CHAPTERXVIII
BETWEEN TWO CHASMS
The Risbank fort, which on account of its eight faces was also called the Octagonal Tower, was built, as we have said, at the entrance of Calais Harbor, in front of the sand-dunes; and its black and frowning mass of granite towered aloft upon another mass, as forbidding and quite as colossal, of solid cliff.
The sea, when the tide was high, broke against the cliff, but never touched the lowest courses of the stone walls of the fort.
Now, the sea was running very high and very threateningly on the night of the 4th of January, 1558, and toward four o'clock in the morning of the 5th it gave forth that resounding but mournful moaning which makes it resemble an ever restless and despairing soul.
Suddenly, a short time after the sentinel who was stationed upon the platform of the tower from two o'clock to four had been relieved by him whose tour of duty ran from four to six, a sound like a human cry, as if uttered by lungs of brass, made itself distinctly heard amid the tempest, over the moaning of the sea.
Then the newly arrived sentry might have been seen to start, listen attentively, and lean his cross-bow against the wall, after he had made sure of the source of this strange sound. Next, when he had satisfied himself that no eye was upon him, he lifted, with a mighty arm, his sentry-box from the rock, and drew from beneath it a pile of rope which assumed the shape of a long knotted ladder, which he securely fastened to the pieces of iron fixed in the battlements.
Finally he attached the various pieces of rope firmly together, and lowered them over the walls, when two heavy pieces of lead quickly carried the ends down upon the rock on which the fort was built.
The ladder was two hundred and twelve feet long, and the fort two hundred and fifteen feet high.
Scarcely had he completed his mysterious operation when the night patrol appeared at the top of the steps leading to the platform. As the sentinel was standing near his box, the patrol asked and received the countersign, and passed on without noticing anything out of the regular course.
The sentinel, much relieved in his mind, anxiously awaited what was to follow. It was already quarter past four.
At the foot of the cliff was a boat manned by fourteen men, who, after more than two hours of hard and almost superhuman labor, had succeeded in reaching the Risbank fort. A wooden ladder was placed against the cliff. It reached up to a sort of excavation in the rock, were five or six men might stand at once.
One by one, and in absolute silence, the bold adventurers mounted the ladder from the boat, and without stopping at the excavation, continued clambering up the cliff, using both their feet and hands, and taking advantage of every inequality in the face of the rock.
Their purpose was to reach the foot of the tower. But the darkness was intense, and the rock slippery; their fingers were torn and bleeding, and one of them lost his footing, and rolled helplessly down until he fell into the sea.
Luckily the last of the fourteen men was still in the boat, trying vainly to make her fast before trusting himself to the ladder.
The man who had fallen, and who had had the forethought and courage not to utter a cry as he fell, swam vigorously toward the boat. The other lent him a hand, and despite the pitching of the boat under his feet, had the satisfaction of rescuing him safe and sound.
"What! is it you, Martin-Guerre?" said he, thinking that he recognized him in the darkness.
"It is myself, I admit, Monseigneur," said the squire.
"How came you to slip, bungler?" asked Gabriel.
"It was much better that it should have happened to me than to another," said Martin.
"Why?"
"Because anybody else would have made an outcry," replied Martin.
"Well, since you are here," said Gabriel, "help me pass this rope around that great root. I very foolishly sent Anselme ahead with the others."
"The root will not hold, Monseigneur," said Martin: "the least shock will pull it up, and the boat will be destroyed and we shall be carried away with it."
"There is nothing else to be done," rejoined Gabriel; "so let us set about it without more ado."
When they had made the boat fast as well as they could, Gabriel said to his squire,—
"Come, up with you!"
"After you, Monseigneur; otherwise who will hold the ladder?"
"Go up, I tell you!" repeated Gabriel, stamping his foot impatiently.
The time was not propitious for argument or formality. Martin-Guerre mounted as far as the excavation in the cliff, and from that elevation held the uprights of the ladder with all his strength while Gabriel ascended in his turn.
His foot was on the topmost round when a powerful wave struck the boat, broke the rope, and carried ladder and skiff out to sea.
Gabriel would have been lost save for Martin, who, at the risk of dying with him, leaned over the abyss with a motion quicker than thought, and seized his master by the collar of his doublet; then, with all the energy of despair, the brave fellow drew Gabriel up to where he was standing on the rock, as unharmed as himself.
"Now you have saved my life, my gallant Martin," said Gabriel.
"Yes; but the boat has gone," returned the squire.
"Bah! As Anselme says, it is paid for," said Gabriel, with a carelessness assumed to hide his anxiety.
"That's very well!" said the cautious Martin-Guerre, shaking his head; "but if your friend doesn't happen to be doing his turn of duty up there, or if the ladder isn't hanging from the tower, or if it breaks under our weight, or if the platform is occupied by a force stronger than ours,—why, then all chance of retreat, all hope of safety, has gone from us with that cursed boat."
"Well, so much the better," said Gabriel; "for now we must succeed or die."
"So be it!" said Martin, with heroic simplicity.
"Come!" Gabriel rejoined; "our companions ought already to be at the foot of the tower, for I can no longer hear them. Be careful about your footing this time, Martin, and never let go with one hand until you have a firm hold with the other."
"Never fear; I will do my best," said Martin.
They began the perilous ascent; and after the lapse of ten minutes, during which they had overcome innumerable difficulties and dangers, they rejoined their twelve companions, who were anxiously awaiting them, grouped together on the cliff at the foot of the Risbank fort.
The third quarter past four had come and gone. Gabriel, with inexpressible joy, spied the rope ladder hanging against the wall.
"Do you see that, my friends?" he said, in a whisper, to his little party. "We are expected up there. Thank God for it, for we can no longer look behind; the sea has carried away our boat. So, forward, my brave fellows; and may God protect us!"
"Amen!" said Lactance, solemnly.
Indeed it was necessary that these should be determined and resolute men who stood around Gabriel at this crisis; for the enterprise, which had been rash enough up to that point, seemed to become almost insane, and yet not a man stirred at the terrible news that all hope of retreat had been cut off.
Gabriel, in the gloomy light which falls even from the darkest sky, scanned their hardy features, and found them quite devoid of emotion.
They all repeated after him,—
"Forward!"
"You remember the order agreed upon," said Gabriel: "you are to go first, Yvonnet; then Martin-Guerre; then each one in his proper order until it comes my turn; and I shall be the last to mount the ladder. The ropes and knots are firmly fastened, I trust!"
"The ropes are as strong as iron, Monseigneur," said Ambrosio; "we have tried them, and they will bear thirty as safely as fourteen."
"Go on, then, brave Yvonnet!" continued Gabriel; "you have by no means the least dangerous part of the enterprise. Off you go, and be of good heart!"
"My courage never fails, Monseigneur," said Yvonnet, "especially when the drums are beating and the guns roaring; but I confess that I am no better accustomed to noiseless assaults than to swaying cordage; therefore I am very glad to go first, so as to have the others behind me."
"A very modest reason for making sure of the post of honor!" said Gabriel, who did not choose to enter upon a dangerous discussion. "Come, no more excuses! Although the wind and sea drown our words, we must act and not talk. Forward, Yvonnet! and remember that you must not stop to rest until you reach the one hundred and fiftieth round. Are you ready,—musket on your back and sword between your teeth? Look up, not down; and think of God, and not of the danger. Forward!"
Yvonnet put his foot upon the first round.
Five o'clock struck; a second night patrol passed the sentinel on the platform as he made his rounds.
Then, slowly and silently, the fourteen gallant men ventured one after the other upon that frail ladder shaking in the wind.
It was nothing so long as Gabriel, who was the last in the procession, remained within a few steps of the ground; but as they went on, and the living cluster shook from side to side more and more, the danger assumed unspeakable proportions.
It must have been a magnificent yet appalling sight to witness in the darkness and storm these fourteen apparently dumb creatures, like so many demons, scaling the black wall, at whose summit was possible death, while sure destruction awaited them at its base.
At the one hundred and fiftieth round Yvonnet stopped, and all the others did the same. It was agreed beforehand that they should halt at that point long enough for each to say two Paters and two Aves.
When Martin-Guerre had finished his devotions, he was amazed to see that Yvonnet did not stir. He thought he must have missed his count, and reproving himself for his haste, he began conscientiously a third Pater and a third Ave.
But still Yvonnet remained motionless. Then—although they were only about a hundred feet from the platform, and it was dangerous to speak—Martin-Guerre struck Yvonnet's legs, and said to him,—
"Go on, pray."
"No, I cannot," said Yvonnet, in a stifled voice.
"You can't, villain! Why not?" asked Martin, shuddering.
"I am dizzy," said Yvonnet.
A cold perspiration broke out in beads on Martin's forehead.
It was a moment before he could make up his mind what to do. If Yvonnet should have the vertigo and fall, they would all be carried down with him; to descend was no less hazardous. Martin felt himself to be incapable of assuming any responsibility whatever at such a terrible crisis. He leaned over to Anselme, who was next behind him, and said,—
"Yvonnet is dizzy."
Anselme shuddered as Martin had done, and repeated the same words to his neighbor, Scharfenstein; and so the word was passed down the ladder, each one in turn removing his sword from between his teeth long enough to say to the man next below,—
"Yvonnet is dizzy."
At last the dreadful intelligence reached the ears of Gabriel, who turned pale and trembled as the others had done when he heard it.