XVI
How François warns the Marquis de Ste. Luce, and of the battle on the staircase between the old day and the new.
It was now close to nine, and again a bright, cold, starry night. A long circuit brought him to the highroad. A mile away he struck into a broad avenue, and, never pausing, pushed on. His sense of locality was acute and like that of an animal. Once or twice he was sure that he heard dull noises behind him when the sharp night wind blew from the village.’
“Ah, Toto,” he murmured, “keep thou close to heel. This is our greatest adventure. I would we were out of it. Ah, the château!” He ran across the flowerbeds, and with long leaps up the steps, and sounded a strong summons on the knocker of the great door. A servant opened it. “Where is the marquis?” What the man said he did not wait to hear. The lofty hall was dark, but the principal staircase was lighted faintly from above. Without a word, François hurried past the servant and up the stairs. From the broad landing he saw beyond him a lighted drawing-room, and heard the notes of a violoncello. There was the woman, pale and beautiful, in black, her face upturned, the boy holding before her a sheet of music. The human richness of the cello’s tones sounded through the great chamber. Where had he seen the like? Ah, that picture in the vestry of Notre Dame—the face of St. Cecilia! He had a moment of intense joy at having come. Till then he had doubted if it were wise. As he stood, the marquis came toward him quickly from the side of the room, and two gentlemen left a card-table and started up.
François went in at once, meeting the marquis within the room. The music ceased; the woman cried, “Mon Dieu!” Every one stared at this strange figure.
“What is it, my man? Venire St. Gris! ’t is my thief! This way,” and he led him aside into a little room, while the rest, silent and troubled, looked after them.
“Monsieur, to waste no words, these cursed peasants are on their way to do here what mischief the devil knows. It is you they want. There is a fool, one Despard, who leads them. But, Dieu! there is small time to think.”
François, breathless, panting, stood looking about him, now as always observant, and curious as to this wonderful room and this impassive gentleman. Toto, as well blown as his master, recognizing the value of a soft rug, dropped, head on legs, meaning to have at least the minute’s luxury and rest.
The marquis stood still in thought a moment. “I am greatly obliged to you; and this is twice—twice. I expected trouble, but not so soon. Come this way.”
François followed. Toto kept one eye on him, and slept with the other. As they reëntered the great salon, the two gentlemen and Mme. Renée, all visibly agitated, came to meet them. “What is it?” they asked. The marquis forestalled further inquiry.
“My daughter, our kindly peasants will be here in an hour—no, half an hour, or less. Resistance is useless. To fly is to confess the need to fly; it is not to my taste. You gentlemen are better out of this. Go at once—at once!”
“Yes, go!” said madame. “You cannot help us, and can only make bad worse.”
They wasted no time, and few words passed. The little drama played itself quickly.
“Adieu, madame!” Madame courtesied. The boy walked over and stood by his grandfather. He looked up at his clear-cut face, with its cold smile, and then at the backs of the retiring gentlemen. He had a boy’s sense of these being deserters. They were gone in hot haste.
Mme. Renée came nearer. “We thank you—I thank you”; and she put out her hand. François took it awkwardly. A touch of the hand of this high-bred, saintly lady, grande dame and true woman, singularly disturbed the man. The tremor of a strange emotion ran over him. He let fall the soft hand, and drew himself up to the full of his unusual height, saying: “It is little—very little.”
“And now you must go,” she said; “and at once.”
“Of course—of course,” said Ste. Luce. “Out the back way. Victor will show you.” There were no further thanks. All such common men had served the great noble; it seemed of the nature of things. But the woman said:
“God protect you! God will know to thank you. I cannot fitly. Go—go!”
“I do not mean to go,” said François. “Hark! it is too late.” He knew not then, or ever, why he stayed. The boy looked up at him. Here was another kind of man, and not a gentleman, either. Why did he not go?
An old majordomo came with uncertain steps of nervous haste, crying: “The servants are gone, monsieur! The people are coming up the avenue! Mon Dieu!”
“Indeed! Now be off with you, Master Thief.”
“No.” His head said, “Go”; his heart said, “Stay.”
“By St. Denis, but you are a fool!”
François muttered that he had been that always, and then felt the hand of the boy touch his own. He called: “Toto! Toto! We will stay.” And the dog, at ease in all society, selected a yet softer rug.
The marquis troubled himself no further as to François. He went out of the room, and was back in a minute, while the uproar increased, and Mme. Renée, at the window, pleaded with the thief, urging him to fly, or cried: “They are coming! Oh, a crowd—a mob—with torches and arms! The saints protect us! Why will you not go? Oh, mon père—father! thou hast thy rapier. What canst thou against hundreds—hundreds?”
The marquis smiled. “Costume de rigueur, my dear. There will be no bloodshed, my child.”
“And they will all run,” cried the boy. “And if grandpapa has to surrender, he must give up his sword. When my papa was taken in America, he had to—”
“Hush!” said the mother. The lad was singularly outside of the tragic shadows of the hour.
François all this while stood near the window, his cloak cast back, his queer, smile-lit face intent now on the mob without, now on the woman, the boy, the man. “Dame!” he muttered. “We are in dangerously high society.” He set his knapsack aside, cast off his cloak, loosened his rapier in its sheath, looked to the priming of his pistols, and waited to see what would happen when this yelling thing out yonder should burst into action.
“They must have made mad haste, madame.”
“They are on the terrace. Mother of Heaven!” cried the woman. “They wait! A man is speaking to them. They have torches. Some go—some go to right around the house.” A stone splintered the window-glass, and she fell back. “Wretches!”
The marquis turned to her. “Stay here. I go to receive our guests.”
“No, no!”
“Do as I tell thee. Be still.” She caught the boy to her, and fell into a chair, sobbing. The marquis called to the quaking majordomo: “Take those two candelabra. Set them at the foot of the staircase—the foot.” The old servant obeyed without words. The marquis went by him. He seemed to have forgotten François, who glanced at Mme. Renée and followed the master of the house.
There had been a moment’s lull outside. The double stairway swept down to a landing, and then in one noble descent to the great deserted hall, where the faded portraits of lord and lady looked down among armor and trophies of war and chase.
“Put those lights there—and there. Get two more—quick! Set them on the brackets below. One must see. Put out the lights in the drawing-room. What, you here yet, Master Thief? What the devil are you doing here? The deuce!” As he spoke they were standing together on the broad landing, before them the great stair which led down to the illuminated hall below. The marquis had meant to meet these people outside; he was quiet, cool, the master of many resources. Surprised at the suddenness of the outbreak, he still counted, with the courage of habit, on his personal influence and address. As the marquis spoke, the roar without broke forth anew. A shower of stones clattered on door and wall and window with sharp crash and tinkle of breaking glass. It was followed by an indescribable tumult—shouts, laughter, the shrill voices of women, a multitudinous appeal to fear, ominous, such as no man could hear unmoved. The animal we call a mob was there—the thing of moods, like a madman, now destructive, now as a brute brave, now timid as a house-fly.
They beat on the great doors, and of a sudden seemed to discover that the servants, in flying, had not secured them. The doors gave way, and those in front were hurled into the hall by the pressure of those behind. In an instant it was half full of peasants armed with all manner of rude weapons. A dozen had torches of sheep’s wool wrapped about pitchforks and soaked with tar. Their red flames flared up, with columns above of thick smoke. There were women, lads. None had muskets. Some looked about them, curious. Those without shouted and pressed to get in; but this was no longer easy. A few of the boldest began to move up the lower steps of the great staircase. At the landing above, in partial obscurity, stood the marquis and François. On the next rise behind them were Mme. Renée and her boy, unnoticed, unwilling to be left alone. The stairway and all above it were darker than the red-lighted hall, where ravage was imminent. A man struck with a butcher’s mallet a suit of armor. It rang with the blow, and fell with clang and rattle, hurting a boy, who screamed. The butcher leaped on the pedestal and yelled, waving one of the iron gauntlets. They who hesitated, leaderless, at the foot of the dark ascent turned at the sound of the tumbled past.
The marquis cried aloud, “Halt, there!”
Some mischievous lad outside cast a club at the side window of the hall, and the quartered arms of Ste. Luce, De Rohan, and their kin fell with sharp, jangling notes on the floor and on the heads of the crowd.
“Halt, I say!” The voice rang out of the gloom, strong and commanding. The marquis’s sword was out. “Draw, my charming thief. Morituri te salutant!”
“What?” cried François—“what is that?”
“Nothing. We are about to die; that is all. Let us send some couriers to Hades. You should have gone away. Now you are about to die.”
François drew his long rapier. He was strangely elated. “We are going to die, Toto.” The dog barked furiously. “Keep back!” cried his master. Then he heard Pierre Despard’s shrill voice cry out: “Surrender, Citizen Ste. Luce, or it will be worse for thee.” The mob screamed: “Despard! Despard!” He was hustled forward, amid renewed shouts, cries, crash of falling vases, and jangling clatter of broken glass. The reluctant leader tried to keep near to the door. The mob was of other mind. He was thrust through the press to the foot of the stair, with cries of “Vive Despard! Vive Despard!” The people on the stair, fearing no resistance, were pushed up, shouting, “À bas les émigrés!”
“Now, then!” cried the marquis. “Get back there, dogs!” The two blades shot out. A man fell; another, touched in the shoulder, screamed, and leaped over the balustrade; the rest fell away, one man on another, with shrieks and groans. François caught a lad climbing on the outside of the gilded rail, and, with a laugh, threw him on the heads of those below. A joy unknown before possessed the thief—the lust of battle, the sense of competency. He took in the whole scene, heart, mind, and body alive as never before.
“Sang de St. Denis! You are a gallant man. But we are lost. They will be on our backs in a moment; I hear them.” Amid a terrible din, stones and sticks flew. A pebble struck the marquis in the face. “Dame!” he cried, furious, and darted down a step or two, the quick rapier mercilessly stabbing here and there. One madder than the rest set a torch to a priceless tapestry. It flared up, lighting the great space and the stair, and doing in the end no harm. Despard, terrified, was pushed forward to the edge of the fallen bodies on the staircase.
“Surrender!” he called out in a shriek of fear, for here before him were the two men he most dreaded on earth. The noise was indescribable. The butcher beat with the iron gauntlet on a shield beside him; then he threw the steel glove at François. It flew high. There was a cry from the space behind. The little boy screamed shrilly, “They have killed my mama!”
François looked behind him. There was now light enough, and too much. He saw the woman lying, a convulsed, tumbled heap, on the stair. The marquis glanced behind him, and lost his cool quietude. He ran down the stair, stabbing furiously. A half-dozen dead and wounded lay before him. In an instant he was back again beside François, his face bleeding from the stones and sticks thrown at him. François was standing, tall and terrible in his anger, a pistol in his hand.
“Shall I kill him, monsieur?”
“By Heaven, yes!”
The pistol resounded terribly in the vaulted space, and the brute who had thrown the gauntlet, swaying, screamed shrilly, and tumbled—dead.
“Give me your hand!” cried the marquis. “Thank you, monsieur; the devil hath a recruit. Now follow me. Let us kill and die. To hell with this rabble!”
“Wait,” cried François, and, running down the steps, put out a long arm and caught Despard. He hauled him savagely after him, calling out, “Hold the stair a moment!” In an instant he was on the landing above, with his prey. His sword he let fall, and set a pistol to Despard’s head. The terror of the trapped Jacobin was pitiful. He prayed for life. He would let them all go; he would—he would. François swung him round to face the suddenly silenced mob. “Keep still, or I will scatter your brains, fool! Tell them to go! Tell them to go, or, sang de Dieu! thou art a dead man!”
Pierre screamed out his orders: “Go—go—all of you. I order—go!”
The beast he had trained and led was of no such mind. A man called out, “Die like a man, coward!” A stone or two flew. One struck him. The storm broke out anew.
“Say thy prayers. Thou art dead. Shall I kill him, monsieur?”
“No, no; not that man—not him!”
“Mercy!” screamed Despard.
“The deuce!” laughed François. “It gets warm, monsieur. What to do with this coward? Keep still, insect!”
The mob had for a little time enough of these terrible swordsmen on the stair. It was awed, helpless. Below lay, head down or athwart, three dead men, and certain wounded, unable to crawl. The mob shrank away, and, with eyes red in the glare, swayed to and fro, indecisive, swearing. For a moment no more missiles were thrown. They awaited the expected attack from the rear of the house.
Pierre hung, a limp, inert thing, one arm on the balustrade, the thief’s strong clutch on his neck, making his shivering bulk a shield against stick and stone.
“It will soon be over,” said the marquis, quietly. “There! I thought so.”
A dull roar was heard, and the crash of broken glass from somewhere behind them.
This signal set loose the cowed mob. Clubs and stones flew. Something struck Pierre. He squealed like a hurt animal, pain and terror in the childlike cry. More men crowded in, and the mass, with shout and cry, surged forward, breaking mirrors and vases, with frantic joy in the clatter of destruction.
“It is serious this time,” cried the marquis. “Adieu, my brave fellow.” Another tapestry flared up, slowly burning. “Let us take toll, François. Come!”
“Good, monsieur! But my fool here—”
At this moment the crowd at the door divided. A dozen soldiers broke in, and with them the man of the wart—Grégoire.
“Dame!” cried François; “the Commissioner Grégoire! The wart! It is time to leave.”
“Order, here,” shouted Grégoire, “in the name of the law!” The guard pushed in and made a lane. One or two persistent rioters were collared and passed out. A dead silence fell on all. The shreds of the tapestry dropped. The mob fell back.
“Help! help!” cried Pierre.
“Morbleu! dost thou want to die?”
“It is over,” said the marquis. “I prefer my peasants.”
Grégoire called out, “Where is the mayor?” A reluctant little man appeared.
“Commissioner, these men have slain citizens,” he said.
“And they did well. France wants order. Out with you all, or I shall fire on you. Citizens indeed! See to that stuff burning.”
The peasants, awed, slunk away. Grégoire coolly mounted the stairs.
“Hold!” cried the marquis.
“I arrest thee in the name of the law! Here is my order.”
The marquis took it.
“The light is bad,” he said; “but I see it is in good form. The law I obey—and muskets”; and then, in a half-whisper to François: “Run! run! I will hold the stairs.”
Grégoire overheard him.
“The citizen émigré! I arrest him!” and he went up a step.
“Back!” cried the marquis, lunging fiercely at the too adventurous commissioner, who leaped down the stairway with the agility of alarm.
“Fire!” he cried.
“Thanks, monsieur; I can help you no more!” cried François. As he spoke, he hurled the unhappy Despard on top of the commissioner. They fell in a heap. The thief, catching up his rapier, was off and away through the drawing-room, seeing, as he went, the woman lying on the floor, her forehead streaming blood. He picked up his cloak and knapsack, and, followed by Toto, ran for his life down a long corridor to the left. At the end, he threw open a window, and dropped, with the dog under his arm, upon the roof of a portico over a side door. No one was near. He called the dog, and fled through the gardens and into the woods of the chase.