The Scourge of God. John Bloundelle-Burton

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СКАЧАТЬ and the vast revenues attached to it, he went as bidden, begging only that he might be summoned at the necessary moment.

      Then for a little while kinsman and kinswoman were alone once more.

      "Will she ever speak again, tell me further?" Martin mused again, gazing down on the silent woman lying there, her features now lit up a little by the rays of a shaded veilleuse that had been brought into the chamber by Manon and placed near the great bed. "I pray God she may." Then murmured to himself: "As well as I can see-'tis but darkly, Heaven knows-yet so far as I can peer into the future, on me there falls the task of righting a great wrong, done, if not by her, at least by those to whose house she belongs. But, to do so much, I must have light."

      It seemed to him, watching there, as though the light was coming-was at hand. For now the occupant of the bed by which he sat stirred; her eyes, he saw, were fixed on him; a moment later she spoke. But the voice was changed, he recognised-was hoarse and harsh, hollow and toneless.

      "Henri," she murmured, with many pauses 'twixt her words, "Henri was not the eldest. There was-another-son-a-a-Protestant-a Huguenot-"

      "Great God! what sin is here?" the startled watcher muttered; then spoke more loudly: "Yes, yes, oh, speak, speak! Continue, I beseech you. Another son-a Huguenot-and the eldest!"

      "That a de Rochebazon should be-a-Huguenot," the now dry voice muttered raucously, "a Huguenot! And fierce-relentless-strong, even to renouncing all-all-his rank, his name, his birthri-"

      Again she ceased; he thought the end had come. Surely the once clear eyes were glazing now, surely this dull glare at vacancy which expressed indefinitely that, glare how they might, they saw nothing, foretold death-near, close at hand.

      "Some word, some name, madame, dear one," the listener whispered. "Speak, oh! speak, or else all effort must fail. His name-that which his brother called him-that which he took, if he renounced his rightful one. The name-or-God help us all! naught can be done."

      "His name," the dying woman whispered through white lips, in accents too low to reach the listener's ears, "was-"

      If she uttered it he did not hear it. Moreover, at this supreme moment there came another interruption-the last!

      The door opened again. Down the room, advancing toward the bed, came a priest, a man thin to attenuation, dry and brown as a mummy, with eyes that burned like coals beneath an eyebrowless forehead, yet one who told his beads even as he advanced, his lips quivering and moving while he prayed.

      Do the dying know, even as we bend over them, seeking to penetrate beneath that glassy stare which suggests so deep an oblivion, of the last word we would have them speak, the last question we would have answered ere the veil of dense impenetrable darkness falls forever between them and us?

      Almost it seemed as if she, this sinking woman who had lived for years a great princess, yet, by her own avowal, was none, did in truth know what her kinsman sought to drag from her-the clew which should lead to the righting of a great wrong, as he had said.

      For, as the priest came through the lurking shadows of the room and out of the darkness of the farther end, toward where the small night lamp cast its sickly shadow, the hand which Martin Ashurst held closed tighter upon his own, and with a quivering grasp drew his toward her body, placing it upon a small substance that had lain sheltering 'twixt her arm and side.

      And even as thus his hand closed over hers, while that other quivered warm and damp within it, the priest knelt and, over his crucifix, uttered up prayers for the passing soul.

      CHAPTER IV

      LES ATTROUPÉS

      It was October in the year 1701 when she who had borne the title for so long of Princesse de Rochebazon was laid in the family vault in the Church of St. Sépulcre. It was July of the next year when a gentleman, looking somewhat travel-stained and weary, halted his horse at the foot of the Mont de Lozère, in Languedoc-the same man who had travelled from England eight months ago as Martin Ashurst, to attend his aunt's death-bed, but who since then had been known as Monsieur Martin.

      There were more reasons than one why this change of name should be made-primarily because war having been declared by England in conjunction with Austria and Holland against Louis, no subject of Queen Anne was permitted within France, or, being in, would be safe if known and identified as such. But with an assumed name, or rather with part of his own name discarded-Martin being common to both countries-and with his knowledge of the French language perfect, owing to his long residence in the country as a child, the identification of Martin Ashurst with England was, if he held his peace, almost impossible. Also there were other reasons. He believed that at last he had found traces of the missing man, of him to whom by right fell all the vast wealth of the de Rochebazons, accumulated for centuries.

      "Yet even now," he said to himself, "God knows if I shall succeed in finding him, or even should I do so, if I shall persuade him to claim what is his own. And, though he should still be willing, will that scourge of God, Louis, that curse of France, his wife, let one penny ever come to his hands? A Huguenot, and with the Huguenots in open rebellion, what chance would he have? I must be careful, more careful than ever, now that I am in the hotbed of revolution."

      As he pondered thus he turned his wrist and urged his horse forward at a walk, making his way on slowly through the mountains to the village of Montvert.

      "Three months," he said, "three months since I set out for Switzerland-for Geneva and Lausanne-and now, even now, but little nearer to the end than before. Coming here, I was told that it was almost impossible that Cyprien de Beauvilliers could have settled in the Cévennes without being known; travelling on to Savoy and to Lausanne, I learn at last that he did most undoubtedly come here from Geneva years ago. Shall I ever know-ever find out?"

      A league or so accomplished at a walking pace, for his poor beast was almost exhausted now, it having been ridden across the mountains from St. Victor de Gravière since daybreak, and from Geneva within the last three weeks, and the banks of a river named Le Tarn being slowly followed, the rider entered Montvert, and passing across the bridge, proceeded slowly up the village street. Yet even as he did so he cast his eyes on a house at the side of that bridge and on the small trim garden between it and the stream, muttering to himself:

      "Ah! Monsieur l'abbé! Monsieur l'abbé! you are one of the firebrands who stir up dissension in these valleys-you and your familiar spirit, Baville. Also your evil fame has travelled far. You are known and hated in Geneva, Lausanne, Vevey-maybe in Holland by now. 'Tis best you pray to Heaven to avert your fate. 'Tis threatened! And, if all the stories of you be true, it is almost deserved, no matter in what form it comes."

      Proceeding still farther along the little main street of the bourg, he came to a wooden house also standing in a small trimly-kept garden, in which there grew all kinds of simple flowers that made the place gay with their colours, and here he dismounted, while calling to a boy who was raking the crushed shells on the path, he bade him take his horse to the stable in the rear.

      "For you see, Armand," he said with a pleasant smile, "here I am back again, after a long while-yet still back."

      The boy smiled a greeting and said all would be glad to welcome him, then did as he was bid and led the animal away, while Martin, going up to the door, knocked lightly on it and asked, as he threw his voice into the passage, if the pasteur was within.

      To which, in answer, there came down toward the door an elderly gray-haired man, who held out both his hands and shook those of the younger one cordially.

      "Back! Back!" he exclaimed joyously. "Ah! this is good. Come in. Come in. The room is always ready, the СКАЧАТЬ