CHAPTER XXX
THE STRATEGY OF WAR
Fanciful as it appeared to him, Martin-Guerre's hope was realized nevertheless. When Gabriel after a thousand narrow escapes reached the forest where Baron de Vaulpergues was awaiting him, the first face that he saw was that of his squire, and the first words he uttered were, "Martin-Guerre!"
"Here I am, Monseigneur," was the squire's reply, in a steady voice.
This Martin-Guerre needed nobody to advise or urge him to be impudent.
"Were you much ahead of me, Martin?" asked Gabriel.
"I have been here an hour, Monseigneur."
"Have you really? But it seems to me that you have changed your dress, for surely you hadn't on that doublet when you left me three hours ago."
"No, Monseigneur; I obtained this one of a peasant who was more appropriately dressed than I, as I thought, and gave him mine in exchange."
"Very well! and you had no unfortunate encounter?"
"Not one, Monseigneur."
"Quite the contrary," said the Baron de Vaulpergues, coming up to them, "for the blackguard, when he arrived here, was accompanied by a very charming little maiden, upon my word,—a Flemish vivandière, so far as we could judge from her speech. She seemed to be very sad, poor creature; but he very roughly though with much discretion dismissed her at the edge of the forest before coming to this spot, despite her tears.
"Now, Monsieur d'Exmès," he continued, "if your idea and the admiral's agree with mine, we shall not start for half an hour. It is not yet midnight; and in my judgment we ought not to reach St. Quentin till toward three o'clock. That is the time when sentinels get weary and relax their vigilance somewhat. Don't you think with me, Monsieur le Vicomte?"
"Most decidedly I do; and Monsieur de Coligny's instructions are in perfect accord with your opinion. At three in the morning he will expect us; and we ought to arrive then if we are ever to arrive."
"Oh, we shall get there, Monseigneur, allow me to assure you!" said Arnauld-Martin. "I made good use of my opportunity to examine the surroundings of the Walloon camp when I came by; and I can guide you by that road as safely as if I had been in the neighborhood for a fortnight."
"This is most marvellous, Martin!" cried Gabriel,—"such wonders accomplished in so short a time! Why, I shall have as much confidence henceforth in your intelligence as in your loyalty!"
"Oh, Monseigneur, if you will rely on my zeal and my discretion, I ask for nothing more!"
The crafty fellow's plot was so well contrived, and so favored by luck and his audacity, that since Gabriel's arrival the impostor had spoken nothing but the truth.
While Gabriel and Vaulpergues were deliberating aside as to what road they should take, he, for his part, was completing the details of his plan, so as not to interfere with the miraculous chances which had served him so well thus far.
This is what actually occurred. Arnauld, having escaped with Gudule's assistance from the camp where he was held a prisoner, had prowled about in the neighboring woods for eighteen hours, not daring to leave their shelter for fear of falling into the hands of the enemy. Toward evening he thought that he saw in the forest of Angimont the tracks of horsemen who must, he judged, be anxious to keep out of sight, or they would not have resorted to such impracticable paths. Therefore they must be Frenchmen lying in ambush, so Arnauld tried to overtake them, and succeeded. It was then that he dismissed Gudule with all possible speed; and the poor child returned, weeping, to the tents, expecting, no doubt, to find another lover there to take the place of the one she had lost. The first one of Vaulpergues's soldiers whom Arnauld fell in with called him Martin-Guerre; and for very good reasons he did not undeceive him. Listening with all his ears, and saying very little himself, he soon learned everything. Vicomte d'Exmès was expected to return that very night, after having notified the admiral at St. Quentin of Vaulpergues's approach, and bringing with him the necessary plans and instructions to facilitate throwing the detachment into the place. Martin-Guerre was with him, they said; so they naturally took Arnauld to be Martin, and questioned him about his master.
"He will soon be here," was his reply. "We came by different roads."
In his own mind he was considering what a fine thing it would be for him if he could attach himself to Gabriel. In the first place, his means of subsistence in these hard times would be assured; then he knew that his master, the constable, at present Philibert Emmanuel's prisoner, was suffering less, possibly, from the disgrace of his defeat and captivity than from the thought that his detested rival, the Duc de Guise, would soon be omnipotent at court, and would exercise unbounded influence over the king's mind. To dog the steps of a friend of Guise, then, would be to establish himself at the very fountain-head of information, which he could sell at a high price to the constable. Last of all, was not Gabriel personally an enemy of the Montmorencys, and the principal obstacle in the way of the marriage of Duc François with Madame de Castro?
Arnauld remembered all this, but could not avoid the reflection at the same time that the return of the true Martin-Guerre to his master's side might well upset all his fine plans. In order to avoid being convicted of imposture, he lay in wait for Gabriel's coming, hoping to be able to keep the credulous Martin-Guerre out of the way, or to get rid of him altogether. Imagine his delight, then, when Gabriel came up to him alone, and at once recognized him as his squire. Arnauld had spoken the truth without knowing it. After that he left everything to chance, and relying upon his patron the devil having led poor Martin into the toils of the Spaniards, he boldly assumed the rôle of the absentee, in which he succeeded admirably, as we have seen.
Meanwhile the conference between Gabriel and Vaulpergues came to an end; and when the three detachments were under arms, and ready to start on their respective routes, Arnauld insisted on accompanying Gabriel on the road which led by the Walloon camp. It was the road which the real Martin-Guerre was to have taken; and if they should happen to meet him, Arnauld wanted to be on the spot, so that he might make him disappear, or disappear himself, as need required.
But they passed the camp without seeing anything of Martin; and the thought of that trifling danger was soon lost sight of in the more serious peril which awaited him, as well as Gabriel and the little band of whom they made part, before the closely invested walls of St. Quentin.
Within the town the anxiety was no less acute, as may well be imagined; for the salvation or destruction of all depended almost entirely on the bold coup-de-main to be undertaken by Gabriel and Vaulpergues. So at two o'clock in the morning the admiral in person made the round of the points agreed upon between himself and Gabriel, enjoining upon the picked men, who were posted as sentinels at these important spots, the most watchful attention. Then he mounted to the belfry tower, whence he could overlook the whole town and all the neighborhood; and there, dumb and motionless, scarcely breathing, he listened in the silence, and looked out upon the night. But he heard only the deadened, far-off sound of the Spanish miners and the French counterminers; he saw naught but the tents of the enemy, and, farther away, the gloomy forest of Origny standing darkly out in the black night.
Unable to overcome his restlessness, the admiral determined to go to the spot where the fate of St. Quentin was to be decided. He came down from the tower, and on horseback, attended by several officers, rode to the Boulevard de la Reine, and up to one of the posterns at which Vaulpergues might be expected, and waited, standing on an angle of the ramparts.
Just as three o'clock was striking from La Collégiale, the hoot of an owl was heard from the heart of the marshes of the Somme.
"God be praised! there they are!" cried the admiral.
Monsieur du Breuil, at a sign from Coligny, using his hands as a speaking-trumpet, imitated distinctly the cry of the osprey.
Then a deathly silence followed. The admiral and his companions stood as if made of stone, their ears on the alert, and their hearts heating fast.
Suddenly a musket-shot was heard in the direction from which the cry had come; and almost at the same moment there was a general discharge, accompanied by sharp cries and a terrible uproar.
The first detachment was discovered.
"A hundred brave men gone already!" cried the admiral.
He came rapidly down from the boulevard, remounted his horse, and without another word rode in the direction of the Boulevard St. Martin, where he expected another part of Vaulpergues's company.
There he was seized again with the same anguish of soul. Gaspard de Coligny at this moment resembled a gambler who has staked his fortune upon three casts of the dice: the first cast was lost; what luck awaited him in the second?
Alas! the same cry was heard outside the ramparts, and the same answer made from the town; then, as if this second scene were merely a fatal repetition of the first, a sentinel gave the alarm again, and the rattle of musketry and the heart-rending shrieks told the terrified people of St. Quentin that a second combat—say rather, a second butchery had occurred.
"Two hundred martyrs!" said Coligny, in a grief-stricken voice.
And again throwing himself upon his horse, in two minutes he was at the postern of the faubourg, which was the third of the posts agreed upon between Gabriel and himself. He rode so quickly that he was the first man on the rampart; and his officers joined him there one by one. But listen as eagerly as they might, they could hear nothing but the groans of the dying in the distance and the shouts of the victors.
The admiral thought that all was lost. The enemy's camp was aroused. There could not be a Spanish soldier who was not awake now. He who was in command of the third party might well have thought best not to march right upon such deadly peril, and had probably withdrawn without hazarding a blow. Thus the third and last throw had failed the ruined gambler. Coligny kept saying to himself that very probably the last detachment had been surprised with the second, and that the noise of the two massacres had been combined.
A tear—a burning tear of despair and rage—rolled down the admiral's swarthy cheek. In a few hours the people, discouraged anew by this last calamity, would demand in loud tones that the place be surrendered; and even were they not to make such a demand, Gaspard de Coligny no longer deceived himself with the hope that with troops so exhausted and demoralized as his, the first assault would not open the gates of St. Quentin and of France to the Spaniards. And surely the assault would not be long in coming, and the signal for it would probably be given as soon as day broke, if not even at once during the darkness, while these thirty thousand men, bursting with pride over the slaughter of three hundred, were still drunk with their magnificent exploit.
As if to confirm Coligny's apprehensions, Du Breuil, the governor of the town, uttered the word alerte in his ear in a stifled voice; and as he turned toward him, he pointed out a body of men in the moat, dark and noiseless, who seemed to be marching out of the darkness toward the postern.
"Are they friends or foes?" asked Du Breuil, in a low voice.
"Silence!" whispered the admiral; "let us be on our guard in any event."
"How can they make so little noise?" said the governor. "I seem to see horses, and yet there is not a sound, and the very earth seems deadened beneath their steps! Really, they seem like phantoms!"
The superstitious Du Breuil crossed himself as a precautionary measure; but Coligny, grave and thoughtful, carefully watched the dumb black mass without fear and without sign of emotion.
When the new-comers were hardly fifty paces away, Coligny himself mimicked the cry of the osprey.
The hoot of the owl replied.
Thereupon the admiral, beside himself with joy, rushing to the guard at the postern, ordered it to be opened immediately; and a hundred horsemen, enveloped, men and beasts, in ample black cloaks, rode into the town without a sound. Then it could be seen that the hoofs of the horses, which beat so softly upon the ground, were wrapped in pieces of cloth filled with sand. It was due to their adoption of this expedient, which was suggested to them only when the two other detachments had been betrayed by the noise they made, that the third party had succeeded in making their way in unobstructed; and the man who had thought of this expedient, and who was in command of the party, was no other than Gabriel.
It was a small matter, no doubt, this reinforcement of a hundred men; but it would suffice to keep the two threatened positions defended for a few days, and, above all, it was the first happy circumstance of this siege, which had been so fruitful in disasters. The news of such good augury went through the town like the wind. Doors were thrown open, windows illuminated, and universal acclamations welcomed Gabriel and his men as they passed.
"No, no!—no rejoicing," said Gabriel, gravely and sadly. "Remember the two hundred poor fellows who fell down there."
He raised his hat as if to salute the heroic dead, among whom was the noble Vaulpergues.
"Yes," responded Coligny, "we pity them and honor them. But, Monsieur d'Exmès, what shall we say to you? How shall we thank you? At least, my friend, let me fold you in my arms, for you have already twice saved St. Quentin."
But Gabriel, pressing his hand warmly, again rejoined,—
"Monsieur l'Amiral, tell me that in ten days' time.”