Hannibal Heyward Arnold

“ And she held out her hands; her face, full of passion, was bright with a strange light. A close observer might have thought her distraught; still excited by the struggle in the boat, and barely mistress of herself.
But the man whom she tempted, the man who held her price at his belt, after one searching look at her turned from her; perhaps because he could not trust himself to gaze on her. Count Hannibal walked a dozen paces from her and returned, and again a dozen paces and returned ”

“ To-morrow!” Mademoiselle cried. “The priest!” and she crouched anew with hot eyes behind the hangings of the bed, and, shivering, hid her face.
But this for a time only. As soon as she had made certain of the respite, and that she had until the morrow, her courage rose, and with it the instinct of which mention has been made. Count Hannibal had granted a respite; short as it was, and no more than the barest humanity required, to grant one at all was not the act of the mere butcher who holds the trembling lamb, unresisting, in his hands. ”

“ Then, fortunately for her, fortunately for Angers, it was given to all to see that in Count Hannibal’s saddle sat a man.
He raised his hand for silence, and in a minute or two—not at once, for the square was dusky—it was obtained. He rose in his stirrups, and bared his head.
“I am from the King!” he cried, throwing his voice to all parts of the crowd. “And this is his Majesty’s pleasure and good will! That every man hold his hand until to-morrow on pain of death, or worse! ”

“ But in the room it was barely daylight when the sleeper awoke, and sat up, his face expectant. Something had roused him. He listened.
His ear, and the habit of vigilance which a life of danger instils, had not deceived him. There were men moving in the passage; men who shuffled their feet impatiently. Had Biron returned? Or had aught happened to him, and were these men come to avenge him? Count Hannibal rose and stole across the boards to the door, and, setting his ear to it, listened. ”

“ La Tribe stared. “Then why are you following him?” he asked.
“Why?” Tignonville echoed, a look of hate darkening his face. “Do you ask why we follow—” But on the name he seemed to choke and was silent.
By this time his men had come up, and one answered for him.
“Why are we following Hannibal de Tavannes?” he said sternly. “To do to him as he has done to us! To rob him as he has robbed us—of more than gold! To kill him as he has killed ours, foully and by surprise! In his bed if we can! In the arms of his wife if God wills it!” ”

“ IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVRE. It is a strange thing that love—or passion, if the sudden fancy for Mademoiselle which had seized Count Hannibal be deemed unworthy of the higher name—should so entirely possess the souls of those who harbour it that the greatest events and the most astounding catastrophes, even measures which set their mark for all time on a nation, are to them of importance only so far as they affect the pursuit of the fair one. ”

“ Here his first attempt to pass failed; and he might have remained hampered by the crowd, if a squad of archers had not ridden up. As they spurred to the spot, heedless over whom they rode, he clutched a stirrup, and was borne with them into the heart of the crowd. In a twinkling he stood on the threshold of the house, face to face and foot to foot with Count Hannibal, who stood also on the threshold, but with his back to the door, which, unbarred and unbolted, gaped open behind him. ”

“ The rage of the trapped beast was in his heart, his hand held a sword. To strike blindly, to strike without question the first who withstood him was the wild-beast instinct; and if Count Hannibal had not spoken on the instant, the Marshal's brother had said his last word in the world. ”

“ The curse that has gone out against you shall not tarry, nor your days continue! For the Canaanitish woman that is in your house, and for the thought that is in your heart, the place that was yours is given to another! Yea, the sword is even now drawn that shall pierce your side!”
“You are more like to split my ears!” Count Hannibal answered sternly. “And now mark me! Preach as you please here. But a word in Angers, and though you be shaven twice over, I will have you silenced after a fashion which will not please you! ”

“ Even so the confusion in the courtyard, the mingling of horses and men and trappings and saddle-bags, would have made another despair; but wherever Count Hannibal, seated in his saddle in the middle, turned his face, chaos settled into a kind of order, servants, ceasing to listen to the yells and cries outside, ran to fetch, women dropped cloaks from the gallery, and men loaded muskets and strapped on bandoliers. ”

“ The two came face to face and breast to shoulder, and struck furiously with their daggers. Count Hannibal was outside his opponent’s sword and had the advantage. Tignonville’s dagger fell, but glanced off the metalwork of the other’s hilt; Tavannes’ fell swift and hard between the young man’s eyes. The Huguenot flung up his hands and staggered back, falling his length on the floor.
In an instant Count Hannibal was on his breast, and had knocked away his dagger. Then—
“You own yourself vanquished?” he cried. ”

“ Thou seest, General Adherbal, that we have but a poor show of retainers with whom to welcome thee here. But the reason is plain. Being but a woman, alone in the palace, and having ever before me the traditions of the horrible outrages committed by the mercenaries, who revolted in Hamilcar’s and thy father Hanno’s time, I prefer to employ all the extra soldiers about the city walls. I only, during Hannibal’s absence, maintain a guard of some forty men in all to protect the approaches, the gates, and the palace itself. ”

“ You are a man. Go down, lead them out; drive off these cowards who drain our life’s blood, who trade on a woman’s heart! On them! Do something, anything, rather than lie in safety here—here!”
The minister shook his head sadly. “Alas, Madame!” he said, “to sally were to waste life. They outnumber us three to one. If Count Hannibal could do no more than break through last night, with scarce a man unwounded—”
“He had the women!” ”

“ I must be as you will and do as you will, and go happy or sad, lonely or with you, as you will! As you will, my lord! For I am your chattel, your property, your own. Have you not told me so?”
“But your heart,” he cried fiercely, “is his! Your heart, which you told me in the meadow could never be mine!”
“I lied,” she murmured, laughing tearfully, and her hands hovered over him. “It has come back! And it is on my lips.”
And she leant over and kissed him. And Count Hannibal knew that he had entered into his kingdom, the sovereignty of a woman’s heart. ”

“ The man at the table shuddered. The woman continued to look before her, but her lips moved as if she prayed. Suddenly a rush of feet, a roar of voices surged past the window; for a moment the glare of the torches, which danced ruddily on the walls of the room, showed a severed head borne above the multitude on a pike. Mademoiselle, with a low cry, made an effort to rise, but Count Hannibal grasped her wrist, and she sank back half fainting. Then the nearer clamour sank a little, and the bells, unchallenged, flung their iron tongues above the maddened city. In the east the dawn was growing ”

“ Moreover, where women are in question, who is always strong? Or who can say how long he will pursue this plan or that? A man of sternest temper, Count Hannibal had set out on a path of conduct carefully and deliberately chosen; knowing—and he still knew—that if he abandoned it he had little to hope, if the less to fear. But the proof of fidelity which the Countess had just given him had blown to a white heat the smouldering flame in his heart, and Madame St. Lo’s gibes, which should have fallen as cold water alike on his hopes and his passion, had but fed the desire to know the best. ”

“ Even in the midst of the drunken, shameless courtiers—who stood, if they stood for anything, for that other influence of the day, the Renaissance—he was to be reckoned with; and Count Hannibal knew it. He knew that in the eyes not of Charles only, but of nine out of ten who listened to him, a priest was more sacred than a virgin, and a tonsure than all the virtues of spotless innocence. ”

“ Probably it was to this that one man hunted through Paris owed his escape that day. He sprang from a narrow passage full in Tavannes’ view, and, hair on end, his eyes starting from his head, ran blindly—as a hare will run when chased—along the street to meet Count Hannibal’s company. The man’s face was wet with the dews of death, his lungs seemed cracking, his breath hissed from him as he ran. His pursuers were hard on him, and, seeing him headed by Count Hannibal’s party, yelled in triumph, holding him for dead. And dead he would have been within thirty seconds had Tavannes played his part. ”

“ If Biron placed himself at once in Marshal Tavannes’ hands, all might be well. But if he ventured within the long arm of the Guises, or went directly to the Louvre, the fact that with the Grand Master’s fate Count Hannibal’s was bound up, would not weigh a straw. In such crises the great sacrificed the less great, the less great the small, without a scruple. ”

“ The window, the low truckle-bed, the sleeper, she saw all with dazzling clearness, and before the flash had well passed she was crouching low, with the hood of her cloak dragged about her face. For the glare had revealed Count Hannibal; but not asleep! He lay on his side, his face towards her; lay with open eyes, staring at her.
Or had the light tricked her? The light must have tricked her, for in the interval between the flash and the thunder, while she crouched quaking, he did not move or call. The light must have deceived her. ”

“ Already," a shudder shook his tall ungainly form, "I see blood, blood, blood everywhere! Blood! Ah, God, shall I from this time see anything else? But there is no turning back. There is no undoing. So, do you go to Biron. And do you," he went on, sullenly addressing Marshal Tavannes, "take him and tell him what it is needful he should know."
"'Tis done, sire!" the Marshal cried with a hiccough. "Come, brother!"
But when the two, the courtiers making quick way for them, had passed down the hall to the door, the Marshal tapped Hannibal's sleeve. ”

“ And Badelon cannot walk two yards! Fine fighters!” he continued with bitterness, not all bitter. “Fine bars ’twixt a man and death! No, it is time to turn the face to the wall. And, since go I must, it shall not be said Count Hannibal dared not go alone! Besides——”
Bigot stopped him with an oath that was in part a cry of pain.
“D——n her!” he exclaimed in fury, “’tis she is that besides! I know it. ’Tis she has been our ruin from the day we saw her first, ay, to this day! ’Tis she has bewitched you until your blood, my lord, has turned to water. ”

“ Therefore, ’twould, methinks, be perchance more politic to keep it secret should I marry Maharbal. Then will I yield to thy wishes in this matter, and feel, moreover, that I am not, in so yielding, doing unto my country any possible injury. The country, thou knowest, oh my father, is above all. I have now no wish for marriage; but if thou deem it for our country’s welfare, I obey.”
“Ay,” replied Hannibal, stooping down and kissing her, at the same time stroking her hair caressingly, “thou hast said the truth, Elissa. The country is to be considered before all, and secrecy is advisable. ”

“ A wave broke heavily on the causeway and ran down seething to the sea; and another and another, filling the room with rhythmical thunders. But the voice of the sea was no longer the same in the darkness, where the Countess knelt in silence beside the bed—knelt, her head bowed on her clasped hands, as she had knelt before, but with a mind how different, with what different thoughts! Count Hannibal could see her head but dimly, for the light shed upwards by the spume of the sea fell only on the rafters. ”

“ Charles passed his shaking hand across his eyes. “Is he?” he muttered. “So he is! I heard it too. And—and a man cannot be in two places at once!” Then, while his haggard gaze, passing by Tavannes, roved round the Chamber, he laid his hand on Count Hannibal’s breast. “They give me no peace, Madame and the Guises,” he whispered, his face hectic with excitement. “They will have it. They say that Coligny—they say that he beards me in my own palace. And—and, mordieu,” with sudden violence, “it’s true. It’s true enough! ”

“ He whose will compelled all stood a little apart and watched all, silent and gloomy. When Badelon, after taking his orders and distributing some slices of black bread to be eaten in the saddle, moved off at the head of his troop, Count Hannibal remained behind, attended by Bigot and the eight riders who had formed the rearguard so far. He had not approached the Countess since rising, and she had been thankful for it. ”

“ The man who had singed the Pope’s beard and chucked cardinals under the chin was growing old, and the most daring of the others had no mind to fight with foes whose weapons were not of this world.
Count Hannibal’s gaiety, however, was well grounded, had they known it. He was gay, not because he foresaw peril, and it was his nature to love peril; not—in the main, though a little, perhaps—because he knew that the woman whose heart he desired to win had that night stood between him and death ”