HAU, HAU, HUGUENOTS!
His late Majesty, Henry the Fourth, I remember--than whom no braver man wore sword, who loved danger indeed for its own sake, and courted it as a mistress--could never sleep on the night before an action. I have heard him say himself that it was so before the fight at Arques. Croisette partook of this nature too, being high-strung and apt to be easily over-wrought, but never until the necessity for exertion had passed away: while Marie and I, though not a whit stouter at a pinch, were slower to feel and less easy to move--more Germanic in fact.
I name this here partly lest it should be thought after what Ihave just told of Croisette that there was anything of the woman about him--save the tenderness; and partly to show that we acted at this crisis each after his manner. 'While Croisette turned pale and trembled, and hid his eyes, I stood dazed, looking from the desolate house to the face stiffening in the sunshine, and back again; wondering, though I had seen scores of dead faces since daybreak, and a plenitude of suffering in all dreadful shapes, how Providence could let this happen to us. To us! In his instincts man is as selfish as any animal that lives.
I saw nothing indeed of the dead face and dead house after the first convincing glance. I saw instead with hot, hot eyes the old castle at home, the green fields about the brook, and the grey hills rising from them; and the terrace, and Kit coming to meet us, Kit with white face and parted lips and avid eyes that questioned us! And we with no comfort to give her, no lover to bring back to her!
A faint noise behind as of a sign creaking in the wind, roused me from this most painful reverie. I turned round, not quickly or in surprise or fear. Rather in the same dull wonder. The upper part of the bookseller's door was ajar. It was that I had heard opened. An old woman was peering out at us.
As our eyes met, she made a slight movement to close the door again. But I did not stir, and seeming to be reassured by a second glance, she nodded to me in a stealthy fashion. I drew a step nearer, listlessly. "Pst! Pst!" she whispered. Her wrinkled old face, which was like a Normandy apple long kept, was soft with pity as she looked at Croisette. "Pst!""Well!" I said, mechanically.
"Is he taken?" she muttered.
"Who taken?" I asked stupidly.
She nodded towards the forsaken house, and answered, "The young lord who lodged there? Ah! sirs," she continued, "he looked gay and handsome, if you'll believe me, as he came from the king's court yester even! As bonny a sight in his satin coat, and his ribbons, as my eyes ever saw! And to think that they should be hunting him like a rat to-day!"The woman's words were few and simple. But what a change they made in my world! How my heart awoke from its stupor, and leapt up with a new joy and a new-born hope! "Did he get away?" Icried eagerly. "Did he escape, mother, then?""Ay, that. he did!" she replied quickly. "That poor fellow, yonder--he lies quiet enough now God forgive him his heresy, say I!--kept the door manfully while the gentleman got on the roof, and ran right down the street on the tops of the houses, with them firing and hooting at him: for all the world as if he had been a squirrel and they a pack of boys with stones!""And he escaped?"
"Escaped!" she answered more slowly, shaking her old head in doubt. "I do not know about that I fear they have got him by now, gentlemen. I have been shivering and shaking up stairs with my husband--he is in bed, good man, and the safest place for him --the saints have mercy upon us! But I heard them go with their shouting and gunpowder right along to the river, and I doubt they will take him between this and the CHATELET! I doubt they will.""How long ago was it, dame?" I cried.
"Oh! may be half an hour. Perhaps you are friends of his?" she added questioningly.
But I did not stay to answer her. I shook Croisette, who had not heard a word of this, by the shoulder. There is a chance that he has escaped!" I cried in his ear. Escaped, do you hear?" And Itold him hastily what she had said.
It was fine, indeed, and a sight, to see the blood rush to his cheeks, and the tears dry in his eyes, and energy and decision spring to life in every nerve and muscle of his face, "Then there is hope?" he cried, grasping my arm. "Hope, Anne! Come! Come!
Do not let us lose another instant. If he be alive let us join him!"The old woman tried to detain us, but in vain. Nay, pitying us, and fearing, I think, that we were rushing on our deaths, she cast aside her caution, and called after us aloud. We took no heed, running after Croisette, who had not waited for our answer, as fast as young limbs could carry us down the street. The exhaustion we had felt a moment before when all seemed lost be it remembered that we had not been to bed or tasted food for many hours--fell from us on the instant, and was clean gone and forgotten in the joy of this respite. Louis was living and for the moment had escaped.
Escaped! But for how long? We soon had our answer. The moment we turned the corner by the river-side, the murmur of a multitude not loud but continuous, struck our ears, even as the breeze off the water swept our cheeks. Across the river lay the thousand roofs of the Ile de la Cite, all sparkling in the sunshine. But we swept to the right, thinking little of THAT sight, and checked our speed on finding ourselves on the skirts of the crowd.
Before us was a bridge--the Pont au Change, I think--and at its head on our side of the water stood the CHATELET, with its hoary turrets and battlements. Between us and the latter, and backed only by the river, was a great open space half-filled with people, mostly silent and watchful, come together as to a show, and betraying, at present at least, no desire to take an active part in what was going on.
