CHAPTER XXIV.

"AN ERRAND OF LIFE OR DEATH."

Through the fair, sweet land known as the Département Hérault Martin rode north, toward where the mountains lay, in the darkness of the autumn night, like purple shadows hovering over the earth; rode recklessly, as though caring little whether he or the horse he bestrode found death at the next step. Recklessly, as it seemed to the startled shepherds guarding their flocks of Narbonne sheep in their huts of reeds and clay, and peering out as the horseman dashed by, the moon illuminating his pale face so that, but for the clatter of the creature's hoofs, they would scarcely have known whether 'twas a spectre or a living thing which flew past. Recklessly, too, as it seemed to peasants sleeping in their cottages, and aroused by that clatter only to turn on their beds and sleep again. Recklessly, threateningly, as perhaps it may have seemed to startled fawns and timorous hares and rabbits, fleeing helter-skelter into vineyards where grew the luscious Lunel and Genistoux grapes, or into underbush where lurked the famed and dreaded viper of the south.

But reckless as that hurried course might seem, wild and furious as the ride of Gary from London to Edinburgh, to tell James that the great Queen was dead and he was King of England as well as of Scotland, it was not so in truth, and, though swift and unhalting, was neither foolhardy nor rashly impetuous. He was too good a horseman, also too kindly-hearted a man, to spur a willing beast above its best endeavours. Yet he knew well enough that beyond breathing spells in cool copses, where the moon flung down on to the thick grass the shadowy lacery of leaves which quivered in the night breezes, and beyond halts at trickling rivulets so that the panting creature might drink and be refreshed, there must be no delay. None if he would reach Montrevel or Julien ere the worst had fallen; if he would be in time to tell them that, amid those whom they sought to murder and burn in the caves they had surrounded, was the fairest woman in all Languedoc, the child of Baville's heart, Urbaine Ducaire.

Also he knew the dangers that lurked in his path; knew how, all along the road he went, were countless soldiers out seeking for attroupés; men who, not knowing what his mission was and perceiving that he bore no signs about him of royal scarlet, or lace, or accoutrements, would send a dozen bullets at his back, any one of which would hurl him from his saddle to the ground a corpse. Nay, once such had almost been the case. Refusing to halt at the village of St. Jean le Bon, from a tavern had come a shower of such missiles, which, by God's mercy, had only hissed harmlessly past, though by the shock he felt beneath him he knew that his saddle had been struck.

The dawn was nigh as at last he neared Lunel. He knew it by the deeper chill of the air, by the changing lividness of the summits of the distant mountains, and by the vanishing of the purple darkness from their caps and spurs and ridges. If the horse he rode could reach that town he might get a change of animal and so ride on and on, and on again, until he was within the outlines of Montrevel and Julien.

"Away!" Cavalier had said to him as, after weary waiting, the evening fell over Cette and he was free at last to commence his journey. All day he had fretted and stormed at having to remain until the night came, though forced to do so, since to have started on that wild ride by daylight would have been, in the state of the locality, simply to invite destruction. "Away! God grant you may be in time! If they spare her they must spare the others, as, if they slay them, they must slay her. And--and--we shall be close behind you. If Montrevel and Julien have got into our mountains, may the devil, their master, help them! They will never get out again; we have them in a trap."

And he laughed bitterly while repeating aloud the word "Away!" Also he added, "If you can but induce them to hold their hands for twenty-four hours we will do the rest."

Lunel came nearer and nearer now. He thanked God again and again that still the horse beneath him did not falter, still swept on in an even, easy stride. Already he could see in the morning air, now clear and bright, the great wooden spire of its church, which up to now had escaped destruction. And he remembered how Cavalier had told him to have no fear in entering it, since neither papists nor Protestants had made any attack upon it because it was principally inhabited by Jews from Marseilles, who, from the days of Philip of Valois, had been permitted to dwell within it, they taking, as was natural, no share in the troubles with which the province was torn.

Nearer and nearer, close now, its one peaked, calotte-roofed tower, which faced to the south, standing up like an arrow pointing to the sky in the cool light of the swift advancing dawn.

Close now, and hammering on the great gray storm-beaten door of the ramparts, against which for centuries the mistral and the bise had howled and flung themselves on winter nights and days; on which all through the summer the southern sun had glared. Hammering with pistol-butt and clenched hand, loud enough to arouse the dead, and calling:

"Awake! Open! Open! In God's name open!"

"Hola!" a voice shouted answeringly from within. "No more. Cease. I come! 'In God's name.' Good! You give the password. 'Tis well!" the utterance being mingled with the grating of a key in a lock and the rumbling of a bar. And Martin divined that by a chance, a miracle, he had uttered the royalist sign.

A moment later the gate was open wide. Before it stood a lean, gray-haired warder, the very counterpart of Cervante's hero, fastening the tags of his jacket with one hand as he threw back the door with the other.

"Monsieur rides in haste," he said, seeing that he had a gentleman to do with, though no soldier clad in bleu royal or scarlet, as he had expected. "What is the news you carry? Have the accursed English landed, the vile Protestants captured the port?"

"Nay," answered Martin, "but I ride on an errand of life or death. I must reach Baville; above all, Montrevel or Julien. They know not what they do."

"What they do! What is't? I have heard they barricade themselves in Uzès and Alais, yet thousands strong! Soldiers! Bah! Tosspots and vauriens, afraid of a beggarly set of goatherds. Dieu des Dieux! 'twas not so when I rode behind Condé."

"You are mistaken. They are in the mountains, putting all to fire and sword. Above all, to fire. And among those whom they will slay--they know her not--is Baville's child. Friend, as you have loved ones of your own, help me to a fresh horse. This one is spent."

"It is," the warder said, all action now and regarding the smoking flanks of the poor beast. "Antoine, petit," he called, "out of your bed, dindon. A bucket of water, quick. And for you, monsieur, a sup," whereon he ran into his lodge and came back carrying a great outre, from out of which he poured a flask of amber-coloured liquor. "'Tis of the best," he said, and winked as he did so. "Hein! 'tis Chastelneuf. Three years in vat. Down with it."

"Another horse, another horse!" Martin exclaimed after he had swallowed the wine and thanked the man. "In Heaven's name put me in the way of that. I must on--on."

"Off!" said the man to a boy who had now come from his lodge, half dressed, as though he had but just tumbled out of his bed; a boy who was by now holding a bucket to the horse's thirsty mouth. "Off, Antoine, to the Jew. He has the cattle. If you have money," he added to Martin. "Without it you will get naught from any of his tribe."

"I have enough. Fifty gold pistoles."

"Show them not to him, or he will want all. Bargain, traffic, marchandise. 'Tis the only way."

Led by the boy and leading now the steed, with the warder calling after him that it was strange he had heard naught of what he related, "for his part, he believed he was misinformed, and that Montrevel and Julien were doing nothing but eating and drinking up all in the land like locusts," Martin went down the street, none of the inhabitants seeming yet awake. It was as silent and empty as a deserted city.

In front of a cross in a market place--a cross which the fiery Anjou had caused to be erected there to remind the Jews of their fathers' sins, as he said--the boy paused and, pointing to a house with large, capacious stables by its side, observed:

"'Tis there that Elie lives. Beat him up, monsieur, beat him up," and Martin, following his advice, seized the great copper knocker and hammered with it as lustily as, some minutes earlier, he had hammered to arouse the warder.

Because strange, fantastic thoughts and memories come to us even in our most bitter moments, so to Martin there came now the thought that the face, which a moment later appeared at a window above, might well have served Nokes, the comedian, whom he had often supped with at Pontac's, for a model of the apothecary in Mantua. A face lean and hatchet-nosed, fleshless almost as the face of one dying of starvation, the eyes deep sunken above the beak-like nose.

"What is't?" this man asked. "What does monsieur desire at such an hour?"

"A horse. A horse at once that will carry me to----"

"Horses are dear just now. The army needs all."

"I will pay well. Come down and supply me. Quick, every moment is precious."

"So are horses. Yet I will descend. I have a good animal, but it cost me much."

A moment later he appeared at his door, a thick cudgel in his hand as though to guard against any sudden attack that might be made upon him, and said:

"The animal I have is worth a hundred gold pistoles."

"Bah! I have not so much about me."

"How much have you?"

"Twenty."

"Twenty for such an animal! Father of Abraham and Isaac! Twenty gold pistoles for such a creature!" and he made as though he would re-enter his house.

"Let him go, monsieur," whispered the boy with a grin, "he will come back. N'ayez pas peur. Oh! avec ?a, we know him."

The lad spoke truly, for even as Martin, cursing himself for trafficking thus at such a moment, resolved to fling his purse of fifty pieces down before the man and bid him bring out the horse, the Jew's vulpine beak and pendulous underlip appeared again from behind the door.

"Will you give twenty-five?"

"Show me the horse."

A little later, in accordance with some whispered instructions to another person behind the door, a Jewish maiden was seen leading a horse from out the stable yard at the side, an animal of an ordinary type, yet looking sturdy and as though quite capable of carrying Martin to Alais and the mountains beyond.

"Twenty-five?" the Jew asked, leering.

"Yes, twenty-five. Help me"--to the boy--"to change saddle and bridle," which the lad did willingly enough. But the Hebrew's instincts were stronger than aught else. As they began to do this he shrieked:

"Ah, mother of Moses, the girl is mad. She has brought the wrong beast. Oh! Oh! Oh! This can not go under fifty pistoles."

"It is too late to change," Martin said grimly. "The beast is mine," and he produced his purse and told out twenty-five pistoles. Then, tossing the boy a crown, he said: "Keep my horse for me until I come this way again or send for it, and I will reward you well. Treat it carefully. Farewell. The road to N?mes and Alais? Where is the gate?"

The boy indicated it amid the shrieks of the Jew, who now yelled he was robbed; that he meant twenty-five gold pistoles with the other's horse thrown in; how else could he part with such an animal for a beggarly twenty-five? And amid a tussle between the lad on one side and the Abrahamite and the girl on the other, in which the former seemed quite able to hold his own and retain his charge, Martin rode down the street to the N?mes gate.

Once more he was upon the road. Nearer to his love, to her who had dawned a star above his life--the woman in deadly peril for whom, as he tightened rein and pressed flank, he prayed God's mercy. Prayed also that he might not be too late, not too late.

The autumn sun beat down upon his head, fierce as July suns in more northern lands. The skies were like brass. There was no air to fan his cheek except that which his own swift passage caused. Yet he never felt or heeded the former, nor missed the latter; there was but one thought in his mind--Urbaine! Urbaine! Urbaine!

Lunel was left behind him, had dwindled to a spot. He cursed the leagues of détour he had to make to reach N?mes first, find Baville, and warn him of the awful danger of the girl if still she lived--oh, God! if still she lived!--procure his order to those battue-making butchers to hold their hands, possess himself of it, and hurry on to the mountains, That, that was all he could do, yet he would accomplish it or reel from his saddle to the road--dead.

Through Vergese he went, seeing the cool wooden slopes of Les Vaquerolles on his left, shouting the password he had by Heaven's grace learned so opportunely to all who endeavoured to arrest his flight; on, on to Milbaud and Saint Cesare. And at last N?mes was ahead of him. He saw it now. The Temple of Diana rose before his eyes, solitary and majestic as the Romans had left it two thousand years before; rose, too, beneath the brassy shimmer, the white marble columns of Agrippa's sons and the city walls.

Yet also arose something else toward the heavens which startled, amazed him.

Stealing up into the yellow haze, a spiral column twined snakily until it seemed to be merged in the sky, a column white and fleecy at first, then black at its base, and, later, black up all its length. Next, tinged flame-colour--soon flame itself. Flame which leaped up in countless tongues as though with its great flecks and flickers it aspired to lick the canopy above, flame in which now were mixed black specks and daubs borne up upon its fiery breath.

N?mes was burning. It was impossible to doubt it.

Set on fire by whom? Camisards descending from the mountains, or perchance, though that seemed impossible, by Camisards returning from Cette. Or by the King's forces. Yet, why that? It was the royalist stronghold, the royalist base. It could scarce be that.

Spurring his horse, he urged it to its fullest speed through the last remaining half-league of road running through fields of crimson-flowered sainfoin and beneath the yellow-green, sweet-scented limes. On, while now above the broadleaved trees the smoke rose thicker and thicker. On, scarce knowing why he rode thus or what he had to do in N?mes except to find Baville if he were there; to tell him no burning city mattered one jot to him in comparison with what was doing, might be done by now, up in those mountains five leagues off which lay bathed in the golden haze of the noontide heat.

He saw the great southern gate open before him, no warders by it. Doubtless they were in the city trying to save it from the flames; from the gate itself he saw people issuing, running. Some--among others two old gray-haired people, man and woman--wringing their hands; also a great burly cordelier, his fat face suffused with an oily smile.

"What--what is it?" he cried, reining in his horse. "What fresh horror now?"

"Murder! Cruelty unparalleled!" the old gray-haired man said, his look of terror awful to behold. "Wickedness extreme! Montrevel is there, Julien is there; they have caught the Protestants in the great mill, have barred them in, they can not escape. And they are burning it. All, all must perish."

"Montrevel--Julien--there! It is impossible. They are in the mountains burning the Protestants there!" Martin exclaimed.

"Nay, nay, my son," the greasy monk exclaimed, chiming in, "that was but a heaven-inspired ruse to catch the others in the trap. They are here. They slaughter the heretics, par le fer et par le feu, as Montrevel says. Here! Here! My son, make your way in. Join the good work."