CHAPTER XII.
MADNESS BECOMES FRENZY.
In a moment the casks were broached, and the liquor, in whatever receptacles were at hand, was passed around from mouth to eager mouth. No one made the slightest attempt to husband it, and it was soon pouring down over the steps in little purple rivulets. The faces of the crowd, as the flaring torches and dancing flames revealed them, became more and more inhuman, their shouts hoarser and more menacing, their actions more and more bestial, until I felt my cheeks grow hot at the thought that these creatures belonged to humankind. Truly long centuries in the darkness had rendered them unfit for the light! If vermin such as this was to govern France, then France would better far be sunk in the ocean!
Drunken couples reeled hither and thither shouting incoherently; women forgetting their sex pursued such men as made a pretense of escaping and dragged them down into the shadows; a half-naked girl mounted astride a cask shouted obscenities at six or eight scoundrels who were going through the pretense of a mass.
“The Goddess of Reason!” said M. le Comte, his eyes dwelling upon this group; and indeed at that moment, as the wretch who played the priest made as though he were elevating the host, those behind him burst forth in a hoarse shout:
“Long live Reason! Long live Reason!”
Sick with disgust I glanced at the heavens, wondering that God did not blast them with his thunderbolts.
“I never thought such vileness could exist,” I murmured; and Pasdeloup, who heard the words, smiled grimly.
“Do not blame them too bitterly, monsieur,” he said. “How does it happen that they are what they are? What have they to thank God for? Why should they be grateful to the church? All their lives they have known only cruelty and injustice. Now it is their turn.”
“That is true,” I agreed; and suddenly I realized that this rude and ignorant peasant had a broader and truer outlook upon life than I. And I think that that moment saw the birth in me of a new tolerance and sympathy. At least I hope it did!
No thunderbolt came. Perhaps God, too, was looking down more in pity than in anger.
Attracted by the shout others of the crowd joined the group before the steps, drank of the wine which the girl passed down to them, and began a crazed Bacchanal dance before her. Then a red-faced rogue dashed up the steps to her and screaming with laughter tore her few remaining clothes from her back.
“Long live Reason!” he shouted. “I baptise thee!” and he dashed a cup of wine over her glistening skin.
Another snatched a twig from a flowering shrub and bending it into the semblance of a wreath placed it upon her head.
“Long live Reason!” he shouted in his turn. But a woman in the crowd, jealous perhaps of the attentions shown the naked hussy, suddenly caught up a clod of earth and dashed it into her face; whereupon the goddess dismounted from her throne, vomiting forth I know not what vileness, was caught up by the crowd and passed from sight.
Then one of their number mounted the steps and began to harangue them. I could catch only a word here and there, yet it was easy enough to guess, from the frantic shouts which interrupted him, what his subject was. The mob was in a mood for any atrocity. It needed only the application of the spark.
M. le Comte’s face grew grave as he gazed down at them.
“That is serious!” he said. “When they begin to speechify it is time to think of escape. Have you anything to suggest, Tavernay?”
“If we could reach the ground on the side of the tower away from the mob,” I said, “we might escape into the wood, since there seems to be no watch of any kind, nor any one to intercept us.”
“Yes, but to reach the ground—we need a rope.”
“Is there none in the tower? Surely we can find something——”
“At least, we can look,” he said, and led the way to the stair.
I followed him, but Pasdeloup, his arms folded, his head sunk in reverie, kept his place at the battlement, staring moodily down at the drunken revel.
We descended to the floor below where Pasdeloup’s candle was still burning. A glance at it showed me that it had been half consumed. An hour more and we should be in darkness—if indeed we had not entered the eternal darkness long ere that!
In the first moment I thought the room was empty; then I saw madame half-sitting, half-lying on a couch in one corner, holding the younger woman in her arms. As we approached she raised a warning finger to her lips, and I saw with a sudden burst of tenderness that Charlotte had fallen asleep.
“Do not disturb her,” warned madame in a low voice; but at that instant the sleeper opened her eyes.
For a moment she stared up at us blankly; then her eyes met mine and a wave of crimson swept from brow to chin.
“I have been asleep,” she said, sitting hastily erect. “In spite of all my boasting,” she added, smiling up at me.
“Yes,” said M. le Comte; “and you should be proud of your steady nerves and clear conscience, my dear. Not many of us are able to sleep so peacefully in the face of danger.”
“Danger?” she repeated, and looked about her. “Has it come, then?”
“Oh, not a pressing danger,” he assured her. “Still, we must devise some means of escape before it becomes so. We shall have to take the light, I fear.”
“Do so,” said madame promptly. “Charlotte and I will ascend to the platform.”
“It is not a pleasant sight that you will see,” said M. le Comte, “nor pleasant words that you will hear——”
“We are not children,” broke in madame. “Come, Charlotte.”
M. le Comte lighted them up the stair and then turned back to me.
“It is evident there is no rope here,” he said, holding the candle above his head and looking about the apartment. “The old furnishings hang together better than one would think,” he added.
It was not until then—so occupied had my mind been with other matters—that I perceived with what sumptuousness the place was fitted up. The tapestries were faded and dusty, the coverings of the furniture moth-eaten and decayed, and the room itself cobwebbed and moldy—but it was impressive, nevertheless. It was of good size, octagonal, conforming in shape to the tower, and in four of the sides small, shuttered windows were set. Tapestries and furniture alike had evidently been of the most costly and elegant description.
“This was the boudoir of the fair Gabrielle,” observed M. le Comte, looking about him with a smile. “It has been years since I set foot here and I had forgotten how it looked. You will see that with my ancestor it was a real passion; he did not spare himself. In fact I should hate to confess how much, first and last, she cost his family. Below is her bedchamber.”
We went down the stair into another room even more luxuriously furnished. The great bed stood at one side with curtains drawn. One almost expected to see a small hand pluck them aside and to hear a shrill voice demand the meaning of our intrusion, or to be suddenly confronted by that old gallant Favras, oath on lip and sword in hand. Here there were no windows, only narrow slits sufficient to admit air and light but not wide enough to permit of assault from without. We made a careful circuit of the apartment, but found nothing which could by any possibility serve as a rope.
“There is one more chance,” said M. le Comte, and led the way to the bottom story.
This had been divided into two rooms, one a sort of vestibule into which the outer door opened and from which the stair ascended, and the other a store-room. The vestibule was quite empty, and the store-room contained nothing but a pile of rotting casks and broken bottles.
My companion looked at them with a whimsical countenance.
“The fair lady evidently did not lack refreshment,” he said. “I would she had had the forethought to leave us a few bottles. I am afraid,” he added, turning back to the vestibule, “that the only possible exit for us is through that door. There are no windows in this story, nor in the one above. To jump from the third story is to tempt death—or at least a multitude of broken bones. For myself, I prefer to face the enemy.”
“We might make a rope from the tapestries,” I suggested.
“They are rotten with mildew,” he objected; and indeed when we tested them we found them ready to fall to pieces at a touch. “Our situation is not so desperate,” he continued, as we climbed slowly up the stair again. “They will have to starve us out, since they have no cannon with which to batter down the wall, and that will take two or three days at the least. Many things may happen in that time.”
But though he spoke hopefully, I fancied his voice did not ring quite true. When we reached the platform he blew out the candle, placed it carefully in a crevice of the wall, then went to his wife where she stood leaning against the parapet, put an arm about her and drew her to him.
“Well?” she asked, smiling up at him.
“We are not yet out of the woods,” he said; “but, as I have just told Tavernay, there is no pressing danger. They will have to besiege us in form. Perhaps we may yet catch them napping.”
I had approached Mlle. de Chambray, drawn by an irresistible attraction—which indeed I made no effort to resist.
“What is your opinion, M. de Tavernay?” she asked, as I leaned against the wall beside her.
“I confess,” I answered gloomily, “that I see little hope of escape, unless we can sprout wings and fly away. For you, mademoiselle, that would not be so great a miracle; but I fear I am too far below the angels to hope for such deliverance.”
“It is not the angels alone who have wings,” she retorted, her face lighting with a smile. “I have heard of other spirits similarly equipped.”
“It may be that I do not resemble them either, mademoiselle,” I ventured mildly.
“Who can tell!” she retorted; and turned away from me to gaze at the scene below.
The wine had done its work—had converted harmless peasants and cowering wretches into bloodthirsty brutes animated by a kind of frenzy which we for a moment did not understand. Men and women were running about screaming madly, no longer heeding the fire which they had kindled on the lawn, and which was now dying away for lack of fuel. They were pouring in and out of the house with some other end in view—and suddenly we saw what it was.
For from one wing of the château came a puff of smoke followed almost instantly by a quick burst of flame.
“They have fired the house,” said M. le Comte grimly; and we stood there numbly watching the progress of the flames, as powerless to check them as though we had been a hundred leagues away.
They ate their way through the building with a rapidity which showed how artfully they were being fed. Indeed it seemed to me that this whole drama was moving forward to its climax with a regularity which proved its prearrangement. It was not a spontaneous outburst of the people; it was a thing theatric, carefully thought out, in which the actors were really only puppets controlled by wires centring in one powerful hand. And as I recalled Pasdeloup’s story there could be no question in my mind as to whom that hand belonged. I shivered a little as I asked myself what the crisis was toward which the drama was mounting. And I felt strangely impotent, as though it were the very hand of Fate raised against us, and not merely that of a vengeful and lecherous scoundrel!
The flames burst out at last at roof and windows, casting a red glow over lawn and garden, where the mob stood staring in half-awed triumph at its handiwork. Madame watched the destruction with white face, but with an admirable control.
“Can they fire the tower?” she asked.
“No, I think not,” answered her husband. “Fire from without would have no effect upon these solid walls, and they cannot get fire to the inside. The breeze, you see, is carrying those sparks away from us.”
“That was my home,” she murmured, “and I loved it.”
“We will build another,” said M. le Comte, pressing her to him. “When this cloud that covers France has rolled away we will build another home, which you will love even more, for we shall be very happy there.”
“Not happier than we have been here,” she said, with a smile full at the same time of tears and joy. “We have been very happy here, my love. Whatever they do, they cannot take the past away from us. The future belongs to God, but the past is ours.”
I looked away from them with tear-dimmed eyes down at that mob of savages. She had spoken truly—after all, their power for evil was limited to that: they could destroy the future, but they could not touch the past. And I remembered that I also had a past which was very sweet—a past not long as men count time, spanning indeed but a few short hours—and yet to memory an eternity!
“What are those men about?” asked a voice at my elbow, and Mlle. de Chambray pointed down at a group which had drawn a little apart from the rest.
They stood near the foot of the tower and seemed to be staring up at us, though in the darkness I could not be certain. Suddenly one of them whirled about his head some object which burst into a ring of flame. Then he hurled it up toward us.
“The fools!” said M. le Comte, with a laugh, “what can they hope to accomplish?”
As though in answer to the words there came from beneath our feet a rending crash, a sharp report, and a stream of acrid smoke poured up the stairway from the room below.