Noémi

Hardly had the band of routiers turned into the main valley, and the foremost men had reached the cliff, before a horn was blown, and at once a shower of stones was hurled from above the horsemen.

At the same moment they saw that the road before them was barricaded. Trees had been felled and thrown across the track, and from behind this barricade scowled black faces and flashed weapons.

Some of the horses reared, struck by the stones; some of the riders were thrown to the ground. The horses, frightened, bounded from the road. They could not turn, being pressed on by those behind; they rushed away from the shower of stones into the level track of valley-bed on their right, and at once foundered in the morass. There they plunged, endeavoured to extricate themselves, and sank deeper. The semi-petrified fibres through which their hoofs sank, held to their legs, and prevented the beasts from withdrawing them. After a few frantic and fruitless efforts they sank to their bellies and remained motionless, with that singular stolidity that comes over a beast when it resigns itself to circumstances which it recognises it has not the power to overcome.

The men who had been carried into the marsh threw themselves off. The routiers were wiser than were the knights at Agincourt. They did not overburden themselves with defensive armour which would weigh them down and render them incapable of movement. Most of their clothing was of leather, with but a little steel over their breasts and shoulders. With agility they threw themselves from their sinking horses, and waded to the hard ground. At times they floundered deep, but were able to throw themselves forward and where the surface was most precarious, advanced like lizards, till they reached ground where the rushes showed that it was sufficiently compact to sustain them upright.

Meanwhile, those in the rear who had halted when the first ranks were broken and dispersed hesitated what to do. To push forward was to incur the same fate, and their pride would not suffer them to retreat.

The Captain was behind. He was suffering greatly. His wounded feet had begun to inflame; they were swollen and tortured by the compression of his boots. He could not bear to rest his soles on the stirrup-irons. To rise in his stirrups and hew with his great sword, as he had purposed, was impossible. The pain he endured fevered his blood, churned his anger to frenzy, which this unexpected check did not serve to moderate.

He had his wits about him, however, and he saw that those who held the rock must be dislodged or no advance could be made.

Accordingly, he ordered a party of his men to dismount, peg their horses, and ascend to where the peasants were threatening them with their piles of stones.

This could be done—at all events attempted—from the lateral valley, where the slope was moderate and densely overgrown with coppice.

Bitterly now did the leader regret that for a second time he had underrated the spirit and the sagacity of his opponents. He ought to have marched at the head of a larger contingent or have postponed his attempt till a more suitable opportunity presented itself.

With his usual effrontery, Guillem had ridden across country by the shortest way, through the lands of the Bishop of Sarlat, instead of descending the Dordogne to the junction of the Vézère, and then ascending the latter river to Ste. Soure.

He had not done this for two reasons—one was that the formidable Castle of Beynac, in French hands, blocked the passage down the Dordogne; the other was that he had measured and properly appreciated the incapacity of the prelate: he knew the Bishop had not the men at his disposal to send to contest his passage.

At this time his real danger lay, as he very well knew, in tidings of his ride reaching the Castle of Commarques, hardly an hour's distance up the valley of the Great Beune. This was a dependence of Beynac, and was held for the French king. [5] What garrison was there he knew not, but it was certain to be small. Nevertheless, even a small band of troopers or experienced men-at-arms assailing him in rear while engaged in bursting through this barrier of peasants before him might be more than dangerous, it might prove disastrous.

Resolved at all hazards to dislodge those on the height, he sent his lieutenant up the steep hillside at the head of his trustiest men, or, rather, as many of these as he could spare without breaking the ranks directly opposed to those who watched and menaced from behind the barricade.

But the task of storming the height was one that was difficult. Not only was the party sent up it inadequate in numbers, not only were the assailants inconvenienced by the steepness of the ascent, but their weapons were not calculated to be effective in a tangle of chestnut, rowan, and sloe laced about with ropes of bramble and clematis. They carried swords; they were unprovided with pikes; whereas those who held the height were armed with knives fastened to long poles, which they could thrust with excellent effect at the men who were attacking. Time was expended in the scramble; and the assailants were exhausted before they came within sight of the eyes of those they were sent to dislodge. In the brushwood the routiers could not keep together; the many sprays shooting up from stumps of felled chestnut separated them. They had to hack their way through the tough chains of clematis, and they were lacerated by the thorns of the sloe-bushes and the teeth of the wild rose and blackberry-briar. They could not come to a hand-to-hand fight. Their enemies calmly waited, watching them in their struggle, and drove at them with their blades through the bushes, forcing them to spring back to avoid death.

It took some time for the lieutenant in command to realise that he had been dispatched on a task which he was incompetent to achieve. But when he had determined this, he bade his men desist and retreat to the valley below.

They had not retreated far on their way down before they saw that the aspect of affairs below was greatly changed since they had started on their scramble.

Behind the barricade had been ranged the charcoal-burners with their forks, under the command of Ogier del' Peyra.

These had remained covered by their breastwork, expecting the enemy to make a second attempt to advance along the road. When, however, this was not done, and they saw them drawn up motionless, and shortly after heard the shouts and cries from the height, then Ogier recognised that the line of men before him was covering an attack on his son, who held the rock.

He at once gave the signal to advance at a rush. With a shout of joy the charcoal-burners burst over the barricade and charged along the road, led by the Seigneur, and fell upon the double line of troopers.

A furious hand-to-hand mêlée ensued. The horses were alarmed by the sable figures with black faces and hands who sprang at them, and recoiled, not only from the sight, but also at their smell, producing disorder. The struggle that ensued was hand to hand. No quarter was asked and none was given. The routiers were borne back, several had fallen, but also many colliers rolled on the ground.

At this juncture, down from the hill, out from among the coppice leaped the contingent that had failed to capture the height. It arrived at the most critical moment, just as the horsemen were struggling to disengage themselves and fly. They came upon the colliers in rear, they stopped accessions to their ranks from behind. Now their blades served them well, and the rout that had begun was arrested.

The arrival of this body of men startled the peasants. They did not understand whence they had sprung; and they retreated.

"Turn! Back to Domme!" yelled the Captain.

The men recovered their horses, remounted, and still fighting, began the retreat.

As they came under Cazelles a shower of projectiles was launched upon them from above.

The peasants gave over the pursuit. They were incapable of keeping pace with the horses.

And now, as they fell back, down from the height came Jean del' Peyra with his men.

"Where is my father?" he asked eagerly, and looked round.

Old Ogier was nowhere to be seen.

"Search among the fallen!" ordered Jean in great alarm.

Every dead and dying man was examined.

Then came back a charcoal-burner, hot, for he had been running, and the sweat streaming over his face had washed it into streaks, like those that stain the face of the chalk cliffs.

"What—the Seigneur?" asked the man. "He is taken."

"Taken!"

"Aye, taken and carried away by the rouffiens."

CHAPTER XV.

A THREATENED HORROR.

When Gros Guillem returned to the Castle of Domme, his feet were so swollen that the boots had to be cut off, and his feet swathed in linen.

By his orders, Ogier del' Peyra was thrown into a dungeon for the night. The old Seigneur had been surrounded, disarmed, and captured by some of the routiers while recovering their horses, which Ogier was endeavouring to prevent by cutting their reins.

As soon as he was taken he knew that his doom was sealed, and he bore the knowledge with his usual stolidity, amounting to indifference. A quiet, plodding, heavy man he had ever been, only notable for his rectitude in the midst of a tortuous generation; he had been roused to energy and almost savagery by circumstances, and, thus roused, had manifested a power and prevision which no one had expected to find in him. Now that all was done that he could do, he slid back into his ordinary quietude. He slept soundly in his prison, for he had greatly excited and tired himself during the day.

"Man can die but once," he said; and the saying was characteristic of the man—it was commonplace. This was, perhaps, less the case when he added, "An honest conscience can look Death in the face without blushing."

Consequently, when thrust into his dungeon, he took the blanket ungraciously afforded him, and wrapped it round him, ate his portion of bread, drank a draught of water, signed himself—said the peasant's prayer, common in Quercy and Périgord as in England—

Then he threw up his feet on the board that was given him for bed, and in five minutes slept and snored.

It was otherwise with Le Gros Guillem. He would tolerate no one near him but his wife and daughter, and they came in for explosions of wrath. The fever caused by pain had inflamed his head: he talked, swore, raged against everyone and all things, and boasted of the example he would make on the morrow of the man who was in his power. Noémi knew that some expedition had been undertaken, and that it had failed, but she knew no particulars, certainly had no idea that it had resulted in the capture of Jean del' Peyra's father.

She bathed and bound up her father's feet, and applied cold water as often as they began to burn. This gradually eased him, especially as he lay with his feet raised. The wounds he had received were of no great depth, but they were painful, because the soles of the feet are especially sensitive; and as all the grit and thorns had been removed by the surgeon before he left Domme, there was no fear but that with rest he would be well again in a week or ten days; well enough at least to walk a little.

The wife of Gros Guillem was a dreamy, desponding woman, who paid no attention to what he said, interested herself in no way in his affairs; neither stirring him to deeds of violence nor interfering to mitigate the miseries wrought by him. She accepted her position placidly. She was fond of Guillem in her fashion without being demonstrative, and it was a marvel to everyone how it was that he was so attached to her, and that she had maintained her hold on him through so many years.

It was reported, and the report was true, that the lady had been carried off by Guillem from the Castle of Fénelon. Guillem had retained her, in defiance of the excommunication launched at him by the Bishop of Cahors, and in defiance of the more trenchant and material weapons wielded against him by the Fénelon family, which was powerful in Quercy, and had a fortress on the Dordogne above Domme, and a house and rock castle above La Roque Gageac, side by side with that belonging to the Bishop of Sarlat. In an affray with Guillem's company the husband had been killed; the widow accepted this fact as she had accepted the fact that she had been carried off by violence. She sighed, lamented, pitied herself as a veritable martyr, and acquiesced in being the wife of the man who, though he had not killed her husband with his own hand, had caused his death.

With morning Guillem was easier and his head cooler, but there was no alteration in his resolve with regard to Del' Peyra. He would deal with him in such a signal manner as would from henceforth deter any man from lifting a finger against himself.

In his fever he had racked his brain to consider in what manner he would treat him.

He sent for his lieutenant and ordered that he should himself be carried into the keep.

"And," said he, "bring up the prisoner—and call up the men, into the lower dungeon."

Noémi was walking on the terrace of the castle that same morning; she had been up late, had attended to the fevered man, her father, and now was sauntering in the cool under the shade of the lime-trees, clipped en berceau, that occupied the walk on the walls—a walk that commanded the glorious valley of the Dordogne, that wondrous river which flows through some of the most beautiful and wild scenery in Europe, and is also the most neglected by the traveller in quest of beauty and novelty.

At this time she knew something of the events of the previous day. She knew also of the taking and the destruction of l'Eglise Guillem. Twice had the Del' Peyras measured their strength against the redoubted Captain, and twice had they forced him to fly. At the head of raw peasants without rudimentary discipline they had defied and beaten the troopers of a hundred skirmishes. She was not surprised. She had seen Rossignol. Great wrongs wake corresponding forces that must expend themselves on the wrong-doers. It is but a matter of time before the thunder-cloud bursts. Every crime committed sends up its steam to swell the vaporous masses and carries with it the lightning.

Nursed though Noémi had been in an atmosphere of violence, hearing of it as matter for exultation, the ruin of households and homesteads spoken of as a matter of course, she had never been brought face to face with the wreckage till she was shown it at Ste. Soure.

And did she feel anger against the Del' Peyras for having taken up arms to revenge their wrongs? Nothing was more natural: nothing more just where the Crown and law were powerless, than that men should right themselves. She would have despised the Del' Peyras had they sat down under their wrong without any attempt to repay it.

Noémi's nature was a good one, but it was undisciplined. Her mother had allowed her to go her own way. Her father treated her with indulgence, and that precisely where she should have been checked.

In a lawless society she had learned to fear neither God nor the king. Both were too far off. The one in Heaven, the other in England; too distant to rule effectively. A certain perfunctory homage was claimed by both, neither was regarded as exercising any control over men. A feudal service was all that a bandit in those days, or indeed any baron or seigneur, thought of rendering to the Almighty. He would fight in a crusade for Him, he would do knightly homage in church, but he would no more obey the laws of the Christian religion than he would those of the realm of France.

Noémi had seen but little of Jean del' Peyra, and yet that little had surprised her, and had awoke in her thoughts that were to her strange, and yet, though strange, consonant with her instinctive sense of what was right and wrong.

Jean del' Peyra not only surprised her, but occupied her thoughts: she saw, almost for the first time, in him one of a different order from the men with whom she had been thrown. Even her cousins, the Tardes, were akin in mind and consciencelessness to the routiers.What they did that was right was done rather out of blind obedience to instinct, or allegiance to their feudal lord, the Bishop of Sarlat. They were noble, for they had escutcheons over their doors, but all their nobility was external. They were boastful, empty roysterers.

On the other hand, the Del' Peyras were quiet, made no pretence to being more than they were, and were inspired with a moral sense and a regard for their fellow-men.

She saw how far greater was the influence exerted by the old man and his son than was exercised by that remorseless man of war, Guillem, or the braggart Jacques Tarde. Her father controlled men by fear; Ogier del' Peyra moved men by respect. The Captain was a destructive, and only a destructive element. Solely by means of men like the Del' Peyras could human happiness and well-being be built up.

Noémi was a thoughtful girl.

At first, somewhat contemptuously, she had set down Jean del' Peyra as a milksop; from what she had heard, his father was but a country clown. But the country clown and the milksop had revealed in themselves a force, an energy quite unexpected. Noémi laughed as her busy mind worked. She laughed to think of the discomfiture of professional fighting men, accustomed to arms from their youth, by a parcel of inexperienced peasants and charcoal-burners.

She was glad that these oppressed beings had risen. It showed that there was in them a nature above that of rabbits. She had seen a thousand times the holes into which they ran at the glint of a spearhead, at the jangle of a spur. But now they had issued from their holes and had hunted like wolves.

But these poor, ignorant timid peasants would never have done this had they not been led. It was the moral character, the true nobility of the Del' Peyras that had rallied the people around them, given them courage, and directed their blind impulse of revenge into proper forms of retaliation.

Was the execution of those ten men of her father's band to be accounted a wanton act of cruelty?

Noémi could not admit this. Some such rude administration of justice was rendered necessary by the times. The men who had suffered had merited their death by a hundred deeds of barbarity.

It was as though a spell had fallen on the girl. She was exultant, her heart was bounding with pride, and that because her father and his ruffians had been put to rout by their adversaries.

The girl was unable to explain to herself the reason of this, but, indeed, she did not admit to herself that it was as has been described. Yet she was sensible that some spell was on her. She had proposed to cast one on Jean. That kiss she had given him had been intended to work the charm. But, alack! there are dangerous spells which a witch may weave that affect herself as much as her victim, and of such was even this.

As Noémi paced the terrace, her mind in a ferment, she was accosted by Roger, the good-natured, somewhat impudent fellow who had attended her on her expedition to the Devil's Table.

He had torn off his red cross, but he had not left Domme, nor, indeed, the castle. He would no longer share in an expedition against Ste. Soure, but he was not unwilling to do any other service for the Captain.

He could now exult over his comrades who had returned from such an expedition with diminished numbers, defeated.

He approached the girl and accosted her.

Noémi answered curtly that she did not desire to speak to him. She disliked the forwardness of the man.

"But," said he, "I would save his life—he saved mine."

"Save whom?"

"The Seigneur del' Peyra."

"What of him?"

"He was taken yesterday."

"The Seigneur—taken!"

"And the Captain is now with him—in the dungeon under the keep."

"Doing what?" asked Noémi in breathless alarm.

"There is none in the world can save him but yourself; the Captain would listen to no one else."

"Save him—from what?"

"The oubliette."

CHAPTER XVI.

VADE IN PACE.

The thought of undefined horror conveyed by that word "oubliette" for a moment held Noémi as though it had paralysed her. But this was for a moment only, and then she bounded in the direction of the keep.

A word must be said as to what an oubliette was. In almost every mediæval castle in France and Germany the visitor is shown holes, usually in the floor, that descend to a considerable depth, and which are said to be oubliettes—that is to say, places down which prisoners were dropped when it was to the interest of the lord of the castle to sink them in oblivion.

Sometimes these places communicate with a river or a lake, as at Chillon, and this passage is set with irons, presumably to cut in pieces the body of the man cast down it.

In the vast majority of cases these so-called oubliettes are nothing but openings connected with the drainage of the castle or else are the well-mouths of cisterns in which the rain-water from the roofs was collected and stored.

Nevertheless, the fact that skeletons have been found in some of the closed subterranean vaults, and that a percentage of them cannot be explained as having been anything else but receptacles for prisoners thrown in, to die a languishing death, and lastly, the historic certainty that some poor wretches have so perished, shows that popular belief is not wholly unfounded. The writer has himself been let down by ropes into one in which four skeletons were entombed, and it is well known that in 1403 one of the Counts of Armagnac so disposed of his cousin, who lingered on thus immured for eight days. The son would have shared his father's fate but that out of horror at the notion of being flung down the well on the corpse of his father, the poor lad dropped dead on the brink.

Moreover, under the title of vade in pace, the oubliette was used, not in castles only, but in convents as well, and was there introduced by Matthew, Prior of St. Martin des Prés, in Languedoc, in the middle of the fourteenth century, when the Archbishop of Toulouse interfered to forbid the employment of this inhuman mode of execution. A prelate might step in to check the barbarity of a prior, but who was there to hold the hand of a noble?

Noémi saw a cluster of men outside the door that led into the dungeon, and forced her way through them. The dungeon was not large, it would not admit more than a dozen men. It opened on to a platform of rock on the outside of the castle, not into the inner court. Access to it was obtained by a doorway in the basement of the keep, where the wall was ten feet thick. The chamber was vaulted, and only near the middle sufficiently lofty to admit of anyone standing upright in it. There was no window by which light and air could penetrate. When the door was shut, both were excluded. The walls, the floor, the vault were of square-cut limestone.

At the further end, immediately opposite the door was a recess, conchoidal, and in this recess what seemed to be a well. There was a stone step in the floor, and above that a circular coped wall, precisely such as may be seen where there is a well; with this difference, that the orifice was not two feet in diameter, a very inconvenient size for a bucket to pass up or down.

In the dungeon sat Le Gros Guillem on a pallet, with his feet raised and bandaged. Before him, bound, with his hands behind his back, was Ogier del' Peyra, between two jailers. The old man had concluded that his head would be struck off, at the worst that he would be hanged. The sight of the vade in pace, and the knowledge that he was to be cast down alive and left to a lingering agony, had blanched his cheek, but did not make him tremble.

Ogier did not know, he could not guess, the depth of the oubliette.But he was aware that such were sometimes not so profound but that he who was flung in broke some of his bones, and thus died of a combination of miseries. Happy he who, falling on his head, was reduced at once to unconsciousness.

"Well, Del' Peyra," cried Guillem, in his harsh tones, rendered harsher by the feverishness and weariness of the past night, "will you not stoop to beg of me your life?"

"It is of no use," answered Ogier.

"Hold the lights, that I may see him!" ordered the Captain.

Two of his men brought torches that emitted as much smoke as light. In the dungeon, darkened by the men crowding the door, artificial illumination was necessary.

"You are right there!" shouted Guillem, in response to the words of Ogier. "I shall not spare your life. But what think you of the mode of death? Come, kneel, kiss my foot—wounded through you; and I may consent to have you hanged instead of thrown down yonder!" He indicated the well-like opening.

The glare of the torches was on Guillem's face as much as on that of his prisoner. He was haggard with pain and mortified pride. He was but half-dressed, was in his shirt, and his shirt was open over his red, hairy breast. His tall, polished head shone like copper in the lurid flicker of the links. His great mouth, half open with a grim laugh, revealed the teeth, pointed as though to bite and tear. He was very thin, but muscular, and his limbs were long. As already said, it was but in jest that he was entitled "Le Gros."

It may be questioned whether in the heart of a single ruffian present there stirred the smallest emotion of pity for the man who was to be sent to so horrible a fate, for all had been humbled by Ogier, and all angrily resented their humiliation. Moreover, all desired to avenge their ten companions.

"Hold up the light, that I may see how he relishes it!" ordered Guillem, brutally. Then he said: "Pull off his boots, strip him to his shirt."

But immediately he countermanded the order.

"Nay," said he, "leave him his leather belt and boots; he may satisfy his cravings on them. And, Sieur Ogier, when you want more leather, call for my boots. They have been cut to pieces, and are useless to me. They may make a meal for you."

The Captain looked steadily at his victim from under his lowering eyebrows.

"How came you to think of resisting me?" he asked.

Ogier shrugged his shoulders.

"This execution will be noised everywhere," continued Guillem. "I shall take care of that. And then every man will have a wholesome dread of me, and a fear of resisting me."

"Not my son Jean," retorted Ogier.

"Your son Jean comes next," said the Captain. "I shall deal with him presently."

"You must catch him first," said Ogier.

"Take the prisoner to the hold!" shouted Guillem.

Then the two jailers laid their hands on the shoulders of Ogier del' Peyra.

"You need not drag me. I can walk," said the old man.

Those crowding the close and narrow dungeon fell back, as well as they were able, to make a passage for the condemned man.

He was taken to the well-mouth and seated on it, with his face towards the door, through which glimpses of sunlight were visible athwart the heads that filled the opening. Ogier had been divested of his jerkin. He was in his shirt and breeches and boots. As the Captain had bidden that his belt should be left him, this had been refastened about his waist, after that his coat had been removed. In order to divest him of his outer garments it had been necessary for the jailers to remove the handcuffs that had fastened his arms behind his back.

"Cursed smoke!" said Guillem. "We are smothered in the fume. Stand aside all of you and let the fresh air enter, that we may breathe. Hearken, Ogier! Will you yet ask life of me?"

At Guillem's command the men had stepped forth and completely cleared the entrance, so that the brilliant sunlight flowed in as well as the pure air. And this light fell directly on the man who was soon to be excluded for ever from it. He was seated on the well-mouth in his white shirt. His face was as grey as the thick hair of his beard. He was conscious that he was looking for the last time at the light. He could see intense blue sky, and one fleecy cloud in it. He could see the green turf, and some yellow tansies standing against a bit of wall in shade, the tansies in full sunlight; and he could see a red admiral butterfly hovering about them. It was marvellous how, with death before him, he could yet distinguish so much. But he looked at everything with a sort of greed, because he saw all these things for the last time. For the first and only moment in his life he saw that a red admiral was beautiful, that the sky was beautiful, the grass beautiful.

"You have not answered me," said Le Gros Guillem, sneering. "Messire Ogier, will you yet ask life of me?"

"If you were in my hands, as I am in yours, would you ask that question?"

Le Gros Guillem paused one moment. Then with an oath—

"No!"

"Nor I of you," said Ogier gravely.

Guillem raised his hands. The fingers were inordinately long and thin. He made a sign to the jailers, one of whom stood back, on each side of Ogier, by the well-mouth, with his hand on the shoulder of the prisoner. Each man, as was customary, had his face covered—that is to say, a black sack was drawn over his head, in which were two holes cut, through which peered the eyes.

"Throw him down!"

At that moment, taking advantage of the avenue made for the admission of air, Noémi rushed in. A couple of men stepped forward to intercept her, but she was too nimble for them; she was within almost as soon as they thought of throwing themselves in her way, and had cast herself upon Ogier and clasped him with her arms.

"Father! Father! It cannot, it shall not be!"

The door was filled again; the men crowded in to see what new turn events would take, whether this intervention would avail.

The jailers desisted as they were raising the old man; they felt that the sight of the execution of the sentence could not be permitted to a young girl. Moreover, she held Del' Peyra fast, and he could not be extricated from her arms without the exercise of force.

"Noémi!" exclaimed Le Gros Guillem, throwing his feet off the pallet, "what is the meaning of this? Why are you here? At once away! Do you hear me?"

"I will not let go! He shall not die! Father, it cannot—it shall not be!"

"Unloose her arms," ordered Guillem, and signed to the men.

Firmly they obeyed. It was in vain that the girl clung, writhed, endeavoured to disengage her arms from their grasp, and clung to the condemned man. They held her like a vice and drew her back from the pit-mouth and interposed their persons between her and the man she was endeavouring to save.

Then, in a paroxysm of horror and pity, Noémi threw herself on her knees before her father and implored him to yield.

"What is Del' Peyra to you?" he asked sternly.

"Nothing—nothing," she gasped. "Oh, father, let him go! let him go!"

"Twice have you interfered between me and him. Why is that?"

She could not answer his question; she did not attempt to do so. She persisted in her entreaties. In her anguish she caught hold of one of his injured feet and made him cry out with pain.

"Father! If I have ever done anything for you! If you have any love for me—any thought to do what I wish—grant me this. Spare him! Spare him!"

"Never!" answered Le Gros Guillem. Then he waved his long hand and said, "Remove this silly girl."

But when Noémi felt hands laid on her, she leaped to her feet, shook herself free, and said, panting—

"Let be! Do not touch me! I ask his life, no more."

"You do well, child," sneered the Captain. "You then run no more risk of disappointment."

"Yet—if that be denied me, there is one thing I do ask," gasped Noémi.

Her breath came as though she had been running up hill. She put her hands to her head, and held it, till she had recovered sufficiently to proceed.

"There is one thing I do ask," she repeated. "Do not cast him down—let him down gently."

A harsh laugh from Le Gros Guillem.

"You are a silly child, a fool, who know not what you ask. You will prolong his torture, not shorten it—but you shall have your wish. Be it so."

He waved to the jailers.

"Go, child, go!" said he to his daughter.

"I will stay and see it done," she said. "I will not ask another thing."

She stood erect and looked at the old man; her mouth quivered, and her eyes were as though fixed hard in their sockets like stones in a setting.

And the sight was one to freeze the blood.

The jailers raised Ogier, who offered no resistance, but fixed his eyes strainingly on a spot of light above a man's head in the doorway.

He was lifted till his feet were above the well, and then he was let down by ropes passed under his arms, slowly, deliberately.

Those holding the torches raised them, and the smoke described cabalistic devices on the roof. The glare was on the sinking man.

He went down below his knees, then his waist disappeared. Involuntarily he put forth his arms to arrest his descent, by gripping the well-breast, but recollected that resistance was in vain, and lowered his arms to his sides.

Then his breast was hidden, then his shoulders went under. For a moment all visible was the ghastly grey face with the glittering eyes, and then—that also was gone.

He uttered no cry, no groan, he went down like a dead man, into profound darkness, into his living tomb.

All was still in the dungeon, save for the labouring breath of those who looked on. The jailers lowered till the ropes became slack. Then they knew the poor wretch was on the floor of the vault below. Each man threw down one end of his rope and drew at the other, even as at a funeral the ropes are withdrawn when the dead has been lowered.

In the stillness, Guillem laughed—silently—showing all his fangs, and waving his arms in the direction of the oubliette mouth, and extending his lean fingers said—

"Vade in pace!"

CHAPTER XVII.

IN THE RAVEN'S NEST.

When Le Gros Guillem was carried back to his room, he said to his wife, "Where is Noémi?"

"I believe—that is, I suppose she is going to her Aunt Tarde at La Roque. She said something about it. Something has occurred and she is not herself. I don't know what it is."

"I dare say!" laughed the Captain. "Noémi has witnessed this day what has been seen by few girls. She stood it manfully—at the last."

"I dare say. I know nothing about it," said his wife.

"If she is going to La Roque, then Roger and Amanieu shall accompany her. I have a letter to transmit to Ste. Soure."

He sent for writing materials, and wrote in a scrawling hand:

"Dear and most valiant friend, Seigneur Jean del' Peyra at Le Peuch Ste. Soure.—Please you to know that your father is let down into oblivion. Dear and well-loved Sir, God have you ever in guard.

"Written at Domme, Wednesday, and sent by the hands of Roger and Amanieu."

That was the fashion of epistolary correspondence as conducted in those times. "Dear friend" was the salutation to a deadly foe, "God have you ever in guard," when the writer would like to cut the throat of him he addressed.

Such was the letter received by Jean del' Peyra. It was not explicit. He had been in the greatest anxiety relative to his father. That he would be put to ransom was his hope, but not his expectation.

He looked to the bearer of the epistle for explanation, and then for the first time saw Noémi, her face rigid and ghastly, as though she had seen a ghost, and could not shake off the impression.

"Jean," she said, "let them go back. I will tell you all, between you and myself. No, not back. Step aside."

When Noémi saw that she and Jean were alone she said—

"Do you not understand? Your father—he has been let down into an oubliette."

Jean started back as though he had been struck in the face by a mailed hand.

"And now," proceeded Noémi, "there is but one chance for him, one way open to you."

"Where—where is it?" gasped the lad.

"At Domme. No, you cannot storm that castle. It has held out against French and English, and it would hold out against your peasants."

Jean looked at her in silence. What other way was open?

"You must go yourself to Domme," she said.

"And entreat for my father? We will sell all—land, castle, seigneury—all!"

"That will not suffice. The Captain would take you and cast you in where lies your unhappy father."

"Then what do you mean?"

"You must take me."

"Along with me—to Domme?"

"No, take and confine me here."

"I do not understand."

"I can—I saw it. I saw it at once when I was in that horrible place, when my father refused to listen to me and I pleaded for him. Then I saw clearly there was no other chance for his life."

"And that is——?"

"That you put me into the same position."

"What, in an oubliette?"

"Put me in a dungeon, and threaten unless your father be restored, and back here safe by sunrise to-morow, that you will cast me down as he has been cast down."

"We have no oubliettes here."

"You have precipices."

Jean looked in astonishment at the girl.

"See, Jean!" she said, and a dark spot came in each cheek, "by no other way can you rescue your father than by going before him—I mean my father, and threatening that unless your father be released immediately, you will have me put to the same horrible end."

"Never!"

"It must be."

"It would never be done—never."

"Listen to me, Jean. You must have me imprisoned here. Place guards over me and go to my father fearlessly. Say to him that the instant the first spark of the sun lifts over yon hill"—she pointed to the heights opposite—"if the Seigneur and you are not here to stay their hands, you have told your guards to throw me down."

"If I were to threaten it, it would not be done."

"Yes, it would. Do you suppose that your peasants here and your armed men would spare me if they knew that their Seigneur and his son had both been sacrificed by Le Gros Guillem? They would tear me to pieces. The women would stab me with their bodkins. I had rather be dashed down the cliffs than that."

The young man remained silent, considering. The girl's proposal did give him a hope of recovering his father; the threat, which he did not for a moment entertain the thought of executing, might, perhaps, force the routier captain to surrender his prey.

Noémi plucked a ring from her finger and extended it to Jean.

"I see," said she, "you will yield. Take this as token to my father that I am here, as sign that your menace is not an idle one. Now lead me away."

In the congeries of precipitous cliffs, like teeth, that rise above Ste. Soure and go by the name of Le Peuch, one possesses a rock-refuge of a peculiar character. To reach it a steep ascent has to be effected up an almost vertical piece of rock, in which places have been cut for the feet. This climb gives access to a grassy ledge. If this ledge be pursued, a buttress of crag is reached that completely blocks the terrace. But this has been scooped out, like a carious tooth, into a chamber or guard-room. It is entered by a door artificially cut, and he who explores the place there finds himself in an apartment with a window dug through the face looking south, and with sheer precipice below it. At the back are seats cut in the stone.

Immediately opposite the entrance is another door, communicating with another ledge, which, however, does not extend more than ten feet, and ends in steep cliff. Along the face of this cliff holes have been scooped for the reception of the feet, so that a man can walk along the front of the rock till he reaches a projecting mass like that he has traversed, and this mass is excavated into a series of chambers.

This rock-refuge is one that could not be taken, if only moderate precautions were observed. The man who passed in the socket-holes for his feet to the door of the first chamber scooped out in the scar must traverse in front of a window, through which it would suffice for a child to thrust his hand to touch him to upset his balance and send him headlong below to certain death.

There was no place better calculated to serve as a prison than this Raven's Nest, as it was called. Jean was by no means sure that what Noémi said might not come true; if the peasants learned who she was, they might take advantage of his absence literally to tear her to pieces, for they were greatly exasperated at the loss of their master, the old Seigneur. If he were to leave the girl for some hours at Le Peuch, she must not only be protected against an attempt at recapture, but against the resentment of his own people, who might lose their heads when they found that he as well as his father was lost to them. A woman like Rossignol's wife was a firebrand inflamed with unslaked lust for revenge. A few words from her might set all in movement. The Southern Gauls are an impulsive, excitable, and, when excited, an unreasoning people. The routiers had not spared their wives and daughters, why should they scruple about reprisals on the daughter of their deadliest oppressor?

Distressed as Jean was at his father's fate, the fear of what might happen to Noémi if left alone at Le Peuch for a moment overbore his filial distress.

"You must follow me," he said; and he beckoned to the two men who had attended her to accompany him as well.

Without further words he led them up the ascent, along the ledge, and into the guard-room.

There he said to Amanieu and Roger—

"Your Captain's daughter is going to remain yonder." He pointed across the gulf to the rock chambers in the projecting mass of cliff. "I shall not be at Ste. Soure to protect her. You know what these people are. Even you are not safe, though my father granted you both your lives. As I see, you no longer bear the brand of lawlessness. Do not concern yourself about what takes me away. I leave you here in guard of her. Let no one approach. Yonder, in those retreats, there is always a supply of food, in case of emergency. There is water also. You need not enter for that. She will pass to you what you require through the window. Keep guard here for her sake and for your own, till I return." Then to Noémi he said, "Dare you follow me?"

"I!" she said, and almost laughed. "Have you forgotten the stair to the Bishop's Castle?"

Jean stepped off the platform, and walked along the face of the rock and was immediately followed by the girl, without the least misgiving or giddiness.

On reaching the door cut in the crag on the further side, Jean stepped in.

These rock chambers are cool in summer and warm in winter. There was no well here dug in the heart of the rock. Probably owing to its height above the level of the Vézère—some 300 feet—it had not been thought likely that a vein of water would be tapped; so the atmospheric moisture was caught by little runnels scored in the rock, and all these runnels led into a receiver, in which there was generally to be found a supply of water, though not a great quantity. Each window was provided with shutters, and doors fitted into the entrances, and could be fastened. Beds were scooped in the rock, arched above, and these couches were strewn with heather and fern. In cupboards cut in the walls were stores, to be used in case of necessity.

When Jean had shown the girl everything, he held out his hand.

"Noémi!" he said, and his voice shook, "good-bye! We may never meet again. But do not think that harm would be done you by me—even if the worst were to happen!"

"Jean!" she answered gravely, and went to the doorway, and looked down. "Do you think that anyone who fell here, who tripped coming along these steps, who stumbled at the threshold, would not be dashed to pieces in an instant?"

"I am sure he would. That is what affords you protection here."

"I do not mean that, Jean." She refrained from speaking for a moment. He put out his hand to her, and she took his. Both their hands trembled.

"Jean, I shall watch for the sunrise from the little window. If you and your father have not returned——"

"Then we shall both perish together in the oubliette."

"Yes—and the moment the sun comes up——"

"Noémi—what then?"

"The moment I see the first fire-spark——"

"Noémi!" He feared to hear what she was going to say.

"Yes, Jean, I shall throw myself down—here."

CHAPTER XVIII.

IN THE DEPTHS.

Before that Jean del' Peyra ventured to cross the Dordogne and approach Domme, he fastened a white kerchief to his cap, as token that he came on peaceful errand, as bearer of a message. As such he was received within the walls, and was conducted to the castle, and given admission to the vaulted hall in which lay Le Gros Guillem on his pallet with his feet up.

The long, lean, pale-faced man looked hard at him when admitted, and said—

"Who are you?"

"I am Jean del' Peyra," answered the lad, and cast his cap with its white appendage on the table.

"Jean del' Peyra! and you venture here!" roared the Captain. "You must in verity be a fool!"

"I came—trusting to that," said the youth with composure, pointing to the white token.

"Then you came trusting in vain. I regard it not."

"Perhaps you will regard this," said Jean, extending the ring, which he plucked from his little finger.

The Captain looked at the signet, started, and brayed forth—

"That belongs to Noémi! How came you by that? You have murdered her."

"I have not murdered her. If she dies it will be through you. She is my captive."

"I do not understand."

Le Gros Guillem slipped his feet from the pallet to the floor. He could not walk, he could not even stand, as his feet were swathed in rags.

"It is not difficult to enlighten your understanding," said Jean. "You sent away your daughter with two men as her guard. They are all in my power. They are at Le Peuch. Their fate—that is to say, hers—depends on you."

"So—you war against girls!"

"If we do violence to the young and feeble, from whom have we learned the lesson but from you and your ruffians?"

"You know what I have done to your father," said the freebooter, malignantly. "I will do the same to you."

"And the same fate will befall your daughter—at once," said Jean, decidedly.

The Captain was staggered. He was uneasy. He said sullenly: "For what purpose have you come here?"

"For this," answered Jean. "With your own hand you have let me know where my father is. Unless he be released, and allowed to return with me to Le Peuch, your daughter will perish miserably."

Jean went to the window. The Captain looked suspiciously after him.

"The sun is setting," said the young man. "In an hour it will be gone. Unless before he reappears in the East, unless, to the moment of his rising, my father and I are not returned to Le Peuch safe and sound, it will be too late. Your daughter saw what was done to the old man—what think you of a like fate for her?"

"I do not believe she is in your hands. She is at La Roque."

"Send to La Roque, if you will, and inquire—only remember that will take time, and time is precious. We must be back at Le Peuch before the first spark of the sun reappears, or the deed will be done. Your daughter will be dead."

Le Gros Guillem's face became ashy grey with alarm and rage, commingled with embarrassment.

"Besides," said Jean with composure, "look at the ring. You know that it is taken from her finger."

The Captain turned the ring about in his hand. Then he struck the table with his clenched fist and screamed—

"Outwitted! outwitted again! The devil is fighting for you!"

"Rather is he deserting you to whom you sold yourself," retorted Jean.

The chief remained sullen, with knitted brow and clenched teeth, brooding.

"The sun is set," said Jean, and pointed through the window.

The yellow flame had disappeared that had flushed the hills on the further side of the Dordogne, the wooded slopes and the tall rock of Vitrac, itself a natural fortress.

The Captain moved uneasily on his pallet, and looked furtively at his guards near the door.

Jean read his thought.

"Nothing you can do is of any avail, save the release of my father. The first ray of sun that lights the sky sees the spark of life die out in your Noémi's heart."

"What guarantee have I that you will not play me false, and refuse to give her up?"

"My word, my honour, and that of my father. Send men with me if you will. Only remember now that time is winged and is flying."

With a horrible oath, Le Gros Guillem again struck the table and called to the guards. They approached.

"Take him"—he indicated Jean—"take him to the oubliette chamber," said he; "let cords down, release the man, and let both go as they will."

He flung Noémi's ring on the table, and cast his maimed feet on the pallet once more, and clenched his teeth and knitted his red brows.

Jean took up the ring and said: "I will return this to her."

The guards now conducted him to the keep. Lights were provided, also cords; the door into the cell was opened; and with a shudder Jean entered.

Snatching a torch from one of the men, he went to the breastwork of the well, and leaning over it, let the torch flare down the abyss.

"Father!" he cried; "my father!"

Then he paused for an answer.

There was none.

With the link he endeavoured to illumine the depths below, but found that this was not possible. He could see nothing save an awful blackness, in which the rays of the torch lost themselves, without illumining any object.

"Father!" again he cried.

This time he heard a sound—an inarticulate groan.

"Let me down. I must go to him," said Jean.

"You cannot take a light with you," said one of the men.

"You can carry one down unlighted, and kindle it when you are below," said a second.

Jean saw that it was as the men said. The orifice and throat of the well were so narrow that he must descend without holding a burning light. He nodded, and slipped his arms through the loops in the cords.

"Give me a candle," said he, and one was immediately handed to him.

Then he seated himself on the well-breast, with his feet hanging down inside; and when the men were ready, thrust himself off.

Jean was lowered gradually down the bottle-throat, till all at once the sides fell away, and he was swinging in space. [7] The effect of being suddenly plunged in absolute blackness of darkness is not so startling as some might suppose. The retina of the eye carries with it an impression of light; and as Jean was let down through void space of absolutely rayless gloom, it seemed to him as though a rosy halo attended him; he could, indeed, discern nothing—no object whatever—but he could not suppose that he did not. All at once his feet touched ground. Then he released his arms, and struck a light with steel and flint. Some time elapsed before the tinder kindled, and from the tinder he was able to ignite the candle. Jean's hand shook. He was nervous lest he should see his father dead or dying. It seemed inexplicable to him that he was not answered readily when he called. Finally, the yellow flame flickered. Then the lad raised the candle above his head and looked about him. He was in a dungeon some thirteen feet square, built of hewn stones in large blocks, laid together with the finest joints, that did not show mortar. The sides were perfectly smooth. The chamber was arched overhead; there was in it no door, no window, no hole of any sort save that in the midst of the vault overhead, through which he had descended.