The Long Night Page 6

  CHAPTER VI.

  TO TAKE OR LEAVE.

  The house in the Corraterie, near the Porte Tertasse, differed in nooutward respect from its neighbours. The same row of chestnut treesdarkened its lower windows, the same breezy view of the Rhone meadows,the sloping vineyards and the far-off Jura lightened its upper rooms. Akindred life, a life apparently as quiet and demure, moved within itswalls. Yet was the house a house apart. Silently and secretly, it hadabsorbed and sucked and drawn into itself the hearts and souls and mindsof two men. It held for the one that which the old prize above allthings in the world--life; and for the other, that which the young setabove life--love.

  Life? The Syndic did not doubt; the bait had been dangled before hiseyes with too much cunning, too much skill. In a casket, in a room inthat house in the Corraterie, his life lay hidden; his life, and hecould not come at it! His life? Was it a marvel that waking or sleepinghe saw only that house, and that room, and that casket chained to thewall; that he saw at one time the four steps rising to the door, and theplacid front with its three tiers of windows; at another time, the roomitself with its litter of scripts and dark-bound books, and richfurnishings, and phials and jars and strangely shaped alembics? Was it amarvel that in the dreams of the night the sick man toiled up and up andup the narrow staircase, of which every point remained fixed in hismind; or that waking, whatever his task, or wherever he might be, aloneor in company, in his parlour or in the Town House, he still fella-dreaming of the room and the box--the room and the box that held hislife?

  Had this been the worst! But it was not. There were times, bitter times,dark hours, when the pains were upon him, and he saw his fate clearbefore him; for he had known men die of the disease which held him inits clutches, and he knew how they had died. And then he must needs lockhimself into his room that other eyes might not witness the passionatefits of revolt, of rage and horror, and weak weeping, into which theknowledge cast him. And out of which he presently came back to--_thehouse_. His life lay there, in that room, in that house, and he couldnot come at it! He could not come at it! But he would! He would!

  It issued in that always; in some plan or scheme for gaining possessionof the philtre. Some of the plans that occurred to him were wild anddesperate; dangerous and hopeless on the face of them. Others weremerely violent; others again, of which craft was the mainspring, heldout a prospect of success. For a whole day the notion of arrestingBasterga on a charge of treason, and seizing the steel casket togetherwith his papers, was uppermost. It seemed feasible, and was feasible;nay, it was more than feasible, it was easy; for already there wererumours of the man abroad, and his name had been mentioned at thecouncil table. The Syndic had only to give the word, and the arrestwould be made, the search instituted, the papers and casket seized. Nay,if he did not give the word, it was possible that others might.

  But when he thought of that step, that irrevocable step, he knew that hewould not have the courage to take it. For if Basterga had so much astwo minutes' notice, if his ear so much as caught the tread of those whocame to take him, he might, in pure malignity, pour the medicine on thefloor, or he might so hide it as to defy search. And at the thought--atthe thought of the destruction of that wherein lay his only chance oflife, his only hope of seeing the sun and feeling again the balmy breathof spring, the Syndic trembled and shook and sweated with rage and fear.No, he would not have the courage. He would not dare. For a week andmore after the thought occurred to him, he dared not approach thescholar's lodging, or be seen in the neighbourhood, so great was hisfear of arousing Basterga's suspicions and setting him on his guard.

  At the end of a fortnight or so, the choice of ways was presented to himin a concrete form; and with an abruptness which placed him on the edgeof perplexity. It was at a morning meeting of the smaller council. Theday was dull, the chamber warm, the business to be transactedmonotonous; and Blondel, far from well and interested in one thingonly--beside which the most important affairs of Geneva seemed small asthe doings of an ant-hill viewed through a glass--had fallen asleep, ornearly asleep. Naturally a restless and wakeful man, of thin habit andnervous temperament, he had never done such a thing before: and it wasunfortunate that he succumbed on this occasion, for while he drowsed thecurrent of business changed. The debate grew serious, even vital.Finally he awoke to the knowledge of place and time with a name ringingin his ears; a name so fixed in his waking thoughts that, before he knewwhere he was or what he was doing, he repeated it in a tone that drewall eyes upon him.

  "Basterga!"

  Some knew he had slept and smiled; more had not noticed it, and turned,struck by the strange tone in which he echoed the name. Fabri, the FirstSyndic, who sat two places from him, and had just taken a letter fromthe secretary, leaned forward so as to view him. "Ay, Basterga," hesaid, "an Italian, I take it. Do you know him, Messer Blondel?"

  He was awake now, but, confused and startled, inclined to believe thathe was on his trial; and that the faint parleyings with treason, smallthings hard to define, to which he had stooped, were known.Mechanically, to gain time, he repeated the name: "Basterga?"

  "Yes," Fabri repeated. "Do you know him?"

  "Caesar Basterga, is it?"

  "That is his name."

  He was himself now, though his nerves still shook; himself so far as hecould be, while ignorant of what had passed, and how he came to bechallenged. "Yes, I know him," he said slowly, "if you mean a Paduan, ascholar of some note, I believe. Who applied to me--I dare say it wouldbe six weeks back--for a licence to stay a while in the town."

  "Which you granted?"

  "In the usual course. He had letters from"--Blondel shrugged hisshoulders--"I forget from whom. What of him?" with a steady look atBaudichon the councillor, his life-long rival, and the quarter whence iftrouble were brewing it was to be expected. "What of him?" he repeated,throwing himself back in his chair, and tapping the table with hisfingers.

  "This," Fabri answered, waving the letter which he had in his hands.

  "But I do not know what that is," Blondel replied coolly. "I amafraid"--he looked at his neighbour on either side--"was I asleep?"

  "I fear so," said one, while the other smiled. They were his very goodfriends and allies.

  "Well, it is not like me. I can say that I am not often," with a keenlook at Baudichon, "caught napping! And now, M. Fabri," he continuedwith his usual practical air, "I have delayed the business long enough.What is it? And what is that?" He pointed to the letter in the FirstSyndic's hands.

  "Well, it is really your affair in the main," Fabri answered, "since asFourth Syndic you are responsible for the guard and the city's safety;and ours afterwards. It is a warning," he continued, his eyes revertingto the page before him, "from our secret agent in Turin, whose name Ineed not mention"--Blondel nodded--"informing us of a fresh attempt tobe made on the city before Christmas; by means of rafts formed ofhurdles and capable of transporting whole companies of soldiers. Thesehe has seen tried in the River Po, and they performed the work. Havingreached the walls by their means the assailants are to mount by ladderswhich are being made to fit into one another. They are covered withblack cloth, and can be laid against the wall without noise. Itsounds--circumstantial?" Fabri commented, breaking off and looking atBlondel.

  The Syndic nodded thoughtfully. "Yes," he said, "I think so. I thinkalso," he continued, "that with the aid of my friend, Captain Blandano,I shall be able to give a good account of the rafts and the ladders."

  Baudichon the councillor interposed. "But that is not all," he muttered,rolling ponderously in his chair as he spoke. He was a stout man with adouble chin and a weighty manner; honest, but slow, and the spokesman ofthe more wealthy burghers. His neighbour Petitot, a man of singularappearance, lean, with a long thin drooping nose, commonly supportedhim. Petitot, who bore the nickname of "the Inquisitor," represented theVenerable Company of Pastors, and was viewed with especial distaste bythe turbulent spirits whom the war had left in the city, as well as bythe lower ranks, who upheld Blond
el. In sense and vigour the FourthSyndic was more than a match for the two precisians: but honesty ofpurpose has a weight of its own that slowly makes itself felt. "That isnot all," Baudichon repeated after a glance at his neighbour and allyPetitot, "I want to know----"

  "One moment, M. Baudichon, if you please," Fabri said, cutting himshort, amid a partial titter; the phrase "I want to know" was so oftenon the councillor's lips that it had become ridiculous. "One moment; asyou say, that is not all. The writer proceeds to warn us that the GrandDuke's lieutenant, M. d'Albigny, has taken a house on the Italian sideof the frontier, and is there constructing a huge petard on wheels whichis to be dragged up to the gate----"

  "With the ladders and rafts?"

  "They seem to belong to another scheme," Fabri said, as he turned backand conned the letter afresh.

  "With M. d'Albigny at the bottom of both?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, if he be not more successful with this," Blondel answeredcontemptuously, "than he was with the attempt to mine the Arsenal--whichended in supplying us with two or three casks of powder--I think CaptainBlandano and I may deal with him."

  A murmur of assent approved the boast; but it did not proceed from all.There were men at the table who had children, who had wives, who haddaughters, whose faces were grave. Just thirty years had passed over theworld since the horrors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew--to bespeedily followed by the sack of Antwerp--had paled the cheek of Europe.Just thirty years were to elapse and the sack of Magdeburg was to provea match and more than a match for both in horror and cruelty. That thePapists, if they entered, would deal more gently with Geneva, the headand front of offence, or extend to the Mother of Heretics mercy whichthey had refused to her children, these men did not believe. Thepresence of an enemy ever lurking within a league of their gates, everthreatening them by night and by day, had shaken their nerves. Theyfeared everything, they feared always. In fitful sleep, in the smallhours, they heard their doors smashed in; their dreams were disturbed bycries and shrieks, by the din of bells, and the clash of weapons.

  To these men Blondel seemed over confident. But no one took on himselfto gainsay him in his particular province, the superintendence of theguard; and though Baudichon sighed and Petitot shook his head, the wordwas left with him. "Is that all, Messer Fabri?" he asked.

  "Yes, if we lay it to heart."

  "But I want to know," Baudichon struck in, puffing pompously, "what isto be done about--Basterga."

  "Basterga? To be sure I was forgetting him," Fabri answered. "What is tobe done? What do you say, Messer Blondel? What are we to do about him?"

  "I will tell you if you will tell me what the point is that touches him.You forget, Messer Syndic"--with a somewhat sickly smile--"that I wasasleep."

  "The letter," Fabri replied, returning to it, "touches him seriously. Itasserts that a person of that name is here in the Grand Duke's interest,that he is in the secret of these plots, and that we should do well toexpel him, if we do not seize and imprison him."

  "And you want to know----"

  "I want to know," Baudichon answered, rolling in his chair as was hishabit when delivering himself, "what you know of him, Messer Blondel."

  Blondel turned rudely on him, perhaps to hide a slight ebb of colourfrom his cheeks. "What I know?" he said.

  "Ay, ay."

  "No more than you know!"

  "But," Petitot retorted in his dry, thin voice, "it was you, MesserBlondel, not Messer Baudichon, who gave him permission to reside in thetown."

  "And I want to know," Baudichon chimed in remorselessly, "whatcredentials he had. That is what I want to know!"

  "Credentials? Oh, something formal! I don't know what," Blondel repliedrudely. He looked to the secretary who sat at the foot of the table. "Doyou know?" he asked.

  "No, Messer Syndic," the man replied. "I remember that a licence wasgranted to him in the name of Caesar Basterga, graduate of Padua; anddoubtless--for licences to reside are not granted without such--he hadletters, but I do not recall from whom. They would be returned to himwith the licence."

  "And that is all," Petitot said, his long nose drooping, his inquisitiveeyes looking over his glasses, "that you know about him, MesserBlondel?"

  Did they know anything, and, if so, what did they know? Blondelhesitated. This persistence, this continual harping on one point, beganto alarm him. But he carried it bravely. "Do you mean as to hisconvictions?" he asked with a sneer.

  "No, I mean at all!"

  "I want to know," Baudichon added--the parrot phrase began to carry toBlondel's ears the note of fate--"what you know about him."

  This time a pause betrayed Blondel's hesitation. Should he admit that hehad been to Basterga's lodging; or dared he deny a fact that might implyan intimacy greater than he had acknowledged? A faint perspiration roseon his brow as he decided that he dare not. "I know that he lives in ahouse in the Corraterie," he answered, "a house beside the PorteTertasse, and that he is a scholar--I believe of some repute. I know somuch," he continued boldly, "because he wrote to thank me for thelicence, and, by way of acknowledgment, invited me to visit his lodgingto view a rare manuscript of the Scriptures. I did so, and remained afew minutes with him. That is all I know of him. I suppose," with a grimlook at Baudichon and the Inquisitor, who had exchanged meaning glances,"it is not alleged that I am in the plot with him? Or that he hasconfided to me the Grand Duke's plans?"

  Fabri laughed heartily at the notion, and the laugh, which was echoed byfour-fifths of those at the table, cleared the air. Petitot, it is true,limited himself to a smile, and Baudichon shrugged his shoulders. Butfor the moment the challenge silenced them. The game passed to Blondel'shands, and his spirits rose. "If M. Baudichon wants to know more abouthim," he said contemptuously, "I dare say that the information can beobtained."

  "The point is," Fabri answered, "what are we to do?"

  "As to--what?"

  "As to expelling him or seizing him."

  "Oh!" The exclamation fell from Blondel's lips before he could stay it.He saw what was coming, and the dilemma in which he was to be placed.

  "We have the letter before us," the First Syndic continued, "and apartfrom it, we know nothing for this person or against him." He lookedround the table and met assenting glances. "I think, therefore, that itwill be well, to leave it to Messer Blondel. He is responsible for thesafety of the city, and it should be for him to say what is to bedone."

  "Yes, yes," several voices agreed. "Leave it to Messer Blondel."

  "You assent to that, Messer Baudichon?"

  "I suppose so," the councillor muttered reluctantly.

  "Very good," said Fabri. "Then, Messer Blondel, it remains with you tosay what is to be done."

  The Fourth Syndic hesitated, and with reason; had Baudichon, had theInquisitor known the whole, they could hardly have placed him in a moreawkward dilemma. If he took the course that prudence in his owninterests dictated, and shielded Basterga, his action might lay him opento future criticism. If, on the other hand, he gave the word to expel orseize him, he broke at once and for ever with the man who held his lastchance of life in the hollow of his hand.

  And yet, if he dared adopt the latter course, if he dared give the wordto seize, there was a chance, and a good chance, that he would find the_remedium_ in the casket; for with a little arrangement Basterga mightbe arrested out of doors, or be allured to a particular place and therebe set upon. But in that way lay risk; a risk that chilled the currentof the Syndic's blood. There was the chance that the attempt might fail;the chance that Basterga might escape; the chance that he might have the_remedium_ about him--and destroy it; the chance that he might havehidden it. There were so many chances, in a word, that the Syndic'sheart stood still as he enumerated them, and pictured the crash of hislast hope of life.

  He could not face the risk. He could not. Though duty, though couragedictated the venture, craven fear--fear for the loss of the new-bornhope that for a week had buoyed him up--carried it. Hurriedly at las
t,as if he feared that he might change his mind, he pronounced hisdecision.

  "I doubt the wisdom of touching him," he said. "To seize him if he beguilty proclaims our knowledge of the plot; it will be laid aside, andanother, of which we may not be informed, will be hatched. But let himbe watched, and it will be hard if with the knowledge we have we cannotdo something more than frustrate his scheme."

  After an interval of silence, "Well," Fabri said, drawing a deep breathand looking round, "I believe you are right. What do you say, MesserBaudichon?"

  "Messer Blondel knows the man," Baudichon answered drily. "He is,therefore, the best judge."

  Blondel reddened. "I see you are determined to lay the responsibility onme," he cried.

  "The responsibility is on you already!" Petitot retorted. "You havedecided. I trust it may turn out as you expect."

  "And as you do not expect!"

  "No; but you see"--and again the Inquisitor looked over hisglasses--"you know the man, have been to his lodging, have conversedwith him, and are the best judge what he is! I have had naught to dowith him. By the way," he turned to Fabri, "he is at Mere Royaume's, ishe not? Is there not a Spaniard of the name of Grio lodging there?"

  Blondel did not answer and the secretary looked up from his register."An old soldier, Messer Petitot?" he said. "Yes, there is."

  "Perhaps you know him also, Messer Blondel?"

  "Yes, I know him. He served the State," Blondel answered quietly. He hadwinked at more than one irregularity on the part of Grio, and at thesound of the name anger gave place to caution. "I have also," hecontinued, "my eye upon him, as I shall have it upon Basterga. Will thatsatisfy you, Messer Petitot?"

  The councillor leaned forward. "Fac salvam Genevam!" he replied in avoice low and not quite steady. "Do that, keep Geneva safe--guard wellour faith, our wives and little ones--and I care not what you do!" Andhe rose from his seat.

  The Fourth Syndic did not answer. Those few words that in a momentraised the discussion from the low level of detail on which theInquisitor commonly wasted himself, and set it on the true plane ofpatriotism--for with all his faults Petitot was a patriot--silencedBlondel while they irritated and puzzled him. Why did the man assumesuch airs? Why talk as if he and he alone cared for Geneva? Why bearhimself as if he and he alone had shed and was prepared to shed hisblood for the State? Why, indeed? Blondel snarled his indignation, butmade no other answer.

  A few minutes later, as he descended the stairs, he laughed at themomentary annoyance which he had felt. What did it matter to him, adying man, who had the better or who the worse, who posed, or whobelieved in the pose? It was of moment indeed that his enemies hadcontrived to fix him with the responsibility of arresting Basterga, orof leaving him at large: that they had contrived to connect him with thePaduan, and made him accountable to an extent which did not please himfor the man's future behaviour. But yet again what did thatmatter--after all? Of what moment was it--after all? He was a dying man.Was anything of moment to him except the one thing which Basterga had itin his power to grant or to withhold, to give or to deny?

  Nothing! Nothing!

  He pondered on what had passed, and wondered if he had not donefoolishly. Certainly he had let slip a grand, a unique opportunity ofseizing the man and of snatching the _remedium_. He had put the chancefrom him at the risk of future blame. Now he was of two minds about it.Of two minds: but of one mind only about another thing. As he veeredthis way and that in his mind, now cursing his cowardice, and nowthanking God that he had not taken the irrevocable step,

  Opportunity That work'st our thoughts into desires, desires To resolutions,

  kindled in him a burning impatience to act. If he did not act, if hewere not going to act, if he were not going to take some surer and saferstep, he had been foolish and trebly foolish to let slip the opportunitythat had been his.

  But he would act. For a fortnight he had abstained from visitingBasterga, and had even absented himself from the neighbourhood of thehouse lest the scholar's suspicions should be wakened. But to whatpurpose if he were not going to act? If he were not going to build onthe ground so carefully prepared, to what end this wariness and thisabstention?

  Within an hour the Syndic, long so wary, had worked himself into a feverand, rather than remain inactive, was ripe for any step, howeverventuresome, provided it led to the _remedium_. He had still theprudence to postpone action until night; but when darkness had fairlyset in and the bell of St. Peter, inviting the townsfolk to the eveningpreaching, had ceased to sound--an indication that he would meet few inthe streets--he cloaked himself, and, issuing forth, bent his stepsacross the Bourg du Four in the direction of the Corraterie.

  Even now he had no plan in his mind. But amid the medley of schemes thatfor a week had been hatching in his brain, he hoped to be guided bycircumstances to that one which gave surest promise of success. Nor washis courage as deeply rooted as he fancied: the day had told on hisnerves; he shivered in the breeze and started at a sound. Yet as oftenas he paused or hesitated, the words "A dying man! A dying man!" rang inhis ears and urged him on.