The soldiers halted by the wall some twenty feet in height. Herrick concluded that there was a terrace or garden above, because several persons, women and pages among them, were leaning over the wall looking into the court-yard below. A flight of stone steps, placed sideways to the wall, led down from this terrace, and at the foot of these steps was a woman mounted upon a beautiful bay mare, which pawed the ground, impatient to be gone. At a little distance a group of hors.e.m.e.n waited for her signal, which she was in the act of giving when the soldiers, with their prisoner in their midst, came to a halt not a dozen yards from her. The light from two or three torches held by servants who stood on the lower steps lit up her face, and Herrick saw again the woman who had ridden past the diligence a few hours ago, the woman who was destined to play so great a part in his life.
Captain Lemasle stepped to her side and saluted.
"Are you not to ride with us?" she asked. "We are waiting."
"Pardon, mademoiselle. I have just been rescuing a spy. The crowd had caught him, and it would have gone hard with him had we not taken him."
"If he is a spy, would that have mattered?" she said, loud enough for Herrick to hear.
"There is justice in proving a man guilty before he is hanged,"
Lemasle answered.
"Since when have you been so fastidious? I have heard other things of Gaspard Lemasle. Let me look at this spy."
"I seem better known than I imagined," the soldier muttered as he stood aside.
She rode toward Herrick, the men about him falling back, until she was close upon him.
"Look up," she commanded, "and let me see the face of a spy."
"Not of a spy, mademoiselle, but of an honest man," he answered, looking her straight in the eyes.
"Spy, spy," she contradicted sharply, "or what do you in Vayenne at such a time as this?"
"I am a traveller."
"So are they all," she cried. "There is a guest-room within these walls for you. Vayenne knows how to welcome such travellers. Ah! I could honor an enemy, but a spy----" And there was such utter contempt in her face that Herrick could find no words to answer her.
As she tightened her reins, her riding whip slipped from her fingers and fell at his feet, and before any one could prevent him he had shaken the loosened cord from his wrists, and had stooped and picked it up. In an instant half a dozen soldiers sprang forward to prevent his attacking her. She did not flinch, but waving them back, held out her hand for the whip.
"Thank you, mademoiselle," said Herrick. "At least you have generosity enough to know that I am incapable of such a thing as that."
She looked at him for an instant as she took the whip, a new interest in her eyes, and a slight lowering of her proud head thanked him. Then she turned the mare round sharply.
"Captain Lemasle, I am ready," she said, and as the soldiers closed round Herrick again, she rode out through the grim gateway, followed by the troop of hors.e.m.e.n.
CHAPTER III
THE DWARF OF ST. ETIENNE
Along dark stone pa.s.sages, through many a doorway, and across two or three rough court-yards, half a dozen soldiers conducted Herrick to his "guest-room." The woman"s pleasantry had caught their fancy, and they laughed boisterously as they went, hoping, perhaps, to put fear into the heart of their prisoner.
They halted before a low door, which one man unlocked with a great key. The immense thickness of the wall formed a narrow pa.s.sage, at the end of which some steps descended into a semicircular cell of no great size, but of considerable height.
"There"s straw for a bed," said the jailer, pointing to a corner, "though how it came here I don"t understand, and you"ve got heaven"s light itself for a candle." And he nodded toward a patch of moonlight.
"There are honest soldiers who are worse lodged, I warrant."
"It ill becomes a guest to complain of his treatment," Herrick answered.
"Ay; that idea of a guest-room was smartly thought of," the man returned, "but maybe you hardly see the full humor of it. This is the South Tower, and it"s usually the last lodging a man needs this side the grave."
"Is that so?" And Herrick"s att.i.tude had interest in it, but little personal concern.
"Yes; and it"s a short walk from here to the last yard we crossed. It usually happens there." And the jailer made a suggestive downward sweep with his arm.
"Axe or sword?" asked Herrick.
"Sword. Unless they decide to make an especial example in your case, then they"re likely to hang you over the great gateway."
"Am I sufficiently important for that, think you?"
"I"ve known a dead sparrow on a string scare away much finer birds,"
the jailer answered; "but at any rate you"re no white-livered man, and I shouldn"t grieve to see you cheat both sword and rope."
"Thanks for your good will," said Herrick. "Who knows, I may live to speak a comforting word to you. I will be honest with you, I had not appreciated the full extent of the lady"s humor."
With something like a salute, deference to the prisoner"s courage, the jailer departed, and the key grated harshly in the lock as the bolts shot home.
High up near the roof there was a deep-set window through which the moonlight came. The tower could not be shut in by high walls, therefore, and probably was one of the outer towers of the castle.
From that window possibly a prisoner might look into a free world, reach it, perhaps, if age had worn the bars loose in their stone sockets. A moment later Herrick felt certain that only this single wall held him from freedom, for the music of the carillon burst upon his ears. His fancy made the moonbeams the path along which the music travelled. But the window was unattainable. The rounded walls were almost as smooth as if the surface had been polished, and the cell was bare of everything but the heap of straw in the comer.
"My first night in Vayenne," he muttered, and some of the bravery with which he had addressed the jailer was wanting. The moonlight was upon his face as he spoke, a serious face just now, although neither hopelessness nor despair was in it. It could hardly be called a handsome face, yet it was one to remember. They were good, steady eyes, and if the nose and mouth were not an artist"s ideals of beauty, in the whole face the artist would have found attraction. It was strong, forceful, fashioned in an uncommon mould; it was a face apart rather than one of a type, a strong family possession which to strangers had often marked him for a Herrick.
"My first night in Vayenne," he repeated as he began to pace his narrow cell slowly. How long ago it seemed since he had first seen the city from the brow of the hills. How much had happened in the few short hours since then, and yet one incident stood out more clearly than all the rest, the woman leaning from her horse to look into the face of a spy. Even now her contempt hurt him. It was hateful to appear mean in her eyes. All else that had happened to him seemed of little account beside this. The moment his eyes had rested upon her there had sprung a desire in his soul to serve her. In that service he felt himself capable of much, yet she despised him. A little touch of sympathy had shown in her face for a moment when he handed her the whip, but it had no power to obliterate the contempt. That was her true feeling toward him, the other was but the pa.s.sing pity which a woman may have even for a coward.
The carillon had sounded several times, and the direction of the moon ray had changed, leaving the floor of the cell in darkness; but buried in thought Herrick took no notice of the little rushes of music, nor was he conscious of the deepening gloom around him until a sudden shadow seemed to flit through the chamber, and a new stealthy sound startled him. Instinctively he drew back to the wall, that whatever enemy might be near should have to face him and not be able to take him unawares. Once to-night already he had been seized from behind.
Standing on the outside ledge of the window, holding on to the bars and peering into the cell, was a figure that might well startle the bravest. The opening could not be more than four feet in height, yet it was sufficient to allow this figure to stand upright. Head, feet, and hands were at least normal in size, those of a full-grown and powerful man, the body was that of a child, though its curiously twisted form might have abnormal strength in it. His hair was long, and a thick, stubbly beard and whiskers completely surrounded his face. He was ugly in the extreme, and even Herrick was pleased to think that solid bars were between them.
For full five minutes the dwarf stood there, uttering no sound, but moving his head from side to side, trying to pierce the darkness, and once or twice he leant backward at arm"s length to look down on the outside below him. Then he took hold of one bar with both hands, and, lifting it out of its socket, laid it carefully along the window-ledge. From the breast of the loose smock-like garment he wore he took a length of rope, knotted one end round one of the bars, and let the other end fall into the cell. For a moment he waited and listened; then, with the agility of a gorilla, he swung himself down, and stood on the floor of the cell, the rope still in his hand, as though he were prepared to spring upward to safety again at the first sign of danger.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" said Herrick suddenly.
The dwarf turned quickly toward him.
"Hush! It"s only friend Jean."
"I have no such friend."
"You do not know it, but yes, from this moment you have. See here, my knife; watch, I fling it across the floor! Take it, it is for your protection--to show my good faith. I have no other weapon. Now, let"s come close and look at each other."
The knife, a formidable blade, came skimming across the stone flags to Herrick"s feet. He picked it up, and walked into the centre of the cell to meet his strange visitor.
"You must bend down to let me be sure that you are the man," said the dwarf.