The Scourge of God

At first none answered him, none spoke. Then amid the silence, from the lips of Pierre Esprit, the chief of the three prophets, the words fell:

"You are lost-your body in this world, your soul in the next."

"Alas!" he wailed, "even though I have damned myself, will you too do the same thing by murdering me?"

His words were the signal for his doom.

They rushed at him as he lay there and plunged their knives into his body, one man exclaiming, "This for my mother, burned at Nîmes," another, "This for my father, broken at Anduse"; a third, "This for my brother, sent to the galley, 'Le Réquin'"; a fourth, "This for my sister, Fleurette, lying here."

When his nephew, Le Marquis du Chaila, afterward recovered his body from where they left it, it was pierced by fifty-two wounds, of which twenty-four were mortal.

"The beginning has been made," Pierre Esprit exclaimed. "There must be no backsliding. Henceforth each man's hand to guard each man's life. Now for the prior of St. Maurice, next for the priest of Frugéres. While for those who have been rescued from that man's clutches, away with them to the mountains and safety. Come, let us sing unto the Lord."

And up the slopes and pastures of the purple hills encircling the little village rose once more the chant of the army of Jehoshaphat.

Soon none were left in the blood-stained road but the pastor, Buscarlet, lying where he had fainted, and Martin Ashurst, white to the lips and endeavouring to arrange the dead man's limbs into something resembling humanity.

CHAPTER VIII

AN EXODUS

In the coming dawn, when the stars had paled and died away, and when far off, where the Basses Alpes lifted their heads eastward, the gray light turned into daffodil and told that the day was at hand, Martin carried the pastor back into his little house.

"Rest," he said, "rest, and endeavour to sleep. I pray Heaven you may do so, after this night of horror."

"Horror indeed!" Buscarlet said, sinking into the old leather-covered fauteuil that for years he had sat in so calmly and happily, though solitary. "Horror undreamed of!" Then, a moment later, he went on: "I thought-nay, I knew-that they would rise at last and throw off the hideous yoke under which they bowed. Yet I deemed it would but be to release those of our religion who suffered, to prevent others from suffering too; to demand terms, even though only such terms as would permit us to seek peace in far-away lands; but never dreamed of such deeds as we have witnessed to-night. Where will it end? And how?"

"There were those who muttered in that crowd," Martin replied, his face still of a deathly pallor, "that it might not end until they stood outside Louis' gates-were within them. And there were some who seemed to know of what they spoke. Some who have been long leagues away from this lonely valley shut in by these mountains-men who know that on all sides and on all her frontiers France is sore beset. Crippled by her fresh war with Spain, the attacks made on her on the Italian border, also by the Dutch on the Rhine. Fighting as well my own countrymen in Bavaria and the whole length of the Danube, even to the borders of Austria."

The mention of his own countrymen by Martin Ashurst seemed to bring fresh trouble to the unhappy old man, to cause fresh terrors to spring into his mind; for at those words he started in his chair and regarded the younger one steadily, though with still upon his face the look of misery that the events of the last few hours had brought forth.

"Your own countrymen!" he repeated, half-dazed. "Your own countrymen! Ay, ay, les Anglais! Thank God, it is not known, and never will be known, that you are either English or Protestant. Baville would not spare you."

"Baville need not perhaps know that I am an Englishman," Martin replied calmly. "But one thing he will most assuredly know ere long, when he begins to make inquiry into the doings of this past night-namely, that I am a Protestant."

"Know it!" Buscarlet exclaimed, trembling even more than before, clasping his hands frenziedly as though overcome by a fresh fear. "How should he know it?"

"I shall announce it. For a certainty, shall not disguise it."

"Martin, Martin," the old man moaned, "are you mad? Do you value your life so little, desire so much the horrors of the wheel, the flames, to have your head upon this bridge as others' heads have been, that you will acknowledge this? Martin, for the love of God, pause. Think of what such an acknowledgment would mean to you."

"I have thought all through the night, even while I watched that man's house burned beneath him as he hid on the roof; while I saw him done to death. And, thus thinking, became resolved. Henceforth no power on earth, no horror of awful death, of mutilation after death, can make me disguise, keep back the acknowledgment of the form of faith I belong to-"

"Alas, alas! it will bring death."

"It may do so. If it does it must be borne. Yet, at the worst, I will not think it can come to that. I am a Protestant; here, in your own land, a Huguenot. Yet I am not one of those who slew the abbé. Shall never imbrue my hands in blood. Ask only to be left in peace."

"Alas," Buscarlet exclaimed again, "that is all that we have asked-all! Yet you see the end. The woman who dominates Louis allows no free thought, no religion other than her own; has dragooned Huguenots into Roman Catholicism since the day the Revocation was pronounced, has hung and burned and broken those who refuse to change. How, then, can you hope to escape-you who were among the crowd that performed last night's work?"

"I took no part in his murder. Would have saved him if I could-"

"That will not save you. Martin, you must flee from here at once. Escape out of France. Be gone while there is yet time."

"And de Rochebazon! His children's heritage! What of that?"

Even as he uttered the words his determination to remain here at all costs and in deadly peril seemed to act upon the old man's mind, to clear his brain so clouded with the awful events of the past night, to bring back to him the power of speaking and reasoning clearly, for slowly yet weightily he answered:

"As that heritage has done before, so it must do now. Must wait, remain in abeyance. This is no time to prosecute your search. No sense of justice on your part toward a distant kinsman can demand that you should sacrifice your own life, at the least your liberty. Moreover, remember, he or his descendants may not be here in Languedoc; may be leagues away, in remote lands, for aught you know; even in your own country, the home of the oppressed since James fell."

"They said at Geneva it was beyond all doubt that he who was rightly the de Rochebazon came here."

"Grant that," the old man replied, calm now in face of the argument he had to use, must use and drive home. "Grant that-that he came here. Well, it is nigh half a century ago. Where may he not have gone to in all that long passage of years? The Huguenots are everywhere-in England, Germany, Scotland, the Americas, Switzerland, some even on the far-off shores of the Cape of Good Hope. Why stay here seeking for what is no better than a shadow, and at the risk of your own life?"

For a moment it seemed as if his argument was about to prevail. Into Martin Ashurst's face there came a look telling of deep reflection-reflection that brought with it an acknowledgment of the force of the other's words. And, observing, Buscarlet pressed his argument home.

"If alive, de Rochebazon never intends to claim what is his. If dead, he has died and kept his secret well. While if living he knows not, possibly, that those who were deemed the Prince and Princess de Rochebazon have passed away, yet also he knew that for years they usurped, although unwillingly, the place that was his, the vast wealth. If you found him at last, even here, could you force him to take back the heritage he renounced so long ago?"

Still the other answered not. What could he say? On his face was still the look of perplexity that had been there since first the pastor spoke. And again the latter went on:

"Moreover, granting even that-that-for his children's sake he would return to the possession of his own, would emerge from the humble position he has so long occupied-in France all Huguenots are humble now, here in these mountains they are doubly so; few gentlemen of France acknowledge themselves as such; all fear the court too much; if you found him, if he consented, would he be allowed to return to what is his proper place and position? You know the Romish Church which now holds all in its hands that once was the de Rochebazon's. Will that ever disgorge? Would De Maintenon allow it to do so? You have seen her? Answer."

Even as Buscarlet mentioned that woman's name, Martin started. Yes, he had seen her, and seeing, knew to what adamant he was opposed. Also he recalled her words: "You may seek yet you will never find, or, finding whom you seek, will never prevail." Remembered, too, the look of confidence that had come into the livid face of the woman before him and, as he remembered, wavered.

Was it imperative on him to do more than he had already done in voluntarily renouncing all the wealth his aunt had put aside for him during years of saving? Was he now to throw his life away in seeking for a shadow, a chimera? For it was not beyond possibility, it was indeed most probable, that to such a pass he might come.

At present he had committed no act which even the ruthless Baville, of whom all in this portion of France spoke with bated breath-the Intendant of the Province-could seize upon as a pretext for hostilities to him. He had taken no part in the murder (or was it the execution?) of the Abbé du Chaila; on the contrary, he had longed to render help to the unfortunate wretch, though it had been beyond his power to do so. But-but-if he should remain in the Cévennes, still seeking for a man who, in sober truth, might for years have lain in his grave or might be, if still alive, at the other end of the world, was it certain that he would not perform some act which would place him in Baville's grasp? And as a Protestant, even though it was never known that he was an Englishman, and standing, consequently, in hideous peril in France, what chance would there be of his salvation?

Almost, as he reflected thus, he began to think that, if only for a time and until these troubles had blown over, he must abandon his search for the last of the de Rochebazons. This tempest which had arisen could not last long, he thought; Louis could soon quell these turbulent mountaineers; then again he could take up his task.

"Come," he said to Buscarlet, sitting before him watching his eyes and face to see what effect his words had on him, "come. At least I will do nothing without due thought. Will not be foolhardy. Now eat, drink something; it will restore you. Then after that some rest." Whereupon he pointed to the table on which were still the remains of the last night's little feast over which the poor old man had tried to make so merry. "Here is some of your famous trout left," he said, struggling to speak cheerfully, "and another bottle of the Crépi. Come, let us refresh ourselves."

"I feel as though I shall never eat again," Buscarlet whispered. "Never after the doings of the night-never! Oh, the horror of it, the horror of it!"

"Still cheer up," the other said, uttering words of hope which he knew could have but little likelihood of being verified, yet striving thereby to soften the old man's mental agony. "This may be the end, as it has been the beginning, on our-on the Protestant-side. When Baville, the persecutor, hears that the harryings and the burnings and the murders-for that was a murder we witnessed last night-are not to be on his part alone, he may pause. Nay, even Louis, beset in every way, at every frontier, his treasury drained, may himself give orders to stop these persecutions."

But Buscarlet only shook his head significantly, doubtingly.

"With that woman at his side, by his elbow, never!" he exclaimed. "Nay, nay, my son, he will not stop them. He is the Scourge of God; sweeps before him all who love God. He will never stop them. If he desired to do so, she would not let him."

By now it was full daylight. Over the pastor's little garden with its quaint, old-time flowers, among them many a sweet Provence rose opening to the morning sun, that sun's rays streamed down. Also they knew that the villagers were awake, if they had slept at all. Already they were calling to each other, while some of them gathered in small groups and discussed the events of the past night. Also all asked what would be the end of it.

"I can not sleep," Buscarlet said; "it is impossible. Let me go forth. They are my people. I must be among them. Give them counsel. Oh, God be thanked, there was not one of us in this hamlet who assisted in the work."

And he went out feebly through the window, Martin making no attempt to prevent him, since he knew any such attempt must be futile. Instead, therefore, he walked by his side.

"Whence," he asked, "since none in the village took part in the attack, did those men come? By their garb they are of the mountains-goatherds, shepherds. Is it there the persecutions have been most felt?"

"It is there," the other answered, "that those who have been most persecuted have fled. We may not quit our unhappy country. Every port is barred, every frontier road guarded. Where, therefore, should those whose homes are desolate flee to, whose loved ones have been slaughtered, where but to the mountains? There none can follow them or, following, can not find. Those mountains are full of caverns made by Nature, God-given as a last resort of the outcast and wretched."