The Scourge of God

It was Baville.

Baville! Her father's murderer there! Face to face with Urbaine once more!

For a moment the silence was intense, or broken only by the woman's sobs. Then from her lips he heard the one word "Speak" uttered.

"Urbaine, your father died through me, though not by my will, not by my hands."

"Ah!"

"I loved Urbain Ducaire," the rich, full voice went on. "Loved him, pitied him too, knowing something, though not all, of his past life. Knew that he, a Huguenot, was doomed if he stayed here in Languedoc, stranger though he was, for his nature was too noble to conceal aught; he was a Catholic who had renounced his ancient faith, a nouveau converti, yet of the wrong side for his future tranquility. And he boasted of it loudly, openly. He was doomed."

Again there was a pause broken only by the weeping of Urbaine. Then once more Baville continued:

"I beseeched him to go, to leave the neighbourhood, to depart in peace. Provided him with safe conducts, implored him to seek an asylum in England or Holland where those of his newly adopted creed were safe. He refused. Your mother, a woman of the province, had died in giving birth to you. He swore he would not leave the place where her body lay. He defied me, bade me do my worst."

"And-and-" Urbaine sobbed.

"And the orders came from Paris. From Louvois, then alive, and Madame de Maintenon. 'Saccagez tous!' they wrote. 'Those who will not recant must be exterminated.'

"Then I sent to him by a trusty hand a copy of those orders. I bade him fly at once, since even I could not save him. Told him that on a fixed night-great God! it was the night ere Christmas, the night when the priests bid us have our hearts full of love and mercy for each other-I must be at his cottage with my Cravates. He was a marked man; also I was known to favour him. If I did so now, spared him and imprisoned others, all the south would be in a tumult."

Again Baville paused. Again went on:

"I never deemed I should find him; would have sworn he must be gone ere I reached his house. Yet went there, knowing that I dared not omit him. Went there, praying, as not often I have prayed, that it would be empty, forsaken. Alas! Alas! Alas! he had ignored my warning, my beseechings. He was there, reading his Bible. He defied me. By his hand he had a pistol. Seeing the Cravates behind me, their musketoons ready, it seemed as though he was about to use it. Raised it, pointed it at me, covered my breast."

The pause was longer now. Martin, hearing, understanding all, his mind and memory returned to him, thought Baville dreaded to continue. Yet it was not so. The full clear tones reached his ear again:

"I could not deem him base enough to do that, to shoot me down like a dog, since I had drawn no weapon of my own. It was, I have divined since, the soldiers whom he defied. Yet in my contempt for what I thought his idle threat, I cried scornfully 'Tirez donc.' Alas, ah, God! the fatal error that has forever darkened your life and mine! Those words were misunderstood. The Cravates misunderstood them, believed the exclamation an order given to them by me; a moment later they had fired. O Urbaine! my love, my child-I-I-what more is there to tell?"

And as he ceased, hers were not the only sobs Martin heard now.

Then, as they too ceased somewhat, another voice was heard by the listener-the voice of Buscarlet.

"You hear? The wrong, that was in truth no wrong, is atoned. Has never been. Your way is clear before you. The evil he has wrought has not come nigh you or yours. Woman, as his heart has ever cherished you, I, a pastor of your rightful faith, bid you give back your love to him."

The dawn was coming as the old man spake these words. In the thin light of that new morning which crept in from where the moon's ray had shone through the night, Martin, his fur covering tossed from off him long since, saw Urbaine fall on Baville's breast, heard her whisper, "My father, oh, my father!" Knew, too, that they were reconciled, the past forgotten. And thanked God that it was so.

Yet once again Buscarlet spoke, his white hair gleaming in the light of the coming day, his old form erect and stately before the other.

"You are absolved by her," he said; "earn absolution, too, for your past cruelty by greater mercy to others of her faith. I charge you, I, a priest of that persecuted faith, that henceforth you persecute no more. God has given you back your child's love. Be content."

* * * * * * *

A little later and those three were gathered round the spot where Martin lay, with, in the background, a fourth figure, that of Baville's own surgeon. He had been brought by the Intendant after Buscarlet had told the latter all that he had ridden hastily to Nîmes to inform him of, and when the pastor had declared that if surgical aid was not at once forthcoming the wounded man must surely die. And, seeing him, the surgeon had said that his life still hung in the balance; that if what Baville desired was to be done, it had best be done at once.

"It will make you happy?" Urbaine whispered, her lips close to her lover's, her arms about him.

"Passing happy," he murmured, "beyond all hope. Now, now, at once."

"You can do it?" the Intendant asked, turning to the pastor.

"I can do it now."

"So! Let it be done."

"Stay there by his side," Buscarlet said then to Urbaine, "upon your knees. – Take you her hand," to Martin.

And in whispered tones he commenced the marriage ceremony of the Huguenots as prescribed by their Church.

"Repeat after me that you take Urbaine Ducaire to be your wedded wife"

"Nay, nay," said Baville, interposing. "Nay, I had forgotten. Not that. Not that. The packet would have told what both must have learned ere they had been married elsewhere. Now I must tell it myself. Her name is not Urbaine Ducaire."

"Not Urbaine Ducaire?" all exclaimed, looking up at him. "Not Urbaine Ducaire?"

"Nay. Nor her father's Urbain Ducaire. Instead, this," and he produced hastily his tablets from his pocket and wrote on them for some few moments, muttering as he did so, "I knew it not till lately, until I communicated with those in Paris, though I suspected. Also," he repeated, "the packet would have told all."

Then, thrusting the tablets into the pastor's hands, while all around still gazed incredulously at him, he said aloud: "Marry her in those names and titles. Hers by right which none can dispute, and by the law of Richelieu passed through the Parliament of Paris in the last year of his life. The right of sole daughters where no male issue exists."

"These titles are lawfully hers?" Buscarlet asked, reading in astonishment that which Baville had written, while Urbaine clung closer still to her lover, wondering what further mystery surrounded her birth, and Martin, no light breaking in on him as yet, deeming Baville demented. "Lawfully hers?"

"Lawfully, absolutely hers. Proceed."

And again Buscarlet commenced:

"Repeat after me that you take Cyprienne, Urbaine Beauvilliers-"

"My God!" whispered Martin faintly ere he did so. "My God! that my quest ends here!" Then he repeated the words that Buscarlet read from Baville's tablets as he had been bidden.

"Baronne de Beauvilliers," the pastor continued, "Comtesse de Montrachet, Marquise du Gast d'Ançilly, Princesse de Rochebazon, daughter of Cyprien, Urbain Beauvilliers, former bearer of those titles, to be your wedded wife-to-"

* * * * * * *

It was finished. They were married. The union blessed by a pastor of their own Church and attested by him who had so persecuted the members of that Church by order of the man, if indeed it was by his orders, whom they called "The Scourge of God."

And Martin, gazing up into the eyes of his wife, murmured:

"I have not failed, my love, in what I sought. But, ah, that my search should bring me to such perfect peace, should end with you! Now, if I die, I die happy."

But even as she held him close to her, his head upon her shoulder, he knew, felt sure, that he would not die; that God would restore him to a new life, to be passed as long as it lasted by her side.

Postscript. – The historical incidents in the foregoing story have necessarily, for obvious purposes in one or two instances, been altered from their exact sequence. With this exception they are described precisely as they occurred, each description being taken from the best authorities, and especially the best local ones. Exclusive of the names of Ashurst, Ducaire, and all pertaining to that of De Rochebazon and of De Rochebazon itself, the others are, in almost every case, authentic.

THE END

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