Stopped by a sentry, she showed the glove.The moon lighted her face, and the muzzle of the gun already pointed at her was dropped by the Chouan, who uttered a hoarse cry, which echoed through the place.She now saw large buildings, where a few lighted windows showed the rooms that were occupied, and presently reached the walls without further hindrance.Through the window into which she looked, she saw Madame du Gua and the leaders who were convoked at La Vivetiere.Bewildered at the sight, also by the conviction of her danger, she turned hastily to a little opening protected by iron bars, and saw in a long vaulted hall the marquis, alone and gloomy, within six feet of her.The reflection of the fire, before which he was sitting in a clumsy chair, lighted his face with a vacillating ruddy glow that gave the character of a vision to the scene.Motionless and trembling, the girl stood clinging to the bars, to catch his words if he spoke.Seeing him so depressed, disheartened, and pale, she believed herself to be the cause of his sadness.Her anger changed to pity, her pity to tenderness, and she suddenly knew that it was not revenge alone which had brought her there.
The marquis rose, turned his head, and stood amazed when he saw, as if in a cloud, Mademoiselle de Verneuil's face; then he shook his head with a gesture of impatience and contempt, exclaiming: "Must I forever see the face of that devil, even when awake?"This utter contempt for her forced a half-maddened laugh from the unhappy girl which made the young leader quiver.He sprang to the window, but Mademoiselle de Verneuil was gone.She heard the steps of a man behind her, which she supposed to be those of the marquis, and, to escape him, she knew no obstacles; she would have scaled walls and flown through air; she would have found and followed a path to hell sooner than have seen again, in flaming letters on the forehead of that man, "I despise you,"--words which an inward voice sounded in her soul with the noise of a trumpet.
After walking a short distance without knowing where she went, she stopped, conscious of a damp exhalation.Alarmed by the sound of voices, she went down some steps which led into a cellar.As she reached the last of them, she stopped to listen and discover the direction her pursuers might take.Above the sounds from the outside, which were somewhat loud, she could hear within the lugubrious moans of a human being, which added to her terror.Rays of light coming down the steps made her fear that this retreat was only too well known to her enemies, and, to escape them, she summoned fresh energy.Some moments later, after recovering her composure of mind, it was difficult for her to conceive by what means she had been able to climb a little wall, in a recess of which she was now hidden.She took no notice at first of the cramped position in which she was, but before long the pain of it became intolerable, for she was bending double under the arched opening of a vault, like the crouching Venus which ignorant persons attempt to squeeze into too narrow a niche.The wall, which was rather thick and built of granite, formed a low partition between the stairway and the cellar whence the groans were issuing.
Presently she saw an individual, clothed in a goatskin, enter the cave beneath her, and move about, without making any sign of eager search.
Impatient to discover if she had any chance of safety, Mademoiselle de Verneuil waited with anxiety till the light brought by the new-comer lighted the whole cave, where she could partly distinguish a formless but living mass which was trying to reach a part of the wall, with violent and repeated jerks, something like those of a carp lying out of water on a shore.
A small pine torch threw its blue and hazy light into the cave.In spite of the gloomy poetic effects which Mademoiselle de Verneuil's imagination cast about this vaulted chamber, which was echoing to the sounds of a pitiful prayer, she was obliged to admit that the place was nothing more than an underground kitchen, evidently long abandoned.When the formless mass was distinguishable it proved to be a short and very fat man, whose limbs were carefully bound before he had been left lying on the damp stone floor of the kitchen by those who had seized him.When he saw the new-comer approach him with a torch in one hand and a fagot of sticks in the other, the captive gave a dreadful groan, which so wrought upon the sensibilities of Mademoiselle de Verneuil that she forgot her own terror and despair and the cramped position of her limbs, which were growing numb.But she made a great effort and remained still.The Chouan flung the sticks into the fireplace, after trying the strength of an old crane which was fastened to a long iron bar; then he set fire to the wood with his torch.Marie saw with terror that the man was the same Pille-Miche to whom her rival had delivered her, and whose figure, illuminated by the flame, was like that of the little boxwood men so grotesquely carved in Germany.The moans of his prisoner produced a broad grin upon features that were ribbed with wrinkles and tanned by the sun.
"You see," he said to his victim, "that we Christians keep our promises, which you don't.That fire is going to thaw out your legs and tongue and hands.Hey! hey! I don't see a dripping-pan to put under your feet; they are so fat the grease may put out the fire.Your house must be badly furnished if it can't give its master all he wants to warm him."The victim uttered a sharp cry, as if he hoped someone would hear him through the ceiling and come to his assistance.
