The Abbess Of Vlaye

"Some one has heard you," he answered between his teeth. And then she saw that he was looking not at her, but beyond her-beyond her. "There is some one behind that screen."

She faced about, affrighted, and instinctively seized his arm and hung on it, her eyes on the screen. Her attitude as she listened, and her pallor, were in strange contrast with the gay glitter of the table, the lights, the luxury, the fairness of her dress.

"Yes, listening," he said grimly. "Some one has been listening. The worse for them! For they will never tell what they have heard!"

And bounding forward without warning, he dashed the screen down and aside-and recoiled. Face to face with him, cowering against the doorpost, and pale as ashes, was the very man she had mentioned a minute before-that very man of his whose hidden presence in the camp she had betrayed to the malcontents. Vlaye glared at him. "You!" he cried. "You!"

"My lord!"

"And listening!"

"But-"

"But! But die, fool!" the Captain retorted savagely. "Die!" And, swift as speech, the dagger he had stealthily drawn gleamed above his shoulder and sank in the poor wretch's throat.

The man's hands groped in the air, his eyes opened wide; but he attempted no return-stroke. Choked by the life-stream that gushed from his mouth, he sank back inert like a bundle of clothes, while the Abbess's low shriek of terror mingled with his stifled cry.

And, with a sterner sound, another sound. For as the man collapsed, and fell in on himself, a figure hitherto hidden in the doorway sprang over his falling body, a long blade flashed in the candle-light, and the Captain of Vlaye staggered back, one hand pressed to his breast. He made a futile attempt to ward with his poniard, but it fell from his grasp. And the pitiless steel found his heart again. Silent, grim, with unquenchable hate in his eyes, he reeled against the table. And then from the table, dragging with him all-silver and glass and fruit-in one common crash, he rolled to the floor-dying.

Ay, in five seconds, dead! And she saw it with her eyes! Saw it! And frozen, stiff, clinging to the bare edge of the table, she stood looking at him, her brain numbed by the horror, by the suddenness, the hopelessness of the catastrophe. In a twinkling, in a time measured by seconds, it was done. The olives that fell from the dish had not ceased to roll, the wine still crept upon the floor, the man who had struck the blow still panted, his point delivered-but he was dead whom she had loved. Dead!

CHAPTER XXV.

HIS LAST RIDE

The man who had struck the blow, and whose eyes still sparkled with fury, turned them upon her. He took note of her stupor, frowned, and with a swift, cruel glance searched the room. The lights were in sconces on the walls, and had not suffered. The rest was wreck-a splendid wreck, mingled terror and luxury, with the woman's Medusa-like face gazing on it. The Duke-for he it was-still breathing quickly, still with malevolence in his eyes, listened and looked; but the alarm had not been taken. The lilt of a song and faint distant laughter, borne on the night air, alone broke the night silence. He passed to a window, and putting aside a curtain, peered into the darkness of the garden. Then he went to the door, and listened. Still all was quiet without and within. But to the scene in the room his gliding figure, his bent, listening head gave the last touch of tragedy.

Presently-before, it would appear, he had made up his mind how to act-he saw a change come over the woman. Her breathing, which had been no more apparent for a time than the breath of the dead at her feet, became evident, her figure relaxed. Her attitude lost its stoniness; yet she did not stir to the eye. Only her eyes moved; and then at last her foot. Stealthily her foot-the man listening at the door marked it-slid from her robe, and unshod in its thin silken stocking-so thin of web that the skin showed through it-covered the poniard, still wet with blood, that had fallen from her husband's hand. Slowly she drew it nearer and nearer to her.

He at the door made as if he did not heed. But when she had drawn the weapon within reach, and furtive and silent as a cat, stooped to grasp it, he was before her-so far before her, at least, that, though she gained it, he clutched her wrist as she rose. "No, madam!" he cried fiercely. "No! Enough!" And he tried to force it from her hand.

No words came from her lips, but an animal cry of unutterable fury. She seized on his wrist with her left hand-she tried to seize it with her teeth; she fought to free herself, clinging to the knife and wrestling with him in the midst of the trampled fruit, the shivered glass, the mingled wine and blood that made the floor slippery.

"Let it fall!" he repeated, hard put to it and panting. "Enough, I say, enough!" If he had loved her once he showed scant tenderness now.

And she-her lips writhed, her hair uncoiled and fell about her. He began to wish that he had not dropped his sword when he sprang upon her. For he was still weak; and if she persevered she was more than a match for him. In her normal condition she had been more than a match for him; but the shock had left its secret sap. Suddenly, without cry or warning, her grasp relaxed, her head fell back, and she sank-all her length, but sideways-amid the ruin.

He nursed his wrist a moment, looking askance at her, and thinking deeply and darkly. Assured at length that the swoon was no feint to take him unawares, he went to the door by which he had entered, passed through the empty ante-room, and thence into the Captain of Vlaye's apartments. In the passage outside the farther door of these a sleepy valet was on guard. He was not surprised by the Duke's appearance, for half an hour before-only half an hour! – he had allowed him and his guide to enter.

"M. de Vlaye wishes to see the Captain of the gate," the Duke said curtly. "Bid him come, and quickly." And to show that he looked for no answer he turned his back on the man, and, without looking behind him, passed through the rooms again to the one he had left.

Here he did a strange thing. On a side table which had escaped the general disaster stood some dishes removed from the chief table, a plate or two, a bread trencher, and a silver decanter of wine. After a moment's thought he drew a chair to this table, laid his sword on it beside the dishes, and, helping himself to food, began to eat and drink, with his eyes on the door. After the lapse of two or three minutes, during which he more than once scanned the room with a strange and inexplicable satisfaction, a knock was heard at the door.

"Enter!" said the Duke, his mouth half-full.

The door opened, and a grizzled man with a square-cut beard stepped in. He wore a breastpiece over a leather coat, and held his steel cap in his hand.

"Shut the door!" the Duke said sharply.

The man did so mechanically, and turned again, and-his mouth opened. After a few seconds of silence "Mon Dieu!" he whispered. "Mon Dieu!"

"He is quite dead," the Duke said, raising his glass to his lips. "But you had better satisfy yourself. When you have done so, listen to me."

Had the Duke been in any other attitude it is probable that the man had turned in a panic, flung the door wide, and yelled for help. But, seeing a stranger calmly eating and drinking and addressing him with a morsel on the point of his knife, the man stared helplessly, and then did mechanically as he was told-stooped, listened, felt for the life that had for ever departed. When he rose again "Now, listen to me," said the other. "I am the Duke of Joyeuse-you know my name? You know me? Yes, I did it. That is not your affair-but I did it. Your affair is with the thing we have next to do. No-she is not dead."

"Mon Dieu!" the man whispered. Old war-dog as he was, his cheeks were sallow, his hand trembled. A hundred dead, in the open, on the rampart, under God's sky, had not scared him as this lighted room with its medley of horror and wealth, its curtained windows and its suffocating tapestry, scared him.

"Your affair," the Duke repeated, "is with what is to follow." He raised his glass, and held it between his eye and the light. "Do you take my side or his? He is dead-you see him. I am alive-you know me. Now hear my terms. But first, my man, what do you number?"

The man made an effort, vain for the most part, to collect himself. But he managed to whisper, after a moment's hesitation, that they mustered four hundred and thirty, all told.

"Fighting-men?"

The man moved his lips without sound, but the other understood that he assented.

"Very well," the Duke said. "All that is here I give you. Understand, all. Divide, sack, spoil; make your bundles. He is dead," with a glance at Vlaye's body, "he'll not say you nay. And a free pardon for all; and for as many as please-my service. All that I give, on condition that you open your gates to me and render the place three hours after sunrise to-morrow."

The man gaped. The position was new, but he began to see his way. "I can do nothing by myself," he muttered.

"You can have first search," Joyeuse retorted brutally. "There he lies, and his buttons are jewelled. And ten gold crowns I will give you for yourself when the place is mine. You know me, and I keep my word. I told your friend there, who got me entrance" – he pointed to the man Vlaye had stabbed-"that if his master laid a finger on him I would kill his master with these hands. I did it. And there's an end."

The grizzled man's face was changed. It had grown cunning. His eyes shone with cupidity. His cheekbones were flushed. "And if they will not come into your terms, my lord?" he asked, his head on one side, his fingers in his beard, "what must I say you will do?"

"Hang while rope lasts," the Duke answered. "But, name of God, man!" – staring-"beyond the spoils of the place what do you want? He is dead, you have no leader. What matter is it of yours or of theirs who leads?"

The old soldier nodded. "That is true," he said: "we follow our wages."

"One thing more-nay, three things," Joyeuse continued, pushing his cup and plate aside and rising to his feet. "The lady there-I trust her to you. Lock her up where she will be safe, and at daybreak see that she is sent to the convent. M. des Ageaux, whom you have below-not a hair of his head must be injured. Lastly, you must do no harm in the town."

"I will remember, my lord, and tell them."

"And now see me through the gates."

The man grinned cunningly; but as one who wished to prove his astuteness, not as one who intended to refuse. "That is number four, my lord," he said, "and the chiefest of all."

"Not so," the Duke answered. "It was on that condition I spared your life, fool, when you came in."

"Then you knew-"

"I knew that his buttons were jewelled."

"My lord," the man said with admiration, "I vow you'd face the devil."

"You will do that whether you will or no," the Duke replied drily, "some day. But that reminds me." He turned from his companion. He looked on the bloodshed about him, and gradually his face showed the first signs of compunction that had escaped him. Something of disgust, almost of distress, appeared in his manner. He glanced from one prostrate form to another as if he scarce knew what to do and presently he crossed himself. "Lift her to the couch there," he said. And when it was done, "My friend," he continued, in a lower tone, "wait without the door one minute. But do not go beyond call."

The old soldier raised his eyebrows, but he, thoroughly won over, obeyed. Once outside, however, he pondered cunningly. Why had he been sent out? And thoughts of his jewelled buttons overcame him. After a moment's hesitation-for Joyeuse had put fear into him-he dropped softly to his knee and set his eye to a crack in the door.

M. de Joyeuse was kneeling between the dead, his palms joined before his breast, his rosary between them. The lights of the feast, that shone ghastly on the grim faces and on the blood-pool about them, shone also on his uplifted face, from which the last trace of the tremendous rages to which he was prone had fled, leaving it pale indeed and worn-for the marks of his illness were still upon it-but calm and sublime. His eyes were upward bent. Those eyes that a few minutes earlier had burned with a hatred almost sub-human now shone with a light soft and ecstatic, such as shines in the eyes of those who see visions and hear voices. His lips moved without sound. The beads dropped one by one through his fingers.