
"I think not, my lady," one of the men said who was kneeling beside the man in the road. "His heart beats. It may be a vertigo or the heat of the sun. Certainly he is not dead."
"Take him up," she said, "and carry him, you two, into the town. Attach his horse, also, to the carriage and lead it in. Follow at once;" and she re-entered the calèche.
"Where, madame, shall we place him?" the lackey asked, who had first spoken. "With the corps-de-garde, my lady?"
"No; bring him to my house. He shall be attended to there. He – he may be a gentleman, and the corps-de-garde are rough. We will attend to him. Now bid the coachman drive on, and follow at once; do not lag with him, or you shall be punished."
Slowly the carriage proceeded, therefore, into Rambouillet, and Madame la Baronne de Louvigny, lying back in it, white to her lips, pondered over the face that a few minutes before had been turned up to her gaze.
"Alive," she said to herself. "De Vannes, and alive! And in my power; another half hour and he will be in my house. So – he was not lost in the galley that those vile English sunk! And Raoul is no nearer to the wealth he needs than ever – no nearer. And, my God! the man lives who called me 'wanton' in the road that night, the man whom I tried to slay, the man through whom came my exposure. And in my house! In my house!" And she laughed to herself and showed her teeth again. Then she muttered to herself: "But for how long! Oh, that Raoul was here to advise with!"
Late that night St. Georges opened his eyes and glanced around him, wondering where he was and endeavouring to recall what had befallen him. Yet, at first, no recollection came; he could not recall any of the events of the day – nothing. All was a blank. He had sufficient sensibility, however – a sensibility that momentarily increased – to be able to notice his surroundings and to observe that he lay in a large-capacious bed in a commodious room, well furnished and hung with handsome tapestry representing hunting scenes; also that at the further end of the room by a hugh fireplace – now, of course, empty – there stood a lamp with, by it, a deep chair in which a female figure sat sleeping – a female whose dress betokened her a waiting maid.
"Where am I?" he asked feebly, trying to send his voice to where she sat. "And why am I here?"
The woman arose and came toward the bed and stood beside him; then she said:
"You were found lying in the road outside the town."
"What town?"
"Rambouillet."
"Ah! – I remember. Yes."
"By my mistress, La Baronne de Louvigny. She had you brought here."
"She is very merciful to me, a stranger. A Christian woman."
To this the waiting maid made no reply; in her own heart she had no belief in her mistress's mercy or Christianity – she had served her a long while. Then she said:
"You had best sleep now. You are bruised and cut about the head. But the doctor has bled you, and says you will soon be well. Where are you going to?"
"To – I do not know. I cannot remember."
"Sleep now," the woman said, "sleep. It is best for you," and she left the bedside and went back to the chair she had been sitting in when he called to her.
The comfort of the bed combined with the feeling of weakness that was upon him made it not difficult to obey her behest; yet ere he did so he had sufficient of his senses left to him – or returned to him – to raise his hand and discover by doing so that his clothes were not removed; to satisfy himself that the brand upon his shoulder had not yet been observed. Being so satisfied, he let himself subside into a sleep once more.
Meanwhile, in a room near where he lay, La Baronne de Louvigny, sometimes seated in a deep fauteuil, sometimes pacing the apartment which formed her boudoir or dressing room, was meditating deeply upon the chances which had thrown this man into her hands.
"Mon Dieu!" she muttered to herself, as she had done once before while her calèche had borne her back into the town of Rambouillet, "if Raoul were but here! What shall I do with him? What! What! After that horrible night when the prefect examined us at Versailles, pronounced that I was an attempted murderess – Heaven! if Louvois had not stood our friend with Louis, what would have been the consequence! – Raoul told me all: That this man was in truth the Duc de Vannes; that, if he once knew it, or Louis guessed it, it meant ruin; that all his father's vast estates would go to him instead of to Raoul, who had long felt secure of them; that, worse than all, Louis would never pardon the attack upon his friend's son, would know that he had been struck down from behind by a foul blow, not fairly in a duel. And now he is here, alive in my house – has crossed our path again; is doubtless on his way to the king to tell him the truth, prove his false condemnation to the galleys, claim all that is his. God! if he does that I shall never be Raoul's wife – never, never, never!"
As she had once drunk feverishly of the wine standing on the inn table, while it seemed that to the man who ought, even then, to have been her husband his doom was approaching from St. Georges's avenging sword, so she now went to a cabinet and took from it a flask of strong waters and swallowed a dram. The habit had grown on her of late, had often been resorted to since the night when she – hitherto a woman with no worse failings than that of lightness of manner and with, for her greatest weakness, a mad, infatuated passion for Raoul de Roquemaure – had struck her knife deep between his shoulders, and had become a murderess in heart and almost one in actual fact.
Then, having swallowed the liquor, she mused again.
"What best to do? I can not slay him here in my own house – though I would do so if I could compass it. He called me 'wanton'; read me aright! For that alone I would do it! Yet, how? How? And if he goes free from here 'tis not a dozen leagues to Louis; doubtless he knows now his history, he will see him – Louvois is dead and gone to his master, the devil – he is a free man."
Yet as she said the words "a free man" she started, almost gasped.
"A free man!" she repeated. "A free man! Ha! is he free?"
Through her brain there ran a multitude of fresh thoughts, of recollections. "A free man!" Yet he had been condemned, she knew, to the galleys en perpétuité; there was no freedom, never any pardon for those so sentenced. Once condemned, always condemned; no appeal possible, their rights gone forever, slaves till their day of death; branded, marked, so that forever they bore that about them which sent them back to slavery. If he bore that upon him, he was lost; the galleys still yawned for him – yawned for him so long as Louis did not know that the escaped galérien was the son of his friend of early days.
"I know it all, see it all," she whispered to herself. "The galley was lost, but he was saved – saved to come back to France and ruin us. Yet he bears that about him – must bear it, since all condemned en perpétuité are branded – which, once seen, will send him back to his doom. Let but the préfet see that, or any officer of the garrison or citadel, and the next day he will travel again the road which he has come; go back to Dunkirk or Havre, back to the chiourme and the oar. They will listen to nothing, hear no word or protest, grant no trial. He is mine – mine!" and again she went to the cabinet and drank. "Even though he has found proof of who he is, they will not listen to nor believe him."
One fear only disturbed her frenzy now. That he was the man who had called her "wanton," the man who stood between her lover and his wealth, and consequently between her and that lover, she never doubted. Those features, seen first by the lamp in the parlour of the inn – seen, too, when apparently he lay dying from her murderous stab – were too deeply stamped into her memory to ever be forgotten. And as he lay there, looking like death, so he had looked as he lay in the dust outside Rambouillet. He was the man! – and this was her fear! But was it certain that the galley mark was branded into him, the mark which proclaimed him as one doomed to those galleys forever, that would send him back without appeal, and would make all in authority whom he might endeavour to address turn a deaf ear to him?
She must know that, and at once. She could not rest until she knew that upon his shoulder was the damning evidence.
All was quiet in the house, it was near midnight, the domestics were in their beds by now: she resolved that she would satisfy herself at once. Then, if the brand was there, as it must be, she could arrange her next steps – could send for the commandant of the château, deliver the man into his hands, be not even seen by him. If it was there!
Leaving her room, she crept to the one to which he had been carried, and, pushing open the door, looked in. The waiting maid, who had received orders not to quit him under any pretext, was sleeping heavily in her chair; on the bed at the further end of the room lay the man.
Then swiftly and without noise she advanced toward him, carrying the taper which had been burning by the watcher's side in her hand, and gazed down upon him.
He was sleeping quietly, his coat and waistcoat off – for they had removed these in consequence of the warmth of the day, though nothing else except his shoes – his shirt was open at the neck. If she could turn it back an inch or two without awaking him, her question would be answered.
Shading the lamp with one hand, with the other she touched the collar of his discoloured shirt, her white jewelled fingers looking like snowflakes against it and his bronzed skin; lower she pressed the folds back until, revealed before her, was the mark burned deep into his neck, the fatal iris with, above it, the letter G.
"So," she said, "the way is clear before me;" and softly, still obscuring the light with her hand, she stole from the room quietly as she had come.