The Scourge of God: A Romance of Religious Persecution

"I will answer you," said Martin quietly still--so quietly, yet ominously, that, had the man before him not been a soldier, he would have been well advised to flee from out the yard. "But it must be later; when I have stretched you at my feet for your insolence. You shall have the explanation when I have paid you back that blow, when your soul is hurrying to join your victims of this morning." His blood was up now. The abusive words of the soldier; the sting of the heavy gauntlet still upon his cheek; perhaps, though that he scarce recognized, the feeling of hate against this swashbuckler for having dared to dream of loving Urbaine--all combined to make him resolute to kill the man before him. Also the horror, the disgust, that every effort he had made, every danger he had run, should be subjected to such misinterpretation, added to the accusation, if any addition were needed, that doubtless he had murdered her. For the first time in the course of this unholy war his weapon was unsheathed, about to be used. It should not find its scabbard again till it was wet with this man's life blood. "Have I been mistaken?" the soldier said, astonished by his words, above all by his calm. "Made some strange error?" "You have. No greater in your life than that foul blow. Put up your weapon before you, or I run you through as you stand here. Quick, _en garde_. I am neither 'woman, babe, nor _vieillard_.'" "If it must be, it must----" "It must!" "_Soit!_ If you will have it so." The yard was large enough for any pair of _escrimeurs_ to make fair play in, yet had it been smaller it would have well sufficed, as the dragoon found. Found that he had his master here before him, a man in whose hands he was a child; a fencer who would not let him move from the spot he was on, except backward slowly to the wall. And that not by his own desire, but because the iron wrist in front of him rendered resistance to its owner's will impossible. Sword-play such as this he had never known, nor an adversary who parried every thrust as he made it, yet never lunged himself, reserving, doubtless, all his strength for that lunge at last. Strength to thrust through muscle and chest-wall the blade which would pierce his heart. He felt that he was doomed. There rose before him an old _manoir_ with a window high up in a _tourelle_, a window from which he knew that, even now, a gray-haired, sad-eyed woman--his mother!--watched as she had often watched for his coming. Ah, well, he would never appear again to gladden her. Never, never, through all the years that she might live. Never! There was a click, a tic-tac of steel against steel that told him his reflections were but too true and just, that the gray-haired woman's chance of ever seeing him again would be gone in a few seconds now. Also he experienced that feeling which every swordsman has known more than once, the feeling that the wrist of the opponent is preparing the way for the deadly lunge, the feeling that his own guard is being pressed down with horrible, devilish force, that the lightning thrust will be through him in a moment. For a moment he was saved, his agony prolonged by an interruption. Two men--warders--had appeared on the roof of the gate, and, seeing what was going on below, stood there watching the play of the swords. Joking and jeering, too, about his incompetency in spite of the scarlet and gold he wore, bidding him take heart; that soon it would be over; also that the pain was not great after the first bite of the steel. And disturbed, agitated, he but clumsily endeavoured to guard himself from that awful pressure, knowing that the thrust must come directly. Astonished, he found it did not do so. Instead, the pressure relaxed. A moment later his adversary spoke to him. "Those fellows agitate you. Take breath," and the dreaded blade was still. Soon both weapons were unlocked. "You are very noble," the dragoon said. "I--I--no matter. Let us continue," and muttered to himself, "as well now as three moments later," preparing for the death he knew was to be his. Or rather thought was to be his, not dreaming that it would never be dealt to him by the calm and apparently implacable swordsman before him. For Martin, his blood cooling as he learned how poor a foeman he was opposed to, a swordsman unworthy of his steel, had resolved to dismiss him, strike up his weapon and give him his life, with some contemptuous words added to the gift. Not understanding, however, all that was in the brain of the man who, as a boy, had been sent across the Alps from Paris to the best _maestri di scherma_ of Padua and Florence to learn all they could teach in the use of small arms; not knowing this, the other prepared himself for his fate, seeing now that the men on the roof jeered and fleered no longer; instead, stared with a look of apprehension at the entrance to the yard. Started, too, at a voice which Martin heard, as the others heard. "Strike up that man's guard," the voice cried. "Secure him. For you, Montglas, touch him not at your peril. Arrest the English spy." The voice of Baville! As Martin knew well enough ere, contemptuously disarming the dragoon by a _flanconnade_, he turned and faced the Intendant. The man whose child he had saved, yet who now denounced him as an English spy; who had learned by some means that he was a subject of France's bitterest foe. Behind him there stood six Croatian Cravates, part of the Intendant's guards, swarthy fellows whose very name caused tremblings to all in France, though they themselves had trembled once before Prince Eugene's soldiers, and were to tremble again as Marlborough hedged them in with English steel later--men who now advanced to seize the English spy. "Take his sword from him," Baville said. "If he resists, knock him on the head. Yet spare his life. That is mine to deal with." For a moment the glittering blade flashed ominously before the Croatians; glittered, too, before Baville's eyes. Then the point was lowered to the ground, and Martin spoke. "What," he asked calmly, "do these orders mean?" "Mean?" echoed Baville. "Mean! You ask _me_ that? They mean that you are in my hands. That to-morrow you die." "Upon what charge?" "Bah! I equivocate not with such as you," and he turned to go. "Nay," he exclaimed violently, looking round as Martin again addressed him. "Speak not. I require no answer. If you reply I shall forget that I am the King's Intendant, shall remember only that you are the murderer of my child, shall bid these men despatch you here upon this spot." "The--murderer--of--your--child!" Martin repeated. "Of--of----" "Of Urbaine Ducaire." "You believe that?" "Believe it? I know it. This man whom but now you attempted to slay, le Baron de Montglas, saw you drag her from her carriage, carry her off. Enough. Answer me not. Take him," he said to the Croatians, "to the citadel." Then, once more addressing Martin, he said, his voice calm now, his tones gentle: "To-morrow you will have your chance to speak, even you, an English spy, you, the murderer of an innocent woman, will not be condemned unheard. The Court will sit at the earliest moment possible." "What if I tell you that Urbaine Ducaire lives, is well, happy? What then?" As Martin spoke he saw the handsome face of the Intendant flush, the dark olive complexion become suffused with a warm glow, the dark, full eyes sparkle beneath their long black lashes. Saw, too, that he took a step forward toward him, whispering, "Lives--is happy!" Next, turned away again with a movement of contempt. "What then!" he exclaimed, once more addressing Martin. "What then! What, you ask, should I say or do? Say it is a lie, such as you told before, only of five thousand times a deeper dye--a lie such as the lie you uttered when you proclaimed yourself a _propriétaire_ of the North. Shall do that which no power on earth, not Louis' own, can prevent. Slay you as I have sworn a thousand times to do if ever by God's grace I had you in my hands again." At the feet of the soldiers there was a clang--the clang of Martin's sword as he flung it on the paved stable-yard. "Bid your bravoes pick it up," he said. "For yourself, do with me what you choose. It will never be sheathed by me again till you have heard my story before the Court you speak of. Packed as it may be, packed as all the courts of Languedoc have been by Monsieur l'Intendant from the beginning, packed by every one of your creatures whom you can gather round you, they shall all hear to-morrow morning my story, if I am not done to death ere I can tell it." "Lies, bravado, will avail you nothing. Le Baron Montglas is witness against you. Come," he said, turning to that person. "Come." And he strode from out the stable-yard after bidding the Cravates to follow with their prisoner. Yet when he was alone in the house which he occupied at Nîmes his mind was ill at ease. Ill at ease because, in the calm bearing of this prisoner, in the contempt which that prisoner had shown for him and his authority as he flung his sword at his feet, he saw something which was neither guilt nor fear. Instead, contempt and scorn. Also he had said "Urbaine Ducaire lives, is well, happy," and in saying it had spoken as one speaks who utters truth. Yet how could he believe that such as this could be possible? Montglas, whose life had been at this man's mercy as he entered the stable-yard, had seen the other in the _mêlée_, had seen him tear Urbaine from the coach, lift her on to his horse, ride off with her. To what, to where? To death, to the mountains where the Protestants sheltered. And, if further confirmation was needed, had he not caused to be brought before him one who had escaped from the massacre of the Château St. Servas, one who plainly told how ere the Camisards attacked the castle disguised as royalists, this man, the Englishman as he now knew him to be, had brought Urbaine there, to wait doubtless for his accomplices? Also that very day he had heard, had been told by some who had returned from Cette, that among the Cévenoles who had been on the beach waiting for the landing of the English, this man had been recognised. His own spies had seen him; there could be no possibility of doubt. "Yet if, after all, they should be wrong," he mused to himself; "if, after all, Montglas, the escaped one from St. Servas, the spy, should be deceived! Or, not being deceived, Urbaine should still live! What then? What if in truth he has in some manner managed to protect her, to save her! What then?" Even as he muttered these words, these surmises, he wiped the heat drops from his brow. For--and now almost he prayed that this man might be lying--if all were wrong in what they accused him of, if instead of leading Urbaine to her death he had saved, protected her, all the same he was doomed. Doomed beyond hope! He had communicated with Paris, with Chamillart, with the woman who ruled the King, had asked for information about this stranger who stated that he was a kinsman of the de Rochebazons in search for one who was the De Rochebazon himself, and not a week since had received in return his orders from Paris. Orders written by De Maintenon's own private secretary to arrest the man, to put him on trial as an English spy found in France during a time of war, orders to have him condemned and executed without appeal--his nationality, which was undoubted, to be the justification for that execution. And again, as he remembered this, Baville almost prayed that Martin's words might not be true, prayed that, if they were true and Urbaine still lived and was safe, _he_ at least might not prove to be her saviour.