The Trampling of the Lilies Page 3

  CHAPTER III. THE WORD OF BELLECOUR

  When La Boulaye recovered consciousness he was lying on his back in themiddle of the courtyard of the Chateau de Bellecour. From a great stonebalcony above, a little group, of which Mademoiselle de Bellecourwas the centre, observed the scene about the captive, who was beingresuscitated that he might fittingly experience the Seigneur'svengeance.

  She had returned from the morning's affair in the park with a consciencenot altogether easy. To have stood by whilst her father had struckCaron, and moreover, to have done so without any sense of horror, oreven of regret, was a matter in which she asked herself whether she haddone well. Certainly La Boulaye had presumed unpardonably in speakingto her as he had spoken, and for his presumption it was fitting thathe should be punished. Had she interfered she must have seemed tosympathise, and thus the lesson might have suffered in salutariness.And yet Caron La Boulaye was a man of most excellent exterior, and, whenpassion had roused him out of his restraint and awkwardness, of mostardent and eloquent address. The very sombreness that--be it from hismournful garments or from a mind of thoughtful habit--seemed to envelophim was but an additional note of poetry in a personality which struckher now as eminently poetical. In the seclusion of her own chamber, asshe recalled the burning words and the fall of her father's whip uponthe young man's pale face, she even permitted herself to sigh. Had hebut been of her own station, he had been such a man as she would havetaken pride in being wooed by. As it was--she halted there and laugheddisdainfully, yet with never so faint a note of regret. It was absurd!She was Mademoiselle de Bellecour, and he her father's secretary;educated, if you will--aye, and beyond his station--but a vassal withal,and very humbly born. Yes, it was absurd, she told herself again: theeagle may not mate with the sparrow.

  And when presently she had come from her chamber, she had beengreeted with the story of a rebellion in the village, and an attemptedassassination of her father. The ringleader, she was told, had beenbrought to the Chateau, and he was even then in the courtyard and aboutto be hanged by the Marquis. Curious to behold this unfortunate, she hadstepped out on to the balcony where already an idle group had formed.Inexpressible had been her shock upon seeing him that lay below, hiswhite face upturned to the heavens, his eyes closed.

  "Is he dead?" she asked, when presently she had overcome her feelings.

  "Not yet Mademoiselle," answered the graceful Chevalier de Jacquelin,toying with his solitaire. "Your father is bringing him to life that hemay send him back to death."

  And then she heard her father's voice behind her. The Marquis hadstepped out on to the balcony to ascertain whether La Boulaye had yetregained consciousness.

  "He seems to be even now recovering," said someone.

  "Ah, you are there, Suzanne," cried Bellecour. "You see your friend thesecretary there. He has chosen to present himself in a new role to-day.From being my servant, it seems that he would constitute himself mymurderer."

  However unfilial it might be, she could not stifle a certain sympathyfor this young man. She imagined that his rebellion, whatever shape ithad assumed, had been provoked by that weal upon his face; and it seemedto her then that he had been less than a man had he not attempted toexact some reparation for the hurt the whip had inflicted at once uponhis body and his soul.

  "But what is it that he has done, Monsieur?" she asked, seeking morethan the scant information which so far she had received.

  "Enough, at least, to justify my hanging him," answered Bellecourgrimly. "He sought to withstand my authority; he incited the peasantsof Bellecour to withstand it; he has killed Blaise, and he would havekilled me but that I preferred to let him kill my horse."

  "In what way did he seek to withstand your authority!" she persisted.

  He stared at her, half surprised, half angry.

  "What doers the manner of it signify?" he asked impatiently. "Is not thefact enough? Is it not enough that Blaise is dead, and that I have had anarrow escape, at his hands?"

  "Insolent hound that he is!" put in Madame la Marquise--a fleshly ladymonstrously coiffed. "If we allow such men as thus to live in France ourdays are numbered."

  "They say that you are going to hang him," said Suzanne, heedless of hermother's words, and there was the faintest note of horror in her voice.

  "They are mistaken. I am not."

  "You are not?" cried the Marquise. "But what, then, do you intend todo?"

  "To keep my word, madame," he answered her. "I promised that canaillethat if he ever came within the grounds of Bellecour I would have himflogged to death. That is what I propose."

  "Father," gasped Suzanne, in horror, a horror that was echoed by theother three or four ladies present. But the Marquise only laughed.

  "He will be; richly served," she approved, with a sage nod of herpumpkin-like head-dress--"most richly served."

  A great pity arose now in the heart of Mademoiselle, as her father wentbelow that he might carry out his barbarous design. She was deaf tothe dainty trifles which the most elegant Chevalier de Jacquelin wasmurmuring into her ear. She stood, a tall, queenly figure, at thebalcony's parapet and watched the preparations that were being made.

  She heard her father's harshly-voiced commands. She saw them literallytear the clothes from the unfortunate secretary's back, and lashhim--naked to the waist--to the pump that stood by the horse-trough atthe far end of the yard. His body was now hidden from her sight, but hishead appeared surmounting the pillar of the pump, his chin seeming torest upon its summit, and his face was towards her. At his side stood apowerful knave armed with a stout, leather-thonged whip.

  "How many strokes, Monseigneur?" she heard the man inquire.

  "How many?" echoed the Marquise. "Do I know how many it will take tomake an end of him? Beat him to death, man. Allons! Set about it."

  She saw the man uncoil his lash and step forward. In that instantCaron's eyes were raised, and they met hers across the interveningspace. He smiled a valedictory smile that seemed to make her heart standstill. She and her mother were now the only women on the balcony.The others had made haste to withdraw as soon as La Boulaye hadbeen pilloried. The Marquise remained because she seemed to findentertainment in the spectacle. Suzanne remained because horror rootedher to the spot--horror and a great pity for this unfortunate who hadlooked so strong and brave that morning, when he had had the audacity totell her that he loved her.

  The lash sang through the air, quivered, hummed, and cut with asickening crackle into the young man's flesh.

  The hideous sound roused her. She shuddered from head to foot, andturning she put her hands to her face and rushed within, followed by theMarquise's derisive laughter.

  "Mon Dieu! It is horrible! Horrible!" she cried as she sank into thenearest chair, and clapped her hands to her ears. But she could not shutit out. Still she heard the humming of the whip and the cruel sound ofthe falling blows. Mechanically she counted them, unconsciously almost,and at twenty she heard them cease. Was it over? Was he dead, this poorunfortunate? Moved by a curiosity that was greater than her loathing,she rose and went to the threshold of the balcony.

  "Is it ended?" she asked.

  "Ended?" echoed Monsieur de Jacquelin, with a shrug. "It is scarcebegun, it seems. The executioner is pausing for breath, that is all. Thefellow has not uttered a sound. He is as obstinate as a mule."

  "As enduring as a Spartan," more generously put in the Vicomte, herbrother. "Look at him, Suzanne."

  Almost involuntarily she obeyed, and moved forward a step that shemight behold him. A face, deathly pale, she saw, which in the sunshineglistened with the sweat of agony that bedewed it; but the lips weretightly closed and the countenance grimly expressionless. Even as shelooked she heard her father command the man to lay on anew. Then, asbefore, his eyes met hers; but this time no smile did she see investingthem.

  Again the whip cracked and fell. She drew back, but his glance seemedto haunt her even when she no longer saw his face. A sudden resolutionmoved her, and in a frenzy of a
nger and compassion she flung out ofthe room. A moment later she burst like a beautiful virago into thecourtyard.

  "Stop!" she commanded shrilly, causing both her father and theexecutioner to turn, and the latter pausing in his hideous work. But aglance from the Marquis bade him resume, and resume he did, as thoughthere had been no interruption.

  "What is this?" demanded Bellecour, half amused, half vexed, whilst asudden new light leapt to the eyes of La Boulaye, which but a momentback had been so full of agony.

  But Mademoiselle never paused to answer her father. Seeing theexecutioner proceeding, despite her call to cease, she sprang upon him,caught him by the arms and wrested the whip from hands that dared notresist her.

  "Did I not bid you stop?" she blazed, her face white, her eyes on fire;and raising the whip she brought it down upon his head and shoulders,not once but half-a-dozen times in quick succession, until he fled,howling, to the other side of the horse trough for shelter. "It stingsyou, does it" she cried, whilst the Marquis, from angered that at firsthe had been, now burst into a laugh at her fury and at this turning oftables upon the executioner. She made shift to pursue the fellow to hisplace of refuge, but coming of a sudden upon the ghastly sight presentedby La Boulaye's lacerated back, she drew back in horror. Then, masteringherself--for girl though she was, her courage was of a high order--sheturned to her father.

  "Give this man to me, Monsieur," she begged.

  "To you!" he exclaimed. "What will you do with him?"

  "I will see that you are rid of him," she promised. "What more can youdesire? You have tortured him enough."

  "Maybe. But am I to blame that he dies so hard?"

  She answered him with renewed insistence, and unexpectedly she receivedan ally in M. des Cadoux--an elderly gentleman who had been observingthe flogging with disapproval, and who had followed her into thecourtyard.

  "He is too brave a man to die like this, Bellecour," put in thenewcomer. "I doubt if he can survive the punishment he has alreadyreceived. Yet I would ask you, in the name of courage, to give him theslender chance he may have."

  "I promised him he should be flogged to death--" began the Marquis,when Des Cadoux and Mademoiselle jointly interrupted him to renew theirintercessions.

  "But, sangdieu," the Marquis protested "you seem to forget that he haskilled one of my servants."

  "Why, then, you should have hanged him out of hand, not tortured himthus," answered Des Cadoux shortly.

  For a moment it almost seemed as if the pair of them would have fallena-quarrelling. Their words grew more heated, and then, while they werestill wrangling, the executioner came forward to solve matters with thenews that the secretary had expired. To Bellecour this proved a verywelcome conclusion.

  "Most opportunely!" he laughed "Had the rascal lived another minute Ithink we had quarrelled, Cadoux." He turned to the servant, "You arecertain that it is so?" he asked.

  "Look, Monsieur," said the fellow, as he pointed with his whip to thepilloried figure of La Boulaye. The Marquis looked, and saw that thesecretary had collapsed, and hung limp in his bonds, his head fallenback upon his shoulders and his eyes closed.

  With a shrug and a short laugh Bellecour turned to his daughter.

  "You may take the carrion, if you want to. But I think you can do nomore than order it to be flung into a ditch and buried there."

  But she had no mind to be advised by him. She had the young man's bodycut down from the pump, and she bade a couple of servants convey it tothe house of Master Duhamel, she for remembered that La Boulaye and theold pedagogue were friends.

  "An odd thing is a woman's heart," grumbled the Marquis, who begrudgedLa Boulaye even his last act of mercy. "She may care never a fig for aman, and yet, if he has but told her that he loves her, be he neverso mean and she never so exalted, he seems thereby to establish somemeasure of claim to her."