The Scourge of God

Ne detourne pas ta paupière
De ma détresse, Ô Dieu vivant.
Je pleure, je gémis, j'erre dans les ténebras
Comme aux fentes des tours les hulottes funèbres
Et les oiseaux du Désert.

And as he spoke, in truth he wept, then flung himself upon his knees and prayed in silence. Yet looked up at last, and, pointing to Urbaine and Martin, while down his cheeks the tears rolled, exclaimed: "They are of Baal. They must die."

"You hear?" Martin whispered to his companion, "you hear? There is no hope; be brave."

"Save yourself," she whispered back. "Save yourself, or," and now her eyes sought his boldly, "I proclaim you-save you."

"You dare not, I forbid you: command you to hold your peace. If you proclaim me one of them, I will deny it. Be silent."

It seemed as if there would be no time for her to do as she threatened; their doom was at hand.

Down the long cavern the Camisards advanced slowly. Ahead of them strode Cavalier; yet even as he came he turned to those behind him and said some words as though endeavouring to calm them, to at least retard the hour of their vengeance; yet also, as it seemed by his face, with little hope of being able to do so.

Ahead of all came the women. One, who limped as she walked, Martin recognised as the girl Fleurette who had been dragged moaning from the Abbé du Chaila's house; another was the girl whom Urbaine had seen fire the shot which slew her companion, the gouvernante. Also there were others, some old, some middle-aged, some almost children. And, perhaps to nerve themselves to what they were about to do, one told of how her babe had been cast into the flames at Nîmes "by order of Baville-her father," pointing as she spoke to Urbaine; another of how her boy had hung upon a lamp post at Anduse "by order of Baville-her father"; a third of how her old mother, gray and infirm, had also been consigned to the flames "by order of Baville-her father."

She, standing there, did not flinch as they approached; stood, indeed, calmly awaiting whatever they might be about to do to her-she who had shrieked as the shot was fired at Poul's escort, who had seemed as one blasted to death by what she had discovered in the Château de Servas. Neither flinched nor blanched, indeed smiled once into Martin's eyes as he, close by her side, took her hand gently in his; glanced swiftly up into his eyes as though asking if, at this supreme moment, he forgave.

"We die together," he said. "Remember, be brave."

"Thus," she whispered, "I fear nothing." Then murmured, even lower, "My God! how great, how noble you are!"

Suddenly, while now the Camisards were all around them and while Cavalier's voice rang out through the vaulted cavern, bidding them halt until they had decided what form of death should be meted out to the prisoners, a woman's voice rose high above all the others, commanding them to harken to her words, listen to the spirit of prophecy that was upon her.

"It is the Grande Marie," they said, "La Grande Marie. Hear her, hear her!" and stood still as they spoke, glancing at her.

Grande she was in stature, big and gaunt, with wild, misty eyes that seemed to glare into vacancy; her hair iron-gray and dishevelled, her voice rich and full as it rang down the cavern, silencing all other voices.

"The skies whirl round in starry circles," she said. "The voices of whispering angels are in my ears, the heavenly host are telling me strange things. Also the voice of God speaks to me; asks me a question. Asks me who it is we are about to slay? My brethren, answer for me."

"Who?" they shouted, "who?" Cavalier alone standing silent, his eyes upon the Grande Marie in wonderment. "Who? A stranger, who is of the persecutors' faith. A woman also of the devil-the child of Baville-the persecutor-the murderer."

The misty eyes roamed over all around her as they spoke. Then suddenly she moved toward them, her hand extended, one finger pointing. And with that finger she touched Cavalier on the arm, then the Camisard next to him, then another; then a woman, and another woman.

"All," she whispered, while a great hush was now upon those in the cavern, "all are God's children, all servitors of the Cross-all, all, all."

Again she went on, passing slowly by those in the cave, her finger touching each and every one, missing none. Peering, too, into their faces with those wild clouded eyes, penetrating them with her glances.

And now the silence was extreme. She had touched, had looked into the face of every one there except Martin and Urbaine.

Again she moved and approached him, standing tall, erect and calm, yet not defiantly, before his captor.

Her fingers advanced and touched his breast beneath where the lace of his cravat fell. With every eye upon them, she brought her face close to his, and for one minute seemed as if through her own eyes she would see deep into his brain. Then moved a step farther and stood before Urbaine Ducaire.

The girl, standing herself motionless, her hand clasped in Martin's, divined rather than felt that the finger of the prophetess was on her breast; saw that, as she opened her lids which she had closed when that wild form drew near her, the eyes of the seer were looking into hers. Then shuddered as they were removed.

"Away!" La Grande Marie exclaimed, as now there were no more to touch, no more to penetrate with those terrible glances, "away to your work in the valleys and the towns, to devastate, to destroy, when the moon which is the sun of the outcast is on high. Away, I say, to destroy, to devastate. Your work is not here. Our God has blinded you, led you astray. In this, our refuge, there is no child of the devil, no Papist. You are deceived. Those whom you would slay are of our faith!"

CHAPTER XIX

LEX TALIONIS

Over all Languedoc there was an awful terror at this time-the terror that is born of successful rebellion, and that rebellion the outcome of a religious strife.

An awful terror which filled now the breasts of those who had erstwhile been the persecutors, even as, not long before, it had filled the breasts of those whom they had persecuted.

In truth there were none in all that fair province, none-from those who dwelt on its southern borders washed by the sapphire-hued waters of the Mediterranean, to those who, on its northern boundary, gazed toward the fertile provinces of Linois and Auvergne, or, looking west, saw the rich rolling lands of golden Guienne stretched out before them-but felt, and feeling, dreaded, the threatening horror that at any moment might engulf them. For now no longer were the dungeons of the cities filled with Protestants moaning for water, food, or air; no longer did Huguenot women offer their jailers the few miserable coins they had about them so that their babes might taste a drop of milk; no longer did men of the Reformed Faith offer their little bags of secreted livres and tournois to their warders, so that thereby they might be allowed to sleep one hour-only one little hour! – without disturbance; without horns being blown at their dungeon doors to awaken them, or blank charges fired from musketoons and fusils with a like intent; without their bodies being pricked and stirred up by point of lance or sword at the moment that a heartbroken slumber fell upon them.

A change had come! Some of the jails were emptied now; in the smaller towns and villages they existed no longer. Some of those towns and villages were themselves erased from off the face of the earth. Down from their mountain homes the Camisards had stolen, creeping like phantoms through the night, like panthers on the trail of those whom they track to their doom, like adders gliding through the grass. One by one these men of vengeance mustered outside doomed bourgs or hamlets till all were assembled in a compact mass, sometimes to lay violent and open siege to the places, sometimes to be admitted silently at dead of night, or in early dawn, by those who, disguised, had already stolen in. Then the massacre took place, the jails gave up their victims who were not already dead, the hateful gibbets and the iron-bound wheels helped to light the fires that consumed the villages, and in the morning there was no sign left either of avenger or of victim. Of the former, all had stolen back into their impenetrable fastnesses; of the latter, nothing remained but burning houses and crumbling walls, a church destroyed, an altar shattered, and at its base a slaughtered priest.

Even in the greater cities-in Montpellier and Nîmes, Alais and Uzès-the haunting fear, the terror, the horror was there, even though those cities were fortified and garrisoned, full of soldiers and milices. Yet of what use were these? Of what use dragoons who had fought in close ranks and knee to knee against William of Orange's own English and Dutch troopers? Of what use infantry who had stood a solid phalanx of steel under Bouflers and Luxembourg? Of what use a homely militia, when the enemy was unseen and intangible-an enemy which crept in man by man through gates and barriers, disguised as peasant and farmer bringing in produce, or sometimes, in bitter mockery of their foes, as Catholic priest or Catholic seigneur? It was not strange that against such a foe as this all Baville's plans were unavailing, all Julien's military knowledge helpless. And the question which every man asked his neighbour was, Would Montrevel, the new field marshal now on his way from Paris with an enormous army, be able to succeed against such crafty and resolute enemies any better than his predecessors had done?

Baville asked himself the same question now, as he sat where he had sat a month or two before, on that morning when across the room had fallen the shadow of Urbaine as she came in from the garden, her hands full of freshly gathered, dew-sprinkled flowers-his loved Urbaine. Yet he told himself, even as thus he meditated and doubted, that if force could do it, it should be done.

Upon his face as he sat alone in his cabinet there was a look which none could perhaps have interpreted, yet which none could have failed to observe; a look that had brought an appearance of age to his face which his fifty years of life should not have placed there; also a look of deep, fierce determination which, cruel as he had ever been, had not hitherto been perceptible upon his handsome features. On the table before him there lay a great chart of the whole Cévennes district; attached to the chart by a silken string was a paper referring to it; on the back of that chart was written in a bold, sprawling hand, the words, "Mon plan pour la grande battue des attroupés que je projete," and signed "Julien."

"Bah," Baville exclaimed, after throwing down these papers angrily, "sa grande battue! Son plan! What will come of it? What? Nothing. These dogs are as slippery as snakes. No battue will surround, entrap them. And-and-even though they, though this swashbuckler, who thinks more of the bouquet of his Celestin or the aroma of his white Frontignan than of our province's safety, should prevail, it will not bring her back to me."

And Baville, on whose soul there lay heavy the slaughter of countless innocent women-their only fault their faith-buried his face in his hands and moaned. "Urbaine, Urbaine," he whispered, "Ma mignonne, ma petite rose blanche, to think of you in their hands, you whom we have nurtured so soft and warm, you who, I swore to your father, should be my life's charge, the star of my existence! Fool! fool! fool! to ever let you go thus. Though God he knows," he whispered still, "I did it for the best; did it, knowing the dangers that threatened, that were surely coming, that must above all else strike at Baville and his. Deemed I could save you, send you away to peace and safety."

And still he sat on there, his head in his hands, while from between his fingers the tears trickled as he muttered still, "Urbaine, Urbaine!"

"She is dead," he said after a pause. "She must be dead. Of all, they would not spare her-my lamb. That is enough-to belong to me! O God!" he cried, springing from his chair and clasping his hands above his head, "nothing can give her back to me. Yet one thing thou canst give me: Vengeance! vengeance! vengeance! On him, above all, on that treacherous Huguenot, that viper who, when there was still a chance left, dragged her from the carriage, gave her up to his accursed brethren. Give me that! Place him but once in my hands and I ask no more. Urbaine can never come back, but at least she shall lie in her grave-where is it?" – and he shuddered-"lie in her grave avenged. Why did I ever trust him-kinsman of the de Rochebazons as he is-why not execute him that night at Montvert?"

After the rout of Poul's escort and of De Broglie's soldiers in an adjacent place by the Camisards, some half dozen of the dragoons of Hérault had managed to escape from the former slaughter, as well as many more from the latter. As has been said, they fled to Nîmes, where Baville was at the time, bringing with them the full account of what had happened to both detachments, and in their dismay and confusion making the disaster none the less in the telling. Now, among those who had thus escaped was one, a young porte-guidon, or cornet, who had by chance ridden also with De Peyre's detachment to Montvert when in attendance on Baville and the abbé's nephew. And there this lad had seen Martin upon the bridge with Buscarlet, had heard something of the conversation which ensued; knew, too, that he had returned to Alais with them. Therefore he was acquainted with Martin's appearance so well that, when the distracted Intendant had demanded from those who had escaped where his child was, he was very well able to inform him.

"My God!" Baville exclaimed, sitting in his rooms in the old Roman city, with the lad before him and surrounded by half the councillors of the place, sitting there white to the lips, "you saw it, saw him drag her out of the carriage, ride away with her."

"I saw it, your Excellency, beyond all doubt. And had it not been that I dared not take my eyes off these Camisards who were attacking me-one of the villains was armed with a reaping hook-I would have made a stroke to save mademoiselle; have hamstrung his horse, run him through. But, your Excellency sees," and he pointed to his hand, a mass of rags and bandages, "two fingers are gone; cut off as I wrested the brutal weapon from the man."

"Which road did he take? – yet, why ask?" Baville had said. "Which road would he go but one-that toward their accursed mountain dens? And he-he was of their faith."

A moment later he interrogated the young dragoon again.

"Can you by no chance be mistaken about this man? Think, I beseech you! Of all, she could have fallen into no worse hands than his."

"It is impossible, your Excellency. It is the man who sat on the bridge with the curé when we rode into Montvert-the man who returned to Alais with us. Also, I have spoken with him in Montpellier when your Excellency made him welcome at the Intendancy."

Beneath his lips Baville muttered a bitter imprecation as the young officer recalled this fact. It was, he saw now, a fatal error to have committed. Yet-yet he had done it of set purpose, for a reason. No, he would dwell no more on that. And now weeks had passed since Urbaine's disappearance. She must be dead, he and his wife had told each other a thousand times by night and day.

"Every hope is gone," he said to her more than once, "every hope. She was mine-known to a hundred mountain refugees from Montpellier to be ours. They would not spare her. There is nothing left but vengeance, if he, that kinsman of the de Rochebazons, ever falls into our hands, as he must, as he must. They can not triumph forever. Can not win in the end."

Madame l'Intendante came in to him now as he sat in his room, a gentle, handsome woman on whose face the grief she felt within was very plainly apparent; came in, and, touching his forehead softly with her hand, sat down by his side.

"Nicole," she said, "a thought has come to me that-that-my God that I should have to say it! – if Urbaine is still alive, might lead to her rescue."