Fulviac, a far-away look in his eyes, was furling her great scarlet banner upon its staff. Yeoland spoke to him over her shoulder.
"I am in your hands," she said.
Fulviac smoothed out a crease.
"What is your will, you have not yet enlightened me?"
He looked at her gravely for a moment.
"You are ours," he said, "a woman given to us by heaven," he hesitated, as over a lie; "you are to shine out a star, a pillar of fire before the host; every man who follows you will know your story; every man who follows you will worship you in his heart. You will inspire us as no mere man could inspire; your blood-red banner will wave on heroes, patriots. You will play the comet with an army for your tail."
Some sudden emotion seemed to sweep over her. She stood motionless with clasped hands, looking at her crucifix. There was a strange sadness upon her face, a tragic sanct.i.ty, as on the face of a woman who renounces the world, and more. For a long while she was silent, as though suffering some l.u.s.tre light out of heaven to stream into her heart. Presently she answered Fulviac.
"G.o.d help me to be strong," she said, "G.o.d help me to bear the burden He has put upon my soul."
"Amen, little woman."
"And now?"
"Prosper is preaching to all our men upon the cliff. He is telling them your story. I take you now to set you before them all, that they may look upon a living Saint. I leave the rest to your soul. G.o.d will tell you how to bear yourself in the cause of the people. Come, let us pray a moment."
They knelt down side by side before the crucifix, like effigies on a tomb. Fulviac"s face was in shadow; Yeoland"s turned heavenward to the Cross. It was her renunciation. Then they arose; Fulviac took up the scarlet banner, and they pa.s.sed out together from the room.
Traversing parlour and guard-room, finding them empty and silent as a church, they came by the winding stairway in the rock to the hollow opening upon the platform above. Two sentinels stood by the rough door.
Above and around, great stones had been piled up so as to form a species of natural battlement. Fulviac, bearing the banner, climbed the rocks, and signed to Yeoland to follow. They were still within a kind of rude tower, walled in by heaped blocks of stone on every side. They were alone save for the two sentinels. Above, they saw Prosper the Preacher standing on a great square ma.s.s of rock, his tall figure outlined against the sky.
They could see that the man was borne along by the strong spirit of the preacher. His arms tossed to the sky as he bent forward and preached to those invisible to Fulviac and the girl. His oratory was of a fervid, strenuous type, like fire leaping in a wind, fierce, mobile, pa.s.sionate.
They could see him stride to and fro on his platform, gesticulate, point to heaven, smite his bosom, strike att.i.tudes of ecstasy. His voice rang out the while, full of subtle modulations, the pathetic abandonments, the supreme outbursts of the orator. Much that he said fell deep into the girl"s heart. The man had that strange power, that magnetic influence that exists in the individual, defying a.n.a.lysis, yet real as the stirring witchery of great music, or as the voice of the sea.
Anon they saw him fall upon his knees, and lift his hands to the heavens. He had cast a quick glance backward over his shoulder.
Prosper had soared to his zenith; he had his men listening as for the climax of some great epic. Fulviac thrust Yeoland forward up the slope.
She understood the dramatic pause in an instant. Prosper"s words had been like the orisons of birds preluding the dawn. She climbed the rocks, and stepped out at the kneeling monk"s side.
The scene below dazed her for the moment. Many hundred faces were turned to her from the slopes at her feet. Innumerable eyes seemed fixed upon her with a mesmeric stare. She saw the whole cliff below her packed with men, every rock crowned with humanity, even the pine trees had their living burden. She saw swords waving like innumerable streaks of light; she had a confused vision of fanaticism, exultation, power.
Deep seemed calling unto deep; a noise like the noise of breakers was in her ears.
Then the whole grew clear on the instant. The sky seemed strangely luminous; every outline in the landscape took marvellous and intelligent meaning. Strange Promethean fire flashed down into her brain. She felt her heart leaping, her blood bounding through her body, yet her mind shone clear as a crystal grael.
Below her, she had humanity, plastic, inflammable, tinder to her touch.
An infinite realisation of power seemed to leap in her as at the beck of some spirit wand. She felt all the dim heroism of dreams glowing in her like wine given of the G.o.ds.
Holy fire burnt on her forehead and her tongue was loosed. She stood out on the great rock, her armour flashing in the sun, her face bright as the moon in her strength. Her voice, clear and silvery, carried far over cliff and wood, for the day was temperate and without a wind.
"Look upon me well. I tell you the truth. I am she to whom the Madonna appeared from heaven."
Great silence answered her, the silence of awe, not of disbelief or disapprobation. Her voice rang solitary as the voice of a wood-fay in the wilderness. The huddled men below were silent as children whose solemn eyes watch a priest before the altar. She spoke on.
"I am she whose tale you have heard. G.o.d has given me to the cause of the poor. To your babes and to your womenfolk I lift my hands; from the Mother of Jesus I hold my command. Men of the land, will you believe and follow my banner?"
A thousand hands leapt to the sun, yet hardly a voice broke the silence, the calm as of supreme revelation. All the simple mediaeval faith shone in the rough faces; all the quaint reverence, the unflinching fidelity, of the unlettered of the age shone in their hearts. They were warm earth to the seed of faith.
"Men of the land, I hear great noise of violence and wrong, of hunger and despair. Your lords crush you; your priests go in jewels and fine linen, and preach not the Cross. Your babes are slaves even before they see the light. Your children, like brute beasts, are bound to the soil.
Men of the land, give me your strength, give me your strength for the cause of G.o.d."
She drew her sword from its sheath, pressed the blade to her lips, held it up to heaven. Her voice rang over rock and tree.
"Justice and liberty!"
Her shrill hail seemed to lift the silence from a thousand throats. The human sea below gave up its soul to her with thundering surges and vast sound of faith. As roar followed roar, she stood a bright, silvery pinnacle above the black fanaticism beneath, transcendent Hope holding her sword to the eternal sun.
Behind her, Fulviac unwrapped the great scarlet banner she had wrought.
Its cross of gold gleamed out as he lifted the staff with both hands.
Prosper, erect and exultant, stood pointing to its device. Then, in sight of all men, he bowed down before the girl and kissed her feet, as though she had been some rare messenger out of heaven.
XXI
The day had done gloriously till noon, but the sky"s mood changed as evening advanced. Clouds were huddled up in grey ma.s.ses by a gathering and gusty wind, and the June calm took flight like a girl in a new gown when rain threatens.
By nightfall, a storm held orgy over the cliff. Billow upon billow of wind came roaring over the myriad trees. The pines were sweeping a murky sky with their black brooms, creaking and moaning in chorus. Rain rattled heavily, and over the cliff the storm thundered and cried with the long wail of the wind over rock and tree.
In Yeoland"s chamber the lamp flared and smoked, and the postern clattered. Rain splashed upon the shivering cas.e.m.e.nt; the carpet breathed restlessly with the draught under the door. It was late, yet the girl was still at her devotions. Her thoughts were dishevelled and full of discords, while between her fingers the beads of her rosary moved listlessly, and her prayers were broken by the anathemas of the storm.
The dual distractions of life had come in her to grappling point again.
She could boast no omnipotence in her own heart, and could but give countenance to one of the two factions that clamoured for her favour.
As her mood changed like the mood of a fickle despot none too sure of his throne, so tumult and despair were let loose time after time into the echoing courts and alleys of her soul. She had neither the courage nor the force of will for the moment to compel herself either to satisfy her womanhood or sacrifice her instincts to a religious conviction. Man and G.o.d held each a half of her being. The man"s face outstared G.o.d"s face; G.o.d"s law overshadowed the man"s.
She had been carried into the palpitating azure of religious exaltation.
The world had rolled at her feet. She had bathed her forehead in the infinite forethought of eternity; she had heard the stupendous sounding of the spheres. Then some mischievous sprite had plucked the wings from her shoulders, and she had fallen far into an abyss. After spiritual exaltation comes physical depression. Neither is a normal state; neither strictly sane to the intellect. Peter-like, she had trod the waves; faith had played her false; the waters had gone over her soul.
As she knelt brooding before her crucifix, under the wavering lamp, she was smitten into listening immobility, her rosary idle in her hand. A cry had come to her amid the mult.i.tudinous voices of the storm, a cry like a hail from a ship over a tumbling sea at night.
She waited and wondered. Again the cry rose above the babel of the wind. Was it from Fulviac"s room; or a sentinel"s shout from the cliff, seized upon and carried by the wind with distorting vehemence? Midnight covered the world, and the girl was in an impressionable mood. She took the lamp from its bracket and, opening the door, peered down the gallery that led to Fulviac"s room.
A sudden sinister sound made her start back into the room, the lamp flashing tremulous beams upon the walls, and striking confusion into the shadows. A hand was beating heavily upon the postern.
She set the lamp in its bracket, crept to the door, put her ear to the lock and listened. The knocking had ceased, and in a momentary lulling of the wind she even fancied she could hear the sound of deep breathing.
Her heart was hurrying, but suspense emboldened her.
"Who"s there?"
A sudden gust made such a bl.u.s.ter that her voice died almost unheard in the night. There was a vague clangour without, as of arms, and the knocking re-echoed sullenly through the room. A lull came again.
"Who knocks?"