JACQUES DAUBAN, in his pleasure at escaping from Antoine’s very angry threats, hurried forward to the house with Lucette, unsuspiciously, and said little beyond a word or two of rebuke for her disclosure of their mutual plan.
“You should not have said anything. It may increase the difficulty of getting rid of him.”
“But I would not have him think he could use me as a decoy.”
“It would have been safer to have told him afterwards.”
“Safer? You do not mean you are afraid of him, Jacques,” and look and tone and gesture were alike eloquent of indignant repudiation of the thought.
“Afraid of him? Indeed, no,” he replied stoutly, but with a timorous glance over his shoulder.
“If you were a coward, oh——” and her disgust was intense.
“I am no coward, but prudence is always valuable,” and in this way she plagued him till they reached the house, and as they entered the door they were met by Pascal.
Lucette gave a little cry of pretended alarm, and Dauban changed colour in alarm that was very far from pretence.
“Ah, you recognize me, I see,” said Pascal, with an ominous smile.
Dauban gazed at him a moment and then at Lucette, and in that moment the truth dawned upon him. He saw how he had been fooled, and with a cry of rage and despair, he raised his arm and rushed at Lucette to strike her. But Pascal caught his hand and thrust it back.
“Stay, little spy, stay. If you’ve a fancy for striking some one, strike me, not a girl.”
“So you are not a coward. Is this the proof?” asked Lucette. “Master Dauban has brought me to Malincourt, monsieur, in order that I may get a disguise for Mademoiselle de Malincourt, and then go with him to Crevasse to find the fugitives there and hand over M. Gerard and the monk to the soldiery after enabling miladi to escape. He will be able to get me out of the city with a permit which he has thoughtfully brought with him.”
Pascal laughed.
“You she-devil!” cried Dauban, white and trembling with his passion.
“Both you and Antoine had a frenzy to use me as a decoy; well, you have had your way—and a lesson,” and with a laugh she went away.
“You seem to have made a mess of things, spy,” said Pascal. “Give me the permit she spoke of.”
“She lied, as she has lied all through. I have no such thing.”
“Come, no nonsense,” said Pascal sternly. “Hand it over. I am in good humour as yet, and may not hurt even you. But don’t put me in a bad one.”
“What does this mean?” asked Dauban.
“That you have come back to Malincourt. Will you give me that paper or shall I have it taken from you? I think you know whether I am safe to trifle to with,” and he held out his hand.
With trembling fingers Dauban drew it from his pocket and handed it over; and Pascal called up a couple of men and gave him into their charge. Antoine he did not even trouble to see, but gave orders that he should be kept in safe custody, and then carried the permit to Gerard to consult with him as to making use of it.
Lucette first hurried to Denys, whom she found sufficiently recovered to have been able to leave his bed, and having told him all that had occurred at the Castle she went to Gabrielle.
“How calm and strong you are, Gabrielle,” she said, when the first greetings had been exchanged. “And I am in a perfect fever of restlessness.”
“We can do nothing yet but wait, Lucette.”
“But what will happen? Can’t we do something? Tell me everything that has happened. I am dying to know everything—everything.”
Gabrielle told her as shortly as she could what had occurred in the cell and afterwards in the futile attempt to escape from the city, and then the return to Malincourt.
“They think you are all at Crevasse.”
“So M. Pascal brought us word when he told us to expect you. I am so glad you have escaped, and to have you with me again. Now tell me how you managed it.”
Lucette made her recital very brief indeed, saying little or nothing of the means she had employed to cozen the two men.
“They must have been mad indeed to think you would betray me,” said Gabrielle.
“They were thinking most of the thousand crowns, and when a man’s head is set money-wards, he is most easily blinded to other things.”
“What a philosopher you are, Lucette—about men.”
“And so M. Gerard is M. Gerard still, Gabrielle, but not de Cobalt,” said Lucette, changing the subject. “How glad and proud you must feel.”
“If only this danger were over; but the suspense is racking,” replied Gabrielle, with a sigh. “Any hour, any minute may bring the Governor to Malincourt with a strong force.”
“But are we not also strong?”
“In numbers, perhaps, strong enough; but our men are virtually without arms.”
“If he comes you can hold out as long as possible and then fly.”
“Do you think he would leave us a way out?”
“What do you mean, Gabrielle?”
“Why, that Malincourt would be surrounded, of course, and every chance of escape stopped. We have indeed been considering within the last hour, whether it wouldn’t be best to risk a flight and seek concealment in the city while there is yet time.”
“Of a truth, it is well I came back,” exclaimed Lucette excitedly, jumping up. “Where are your wits, Gabrielle? They say love sharpens them in a woman and blunts them in a man; but this does not look like it.”
“Lucette!” cried Gabrielle, flushing partly in confusion at the words and partly with the gathered infection of Lucette’s excitement.
“Yes, you ought to blush for your forgetfulness when the man you love is at such a dangerous pass.”
“What do you mean?” cried Gabrielle, searching her memory vainly for some clue. “What have I forgotten?”
“Why, the passage that leads from the chapel crypt to the old burial ground and out to the woods beyond. Were the Duke’s soldiers swarming in thousands round the house, that way would still be clear for every man and woman inside to pass out in safety.”
“My wits must have been dull indeed not to think of it,” cried Gabrielle, as excited now as Lucette. “You have saved us all, Lucette. We must tell them at once. That it should have been left for you to remind me of it!”
“I have been in it: you have only heard of it; and it’s easy to remember what one’s actually seen. I’ll go for them,” and she was hurrying out when Gerard and Pascal came.
Gerard held the permit taken from Dauban, and greeted Lucette with a smile and many thanks for what she had done.
“This will clear the way for us, Gabrielle,” he said then. “We can get out of the city, and I have decided to go at once if you are willing to run the risk.”
“Ah, but Lucette has done more than bring that, Gerard. She has reminded me of what, to my shame, I had forgotten,” and she told him of the underground passage. “We can wait now in confidence for the coming of the Duke and use that permit in the last resort.”
“We are never to be out of your debt, it seems, Lucette,” said Gerard.
“Shall I go and see that the way is clear?” asked Pascal. “Perhaps Mademoiselle Lucette will show me?”
“How quick and ready-witted she is,” said Gerard, when the two had left.
“And how dull I am not to have thought of it,” replied Gabrielle. “I feel almost humiliated. Lucette hit me harder than she deemed with her words.”
“She has a sharp tongue. What said she?”
Gabrielle’s colour heightened and she smiled.
“That with you in such peril my wits should have been specially sharp; yet that very peril dulled them.”
“There is no such peril. I have no doubt as to the end. See, we have first the chance that the Governor may not discover our presence here until it is too late for him to force us to yield before my cousin gets up from Cambrai. Next, we have means of resistance for some hour or two at worst. Then we have the means to get from Malincourt should he drive us out. Then again, we have this permit to pass the city gates. And besides, we have yet to see that he will dare to resist me when he knows that I am here in Bourbon’s name. I have no fears of the issue; my distress is that you have had to endure so much.”
“But don’t you know we women like such trials, Gerard, even if our hearts are not so stout to face them as yours? It is for you I fear—yet not fear; I have too much confidence in you. Besides, there is always a last resource.”
“We are very far from any last resource,” he answered cheerily. “But what is the one you have in mind?”
“It is I who am the cause of all, Gerard; and in the last extreme I could avert all ill even from you.”
“We would die here in Malincourt one by one before that sacrifice could even be thought of, Gabrielle,” he answered earnestly. “Do you think there is a man of us Bourbons who would purchase his life at such a price?”
“I would let no harm come to you,” she answered, her tone as resolute as his.
“How you must love me,” he whispered tenderly, taking her in his arms and kissing her. “You would suffer worse than death for me; but you shall do better than that, dearest, you shall live for me.”
“Pray God it may be so; but this Governor is a hard enemy.”
“And we Bourbons are no easy ones. But how sweet to me this thought of your infinite love.” She smiled up to him and whispered with rueful self-reproach—
“Yet it could not spur my wits to remember what Lucette thought of on the instant.”
“Lucette is not as my Gabrielle. Her heart is under the discipline of her judgment.”
“And mine is all in all to me—all I have to live for; or so it seems almost. I cannot understand this sweet wild change in me. I am as one in a dream when I think of you, Gerard; self-centred, absorbed, self-lost. I had not thought it possible—for me. And yet that great blank past, when you were not in my life, is but a few hours ago. I seem to have stepped out of the wilderness with a single stride into a world all rich and lovely with delight. And it is real.”
“It shall always be real to us, dearest.”
“When these other shadows are past,” she sighed. “But they will pass I know. If I have my moods of doubt it is only the dread lest the dream shall be broken and I shall lose you.”
“Nothing shall part us, Gabrielle, not even death,” he declared earnestly.
“No. Not even death. For if I lost you, I should die. I should wish to die, indeed. And it is that which fills me with courage and energy to fight out with fight and conquer.”
“Spoken as I would have my Gabrielle speak and think,” he said.
Some one came then saying that Babillon was asking for Gabrielle, and he was brought in to them.
“You have some news, Babillon?” asked Gabrielle.
“I have not been idle, miladi. The news of your trouble has roused the burghers of the city, and at a word from you they will rise in your defence.”
“Have you said aught that mademoiselle is here?” asked Gerard quickly.
“No, my lord. The tale has spread from the Castle that you have all escaped from the city and are hiding in the hills to the north. That miladi should be thus driven to such extremities to avoid the persecutions of the Governor has caused the present tumult, and I am supposed to be able to communicate with her. Miladi has many adherents even among the troops of the Governor, and from them has gone abroad the story of her wrongs. The burghers have long had their bitter grievances and have been arming themselves; and now this last news is like to act as tinder to dry shavings and kindle the flame.”
“I would that we had but some of their arms here in Malincourt,” exclaimed Gerard. “It would save all other anxieties. Could you get us muskets and powder and ball, Babillon, think you?”
“Alone, I am helpless. A word from miladi would do all; but that might involve the disclosure of her presence here.”
“It is worth any risk,” said Gerard decisively. “If there is to be fighting, it can best be done from behind these walls.”
“There must be no rising in the city, Babillon,” said Gabrielle.
“Indignation, on the top of wrongs so long endured, burns very strong, and is spreading like a forest fire, miladi.”
“It will be useless and worse, far worse than useless. Men untrained to fighting, lacking in leaders, and ill armed, cannot prevail against the Duke’s soldiers. The citizens would be massacred and their houses sacked. It must not be,” she declared.
“It need not be, if Babillon can but get the arms we want to Malincourt. How soon could you do this?” asked Gerard anxiously.
“We could get all in readiness, and as soon as night falls to give the cover of darkness they could be brought here.”
“By nightfall,” exclaimed Gerard in a tone of disappointment.
“My lord, it would be hopeless to make such an attempt in daylight with the city overrun as it is by troops.”
“Stay, let me suggest,” said Gabrielle. “Push on the preparations, Babillon, to do my lord’s wish, and if aught should occur to spoil the venture and we should have to abandon Malincourt, have prepared some place where we can lie hid, safely protected by the men of the city, until the danger has passed.”
“A shrewd thought,” said Gerard readily. “And now come with me, and we will perfect the plan for getting the arms. I will speak with Dubois and Pascal,” he added to Gabrielle, and led Babillon away.
Dubois was found and a long conference followed, to which Pascal, who had been strenuously engaged in clearing the secret passage, was presently called.
Both Pascal and Dubois agreed in urging that the citizens should be encouraged to rise, but Gerard, in deference to the wish Gabrielle had expressed, would not agree, and the utmost he would yield was that Dubois should go with Babillon, taking with him written authority from Gabrielle to consult with the chief burghers on the whole position, to judge the chances of success, and to offer himself as a leader of any movement. But he was to sanction no revolt without first communicating with Gerard; and his chief efforts in the meantime were to be bent upon getting the arms and ammunition so sorely needed.
The gruff old soldier protested that it was no more than a one-handed scheme.
“We cannot fight a man like this Governor with one hand in irons, and that the sword-hand,” he said. “A rising to-night in the city would mean everything to us here. There might be bloodshed it is true; but blood has been shed before and will be shed again in many a worse cause. Nor could anything really serious happen before d’Alembert reaches the city.”
“We will fight if we are forced in self-defence, Dubois, but we will not force the fighting from our side,” was Gerard’s reply. “This is Mademoiselle de Malincourt’s matter more than ours, and her will must prevail.”
“It will fail, my lord,” was the answer bluntly spoken.
“Then we’ll try something else that will succeed. I am quite resolved. Let it be as I say.”
“So much for a woman’s leadership,” growled Dubois to Pascal as he was starting with Babillon.
“He might take another view if he’d had as much married experience as you,” laughed Pascal.
“If he lives to marry her,” was the gloomy response. “To think he should sacrifice a chance like this for the sake of a squeamish girl.”
“Get those arms, man, and we may have yet a tough bout or two here,” but Dubois shook his head discontentedly. Pascal looked after him and shrugged his shoulders, as he muttered to himself: “Your husband never sees the same light in a pair of bright eyes as your lover. Save me from marrying, say I, Pascal de la Tour.”
A soft laugh broke in on his soliloquy, and he turned to find Lucette looking at him, her face severely demure but her eyes dancing with quizzical light.
“Are you then in danger, monsieur?” she asked in a tone of deep solicitude.
“Any man might well be at such short range as this,” he answered, meeting her gaze and laughing. “So you heard me?”
“I heard you calling on some one else to save you from some dreadful fate, and the thought of any one in deep trouble appeals to me.”
“Danger it might be and yet not deep trouble. I can well imagine there would be compensations—when I look at you. You’re a born coquette, I fear, Lucette. I shall have to read you a lecture or two.”
“The experience of professors in any art is always to be welcomed, monsieur.”
“Do Dauban and de Cavannes agree in that? They’ve had a pretty fair taste of the experience, at any rate,” he laughed.
“Do you rate yourself on the same footing with them?”
“In your eyes, do you mean?”
“They are canaille, Monsieur Pascal.”
“Some fishermen are so keen at the sport that when they can’t hook the trout they are glad to take the minnows.”
“And some minnows are so self-ignorant they do not know they are not salmon,” she retorted, with a flash of the eyes.
“A fair hit, mademoiselle. Shall we cry a truce?”
“I came to ask what has been decided?”
“Babillon has been here”—and he told her what had passed.
“Ah, you soldiers always want to be killing something or somebody,” she answered. “Gabrielle is right. She is always right. She will be able to escape to this hiding place at any moment and can lie hid in safety till the storm passes. Men never think a woman can be right except when she says ditto to what they may decide.”
“Until I met you I may have held to some such heresy. But did we not cry a truce? I am waving the white flag of surrender.”
“You are very provoking, Monsieur Pascal.”
“And you are very charming, Mademoiselle Lucette.”
At this moment a soldier came hurrying to them.
“Another messenger has arrived from the Castle, Lieutenant. We managed to mislead him long enough to get him to deliver his message. He reports that the hunt for the fugitives at Crevasse has proved fruitless; the men have returned from there to the Castle empty-handed and he was despatched at once to ascertain whether anything had been seen of them here.”
“Well?”
“We were sending him back with a message that all was quiet here when his suspicions were aroused and we had to detain him like the rest.”
“Did you question him?” asked Pascal, looking very grave.
“Yes, monsieur. He would say but little; he made a dash to escape and when we stopped him, declared that there would be plenty of his comrades here to know why he had not returned.”
“Keep him safe. That is all,” said Pascal; and when the man had gone he turned to Lucette. “The beginning of the end, mademoiselle. We shall soon know now which plan is right, the soldier’s or the woman’s?”
They carried the ominous news to Gerard, who was with Gabrielle.
“It had to come some time,” said Gerard. “Thank God it hasn’t come earlier. Have all in readiness, Pascal, to close the house the moment there is any sign of the Duke’s approach.”
And when all had been made ready against a surprise, they waited, all filled with anxiety for what was to follow.
They had not long to wait. In less than a hour the men on the look-out reported the approach of a strong party of troops, and Gerard and Pascal hurried away to decide upon the next step.