Stanley John Weyman

“ The Abbess breathed more freely. The colour came back to her cheeks. She sat upright, relieved from the secret fear that had oppressed her. "With whom, then, child?" she asked in her natural voice. "And why this mystery? But we--have forgotten"--her voice faltered, "we have forgotten," she repeated hardily, "M. des Ageaux. Is he safe?"
"It is of him I am going to speak," Bonne replied heavily.
"He has not--he has not fallen."
"He is alive."
"Thank Heaven for that!" Roger cried with heartiness, his eyes sparkling. "Has he gone on with Charles and the Bat?" ”

“ The lusty troopers lolling in the hot blaze of the bonfire, on which one or another constantly flung fresh wood, and now roaring out some gutter-stave, now flinging coarse badinage hither and thither, were such as years of license and cruel campaigning had made them; men such as it took a Vlaye or a Montluc to curb. And had the lad who watched them with burning eyes and a beating heart lacked one jot of the perfect courage, he had as soon thought of pitting himself against them as of raising dead bones to life. ”

“ How base in her to buy her happiness at the price of this child's misery! To ransom her lover at a woman's cost! It was a bargain that in another's case she had repudiated with scorn, with pride, almost with loathing. But she loved, she loved. And who that loved could hesitate? One here and there perhaps, some woman of a rare and noble nature, cast in a higher mould than herself. But not Bonne de Villeneuve.
Yet the word she would not utter trembled on her tongue. And once, twice the thought of Roger shook her. ”

“ The tall form of the Bat seemed to start up within a yard of the Abbess. He seized a stick that hung beside a drum on a post, and in a twinkling the hurried notes of the Alert pulsed through the camp. On the instant men rose from the earth about him; while frightened faces, seen by the rays of a passing light, looked from hut-doors, and the cries of a waiting-maid struggling in hysterics mingled with the words of command that brought the troopers into line and manned the ground in front of the Vicomte's quarters. ”

“ She would see the Captain of Vlaye! She would see the man she loved. Through the dark stuff of her thoughts that prospect ran like a golden thread.
Roger, on the other hand, should have been content. He should have been more than satisfied, as an hour later he rode beside her down the river valley to the chapel beside the ford, and thence to the open country about Villeneuve. For if things were still dark, there was a prospect of light. A few hours earlier he had despaired; he had seen no means of saving the woman he adored, save at the expense of his own life. ”

“ It was Fulbert. As the men, of whom some were saddling--for the light was beginning to appear--pressed forward to look, the steward crawled out of the gloom about the brook, and, raising himself on one hand, made painful efforts to speak. He looked like a dead man risen; nor did the uncertain light of the lanthorns take from the horror of his appearance. Probably he had been left for dead, for the smashing blow of some blunt weapon had beaten in one temple and flooded his face and beard with blood. The Abbess, faint and sick, appalled by this first sign of her handiwork, hid her eyes. ”

“ Roger's deformity appealed to him, for he fancied that he detected in the lad a spirit which those who knew him better, but knew only his gentler side, did not suspect. And the girl who had grown from child to woman in the rustic stillness of this moated house--that once had rung with the tread of armed heels and been gay with festive robes and tourneys, but now was sinking fast into a lonely farmstead--she too awakened some interest in the man of the world, who smiled to find himself embedded for the time in a life so alien from his every-day experiences. ”

“ The peasants sighed for the cool streams of Brantôme and the voices of the frogs. The troopers, accustomed to lord it and impatient of discomfort, were quick with word and hand, and prone to strike, when a blow was as dangerous as a light behind a powder screen. Without was Vlaye, within was fear; while, like ravens waiting for the carnage, the horde of Old Crocans on the hill looked down from their filthy eyrie.
No one knew better than the Abbess that the least thing might serve for a spark. And she pondered. Not for an hour since its birth had the plan she had imagined been out of her mind ”

“ For des Ageaux there might be hope and a chance. But a woman in the hands of savages such as those he had seen in the town on the hill! He shuddered as he thought of it. Better death, better death a hundred times than that. He did not wish to see her again.
But in one heart the mention of hope had awakened hope. The Abbess raised herself on her elbow. "Who have gone?" she asked in a voice so hollow and changed they started as at the voice of a stranger. "Who are gone?" she repeated.
"All but eight spears!" the Duke answered.
"Why not all?" she cried feverishly. "Why not all?" ”

“ Of so thin a texture is the web of life, and so slight the thing that suffices to tear it. Had the masked stranger ridden another road that night, had he been a little later, had he been a little sooner; had the trooper refrained from his jest or the men from the wine-pot, had Roger kept his distance, or the arrow-slit looked another way--had any one of these chance occasions fallen other than it fell, Ampoule had lived, and others perchance had died by his hand! ”

“ Love her he might, see in her a grand alliance he might; but had he been the adventurer the Abbess styled him, he had surely made more of this opportunity, more of her helplessness and her dependence. The Countess's fortune, the wide lands that had tempted Vlaye, what a chance of making them sure was his! No great lady was here, but a young girl helpless, terrified, hedged in by perils. Such an one would be ready at the first word, at a sign, to fling herself into the arms of her only friend, her only protector, and promise him all and everything if he would but save her scatheless. ”

“ A man easy to win, she supposed, if a woman were beautiful and knew how to go about it.
Ay, if she knew; but there was the difficulty. For he was no common man, no man of narrow experience, and the ordinary bait of beauty might not by itself avail. The Abbess, high as her opinion of her charm stood, perceived this. She recognised that in the circle; in which he had moved of late beauty was plentiful, and she bent her wits to the point. After that she might have been riding in daylight, for all she saw of her surroundings. She passed through the ford and in her deep thinking saw it not. ”

“ Listening in the warm summer night to the croaking of the frogs, he gazed unrebuked into the darkness that held her, and he was content.
Not that he had hope of her, or even in fancy thought of her as his. But this moment was his, and while he lived he would possess the recollection of it. All his life he would think of her, as the monk in the cloister bears with him the image of her he loved in the world; or as the maid remembers blamelessly the lover who died between betrothal and wedding, and before one wry word or one divided thought had risen to dim the fair mirror of her future. ”

“ And with a black and terrible look the Bat swore an oath to chill the blood. The leader of the Countess's men repeated it after him, word for word; and Roger, silent but with rage in his eyes, stood shaking between them, his blade in his hand.
The Vicomte, his fears for the safety of his own party allayed, turned to see who were present. He discovered his eldest daughter, leaning as if not far from fainting, against the doorway of the Duke's quarters. "Courage, girl," he said, in a tone of rebuke. "We are in no peril ourselves, and should set an example. Where is your sister?" ”

“ The sun was peeping into the valley and all nature was astir. The laughing waters of the ford, the steep bluff, darksome by night, now clad in waving tree-tops, the floor of meadow emerald-green, all reflected the brightness of a sky in which not one but half a dozen songsters trilled forth the joy of life. After the gloom, the vigil, the danger of the night, the scene appealed to her strongly; and for a brief time, while she stood gazing on the vale unmarred by human works or human presence, she felt a compunction ”

“ Bitterly, bitterly should he rue the day when he had forced her to take part against the man she loved. And if she could involve in his fall this child, this puling girl on whom the Captain of Vlaye had stooped an eye, not in love or adoration, but solely to escape the toils in which they were seeking to destroy him--so much the better! The two were linked inseparably in her mind. The guilt was theirs, the cunning was theirs, the bait was theirs; and M. de Vlaye's the misfortune only. So women reason when they love. ”

“ The next moment Bonne reproached herself for entertaining such a thought, while Charles's life and perhaps Roger's hung in the balance, and the cries of men in direst straits still rung in her ears. What a worm she was, what a crawling thing! God pardon her! God protect them!
The Abbess's voice--she had risen at last and moved--cut short her supplications. "Who is he?" Odette de Villeneuve muttered in a fierce whisper. "Who is he, girl?" She pointed to des Ageaux, who kept his station on the threshold, his ear following the course of the fight. "Who is that man? They call him my lord! ”

“ The Captain of Vlaye's heart was high and uplifted. All had gone well, all had gone better than his hopes. Yet he was prudent as he was bold. He would fain have raised her veil before them all and kissed her, and proved beyond cavil her willingness. But he doubted the wisdom of the act. He reflected that women were strange beings and capricious. She might be foolish enough to shriek--more, to faint, to resist, to speak; she might realise, now that it was too late, the thing which she had done. And a dozen curious eyes were on them, were watching them, were judging them. ”

“ The conduct of the man whom Vlaye had left on guard, the increasing disorder and babel of the half-drunken troopers, awoke in him neither indignation nor anger, nor astonishment, but only fear. Not a fear that unmanned him, though he faced his first real peril, nor a fear that disarmed him, but one that braced him to do his best, that enabled him to think, and plan, and determine--crook-shouldered as he was--with a coolness which some day, as des Ageaux had said, might make of him a commander of men. ”

“ On the earthen ramparts high overhead were men, Charles among them, who could see, and must know; but so taken up were the group below, from Bonne to the troopers, in looking for what was to come, that no one diverted eye or thought to these men who knew. And though either the abrupt cessation of sound, or the subtle excitement in the air, drew the Abbess at this moment from the Duke's hut, no one noted her appearance, or the Duke's pale eager face peering over her shoulder. ”

“ It is not gladly, it is never without a pang that the man of affairs sees the world pass from him. And if there be nothing left, it is bad for him. Des Ageaux acknowledged that he had something left. A hand he could trust would lie in his, and one brave heart, when all others forsook him would accompany him whither he went. He might no longer aspire to government and the rule of men, the work of his life was over; but Bonne would hold to him none the less, would love him none the less, would believe in him truly. The cares of power would no longer trouble his head, or keep it sleepless ”

“ It gathers up all that is weak, all that is nighty, all that is cruel, even all that is cowardly, and hurls the whole, imbued with its own qualities, against whatever excites its rage. Bonne, who had never heard that note before, but knew by intuition its danger, stood transfixed, staring with terrified eyes at the distant huts. She was picturing what one instant of time, one savage blow, one shot at hazard, might work under that bright morning sky! She saw des Ageaux alone, hemmed in, surrounded by the ignorant crowd which the enthusiast was stirring to madness! ”