Noémi

Then only did he wheel his horse about and gallop – where galloping was possible – down the valley of the Beune. The Beune is a stream rather than a river, that flows into the Vézère. It has a singular quality: so charged are the waters with lime that they petrify, or rather encrust, the roots of all plants growing in the morass through which they flow, by this means forming dams for itself, which it gradually surmounts to form others. The original bottom of the ravine must be at a considerable depth under the flat marsh of living and dead waterweed, of active and paralysed marsh plants, of growing and petrified moss that encumbers it, and extends to the very faces of the rocks.

At the present day a road laboriously constructed, and where it crossed the valley perpetually sinking and perpetually renovated, gives access to the springs of the Beune. It was not so in the fifteenth century. Then a track lay along the sides where the ground was solid – that is to say, where it consisted of rubble from the hill-sides; but where the marsh reached the abrupt walls of cliff, there the track clambered up the side of the valley, and surmounted the escarpments.

Consequently progress in former ages in that part was not as facile as it is at present.

Jean was constrained speedily to relax the pace at which he was proceeding.

As long as he was in forest and rough place he was secure: the brigands did not care to penetrate, at all events at nightfall, into out-of-the-way places, and where they might fall into ambuscades.

It was otherwise when he came to where the Beune distilled from its sponge of moss into the rapidly flowing Vézère. Here was a great amphitheatre of scarped sides of rock, all more or less honeycombed with habitations and refuges.

Here, on his left-hand side, looking north, scowling over the pleasant and smiling basin of the Vézère, was the castle of the Great Guillem. It consisted of a range of caves or overhanging ledges of rock, the faces of which had been built up with walls, windows, and crenelations, and a gate-house had been constructed to command the only thread of a path by which the stronghold could be reached.

From this castle watch was kept, and no one could ascend or descend the valley unobserved. Jean was on the same bank as the fortress of Guillem, though considerably above it. He must cross the river, and to do this, ascend it to the ford.

He moved along carefully and watchfully. The dusk of evening concealed his movements, and he was able, unnoticed, or at all events unmolested, to traverse the Vézère and pass on the further side of the river down stream, in face of the strong place of Le Gros Guillem.

A couple of leagues further down was a hamlet, or rather village, called Le Peuch Ste. Soure, clustered at the foot of a cliff or series of cliffs that rose out of a steep incline of rubble. The houses were gathered about a little church dedicated to Ste. Soure. The white crags above were perforated with habitations. A scent of fire was in the air, and in the gloaming Jean could see the twinkle of sparks running, dying out, reappearing where something had been consumed by flames, but was still glowing in places, and sparks were wandering among its ashes. As he drew nearer he heard wailing, and with the wailing voices raised in cursing.

A sickness came on the lad's heart; he knew but too well what this all signified – desolation to many homes, ruin to many families.

"Hold! Who goes?"

"It is I – Jean del' Peyra."

"Well – pass. You will find your father. He is with the Rossignols."

Jean rode on. There were tokens of confusion on all sides. Here a rick was smouldering, and there a house was wrecked, the door broken, and the contents of the dwelling thrown out in the way before it. Pigs that had escaped from their styes ran about rooting after food, and dogs snarled and carried off fragments of meat. A few peasants were creeping about timidly, but, alarmed at the appearance in their midst of a man on horseback, and unable in the dusk to distinguish who he was, they fled to conceal themselves. Jean leaped from his horse, hitched it up, and strode on, with beating heart and bounding pulse, to a house which he knew was that of the Rossignols.

He entered the door. A light shone through the low window. It was characteristic of the times that in every village and hamlet the windows – the only windows – were so turned inwards on a street or yard that they revealed no light at night when a candle was kindled or a fire burned brightly on the hearth, lest the light should betray to a passing marauder the presence of a house which might be looted.

Jean bowed his head and entered at the low door. The fire was flashing in the large open chimney. A bundle of vine faggots had been thrown on, and the light filled the chamber with its orange glare.

By this light Jean saw a bed with a man lying on it; and a woman crying, beating her head and uttering wild words – her children clinging to her, sobbing, frightened, imploring her to desist.

Erect, with a staff in his hand, stood a grey-headed, thick-bearded man, with dark eyes shadowed under heavy brows.

He turned sharply as the lad entered.

"Hah! Jean, you are back. It is well. It is well you were not here this day earlier. If they had taken you, there would have been a heavy ransom to pay, by the Holy Napkin of Cadouin! And how to redeem those already taken I know not."

"What has been done to Rossignol, father?" asked Jean, going to the bed.

"What will be done to the rest unless the ransom be forthcoming in fourteen days. They have left him thus, to show us what will be the fate of the seven others."

"Seven others, father?"

"Aye; they have taken off seven of the men of Ste. Soure. We must find the ransom, or they will send them back to us, even after the fashion of this poor man."

"Is he dead, father?"

The man lying on the bed moved, and, raising himself on his elbow, said —

"Young master, I am worse than dead. Dead, I would be no burden. Living, I shall drag my darlings underground with me."

Then the woman, frantic with grief, turned on her knees, threw up her hands, and uttered a stream of mingled prayer and imprecation – prayer to Heaven and prayer to Hell; to Heaven to blast and torture the destroyers of her house, to Hell to hear her cry if Heaven were deaf. It was not possible for Jean to learn details from her in this fury and paroxysm. He drew his father outside the door and shut it.

"Father," said he, "tell me what has taken place. It was Le Gros Guillem, was it not?"

"Aye, Le Gros Guillem. We did not know he was in his church, we thought he was in Domme, and would be occupied there, and we gave less heed and kept less close watch. You see there were, we knew or supposed, but three men in the church, and so long as they were supplied with food and wine, we had little fear. But we had not reckoned right on Guillem. He came back in the night with a score of men, and they rushed down on us; they crossed the river during the day, when the men were in the fields and about their work, and the women and children alone in the houses. When it was seen that the routiers were coming, then the church bell was rung, but we had little or no time to prepare; they were on us and in every house, breaking up the coffers, sacking the closets."

"Did they get into Le Peuch, father?"

"No; when we heard the bell, then we shut the gates and barricaded; but there were not four men in the castle, myself included. What could we do? We could only look on and witness the destruction; and one of the men in the castle was Limping Gaston, who was no good at all; and another was Blind Bartholomew, who could not see an enemy and distinguish him from a friend. When the men in the fields heard the bell, they came running home, to save what might be saved; but it was too late. The ruffians were there robbing, maltreating, and they took them as they came on – seven of them – and bound their hands behind them, and these they have carried off. They have burned the stack of corn of Jean Grano. The wife of Mussidan was baking. They have carried off all her loaves, and when she entreated them to spare some they swore at another word they would throw one of her babes into the oven. They have ransacked every house, and spoiled what they could not carry away. And the rest of the men, when they saw how those who came near Ste. Soure were taken, fled and hid themselves. Some of the women, carrying their children, came up the steep slope before the routiers arrived, and we received them into the castle; but others remained, hoping to save some of their stuff, and not thinking that the enemy was so nigh. So they were beaten to tell where any money was hidden. The wife of Drax – she has had her soles so cut with vine-rods that she cannot walk; but she was clever – she told where some old Roman coins were hid in a pot, and not where were her silver livres of French money."

"How long were they here?"

"I cannot tell, Jean. It seemed a century. It may have been an hour."

"They have carried off seven men."

"Yes, to Domme, or to the church. I cannot say where. And we must send the ransom in fourteen days, or Le Gros Guillem swears he will return them all to us tied on the backs of mules, treated as he has treated Rossignol. He said he left us Rossignol as a refresher."

"But what has he done to Rossignol?"

"Hamstrung him. He can never walk again. From his thighs down he is powerless – helpless as a babe in arms."

Jean uttered an exclamation of horror.

"Father, there must be an end put to these things! We must rouse the country."

"We must pay the ransom first, or all those poor fellows will be sent back to us like as is Rossignol."

"Let us go into the house," said Jean, and threw open the door. "We must do something for these unhappy creatures."

"Aye," said his father, "and something must be done to save seven other houses from being put in the same condition. Where shall we get the money?"

"We will consider that presently – first to this man."

A strange spectacle met their eyes when they re-entered the house of the Rossignols.

The woman had suspended something dark to a crook in the ceiling, had brought glowing ashes from the hearth, and had placed them in a circle on the floor below this dark object, and had spilled tallow over the red cinders, and the tallow having melted, had become ignited, so that a flicker of blue flame shot about the ring, and now and then sent up a jet of yellow flame like a long tongue that licked the suspended object. The woman held back her children, and in one hand she had a long steel pin or skewer, with a silver head to it, wherewith she had been wont to fasten up her hair. She had withdrawn this from her head, and all her black hair was flowing about her face and shoulders.

"See!" yelled she, and the glitter of her eyes was terrible. "See! it is the heart of Le Gros Guillem. I will punish him for all he has done to me. This for my man's nerves that he has cut." She made a stab with her pin at the suspended object, which Jean and his father now saw was a bullock's heart. "This for all the woe he has brought on me!" She stabbed again. "See, see, my children, how he twists and tosses! Ha! ha! Gros Guillem, am I paining you? Do you turn to escape me? Do I strike spasms of terror into your heart? Ha! ha! the Rossignol is a song-bird, but her beak is sharp."

Jean caught the woman's hand.

"Stand back!" he cried, "this is devilry. This will bring you to the stake."