The King's Scapegoat

CHAPTER XXVII

"GOD KEEP YOU, NOW AND ALWAYS"

But the next day Mademoiselle de Narbonne would not let us go.

"There is no need for haste," said she. "Consider for yourself; truly there is no haste. Jean Volran, once his blood is cool, will kill no horses riding to tell his master your plot has failed. This time bad news will bait by the way. Even then that woman is in no danger. The King is not wanton in his wickedness. With him evil has a purpose, and he is ruthless rather than cruel. The woman will be safe for at least a week."

She was right, and in the reaction which followed the high-strung tension of the conflict at La Voulle, judge if I did not catch greedily at the procrastination. But not for a week; the risk every way was too great; two days perhaps.

"Two days?" she repeated, glancing at Paul. "What do you say to that, mon père?"

"Sufficient, I think," he answered thoughtfully. "Yes, more than sufficient, for we had last night."

"Good! On Tuesday, then," said she, and the two left me.

More than sufficient! That was a hard saying, and not like Father Paul. Yet even to me the hard saying was a true one. These two days were more than sufficient to weary me of Morsigny, for in them I was left to isolation, except for a half hour thrice a day when we came together to break our fast. Now that her nurse's masquerade was over, Mademoiselle de Narbonne appeared to be burdened with affairs, and it may be that there were letters to write, for couriers were sent away thrice, once to Pau, and twice to Pamplona.

I suppose Paul guided her in these, for not even he was visible, until at last, having haunted Morsigny all that Sunday for a glimpse of his kindly sorrowful face, I shut myself up in my own chamber at sunset, an ill-used, ill-tempered man. Of what use was it to say, Wait two days, if in them I was shut up to my own thoughts for company? Not even Mademoiselle's rose, nodding towards me across a rim of glass, was any comfort.

I do not think there ever yet was a man who never repented of making a great sacrifice. In his soul he knows he was right, but the baser part of him repents, and there never was a man yet whose baser part did not get the upper hand at times, while with most of us it sits astride on top.

I was five-and-twenty, and loved life with the natural, wholesome, riotous love of any healthy animal. Of death or the judgment to follow I had no conscious fear, but the life I lived was sweet and good and satisfying. It suited the flesh of my manhood's robust strength as no other life could, suited it exactly as the Lord God meant it should; and so, as I stared, chin on palm, above the blown rose at the blue of the far-off hills, I asked myself if I had not been a fool?

My oath? Oaths comfort no dead men, and Mademoiselle had herself torn the figment of my oath to tatters. Brigitta? Again I called Mademoiselle to witness; had she not said the King had a method in his wickedness? His cruelty was not the lust to kill for killing's sake. With a fright, a whipping perhaps, he would let her go. Her healthy flesh would heal, her peasant's mind would take no shame. In six months' time she would be none the worse except for a scar or two on the back, none the worse body or soul, while I——? Clenching my fist I struck it against the table. Instantly a small soft voice answered me, a voice without words. Mademoiselle's rose had fallen, and the heavy petals whispered as they toppled on the polished wood; one, two, a dozen; those left, trembling at the shock of loss, nodding a farewell before they, too, lost their hold on life.

"See, old friend of yesterday," they said, "see what comes to all of us. We do our little work in the world, and then—we go. We give a little of sweetness, a little of perfume to the dry, dull air of the world, we breathe a little of love, a little of promise, our best and all we have, and then, having done our work in the world—we go!"

Ay! we go! But we do not go utterly. Even my rose had left something of its sweetness behind. From the petals gathered in my palm the breath of yesterday flowed upwards, perfumed and delicious. My rose was gone, yes, but it was not utterly gone. Its memory lived, fragrant and undying. Surely, surely, I could at least leave as sweet a name behind me as a rose of yesterday!

"We go, old friend," said I, nodding back at the shaking petals. "Yes, we go; but if truly we have done our work in the world, and if our memory lives in fragrance after us, what does it greatly matter?" And—will it be believed?—I drew strength and comfort from the withering petals flattened in my palm.

There was much need for both. Monday was as the Sunday had been. Mademoiselle and Brother Paul were busied everywhere but where Gaspard Hellewyl looked for them, nor did we meet till supper. Then Mademoiselle was restrained, preoccupied, eating little and talking less; her only reference to the next day's departure being a cold enquiry as to when I desired the horses. Had we been going for one of our rides, as in the blessed days of July, she would have shown more animation.

"Eight o'clock," I answered, steeling myself to an equal coldness. "We must ride to Orthez; the King's post at La Voulle is temporarily closed. May I suggest, Mademoiselle, that you should keep a watchful eye on the next tenant?"

"Orthez!" repeated she thoughtfully. "Yes, eight o'clock should do."

"Oh, Mademoiselle!" said I, with an elaborate show of courtesy to cover my bitterness, "if the hour is inconvenient we can always leave—earlier! But I do not think you need be afraid for Morsigny. The King knows you are warned. Shut your door upon our backs and you are safe."

She looked aside abruptly before replying, and when she turned to face me again her eyes were brimming, though her mouth was hard set.

"You think us ungrateful, Monsieur, you think us callous, you think us cold; but you think wrong in all three. But there is, I pray God, a life to be saved, if to save it is possible, and there is much to be thought of, much to be planned. You will excuse me for to-night? To me the danger is greater than you admit—I cannot bear to speak of it. I am more truly a woman than you credit, and—and—God keep you, Monsieur, now and always!"

Before I could reply she had gone, still half mumbling the words between her shut teeth, leaving me touched to the heart with self-reproach. Not that I believed the danger to the boy was serious. Now that his scheme was laid bare, Louis would resort to no impolitic violence; but love, given unreservedly as Mademoiselle's love was given to little Gaston, is never calmly rational, but, over-anxious, measures danger by its own depth.

The next morning Brother Paulus and I broke our fast alone, nor did I see Mademoiselle until the horses stood by the mounting-blocks. That she had rested badly, sleeping little or none at all, was plain from the black hollows which underlay her eyes. Even Gaston saw the change.

"Suzanne is ugly to-day, Monsieur Gaspard," said he, running forward to feed Roland with a morsel of bread. "I think she has been crying. That is silly, Suzanne, for if people go away they always come back."

"Let him think so," said she, trying to smile as she shook a finger at him. "To me it seems a sin to make a child sorrowful. Come and say good-bye to Monsieur Gaspard, Gaston."

It was strange, almost grotesque, certainly pathetic, how the child in him froze to the dignity of the Count of Foix.

"Goodbye, Monsieur," said he, coming forward sedately, but with a back-turned glance of regret at Roland whinnying after him. "My father, the Count de Narbonne, will be sorry—oh, you have a new kind of spurs on, Monsieur Gaspard! Suzanne! do you see? Is that because you have so far to ride."

"Goodbye, Monsieur Gaston," said I, smiling in spite of my heavy heart at his struggle to be two such incongruities at the one minute as a dignified prince and a wholesome-natured child of six. "When next we ride together we must have just such another famous gallop as we had on Saturday."

"Shall we? Shall we?" he cried, gleefully clapping his hands, the prince all flung to the wind. "Oh, but it was grand, that ride from La Voulle! Suzanne, you would have thought the King of France was after us, we rode so fast."

But Mademoiselle had me by the hand, and was biting her lip, so that I said my farewells hastily.

"God bless you, Mademoiselle! Only He knows what you have been to me in my weakness," and stooping, I kissed her hand as I had kissed it once before. "It is not so very hard; never believe that it has been very hard. Father Paul——"

But Father Paul was fairly crying, and when I saw the tears running unrestrained down his cheeks, I judged it time to be in the saddle, lest I should disgrace my manhood. To weep at a friend's grave is no shame, but a man who rides in his own funeral should keep back his tears that others may not suffer with him.

What benediction was in Father Paul's heart I do not know, for his tongue turned traitor and would not speak, but I have no doubt that He to Whom it was addressed heard and recorded it.

Almost in silence I left the great door of Morsigny, but not the outer gate. There waited Hugues, 'Tuco, Antony, and the rest, all who had so rightly mistrusted me. They were in two lines, between which we rode bareheaded as they. At first they were dumb, and stood to arms as soldiers stand when a fellow soldier goes where a soldier may look to go in the fulfilment of his duty. But as we passed beneath the teeth of the portcullis a roar followed us, a cheer, a hoarse shout like the rumble of thunder, "Vive Hellewyl! Vive Solignac! Vive Flanders!"

At the shout I turned in the saddle, my heart beating fast, my eyes wet, and the last I saw of Morsigny was not Mademoiselle's white face, nor Brother Paul's tears, but a forest of bare steel shaken in the air, and quivering like fire as the sun caught the flat of the friendly blades. Truly it was something of a triumph that Navarre should cheer a man of Flanders who came by way of Plessis-les-Tours!

But the mockery of it. Vive Hellewyl! Vive Solignac! Long live the man who dies within two weeks! Long live the man who rides in his own funeral! Long live Solignac of the burnt roof-tree! Solignac, the harbour for owls and bats! They might as well cry, Long live Death and Destruction! And yet at the ring of the hoarse roar my blood warmed, my eyes lightened, and my heart leaped. Gaspard Hellewyl would pass as the over-blown rose had passed, but his memory would live, and Morsigny would hold it fragrant. There was some comfort in that to the man who so dearly and without hope loved the mistress of Morsigny.

But such comfort soon passes; the spirit needs stronger meat than a windy cheer, however well meant, to keep it in health, and as my pulses calmed I saw facts in their true proportions. So long as I was at Morsigny, so long as I was in touch with Mademoiselle, she was the prism at which I looked at life and the hours shone red or blue at her mood's pleasure. Now that was finally done with, and thenceforward if there was a light at all it was cold and passionless. In that glamour of interweaving reds and blues I could play the stoic and say, It is not so very hard. And at the time it was true. We all have a high note in us, though all too soon it dies away in a quaver.

Nor was Martin helpful. Sour and disconsolate he rode behind, whistling a Dies irae, Dies illa of his own composing, until Morsigny was no longer in sight. Then, according to custom, he spurred up Ninus until his muzzle was a foot or two ahead of my girth.

"I don't understand it at all, Monsieur Gaspard. We come to a place where we plainly were not wanted, stay there two months playing ourselves, then ride back where plainly we do not want to go. Why is all that? Do you remember, we were to roof over Solignac, redeem the old lands, and catch Jan Meert, and when we rode from Morsigny we were to ride as if the devil or Tristan were after us. But here we are, pricking along leisurely, as if——"

"Tristan was before us, which he is. Cannot you see that we have failed?"

"And Solignac?"

"My poor Martin, there is no more a Solignac."

"And the lands?"

"Never again will a Hellewyl have lands in Flanders."

"Jan Meert?"

"Perhaps," said I, grimly, "perhaps Jan Meert. The King has promised we shall meet, and when it suits him to do so he keeps his word."

"The King?" a spasm had poor Martin by the throat, just as in my room at Morsigny when the noosed cord was dangled in his face.

"For me," said I, "but not for you. I go to Plessis, but you—to Solignac, I think, will be safest."

His only answer was the reproach in his eyes, and a "God forgive you, Monsieur Gaspard," as he reined back again. Of course, he meant that where I went there would he go also: nor, so complete was his faith that what I did was the one and only thing that could be done, did he attempt remonstrance or persuasion.

But ten minutes later I heard the sober trot of the hoofs behind me quicken to a clatter, and again Martin pricked up alongside, but this time he was smiling.

"I have it, Monsieur Gaspard! We have failed"—he never stopped to ask in what, or to say the failure was none of his, since he did not even know the scheme—"we failed, but that was because they were too many for us. And what is more, we did our best, did all that men could do, for they killed you, and as you lay a-dying, with your last breath you bade me ride to Plessis and tell the King all that had happened. Meanwhile, you will go to Solignac by way of Auvergne, Burgundy, and Lorraine, and I, when—when—the King has rewarded me, as of course, he will," he went on, whimpering in spite of the gay prospect, the excessive brightness of which made his eyes water, and his mouth to tremble with a queer smile, "I'll join you there, and—and—; there, that's settled, but I think you need not go to Orthez."

"And tell me, how does King Louis reward failures?"

For a moment he blinked in silence, but though the shadow on his face deepened, his voice was brave as he answered—"This was no common failure."

"You are right, old friend," said I, grimly twisting his meaning. "It was, indeed, no common failure, and what is more, news of it is already on the way, so that the King will have ample time to prepare the reward. What shall we do with it when we get it, you and I?"

"Don't laugh at me, Master Gaspard, for I can't bear it," he answered gruffly. "And why should I not go to Plessis? Why should I not die for you? What use is a man's love if it can't do a—a—little thing like that? Why can't I go to Plessis, Monsieur Gaspard?"

"Because, old friend, there are some debts a man must pay for himself; because, too, in your heart of hearts, you would not have the last Hellewyl of Solignac turn coward, even to save his life."

For a moment he looked me straight in the face, saying nothing; then, raising his hand to a salute, he turned Ninus back, and thenceforward we rode apart. Even at Saint Laurent, where, by Mademoiselle's suggestion, we halted to bait, he kept his distance. His only explanation was a gruff, "A man who isn't good enough to die for another isn't good enough to live with him, or eat or drink with him either, Monsieur Gaspard."

So, also, was it through the afternoon. He trailed a dozen lengths behind me, the packhorse dragging uncursed from his hooked elbow, and it was with a dreary sense of isolation, of being outcast from all love and sympathy in the world, that I rode into the court of the inn at Orthez, to see Mademoiselle's face smiling at me from the doorway.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A LIE FOR A LIFE

"Mademoiselle Suzanne!" I cried, and at what she read in my face the white in her cheeks went to the pink of a shell. "Why! what does this mean?"

"That there are more roads than one to Orthez, Monsieur; and that Father Paulus, who is within, will tell you the rest."

"But, Mademoiselle——"

"But, Monsieur, the roads are free to all; only," and turning on the midway landing of the stairs up which I followed her, leaving Martin and the landlord to care for the horses, she went on, lowering her voice, "remember that henceforward there is no longer a Mademoiselle de Narbonne, only Suzanne D'Orfeuil. Father Paulus is here, Monsieur de Helville."

Thenceforward? What thenceforward did she mean? And why, in a chief city of Navarre, should a Narbonne of Morsigny deny her name? Taking my two hands in both his at the top of the stairs, Father Paul answered my second question as directly as if I had spoken aloud.

"Though it is Orthez, it is also a post of the King of France, and to travel as Suzanne D'Orfeuil is less risk."

"To travel? To travel where?"

"To Plessis, my son."

"Did you think," broke in Mademoiselle through my dismayed protest, the door being shut behind us, "did you really think us so cold, so callous, so ungrateful? If so, then we have not taught you much in our two months, Monsieur."

"Not taught me much? Suzanne D'Orfeuil has taught me more than can ever be told to Mademoiselle de Narbonne. Not taught me much? From a man I have learned faith; from a woman—ah! Mademoiselle, I dare not say one half——"

"Then do not try, Monsieur," she began, with one of her little old-time curtseys. But her forced gaiety ended in a sigh. "All that is past, and where we go there is little love and no faith," which showed that, though she stopped my mouth, she caught my meaning.

"Plessis? Father Paul, that must never be."

"Why not, Son Gaspard?"

"Our Suzanne at Plessis? Our Suzanne in the power of that cold, cruel devil, Louis of France? It is monstrous; it is infamous! Yes, I will speak!" for with her hand upon my arm she tried to silence me, not understanding that her very nearness, the mere touch of her fingers, was a spur to protest. "Why should I not? You are Suzanne D'Orfeuil, and Mademoiselle de Narbonne is at home in Morsigny; why should I not speak? By what right, Brother Paulus, do you risk a life not your own?"

It was Mademoiselle who answered.

"Then if you must speak, speak to me if you please, Monsieur, not to Brother Paul. I love him like a father, I reverence him as my guide spiritual, but if you think Brother Paul would keep Suzanne D'Orfeuil from doing that which Suzanne de Narbonne has bidden her, then, I say again, we have not taught you much in our two months at Morsigny."

"Then, Mademoiselle, I ask you. By what right do you risk a life not your own?"

"Not my own? Then whose is my life, Monsieur, if you please? and when you answer, take care you do not presume too far. Whose, Monsieur, whose?"

"Navarre's."

"Has a nation no honour, even as a man has?"

"Its honour is dishonoured if it saves its honour at a woman's cost. Oh! Mademoiselle, you know not what you do. You have not heard the King's threats as I have, the rack, the cord, infamy not to be named in words; no, no, you know not what you do. For God's sake return to Morsigny, that your blood be not on my head."

"And would there be none on mine?" she answered vehemently, and with a passion the equal of my own. "Would I be blood-guiltless if, with a Good-day, and merci, Monsieur! I curtsied a good-bye on the steps at Morsigny, and gave no second thought why you rode away and where? Or for whose sake you carried a foot of King Louis' cord in your pocket? His Most Christian Majesty's new-founded Order of Noble Faith!"

"Oh! that?" said I lamely, for I remembered that the ease with which she sent me to my death had hurt me sorely; "that was not a woman's business."

"A man's, then? Brother Paul taught you a man's faith, did he? Fie, fie, Monsieur! Is it a man's faith to pray in safety to the good God to do for us what we should do for ourselves? And did Brother Paul not teach you, bad theologian that he is! that faith without works is little worth? There, Monsieur, the man and the woman are both accounted for; are you content?"

Content? Desperate, rather, and in despair I turned upon the priest who stood by in silence, the lines upon his face those of perplexity rather than doubt or anxious care.

"Do you consent to this worse than madness?"

"Is it madness?" said he, taking Mademoiselle's hand in his to comfort and hearten her. "Then, my son, and I say it in all reverence, then was Christ mad. He came——"

"To die for the sinful and unworthy," I cried in bitterness of heart; "you need not tell me I am that, I know it already."

"Because there was no other way; and who knows but Louis will hearken," said Paul gently, his eyes growing wistful, "though, indeed, Monsieur Hellewyl, even while my heart said she was right, I gave faith the lie and urged her all I knew not to go."

"Louis hearken!" I answered scornfully. "What can she say to move him? I tell you, Paul, Louis will wring the rights and freedom of Navarre out of her woman's flesh."

"No, no, you mistake; Suzanne will not appear at all, Louis will know nothing of Suzanne. She will move Monsieur de Commines, and Monsieur de Commines will move the King to mercy. We have thought it all over. It was settled the night we returned from La Voule."

"By me it was settled as we sat at the table in the Justice Hall," said Mademoiselle. "Could you give yourself up to save a peasant woman who was nothing to you, nothing at all—remember, Monsieur, I understand she was nothing at all to you—while we, to whom you—you—are so much, raised no finger to aid you? There and then I settled my plan, and we have had two days to think it over, Brother Paul and I."

Oh, the irony of it! the unconscious, sardonic irony! yes, and the pathos, too. They had thought it all over, these two—the gentle unworldly priest and the generous, tender-hearted, too grateful woman, they had thought it all over, and now in their swerveless cleaving to what they held to be right, they were as inflexible, as inexorable, as stonily determined as Louis himself.

But if argument and pleading failed, there at least remained protest.

"Remember, this is not done with my consent."

In an instant she was Suzanne D'Orfeuil de Narbonne, and turned to freeze me with a stare.

"Consent! Monsieur, consent? You forget yourself surely? When I desire either your consent or your approval, I shall ask for it; till then I take leave to decide and act for myself."

There was no more to be said. With such a bow as a Mademoiselle de Narbonne had a right to claim from a Gaspard Hellewyl I withdrew.

Men and women, liars all, have whispered that, having crept like a traitor into Morsigny under cover of a woman's skirts, I now tried to purchase my own safety by the sacrifice of Mademoiselle de Narbonne. The men have not repeated the lie but the women knew they were safe. It has been openly alleged that, knowing her loftiness of mind, her generous-hearted impulsiveness, I so played upon her sense of gratitude that she took the desperate step of substituting herself in my place, and that I, a traitor to the King and to my salt, accepted the sacrifice like a coward and a cur. More lies! the only truth being that the loftiness of spirit is there, and the generous loyal heart is there. But that is the way of the liar: even the devil himself would not be believed if he did not mix some truth with his falsehood. But of every fair mind, of every one who reads this record for the first time, I ask, in the face of such a withering rebuke as she gave me at the last, Was there room for further protest?

But if there was no more to be said, there was more to be done—there was the saving her from herself in spite of herself. To this end I sounded Brother Paul when presently he joined me, his mouth full of excuses for the sharpness of her rebuff.

"Do not be vexed with her, my son, she is nerve-weary, over-wrought, and fretted by care. For three nights she has not slept, for two days she has laboured and planned that no harm may come to Morsigny in our absence, and all that time she has not eaten as much as would keep a bird alive. Her spirit alone keeps her up."

"And yet you send her to Plessis?"

"Let us not speak of that, but rather how good may come out of evil."

"Tell me your plan."

"It is Suzanne's, not mine, and nothing could be simpler. We will ride together, all four of us, till we come to Poictiers, following the King's stages day by day. No doubt from each stage he will be warned that Gaspard de Helville is keeping faith, and so the woman will be safe. At Poictiers we part. You and Martin remain behind, while Suzanne and I ride on to gain the ear of Monsieur de Commines. He is pledged to you and to her, and through him there will be a respite. That will give us time, and with time——" He stopped short, rubbing his chin. Even to his guilelessness it was plain there was a strained link in the chain. "With time," he went on lamely,—"oh! all the world knows that with time anything can be done."

"Ay!" I answered, "and much more, I pray God, with Eternity! for once you reach Plessis there'll be little time left to any one of us. How is it that so many men who are wise for the next world are fools for this? Do you think that already Louis has not been warned how a priest and a woman met Gaspard Hellewyl at Orthez? Do you think that henceforth that priest and that woman will not be traced step by step, wherever they go? Do you think that when Mademoiselle knocks on Plessis gate the first to hear of it will not be Louis himself? What, then, will follow? She is Suzanne D'Orfeuil, a kind of serving-wench at Morsigny, and the purpose of this serving-wench is to come between the King of France and his vengeance. Will the King believe her account of herself? Not for an instant. Serving-wenches do not mix themselves up in State affairs. You he will hang, and I do not think the knowledge will hold you back for an hour. But what of Mademoiselle de Narbonne?" Leaning forward, I caught him by the shoulder, shaking him. "Father Paul, have you ever seen a woman racked? The white limbs stretched naked on the frame, and strained and strained until the joints crack, until the muscles tear from the ribs and the writhing mouth screams, frothing?"

"God forbid!" he said, stammering. "God forbid!"

"God forbid!" I retorted hotly, "Do your own work in the world, Father Paul, and do not ask God to do it for you. Is the Lord God a lackey to do that for a man which he should do himself? God forbid? No! but do you forbid!"

"How?" he answered, swaying as I shook him in my passion. "I forbade it at Morsigny, and she put me aside. How can I forbid it?"

"By seeming to consent until Poictiers is reached. There we will reverse the parts. That night I shall ride on, and next morning, when she asks for Gaspard Hellewyl, do you say, He is at Plessis."

"She will follow."

"I think not," I answered slowly, striving hard to marshall my thoughts in order. With such a nature to deal with as that of Suzanne de Narbonne, it would not do to leave any emergency unprovided for.

But just because hers was such a nature—loyal, pure of spirit, faithful, hard as steel in her sense of honour—I thought I saw my way clear. It was not a pleasant way, it was a way that bade good-bye for ever to my dream of a rose-leaf, fragrant memory. But what would the shattering of even so dear a dream as that matter, if only I saved her from herself?

"Did you guess," I went on at length, "that I love Suzanne D'Orfeuil, and that she knows I love her?"

"Mademoiselle de Narbonne?"

"No! Not Mademoiselle de Narbonne, with estates in Bigorre and Bearn, but Suzanne D'Orfeuil, nurse to Monsieur Gaston de Foix."

"Suzanne D'Orfeuil? Yes, I understand now what you mean. Oh! my friend, I am sorry, very, very sorry."

"You need not be; no man is the worse for loving a good woman. Love is a fire, and when it does not consume it purifies; so do not be sorry. But she was not the only one, nor the first. You remember?"

"Brigitta?"

"Brigitta. You saw how Mademoiselle blazed out at Morsigny when she supposed—you know what she supposed well enough?"

"But she was wrong, you told her she was wrong."

"Suppose," said I slowly, "suppose I leave a letter at Poictiers telling her that she was right, and that I had lied? Suppose I tell her that the woman Brigitta has a claim upon me which none but a wife should have upon a man, a claim which not even such a scoundrel as I can deny? I am not all bad, you see; if I were, Mademoiselle would have found me out; and being not all bad, I admit the claim. Suppose the letter goes further, and says that all through it is Brigitta I have loved, but that being at Morsigny I passed my time pleasantly—would she follow me then?"

"I understand," he repeated, his brows wrinkled in the effort to follow not alone the meaning of the words, but the full extent of the lie they told. "I am not good at—at—tricks of speech, but I think I understand. No, Suzanne de Narbonne would not follow you then. And you could say that to the woman you love?"

"I could say it because I love her!"

A bitter draught is none the less bitter for being of our own mixing, and what I drank in that hour is past telling. I suppose my torment of spirit showed in my face, for he laid his hand on mine holding me fast.

"Did I not rightly say that those who greatly doubt can greatly love? And greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend."

Some will say, Why not have told your lie to Mademoiselle there in Orthez? But that would have spoiled all. In her then mood, and coming so quickly on the heels of my past urging, she would have seen through the subterfuge, scoffing it for the clumsy falsehood it was. Let a week pass, let her emotions cool, let her healthy youth regain its dominance, and the clumsy lie of Orthez would seem a scoundrel truth in Poictiers.

So day by day that week passed, and not so very gloomily. Wholesome youth is not long melancholy. If I had Mademoiselle for company and so was happy through the warm August hours, she had faith and enthusiasm to comfort her. That there was life and movement also counted for much. Blessed be activity! Cabernet succeeded Orthez, Le Gatelet Cabernet, Saint Gatien, Marthon, Ruffec, night by night with but two exceptions: once we were barred by a swollen river—the Dordogne was in flood—and on Sunday we rested. But our days of peace came to their end, and on the 28th, the last Thursday in the month, we entered Poictiers.

CHAPTER XXIX

HOW MARTIN WON HIS HEART'S DESIRE

And now I come to what has saddened all my life since, and still must sadden it.

In Poictiers, it will be remembered, much was to happen. There Mademoiselle de Narbonne was to leave me behind in hiding while she rode on to Plessis to gain the King's ear through Philip de Commines. There, too, I was to forestall her useless sacrifice and, in a triple sense, disappear into the dark, into the night, into her scorn and contempt, into the valley of the shadow, from which none ride out at the hither end.

And yet none of these things came to pass. We reckoned without the King's energy of will to strike, and the swiftness of his wrath.

Once only she referred to the part she proposed that I should play. It was on the morning of that last Thursday in August, and the great silence of the deep heart of the wood through which we rode had fallen upon us.

"Father Paulus has told you that we part at Poictiers?" she said, looking straight forward between her horse's twitching ears.

"Yes; it is all arranged between us."

Then silence fell again, but she gave her reins a little impatient shake as if she asked in her heart what manner of man was this who had no word of gratitude or even of plain thanks to offer her. But it was better so; the graceless boor would easier seem the lying scoundrel.

"What will you do, Monsieur, while you are waiting for news?" she went on at last.

"Rather let us ask, what will you do? How, for instance, do you propose to pass the gates of Plessis?"

"I have thought of that; by the King's signet which you hold."

"The King's signet?"

"Yes; when Lesellè refused you admission to the presence the afternoon you left Plessis, Monsieur de Commines passed you the King's ring, and in the haste that followed it was overlooked. You have it still?"

"Mademoiselle," I cried, shaken out of my enforced coldness, "you astonish me. I had forgotten the King's ring."

"You had less need to remember than I," she answered, glancing at me for the first time. "When those we—we—esteem are in danger—but this is no danger, Monsieur? All will go well, will it not?"

There was a little catch in her throat as she ended, and my own was not free from a significant parchedness as I replied, giving the lie as light an appearance of careless truth as I could—"Surely not; Monsieur de Commines will protect you."

"I was not thinking of myself," said she, "but for fear the ring should be forgotten in to-morrow's haste, as it was when you left Plessis, you had better give it to me now."

For a moment I hesitated. Since she was to remain behind in Poictiers she required no token to open the gates of Plessis. But, on the other hand, neither did I! No fear but by day or by night the drawbridge would swing down that the traitor Gaspard Hellewyl might pass over! Then a new thought decided me, and drawing the signet from the inner pocket where it had lain forgotten, I handed it to her. In the doubtful days to come, the days that lay between Poictiers and Navarre upon her return journey, the King's ring boldly used might hold her safe. There was comfort in that.

"See how you make all smooth for me," said she, smiling up at me as she took the ring; and partly because she was Suzanne de Narbonne and I nothing better than Gaspard Hellewyl, but partly also because of the lie she was so shortly to be told, I dared not answer her back, dared not say, Would God I could make all smooth till the mound of the grave makes all rough for the one left behind.

At the Coq Rouge, the inn of the King's choosing, we parted without formality. Some trivial excuse appeared reason enough, but the truth was I did not dare trust myself to drift into a farewell that was for her a Good-night until the morrow, but for me until the great morrow of the Eternal dawn. I had my letter to write, and how, having the one moment kissed her hand, could I the next coldly set myself down a liar and a scoundrel?

But an hour passed, and the letter was still unwritten. Then, as I tore up my sixth draft, the door opened without a knock, and Martin slipped quietly in.

"Mademoiselle wants you, and I think there is trouble," he said in a whisper.

"Mademoiselle de Narbonne?"

"Mademoiselle Suzanne."

"It is all one."

"Maybe, but she bade me say Mademoiselle Suzanne sent me; Mademoiselle Suzanne, I was to make no mistake about that."

"Where is she, and why do you think there is trouble?" For the moment the only trouble I feared was that I would forget myself, and being a lover, fail to play the man.

"In Father Paul's room. There is a woman with her, and nine times in ten when trouble comes, it comes by way of a woman."

"Tell me what you know, but quickly, for Mademoiselle is waiting."

"Let her wait," he grumbled; "we waited long enough at Morsigny, and for no good. That is always the way, let a woman come, and poof! a man's love of a lifetime is forgotten. All right, Monsieur Gaspard, I'll go on, but you'll allow it's hard to be put aside for a stranger. As I was sitting in the court below, one of the house servants came to me saying there was a woman wanting the lady who travelled with us. Naturally I came first to tell you, the woman following all smothered in a hooded cloak, though the air outside is like a furnace. But as I turned to the left, the fool of a man cried out that Madame's room was to the right, and what could I do but take her there? Mademoiselle came at my knock, and I think she must have lain down in her clothes, for though she was fully dressed, her hair was all tumbled about her shoulders. But she had not rested much, her face was so black and white, and her eyes like the eyes of a fever."

"I know all that, get to the end," I said harshly. It cut me to the heart, angering me almost beyond bearing, to hear him catalogue her weariness so bluntly, and know how bitterly I must still make her suffer.

"You said, Tell all you know," he answered. "But as to the end, the end was that, telling me to stand aside, she spoke a minute or two to the woman, shrinking from her first, then catching her in her arms as if she was her sister, and a bouncing armful she is—she'd make two of Mademoiselle. She took her to Father Paul's room, which was empty, and bade me tell you that Mademoiselle Suzanne wanted you. 'Remember,' said she, 'remember to say Mademoiselle Suzanne wants him.'"

"Come, then, but wait outside the door. If Father Paul should return, tell him what you have told me, but let no one else in."

The room was long and narrow. In three of the corners there were beds, and in the fourth a bench; a table carrying a lighted lamp stood in the centre. At the further end a window overlooked the roof of an outhouse with a walled lane beyond. The casement was open, and through it came the clear sound of voices from the lane's-folk taking the air in the slowly cooling August heat. The two women were by the table, Mademoiselle de Narbonne at its side and facing the door, her companion at the end nearest the window, which she fronted. The hood of her cloak hung back upon her shoulders, and as I closed the door she turned.

"Brigitta!"

"Brigitta, M'sieu," and with a giggling laugh she dipped an awkward curtsey. Then I knew why I had hated to see Mademoiselle so salute me in the old days of her masquerade at Morsigny; it seemed to lower her to the level of this Flanders peasant.

From Brigitta I looked with anxious apprehension to Mademoiselle de Narbonne, but to my relief she was smiling through a twinkle of tears, and the look of heavy care which had oppressed her these ten days was entirely lifted.

"Brigitta! I thought you were in Plessis?"

"So I was, Monsieur Gaspard, but four days ago the King gave me to Jan Meert and sent us here."

"To Jan Meert?"

"Oh, not for the first time!" said she, tossing her head, but though it was to me she spoke her eyes were on Mademoiselle's face as if, being a woman, she feared the woman's judgment rather than the man's, "and I'm not ashamed either. What do we dogs of peasants who love one another need with a priest?"

"I rated you higher than that," said I.

"I know you did, Monsieur Gaspard," and the defiance in her eyes softened. "It was the one thing I loved in you, that, and that you were a gentleman who could make me mistress of Solignac, but I thought you a fool all the time. Then Jan Meert came and burnt Solignac for my sake, and that settled it. I'm no owl to roost on charred sticks, even to be called Madame."

"Jan Meert burnt Solignac for your sake?"

Again she laughed, but this time with a fuller heartiness, as if she were on surer ground and better pleased with herself.

"It's not every woman has her man do such a thing for her."

"He did more than that, he killed Babette?"

"Babette was a cat with claws in her tongue, many a time they've scratched me to the bone. Babette's no loss. But I let no harm come to you, Monsieur Gaspard. Remember how I lured you to me that day and kept you safe; you owe me thanks for that."

"Then you knew?"

"Not for certain, though I better than guessed. But you had always treated me en gentilhomme, and so——"

"Have we time for all this?" broke in Mademoiselle, speaking for the first time. "Tell him why Jan Meert is in Plessis."

"There is no need," answered I, remembering the King's promise that, fail or succeed, I should meet the man who had made me homeless. It was truly a genially humoursome way of flinging his old tools to the rubbish heap. "He is there by the grace of God and Saint Louis of Plessis! What I do not understand is why she is here."

"That you may escape! Do you not see?" cried Mademoiselle, half laughing, half in sobs, "Do you not see that there is no need for me to go to Plessis at all now she is safe?"

"Why," said Brigitta, "was it to save me—me, old Pieter the herdsman's daughter, that you came back? Mademoiselle! did I not say he played his part en gentilhomme? Oh, Monsieur Gaspard, you may not own a rood of land worth the having, but you are a Grand Seigneur for all that. To save me! and I burnt Solignac."

"I did not know that."

"You would have come all the same, you know you would."

"I know he would," repeated Mademoiselle, her face all aglow; "but now, thank God! there is no need for either to go."

"No," answered I; "after I have met Jan Meert there will be no need to go on to Plessis. But since she came to warn me, why is she here with you?"

"I'll answer that," said Brigitta, and as she spoke, a flush reddened Mademoiselle's cheeks. "Peasant or Grand Madame, we women are all one flesh. If Mademoiselle had come a-visiting my man in the dusk I'd ask the reason why, and ask it sharply, so to make no mischief I came straight to her."

"It was well meant," said I, "but——"

"But it was not needed," said Mademoiselle, her face still rosy. "I can trust my Grand Seigneur."

"Oh, Mademoiselle! Hush! hush!"

"True, Monsieur, it was you who were to speak plainer, was it not? At least, so you told me one morning at Morsigny."

"Suzanne! Suzanne! do not try me too far, lest I forget myself, my poverty, my broken hopes, everything but——"

"But the one thing I pray God you may never forget," said she, finishing my sentence for me a second time, but not as I would have dared. "Do you think I do not know what you are? Whether would you have a woman love a man or a county in Flanders? There in Paris you risked your life to save an unknown woman's honour, there in Tours"—and she laughed a little, not loudly, but the merriest, happiest laugh I had heard for two weeks—"in Tours you were ready to kill a man or two for the same woman's sake, though the wrath of the King was only a mile away in Plessis. Hush! sir, hush! I shall speak. I cannot, I will not, risk the spoiling of my life by a mock modesty. These things are the truth, and my justification. The King hoodwinked you to a folly that was a crime. Oh, Monsieur!" and again she laughed, "who ever denied your simplicity, and even there, in the being hoodwinked, there was that living by ideals which women love—at least in others. Thinking no dishonour you saw none, and so rode to Morsigny to do the King's work. There in Morsigny the serving girl wore to you the crown of womanhood——"

"You are Mademoiselle de Narbonne," said I hoarsely.

"I was Suzanne D'Orfeuil to you, Monsieur Gaspard de Helville," she retorted, "and you, the friend of the Prince de Talmont, with the building of your fortunes, as you believed, made certain, were not ashamed to stoop. Now I am Suzanne de Narbonne, and you—you are the man who climbed the Grey Leap for my sake, who carried Tristan's halter back to Tristan for my sake, who laid his life at the feet of Louis——"

"For my sake!" cried Brigitta.

"No!" said Mademoiselle, "but for mine! For mine, because he would not seem little in my eyes. And now he says, You are Mademoiselle de Narbonne! all because of certain acres in Bearn and Bigorre, acres that I love dearly enough, but not so dearly—"

"Suzanne! Suzanne!" I cried, drawing her to me inch by inch, drawing her slowly for the bare pleasure of feeling how she hung against my strength, and yet was not loth to come; slowly, slowly, till she was in my arms and I bending over her. "Suzanne, is it true? is it true? Oh! why, why is there a Jan Meert in Poictiers?"

With a wrench, just as our lips touched, she twisted herself free from my clasp.

"Jan Meert? Gaspard, I had forgotten Jan Meert; in my happiness I had forgotten Jan Meert. He is coming, coming to-night, and I had forgotten everything but you. Do not go by the door lest you meet him. By the window, Gaspard, and—yes—there is Father Paul's cloak, take that and muffle your face. Kiss me once, Gaspard, and go."

The first half of her commands I obeyed, and not once only, but the second——

"When I am done with Jan Meert, ma mie! he owes me a life—Babette's."

"Babette's?"

"Yes."

"And I, am I owed nothing? Oh, my dear! it is not because of Jan Meert that I am afraid, but because of the King who stands behind him. For my sake, Gaspard, yes, for love's sake——ah! what is a dead hate compared to a living love? Think what I was ready to give for you. And Brigitta, do you owe her nothing? She loves this Jan Meert even as—as—I love you."

"And Justice?"

"God has all eternity for Justice, yes, and all time too. I have only you and now. Go for to-night."

"They will call me coward, and how could so brave a heart love a coward?"

"A coward? You? They dare not!" she answered, her pride defiant in her eyes. "It is I who am afraid."

"Yet you would go to Plessis?"

"For you, and all the time, coward that I am, I was horribly afraid, as I am now. Go, Gaspard, go for to-night."

And I went; what else could a man do but go? But not far; feeling my way along the outhouse roof I hid myself in the shadows and watched for what should happen.

Closing the window behind me, Suzanne returned to the table, and there the two stood talking, Brigitta, I surmised, explaining much that was uncertain. It was like a living picture. By the light of the lamp I saw everything, but from where I crouched no sound reached me through the shut window. But in the midst of their talk I saw Brigitta touch Suzanne's arm and hold up a hand for silence. So they waited for a breath or two, their faces turned from me; then the door opened a foot, and Martin backed into the room, his drawn sword pointing straight before him. This way and that the blade flashed, half hidden, half in sight, as he fenced in the narrow space till the door opened with a burst and he staggered back.

Of the five men who followed him, I knew but one, and he, when I had last seen him, called himself Jean Volran. The corridor where I had left Martin was dark, and I take it they had only then recognised him, for I saw Volran's mouth open in a laugh, and shaking a hand in the air, he waved the others back; there was a certain fall in the inn of La Voulle to be avenged.

But that did not please the rest. They had other ends to serve than that one of their number should satisfy a private quarrel. Motioning Volran to be quiet, their leader turned to the two women, who had drawn together at the window end of the table. He was a well-built fellow, fresh-faced, fair-bearded, his eyes frank and bold, his mouth stern but not unkindly; Jan Meert, I judged, for I had never yet seen him, and thus the King kept his word.

What passed was dumb show, but there was no excitement; the pot that had boiled so fiercely a minute before was for the moment off the fire, and simmering. One thing reassured me, Brigitta seemed in no danger through the warning she had given us. It was she who did most of the answering, even laughing as if she jested, Suzanne contenting herself with a shake of the head from time to time. Then Volran pointed to the window, threatening Martin with his fist, and instantly the pot bubbled.

Backward to the window sidled Martin, covering himself with his point, all five pressing him. As they came nearer, the rasp of steel rang out. Through the play of heads and flash of blades I saw the door open and Father Paul stand framed in its hollow, but only for a moment. Seizing the lamp, Suzanne flung it on the floor, and immediately the room was black dark.

But the rasp of steel continued, and as my sight cleared I saw Martin's back, a shadow pressed almost against the tiny diamond panes. Five against one for my sake, while I crouched without in safety? That was indeed to be a coward, and creeping back along the roof I flung myself through the casement, carrying with me the flimsy network of rotten wood. With a crash I was in the room, but the impulse staggered me, nullifying the gain of the surprise; worse than that, I slipped, stumbling on the broken casement. Before I could recover, and while still upon my knees, a shadow from the hollow of the room sprang forward, and I saw the dull glimmer of steel as once before I had seen it in the Star of Flanders.

"Dead or alive!" cried Jean Volran's voice. "The King's orders, dead or alive!"

Making no effort to parry the thrust Martin flung himself before me, lunging into the dark as he did so. In the same instant both strokes went home, and with a gasp he fell across me in a last effort at protection.

"One—less—Monsieur Gaspard—my Monsieur Gaspard," he whispered, gritting his teeth that he might not groan as his arms gathered me to his breast. "I did—the best—I knew—but—it is waste—waste——"

In upon us crowded those who remained. My sword was wrenched from me unused, thrice Martin winced as they stabbed him, but his clasp never loosened. Then they flung him aside as so much lumber, and I was dragged to my feet, pinioned fast. So we stood, one blood-drunken minute, panting in the darkness, then lights were brought, and when they saw I could by no means escape they let me stoop over Martin.

Martin? No, there was no more a Martin. Martin had followed and found the gleam, and a flicker of its glory still played in the smile on his dead face. In the end the Lord God gave him his heart's desire, to die for his Monsieur Gaspard. "Waste" was his last word, "waste! waste!" But it was not his own life he mourned for. That he gave without a grudge. But the gift seemed to him as nothing because it failed in its purpose. Waste? God who has mercy on our failures forbid the thought! How can love go waste?

Kissing him on the forehead, I laid him gently back upon the floor, and looking round the room, rose to my feet.

"I am ready, gentlemen."

Father Paul stood beside the overturned table, Brigitta was on her knees lamenting over Jan Meert, but Suzanne was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER XXX

MADEMOISELLE SPEAKS

To decide where my part of the story begins is the difficulty. A chain swung across a gulf from a staple fixed into a rock has a strain put upon it at a certain link; does the strain begin at that link or at the staple?

Of the chain of my knowledge of Gaspard Hellewyl, one end is fixed in a sordid Paris inn, the other—I think the Eternal Himself holds it, for God is Love. Upon many of the links of that chain a special strain falls; the link of Tours, of the Grey Leap, of the morning he rode to La Voulle with my rose in his bonnet, of the day he left Morsigny between the lines of foes turned friends, of the August night in the Coq Rouge.

At any one of these my story might begin, and though it paralleled what he has already written, it would be no twice-told tale, for a woman does not read motives with the eyes of a man. All through he saw poverty, shame, failure; while I know there were riches, clear honour, and achievement; a wealth that to me outweighed Narbonne, a humble seeking after that which was highest, and a winning of a greater glory than any gift from a King's hand.

But because it has been told already I let it pass, and slip out of the darkened room into the yet darker passage beyond the door. Of Martin's death I knew nothing. Events, hopes, despairs, fears, yes, and joys too, had so crowded one upon the other that my brain was in a whirl. One thing only was clear: Gaspard was so far safe, and would be until the King's pleasure was known; that much the woman Brigitta had told me. Instantly upon his arrest an express was to be sent to Plessis. There the King lay sick, three-parts dead some whispered, and it was her belief that my dear one's life hung upon Louis' mood of the moment. So had it been with her. While she looked for nothing less than death the King had repented, turning her over to Jan Meert and life at a caprice. That gave me hope for Gaspard.

In the rumour of his sickness I had no belief. It was Louis' policy to make all things serve him, even death itself, and twice by a rumour of death he had sifted his covert enemies to their confusion. But he who made all ambitions subject to his own was in turn subject to his moods, and Monsieur de Commines, seizing the softer moment before the blunt story of the arrest spurred his malice, might move him to mercy.

If the express was to be instant in its departure, so must I, and slipping past Father Paul in the darkness, I stole out into the passage. It was empty. When the fox of Plessis went a-hunting, meaner beasts—if meaner there could be—kept out of sight. But a hissing whisper came up the stairs, and that I might pass unnoticed I paused a moment to recoif my hair.

In the hall below all was dark, perhaps by Jan Meert's orders, perhaps by reason of the closeness of the August heat, and gathering up my skirts, I raced down. The passages were full of excited groups, and once, passing through these, I was challenged. But with a frightened whimper and the curtsey I had so long practised at Morsigny, I fled on; that a serving maid, upstairs upon her duties, should be in terror of the clash of swords was reasonable enough, and no one gave me a second thought.

First I blundered into the empty kitchen, then into a store closet hung with flitches, smoked hams, and branches of dried potherbs, but once in the grey of the yard, a rattle of manger-chains guided me. Like the kitchen, the stable was empty except for the horses in the stalls. In one corner stood a filthy horn lantern. The Coq Rouge had few guests, and the Morsigny horses filled a row of stalls apart. By each, upon a great wooden nail, hung bridle and saddle, and that night I thanked God and my father that I had not only strength, but knowledge how to use it. There never was a girl Narbonne but could bit and saddle a horse for herself.

Then came the question, a man's saddle or a woman's riding chair? I could use either; that, too, my father had taught me, but for seven years I had never backed a horse man-fashion. It was the speedier, but after all I was a woman with no more than a woman's frail strength; in seeking more haste my woman's weakness might make the worse speed. My dress? That would have been no hindrance. It was for Gaspard's life. If I saved that, a world's jeer or a world's laugh would matter little, and if I failed they would matter nothing at all.

Leading Anita out, I mounted her from the square raised stone set across the kennel, and turned her head the way we had entered. I knew the road through the city, and when presently Jan Meert's express went thundering northwards, none would say as he passed the walls, There is a woman before you!

At the Angoulême gate I met my first check. That it should be fast closed and guarded was to be expected, and that the guard should be an insolent, ribald crew was nothing strange. Those who served Louis earned their wages more by licence than as lawful pay. There were some half dozen of them, and I could hear their laughter long before I drew rein, crying peremptorily, though my teeth were almost chattering—

"On the King's business, open, and quickly! On each of the round towers flanking the gateway there hung a lantern, so smoke-grimed as to give light nowhere but where it was least wanted, that is, upwards to the sky. Lifting one of these down a guard flashed the glare into my face.

"The King, my pretty?" said he, laying a hand upon my knee and shaking me. "Won't a simpler man do you?"

"Learn manners, brute!" said I, slashing him with my riding whip as he leered up into my face. "Learn manners, and be thankful I have no time to wait to see you flogged. Fetch your master; this is the King's business of life and death."

Half to my surprise he obeyed, and presently returned with the officer of the night.

"By the King's command, Monsieur," said I, holding the ring so that the light fell full upon the collet.

"It is against orders, and who, Mademoiselle, are you?"

"The King is above your orders, and I, Monsieur, am the King's messenger. That is my passport." And I pushed the ring fairly into his face. "Do you know the King's cypher, or do you refuse to honour it?"

"I know it well enough," he answered civilly. "Twice I have served at Clery when his Majesty was in residence; but this is against all rule."

"Have it so," said I, gathering up the reins. "I can return the way I came, and say to those who sent me that Monsieur the King's officer of the Angoulême gate rates his captain higher than his King. May I suggest, Monsieur the King's officer, that it will be wise of you not to be found in Poictiers at daybreak to-morrow! But I give you one more chance. In the King's name and by the King's authority, I bid you open the gate."

With a shrug, and "It can do no harm," he unhooked a bunch of huge keys from his girdle, and drew aside one leaf of the great gate.

"It is your wisdom," said I curtly, and spurred through. Nor, so long as the pa-lop pa-lop of her hoofs could be heard did I ease Anita from her gallop. Then by such faint light as the stars gave through a misty sky I fumbled my way round the city towards the north.

Once only, and then by day and in the reverse direction, had I before travelled the road. What wonder I blundered and went astray, rousing up sleepy villagers too stupid to set me right? What wonder I despaired, and flinging the reins on Anita's neck, left her to pick her own path? What wonder that, being a woman and weak, I wept myself into helplessness, and then, being a woman who loved, prayed myself back into strength and courage again?

Through shallow fords we splashed, fords mercifully low in the August drought, else must we have been swept away in the darkness; under overarching woods of denser, solemn night; past the stubble of new-reaped cornfields, a golden glimmer even in the mirk, through villages silent and evil-smelling in the dank heat of the night; now by a hill, now by a valley, now by a flat wilderness of whin-brakes, until the east lightened and a coolness rose with a wind before the sun. Then, when I was no further than Ligueil, the dawn came.

The dawn, and Plessis ten leagues away. Doggedly, despairingly, I pushed forward at little better than a walk. How could Anita, poor beast, go faster? The day before she had made a march of forty miles, and the nine hours struggle to keep her feet in the darkness had worn her out. A walk! The impatience of my heart burned like fire roaring down the wind. Stiff though I was, it was a relief to dismount and plod through the dust, a relief to feel the stones rough and cutting under my feet.