CHAPTER XXIV
“O DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING?”
An hour later the dusty little cavalcade filed slowly up a steep and rocky hill and drew rein beside a strip of woodland on the summit. On every side the country rolled away, barren and broken with crags; here and there a low growth of juniper bushes or a solitary fig tree, where the soil was more fertile. The dragoons dismounted at M. de Baudri’s command and surrounded the spot. It would be impossible for any one to escape down that bare hillside unseen. De Baudri’s eyes burned fiercely; he thought his prey within his grasp. Le Bossu was lame from the long and weary walk, and his drawn face was white, but his expression was full of content.
“A whole hour,” he said to himself. “Please God she is out of reach!”
He obeyed a motion of M. de Baudri’s hand and led the way into the wood. It was not thick and there was but little underbrush, for even here the ground was rocky and uncharitable. He looked about as he walked, as if he wanted to remember even little things now; almost all the trees were chestnuts, these and mulberries growing best in the neighborhood of Nîmes. He noticed the moss and the lichens, and here and there a wild vine trailed across the way. The wind blew keenly now from the north, and overhead the gray clouds hung low, but the west was glorious, the sun hanging just above the horizon. The hunchback noted all these things, and he heard the heavy tread of the men behind him, the rattle of M. de Baudri’s sword. He walked on; a great peace was filling his soul, his pulses throbbed evenly, he lifted his head; his life was, after all, worth much,—it was to pay her ransom. He came to the centre of the wood and sat down on a large rock; before him the trees parted and he could look straight toward the west, the whole landscape at his feet. He drew M. de Baudri’s money from his wallet and cast it on the ground.
A suspicion had been dawning upon de Baudri since they had dismounted, and he halted now and stared fiercely from the cobbler to the despised coins, the price of blood.
“Sang de Dieu!” he thundered, “where is the grotto, slave?”
Le Bossu turned on him a calm face.
“There is none, monsieur,” he replied simply.
De Baudri broke out with a terrible oath, drawing his sword.
“You lying, humped toad!” he said, “how dared you do this?”
He made a move as if to strike him dead, and then a sudden thought checked him.
“Bah!” he ejaculated, “soil my sword with the blood of such vermin? I am a fool. Where is the girl?” he added fiercely. “Pardieu, I will wring your neck!”
“I do not know where she is,” replied le Bossu, truthfully enough, for he did not know where they were then.
“And you led us here to cheat us, slave?” said de Baudri. “A fine scheme—as you will learn to your cost. If I thought you knew where she was, I’d torture it out of you with hot irons.”
The cobbler did not look at him; his brown eyes dwelt on the distance, and his soul was uplifted by the approaching joy of self-sacrifice. He did not hear the abuse that M. de Baudri continued to pour upon him; his life was passing before his eyes, his wretched, abused childhood, his sharp mortification over his physical infirmity, his silent, intense longing for friendship and love, his despised solitude, his hard, thankless labor; and now it was over, and not in vain! “Mother of God,” he prayed, “comfort the wretched.” He awoke to hear M. de Baudri ordering his soldiers to bring a rope.
A dragoon went for a piece that was coiled on the back of one of the horses. The troopers never hunted heretics without rope. He returned promptly, and approaching le Bossu was slipping the noose over his head, but another scheme had occurred to the leader.
“Hang him by the feet,” he said coolly, pointing with his white hand to a tree. “Sacrebleu! ’twill hurt more so.”
They secured the rope about the hunchback’s feet while their victim watched them with calm eyes.
“What matter,” he thought, “if I have saved her? May the bon Dieu make my sacrifice complete!”
De Baudri watched him coolly, wondering that the rapt face was so calm.
“When I give the order,” he said to the soldiers, “haul him up and let him hang twenty minutes. Now, rogue, where is the girl?”
No answer; the clear eyes looked straight toward the setting sun, over the beautiful valley of the Vaunage. The radiance of the west fell on his face, as though he looked through those golden gates into Paradise.
“Nom de St. Denis!” ejaculated de Baudri, “what a stubborn fool. Now, my men!”
He raised his hand carelessly and the cripple was drawn up by the feet to the limb of a tree, his head hanging with the face to the west. Ten minutes passed—twenty.
“Fire!” said M. de Baudri.
There was the crash of a volley, the blue smoke rose, the poor, misshapen body swung around in the red sunlight, and there was silence,—broken at last by the trample of horses as the troopers mounted and rode down the hill.
The sun set in a sea of gold; the gray clouds above turned the color of a red rose; a haze floated over Nîmes. In the wood, only the dead leaves rustled as they fell. In the upper room of the shop of Two Shoes, the candle before the shrine had burned down to the very end. It flickered and flared up, a single flame in the gloom, and then it went out forever.