The Scourge of God: A Romance of Religious Persecution

my childhood I have been taught to worship humbly and to never know a petition unheard. Oh," she said, thrusting her hands through the great coils of golden hair that adorned her head, "oh, that I had died on the day you saved my life, that the bullet which pierced my poor _gouvernante's_ breast had found mine instead!" Profoundly touched, moved to the deepest pity and sympathy by her words--the words of one so young and fair, yet, alas! so distraught--he moved nearer to her and, unaware even, perhaps, of his action, took her hand. "Why," he said, speaking very low, yet with a voice that seemed as music in her ears, "why feel thus, suffer thus? In spite of all the dissensions between our faiths--grant even that you are no Protestant--we worship the same God though we see him with different eyes. Urbaine," he whispered, forgetting as he spoke that he had broken down the barrier of formality which had been between them until now, "if you can not pray for me to-night, can not pray that my efforts may meet with success, how can I depart and leave you here? How go, knowing that your heart is not with me?" "Not with you?" she whispered in her turn. "Not with you? Alas----" and again broke off, saying no more. "Urbaine," he continued, emboldened now to repeat softly her name, and perhaps not understanding her repetition of his words, deeming, it may be, that the repetition confirmed them, "Urbaine, your heart, your wishes must go with me, with the cause I undertake. It is the cause of peace and reconciliation, of strengthening your king's hands by winning back his subjects to him. For if this fleet can but get a foothold for its men on shore, Louis must make terms with all who are now beating him down; not only in this fair Languedoc, but over all Europe a lasting peace may ensue. A peace," he continued, still gently yet impressively, "between your land and mine. Yours and mine," he repeated, dwelling, it seemed to her, pleasantly on the coupling of their interests together--"yours and mine." For answer she only sighed, then she said a moment later: "Yet to go on this mission may mean death to you. If Montrevel or Julien caught you--O God! it sickens me to think of your peril. They might not know, might not even believe, all that you have done for me. The end would be awful." "Yet remember also that they would not know, can not know, that I am a Protestant--worse than all else within their eyes, an Englishman. And, not knowing, nothing would be suspected." "Still I fear," she answered. "Am overcome with horror and anxiety. Oh!" she exclaimed again, "oh! if your reward for your noble chivalry to me should be nothing but disaster. If--if we should never meet again." "Fear not," he said. "We shall meet again. I know it; it is borne in upon me. We shall meet again. I shall restore you to your father's arms." Yet, even as he spoke, he remembered the words that Cavalier had uttered under the seal of confidence, the words: "When she has heard what is to be told, it may be she will never seek to return to him, to set eyes on her beloved Intendant again." Remembered them and wondered what they might portend. As he did so there came into the cavern one of the Camisards, a man who had been deputed to lead him at a given time to where Cavalier was to await his coming. A guide who said briefly that the horses were prepared and ready to set forth at monsieur's pleasure, then went outside to wait for him. "Farewell, Urbaine," Martin said. "Adieu. Nay, do not weep. All will, all must be, well with you, otherwise I would not leave you. And, remember, once my task is accomplished you are free. It is for that, as for other things, in other hopes, that I go. Bid me Godspeed." It seemed, however, as if she could not let him depart. Weeping, she clung to his arm, her cheeks bedashed with the tears that ran down them, her hands clasping his. And then, overmastered by her misery, he said that to her which he had never meant to say until, at least, happier days had dawned for both--if, as he sometimes thought, he should ever dare to say it. "Urbaine," he whispered, "Urbaine, be brave; take heart; pray for me. Listen, hear my last words ere I go. I love you--have loved you since that night we sat beneath the acacias after I had saved you. I shall love you ever--till I die." * * * * * * * The moon shone out through deep inky clouds that scurried swiftly beneath her face as Martin and the guide set forth to descend to the spot where Cavalier was to await them. Up here there were no precautions necessary to be taken, since to the higher portions of the Cévennes it was impossible that any enemy could have penetrated from below. The paths that led up to the caves which formed the barracks and dwelling places of the two thousand men who now kept all Languedoc in dread and two of Louis' armies at check were of so narrow and impassable a nature that Thermopylæ itself might have acknowledged them as worthy rivals; and, even had they been less close and tortuous, were so guarded at intervals by pickets of Camisards that none could have surmounted them. Also in many places the route had been made to pass specially over terrible chasms and ravines, since, by so doing, it enabled the defenders of the passes to construct drawbridges which could be lowered or raised at their own pleasure, or, in case of necessity, destroyed altogether. Yet one precaution had been taken for their journey--a precaution never neglected by those dwellers of the mountains, in case they were forced to take to flight and desired to leave no trace behind them--their animals were shod _backward_ on their fore feet, a method which, in conjunction with the usual shoeing of the hind feet, was almost certain to baffle those who should endeavour to follow their tracks. Beneath that moon which shone fitfully from the deep masses of rain-charged clouds the two men paced in Indian file down the narrow passes, seeing as they went that which, for now many weeks, had been visible to all eyes in the province--namely, the flames of villages on fire at different points of the compass; hearing, too, as they were borne on the winds, the distant ringing of alarm bells and tocsins from many a beleaguered church and monastery. For not only did those flames spring from edifices wherein the old faith was still maintained, but also from the villages and hamlets where some Protestants continued to dwell and worship in their own manner, hoping ever for better, happier days. Already it was calculated that more than forty Romish churches had been destroyed, with, in many cases, the bourgs in which they stood; ere all was over the number was doubled. And already, also, more than that number of Protestant places of worship, with the villages around them, had been pillaged, sacked, and burned by Montrevel and Julien, while, in their case, ere all was over the number was almost trebled. Thinking of his newly declared love for Urbaine, thinking, too, of how, in whispered words, she had declared her love for him in return, of how in their last hasty embrace, which had been also their first, they had sworn deathless fidelity to each other, Martin took but little heed of those midnight sights telling of happy homes ruined forever which he had now been forced so often to gaze upon from the heights where the Camisards dwelt. He had grown accustomed to these beacons of horror, in spite of the unhappiness they caused him. But now he saw a new phase of stern justice and punishment at which he could not fail to shudder. High up upon three gibbets at the wayside by which they passed--gibbets so placed that, when their ghastly burdens should rot from the chains which held them now, they would fall down and down until they reached the bottom of the ravine a thousand feet below--there hung three corpses; swung waving to the mountain air, while ever and anon upon their white but blood-stained faces the moon glinted now and again, making those faces look as though they perspired in her rays, were clammy with sweat. And two grinned hideously in those rays, a bullet wound which had shattered the mouth of one giving to his face the appearance of a man convulsed with laughter, while the smirk of the other face was, in truth, the last grimace of the death agony. The features of the third told naught, since, from a wound in his forehead, there had run out the blood which was now caked and hardened to a mask, hiding all below. "My God!" exclaimed Martin, with a shiver, "who are they? Men caught here and executed as spys, troopers made prisoners and done to death by the avengers?" "Nay," replied the man, while he made a contemptuous gesture at the loathsome things that at the moment executed a weird fantastic movement in unison as a fresh gust of wind swept down from the mountains above, making them sway and dance to its cold breath, "nay, vagabonds, _marauds_. Murderers these, not soldiers. Those men are of our number--were of our number--Protestants--ourselves." "What, traitors?" "Ay, traitors--to humanity. Listen! They caught one, a good woman, Madame de Miramand, a Papist, yet a kindly creature who succoured all alike. Also she was young, not twenty, and beautiful. She was _en voyage_"--again Martin shuddered, thinking of another woman young and beautiful who had also been _en voyage_, and almost caught--"had with her her jewels, also her _vaisselles_. Well they slew her even as she knelt before them, stabbed her, left her to die, left her thus as she prayed God to pardon them." "Go on," Martin said, seeing that he paused. "God may pardon them," the guide said. "One, however, would not. Cavalier! We caught them, tried them; you see the sentence. It is not women _we_ war upon." As he finished, again the loathsome figures swung to the breeze, again they danced and pirouetted in their chains, while from behind a rock Cavalier himself strode forward. It was the spot that had been the meeting place appointed with the guide. "It is true," he said. "We war not with women. Let Montrevel or Julien do that. Or their master--Louis!" CHAPTER XXIII. "LOVE HER! BEYOND ALL THOUGHT! AND SHE IS THERE." With the rapidity of wildfire the news had run over all Languedoc at this time--was known, too, and shared by Catholics as well as Protestants--that the English, who once they drew the sword never sheathed it until its work was done, meditated an attack on France in a fresh place, that place being her Mediterranean seaboard, the one spot still free from their assaults up to now, also a spot more vulnerable, since there were scarce any troops to defend it, the armies of Montrevel and Julien being sufficiently occupied in endeavouring, without success, to prevent the terrible reprisals the Camisards were at last making. And now indeed the desolation of Languedoc was supreme; now, like a torch that flareth in the night, was visible an awful terror upon all of the old faith, as well as the adherents of Louis, who dwelt therein. Men of that old faith barricaded themselves in their houses, refusing to either quit them or let any of their families do so, or to receive bread into those houses in any other way than by baskets raised by cords, either for fear that they should be stabbed to the heart on their doorsteps or that they should add one more body to the many that hung upon the branches of the trees by the wayside--bodies having affixed to their dead breasts the label bearing the words, "_Tous qui tomberont entre les mains des vengeurs seront traités ainsi_." Verily, Languedoc was, as its greatest churchman, Fléchier, said, but one vast gaping wound!