CHAPTER XXXII.

THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH.

From that old, dismantled farmhouse, built on to the tower, there

sloped down, toward where a small stream ran some four hundred yards

away, a long stretch of bare land, covered sometimes in the summer

heat by short, coarse grass, while in the winter time it was, if any

of it were left uneaten by the sheep, frost-bound or snow-covered. It

was so now on this clear, cold winter night, its surface being dotted

by innumerable folds and pens into which those sheep had once been

driven, but which, since the mountaineers had been forced into

revolution and had raided the place, were empty. They were so on this

night, of sheep. Yet not of other living things, unless the moon

played strange tricks with the eyes of those regarding the pens.

Instead, were being filled rapidly with human forms creeping like

Indians or painted snakes toward them, wriggling their bodies beneath

the hurdles they were composed of, entering by that way into the

ready-found ambush--the forms of the Miquelets, the most hated by the

Camisards of all the troops which had been sent against them; the men

whose extermination was more vowed and determined than the

extermination of either dragoon, _chevau-léger_, or _milice_.

"You see?" whispered Le Leopard to Cavalier and Montbonneux as they

stood together sheltering themselves from observation behind the great

stone posts of the farmhouse's antique stoop, "you see? They first,

then next the cavalry. Observe, beyond the stream; look through the

trunks of the trees across it. The moon sparkles on breast and back

and the splints of the gorgets. You see?" Then added, "And hear?"

For from down toward where _Le Léopard_ had directed the other's

attention there rang that which told beyond all doubt that the foe was

lurking there; discovered them to the surrounded, hemmed-in Camisards.

The neigh of a horse, long, loud, and shrill, taken up a moment later

by others in their company and answered.

After that no need for further disguise or hiding. The presence of the

enemy was made known. An instant later the trumpets rang out the

"Advance!" Across the stretch of bare land the cavalry of Montrevel

were seen riding fast.

"To arms! To arms!" sounded Cavalier's voice on the night air, it

rivalling almost in distinctness the clear sounds of the royal

trumpeters. "To arms! The tyrants are upon us. To arms! I say," and

ere, with one wild shriek in unison from the throats of the Miquelets,

the latter sprang from their ambush, the Protestants had leaped from

the floors where they had flung themselves and were in the open, face

to face with the Pyrenean wolves.

Instantly the whole surface of the earth beneath the bright rays of

the moon was changed. Soon no moon was seen. The smoke from countless

firelocks covered, obscured her. Smoke dispelled for an instant now

and again by volleys of flame belched forth from fusil and carabine,

flame that showed Miquelets dashing at huge mountaineers' throats,

their long knives in their hands or 'twixt their teeth as they so

sprang and clutched; that showed, too, these savage creatures forced

to release their grasp, hurled to the earth, their brains clubbed out

by butt and stock. Showed also the dragoons in the midst of all,

sabring, thrusting, cutting down, overriding ally and foeman

indiscriminately, reeling back themselves over their chargers'

haunches as, from the windowless apertures of the tower, came hail

after hail of bullets from Camisards ensconced therein.

But still the battle raged. Still from the Protestants' throats rang

their war cry, "For God and his children!" from those of the

royalists, "For God and the King!" from those of the Miquelets, in

their hideous shrieking falsetto, "Guerra al Culchielo!" "Guerra al

Morté!"

"Save yourself and her," cried Cavalier, rushing back for a moment to

the farmhouse kitchen and stumbling over the dead body of the

treacherous peasant, Guignon, who had been poniarded by _Le Léopard_

the moment he was certain that the man had betrayed them, "save

yourself--and her. There is a backway by the fosse to an ancient

passage 'neath the old castle; save yourselves. We are lost, lost!

Outnumbered! Save yourselves!"

Then in a moment he saw that neither Martin nor Urbaine were there.

Gone! either to destruction or safety, he knew not which, yet gone.

And he rushed back to his doomed band; rushed back to see that the

tower was in flames, that all of his men who were in it were beyond

earthly salvation. Already it seemed to rock beneath the great

spouting flames that leaped forth from roofless summit and openings

where windows might once have been. Doomed!

_Le Léopard_ came near him at this moment, an awful

spectacle--bleeding from a dozen wounds, his vast and iron-gray beard

crimson, yet with his eyes glaring as ever. Came near, staggering,

reeling, yet able to gasp:

"To the fosse, to the fosse! You can save some that way. To the

fosse!"

"Come you also," muttered Cavalier, "Come----"

"_I_ come!" _Le Léopard_ exclaimed. "Nay, never more. See!" and he

tore open his rough coat, showing on his breast a hideous gaping

wound. And as he did so he reeled more heavily than before, then fell

across the body of a dragoon lying close by.

But still, all around, the fight went on; the sabres swung and the

volleys rattled, while from the tower there rose now the death song of

those within it. Above all else that was heard a hymn of praise to the

God of Battles, the God also of the outcasts--a hymn blessing and

magnifying his name. And as it rolled through the fumes and the grime

there came next an awful roar, a vast uprising of a monstrous sheet of

fresh flame, and, with a crash, the tower came to earth, burying

beneath its ruins not only those within it, but also many others

around, Camisards and royalists.

"They are bringing their culverins," cried one now above all the

tumult, "to play upon the house," and in answer there rang out now

another voice which all knew, the voice of Cavalier, the words he

shouted being: "Disperse, disperse, my brethren! Children of the

mountains and the clouds, disperse as do the clouds themselves. Not

to-night is our triumph, yet it will come. It must come."

He spoke truly. The triumph was to come ere long now. The Camisards

were to gain their cause at last, but it was not to be to-night, nor

by the sword. Instead, by the gentle mediation and mercy of one whose

name is still spoken gently in the Cévennes--the name of the great and

good Villars.

"You can go no farther?" Urbaine said an hour later to Martin Ashurst,

"no farther. Oh, my God, my God, that it should come to this! And for

me, for my sake!"

"Nay, dear one, what matter? We are together to the last. And you love

me. What more is there to ask?"

"Alas! Alas! I can not live without you, stay behind alone. My love,

my love, you must not leave me. Shall not go before. If you die, then

must I die too."

And as she spoke she loosened his vest and sought for the wound in his

shoulder which had brought him to this pass.

They had found the fosse the Camisards knew of in the old farmhouse.

Even as the attack began, Martin, seeking for a place of refuge for

her, had thrust open a door at the back of the great old kitchen in

which they were, and had led her out of the dangerous room that gave

upon the spot where the conflict had begun. Had led her on through a

passage sloping down into the earth from behind the house, until, by

following it, they found themselves in a place which none could have

supposed would have been there; a place like a crypt, stone-flagged,

the stones themselves roughly hewn, the pillars dwarfed, yet strong

enough to bear a vast fabric above them; a place so old, so long since

built, that it may have been some Roman sepulchre, or hiding-place of

Albigenses in long-forgotten days, or secret chapel of worship beneath

the old feudal castle that had once existed.

Yet there it was, calm and quiet. Even the sounds of the battle now

waging in all its fury without came gently to their ears, was scarce

heard more strongly than the murmur in a shell or the breaking of the

ocean on a far-off shore. Calm and quiet, with, through a recess in

the farther wall, perhaps once a niche or shrine, a moonbeam streaming

brightly and making the dull flame of the lantern Martin had brought

with him, snatching it off the nail where it hung, burn dull and

rustily.

And Urbaine, entering with him this haven into which they had

penetrated--surely none of those soldiers knew of it, would find it,

surely God in his mercy would not permit that--flung herself on her

lover's breast sobbing that they were saved again; again were saved by

him whom she so loved with her whole heart and soul.

Then started back, a look of terror on her face--a look of awful fear

and apprehension--seeing what she did see in her lover's eyes as she

sought them.

"My God!" she half whispered, half shrieked, shuddering, "what--what

is it? Martin, my love? Oh, what--what has happened?"

For his lips were cold, there was no answering warmth in them as they

met hers; his face was white as death, his eyes dull and filmy.

"It--it--is not much. But--I--am struck. As we left the place above, a

bullet--through the window--struck me. I--I--can go no farther. Alas,

I can not stand," while as he spoke he swayed heavily against the

middle pillar of the crypt, then slid, clutching at it, to the earth.

Even as he did so, even, too, as she a moment later undid his vest to

seek for the wound, there came to her ears, though perhaps not to his

as he lay there faint and almost insensible, the sound of many rushing

feet, a heavy trampling; then, next, men passing swiftly by and

farther on through the fosse--men whose smoke-grimed faces (sometimes,

too, their wounded faces) she recognised as the moonbeams flickered on

them. Camisards fleeing hastily, dispersing as Cavalier had said. The

Camisards in whose power she had once been, in whose company she had

but a few hours ago descended from the mountains.

"O God!" she moaned, "are they pursued by Montrevel's troops? If so,

and he, my love, is found here by those troops!"

But he was not all unconscious; he could still hear, and, hearing,

understood that moan.

"Nay, dearest," he whispered back, "even so it matters not. The

Protestants, these men, are our friends. Baville's pass, the packet he

bade me give you on our wedding morn--alas, our wedding morn!--will

hold us safe from the soldiers. Fear not, _ma mie_."

Baville! The name stung her like an adder's fang. Baville! The man who

had slain her father, and then endeavoured by a false, pretended love,

to take that father's place! The man she would never see again, had

vowed, as deeply as one so gentle as she could vow, never to see or

know again.

Baville! And he had written to her, sent her a packet. Her lover had

it about him at this moment. What could such a thing mean? What

import? Yet, yet she upbraided herself for thinking of her own griefs

and sorrows now at such a time as this. Baville! Faugh! Baville! Yet

if he knew to what a pass they had come, knew that this man whose life

might be ebbing slowly from him now, was ebbing slowly, was here? If

he knew that he who had saved her was dying? Baville! The man whom

once she had loved with a daughter's love.

Again the hurrying feet passed, again the gaunt fugitives went by, yet

she heeded them not. Her whole soul was in what she was endeavouring

to do--to staunch that gaping wound. Then suddenly one, an old,

white-faced, terror-stricken man with long gray hair, stopped, seeing

those forms; stopped, peering through the moonbeam that slanted down

upon their faces; stopped, then advanced toward them.

"'Tis he," he whispered, bending toward the wounded man. "Martin!

Martin! O Martin, my friend!"

"You know him? Your friend? You know him?" she whispered back. "Who

are you?"

"His friend, Buscarlet, the inhibited _pasteur_ of Montvert. Driven to

the mountains at last, forced to abide with these unhappy outcasts,

but, thank God, not yet to draw the sword. No, no, not that! Never,

never! Only to pray upon my knees to them by morn and night to shed no

blood, to bear, to suffer all. To do that, I followed them here. Only

they will not listen. Oh, Baville, Baville, has not your tiger's fury

been glutted yet?" And he gazed down upon the almost senseless form of

Martin lying there, muttering, "If I could save you!"

Then, a moment later, he spoke again.

"Who," he said very gently now, "are you? Not his wife or sister, I

know. But what?"

For a moment she did not answer, looking up at him, instead, with

wide, clear eyes so full of sorrow that her glance struck him to the

heart.

"I was to have been his, am his, affianced wife. And--and--God help

me!--I am Baville's, that tiger's, adopted child!"

"You! _His_ adopted child, and Martin's affianced wife!"

"Even so." And she bent her head and wept.

For a moment there was silence in that deserted place, deserted now

since all the fugitive mountaineers had passed through the fosse;

silent because no longer was heard the distant sound or hum of shot or

cry of combatants. Then he bent over Martin, looked to his wound,

touching it very gently and afterward replacing the hasty bandages she

had made from some of her own linen, and said:

"He is exhausted from his loss of blood. But, though he dies, it will

not be yet. The cold is to be feared, however. If that reaches the

wound--I know somewhat of surgery--he can not live. Now I go to seek

succour, help!"

"Succour! Help! Where can it be obtained? In Heaven's mercy, where?

Nîmes is three leagues off."

"I will do my best. Pray God I am not too late."

And so he left her.