CHAPTER XV.

SHELTER AND REFUGE.

That night as darkness fell upon the earth, and while, high up in the

heavens, the bonfires burned which the _attroupés_ lit regularly on

the tops of the Cévennes in the hopes of thereby luring their enemies

into their strongholds and fastnesses, Martin spoke to Urbaine,

saying:

"Mademoiselle, I know not what is to be done. Had the unfortunate

horse not been slain by that last bullet we might have got back to

safety. To Montpellier or, failing that, to Lunel at least. Now it

seems hopeless. You can go no farther and--and I can not leave you

alone while I seek assistance, which, even if I did, I should not

obtain. There is no assistance for--for those who are not on their

side."

"I can not understand you, monsieur," Urbaine said quietly. "You are

yourself a Protestant, my father told me--nay, did you not so inform

me that morning in our garden at Montpellier--yet you trouble to save

me from your fr----, those of your faith. I am deeply grateful to you,

only I do not comprehend."

For a moment his clear eyes rested on her. In the dusk that was now

almost night she saw them plainly. Then he answered very quietly:

"Is it not enough, mademoiselle, that you are a woman? Must I, because

I am a Protestant, have no right to the attributes of a man?"

"I--I ask your pardon; forgive me. I would not wound you--you who have

saved me. And I thank you. Only, here, in Languedoc, we have learned

in the last few weeks to expect no mercy from the Protestants."

"Like all who have turned against injustice and cruelty, they are now

themselves unjust and cruel. One may respect their turning, even their

uprising, yet not their methods."

Then for some moments there was silence between them.

They were seated, on this warm September night--for six weeks had

passed since the murder of the abbé--upon a bank outside a deserted

cottage a league or so from where the ambuscade and slaughter of Poul

and the soldiers under him had taken place. Above them, all around

them, in the little garden, there grew the sweet flowering acacias

which are at their best in the valleys that lie between the Loire and

the Rhône; the air was thick with their perfume. Also the gourds lay

golden on the ground, uncut and ripening to decay. The scarlet beans

trailed in rich profusion of colour on their sticks, illuminated, too,

by the fireflies that danced around. And from the distance of a

pistol-shot off there came the murmur of the arrowy river as it dashed

down between its banks to reach the sea.

Yet all was desolation here, and death. Death typified by the poor

merle that lay forgotten and starved in its wicker cage, left behind

when those who once dwelt here had fled a fortnight ago to the

mountains at the report that De Broglie's _chevaux-légers_ were

devastating the land. They fled leaving behind them, too, the

three-months-old calf, and the fowls, and all the simple household

creatures, having no time to do aught but shift for themselves and

bear away to safety those other harmless living things, the children.

"What is to be done I know not," Martin went on. "At any moment they

may come this way; they know we have escaped so far. Then--then--it

may mean instant death; at best, captivity in the mountains."

"For me," she answered, speaking low, "for me? I am Baville's adopted

child--the child of his dear friend. But for you--you are of

their----"

Then she paused, leaving the last word unsaid as she saw again his

calm, sad eyes fixed on her. Once more she pleaded for pardon.

"Forgive, forgive me," she said. "I am vile, ungenerous to speak thus.

Yet we must part at last. They have no charge against you."

"We part," he replied, "when you--when both--are safe."

They knew not why at such a time as this, when action should have been

everything and no moment wasted, in spite of the girl's fatigue and

prostration, silence should fall upon them; why they should sit there

as though courting a fate that might come at any moment, for at any

moment, above the hum of the near river, there might be heard the

voices of the revolted Cévenoles. Beneath the branches of the acacias

that o'erhung the dusty white road would perhaps be seen the unbrowned

barrels of their guns or the scythes with which, since many of them

had as yet no weapons, they were armed.

A silence between these two broken only by the twitter of birds in the

branches, or by a sigh that rose unchecked from the girl's breast as,

in the starlit dark, she turned her eyes on the features of the man by

her side.

"Come," he said at last, rousing himself, "come. It is madness to

remain here. We must move on even though we encounter death by doing

so. It is not likely that all have returned to the mountains after

their victory; they may pass by here at any moment. Can you proceed at

all, mademoiselle?"

"I can at least try. Yet to where? To where?"

"I do not know the land very well," he answered, speaking in the slow,

calm voice which had impressed her so much a month ago when the

Intendant had, with strange indifference (as it seemed to both of

them), presented Martin to Urbaine and left them to pass some hours in

the orange garden of the Intendancy, he contenting himself with

telling the girl that her new acquaintance was from the north and was

not of their faith. "I do not know the land very well. Yet is there

not a garrison near here? I think so. Called the--the château of--the

fortress of--Servas."

"Ah, yes!" Urbaine cried, clasping her hands, "the Château de Servas.

Between Alais and Uzès; not far from here. If we could reach that we

should be safe. The commandant is known to my father--to De Broglie.

He would protect us."

"We must attempt it," Martin replied. "It is our chance,

mademoiselle," he exclaimed, breaking off as he heard a gasp from her

lips, "What is it? What! What new terror?"

"I forgot," she whispered, her voice unsteady, "I forgot. In

this instance the case is reversed. They are all of my

faith--you--you--would be sacrificed. They are infuriated with these

rebels. Alas!" she almost wailed, "they would not spare you. It is not

to be dreamed on. Anywhere but there."

"Nay," he said, "nay. It must in truth be there. And for me fear not.

I have saved the daughter of his Excellency for them. Even though they

know I am this accursed thing in their eyes, a Protestant, they would

scarcely repay me cruelly for that."

"They must never know it. By silence you are safe. Oh, let us attempt

to reach it. It is but two or, at most, three leagues. I have been

there with my father. He will bless you, worship you for saving me."

"Three leagues! three leagues!" he repeated, "three leagues! For me,

nothing. Yet for you, a delicate woman!"

"The very thought, the hope of safety, inspires me. I am strong again.

Come, monsieur, come, I beseech you, for both our sakes. For yours,

for you who have saved me, above all."

"Not so," he said. "I am a man who has ventured into the tiger's jaws

and must take my chance. I am of poor account."

And now they prepared to set forth to reach this place of refuge, yet

both knew what dangers might well be expected ere they got there, if

ever. For during the time which had elapsed since the Camisards, as at

this time they began to be called, had risen and commenced their

resistance by the slaughter of the Abbé Du Chaila, all Languedoc had

been overrun with them and was in a state of terror. Also the flight

of the inhabitants had become entirely reversed. It was the Catholics

and the Catholic priests who were rushing out of the province as fast

as they could go, while from their mountain homes the revolted

Protestants who had taken up arms were pouring down in hundreds.

Already, too, the cities were in a state of siege and the inhabitants

fortifying themselves within the walls. That very night, although

neither Martin nor Urbaine knew of it, the ancient city of Nîmes, the

Rome of France, expected to be besieged, put to sword ere dawn; for by

the time that they were hoping to accomplish their night journey to

the Château de Servas the few dragoons who had escaped the slaughter

which had fallen on Poul's detachment, as well as the fusileers and

another band of cavalry and infantry who had been routed close by

while under the command of De Broglie, had ridden pell-mell into

Nîmes, their weapons broken or lost, their heads covered with blood,

themselves and their horses wounded. Rode in the bearers of awful

tidings as to how the fanatics were led by two persons, one a lad of

sixteen named Cavalier, the other a man a few years older named

Roland; rode in and told how women fought on their side as the Amazons

of old had fought; how men preached and encouraged them and sang

canticles as they did so; of how they spared none; had beheaded Poul;

had captured Baville's daughter and slain her, if not worse. Described

also, with white quivering lips, how the tocsins were ringing from

half a hundred churches in flames; told of priests flung across their

own altars and done to death, of soldiers mutilated ere slain--all by

bands of men who seemed to vanish into the air the moment after their

deeds were accomplished.

Meantime Baville's daughter and her rescuer were threading their

course through the meadows and pastures that fringed the wayside,

because thus her feet were more eased by the long, cool grass on

which now the dews of night had fallen, or slowly finding a path

through chestnut woods. Sometimes, too--leaving the river behind them

and knowing they were going aright since its distant hum became

fainter and fainter, and since, ever before them, yet afar off, the

summits of _La Lozère_ and _Bouquet_ stood out more clear against the

heavens--they passed vineyards on which the black grapes hung in

clusters, when, pausing, they moistened their lips with the soft,

luscious fruit. Yet went on and on, resting at intervals, and then

forward again, the girl leaning on the arm of her companion--the arm

of the man whose faith she had been taught to despise and execrate.

But once they had to stop for another reason than her fatigue, to

pause in a great chestnut wood where the grass which grew at the feet

of the trees was as soft and silky as thistle-down, and where the deer

stared at them with wide-open, startled eyes; to pause because they

heard a hundred yards away the voices of a band of men which passed

along the wide road.

"It is they," she whispered, trembling. "It is they. Whom do they

seek?"

"Fear not," he replied, soothing her, while at the same time he drew

her within the decayed trunk of an enormous chestnut tree over whose

head more than one century must have rolled. "They proceed too rapidly

along the road, too swiftly on their way, to be in search of us. More

like they go to midnight murder, the destruction of some harmless

village, the pillage of some helpless town."

"Murder! Destruction! you deem it that? You!" she whispered, her soft,

pure eyes glancing up at his.

"I deem it that," he replied gravely, "retaliation though it be."

The band went on, their voices coming back to them on the still night

air, the refrain of one of their hymns borne back also--a hymn still

breathing of revenge blessed by God, of vengeance ordained by him.

"If you are rested again," he whispered, "we may proceed."

Still helping her, assisting her as gently as though he had been her

brother, he led her on until at last they left the shelter of the

woods and stood upon a little knoll of ground, a spot from which they

looked across a plain bordered on the farther side by slopes and hills

that, rising one behind the other, lifted themselves finally to

mountains whose ridges and summits stood out sharply against the

starry sky. Yet saw, too, that now the stars grew whiter and began to

pale, that all the heavens were turning to a soft primrose hue, while,

far away to the east, was the warm suffusing of scarlet which told of

the coming day. Afar off, also, observed other crimson streaks over

which there hung dun-coloured palls of smoke that proceeded from

burning towns and hamlets.

Shuddering, Urbaine directed her glance to the latter, then said,

looking toward the north:

"There ahead of us is the Château de Servas. You see?" and as she

spoke she pointed to where, above a low purple-crested hill, a white

building hung.

"I see," he answered. "Pray God we reach it. You can still go on?"

"I must go on," she replied. "Once there we are safe. The château is

well garrisoned."

Even through this plain, vineyards ran along the side of the road

which led to where the fortress stood; therefore they were not so open

to observation as if it had been a flat, uncultivated expanse; and

across this they passed, sheltered by the vines on either side. And

now there arose a chance unhoped for--one which, had it happened

earlier in their journey, might have brought them to the harbour of

refuge they sought before the night had gone. Grazing at the side of

the road was an old mule, a creature rough-coated and long neglected

and uncared for, its hide thick and coarse. Perhaps its being so poor

a thing was the reason why it had not been carried off into the

mountains either by those who owned it or by those who would have

appropriated it if owned by their foes. Yet it served now to ease

Urbaine from further toil, since Martin, catching it and placing his

coat across its back as a saddle-cloth, lifted the girl on to it at

once. Then instantly they set off again, he walking by the patient

creature's side and directing it.

An hour later, when now the light had come and when the mountain tops

were all gilded with the rays of the sun, while below on the plain the

coolness of dawn was already receding before the genial warmth of a

new day, they had reached their journey's end and were mounting the

slope beneath the castle. And seeing the two cannon that stood on

their cumbersome old carriages upon the walls, and the men-at-arms who

were already regarding them curiously from those walls, Martin knew

that he had saved the girl for a second time.

Also she knew it well, yet such was her emotion, such her agitation at

recognising that she had escaped an awful fate, that she was powerless

to express herself in words; but not too powerless to testify her

gratitude by her looks and by the touch which she laid upon his hand.

A touch which he understood and answered also by a glance, and by the

muttered words, "Thank God!"

A moment later the wicket in the great iron-barred and studded gate

opened, and a soldier came out and stood regarding them; then called

down the slope:

"Who are you and what do you seek?"

"Shelter and refuge," Martin answered back, his voice clear and

distinct in the morning air. "This lady is his Excellency's daughter."

"His Excellency's daughter!" the man repeated, his whole tone one of

astonishment. "His Excellency's daughter, and travelling thus on such

a sorry beast!"

"And travelling thus. Fortunate, indeed, to be travelling at all,"

while, as he spoke, he extended his hands and caught Urbaine as she

swerved on the mule's back and fell fainting into his arms.