'By my faith,' laughed Bellecour contemptuously eyeing their dejection, 'you have more the air of a burial than a bridal party.'
'Mercy my lord!' cried the agonised voice of Charlot, as, distraught with grief, he flung himself before the Marquis.
'Who seeks to harm you, fool?' was Bellecour's half-derisive rejoinder.
'Do not take her from me, my lord,' the young man pleaded piteously.
'She shall return to-morrow, booby,' answered the noble. 'Out of the way!'
But Charlot was obstinate. The Marquis might be claiming no more than by ancient law was the due of the Seigneur, but Charlot was by no means minded to submit in craven acquiescence to that brutal, barbarous law.
'My lord,' he cried, 'you shall not take her. She is my wife. She belongs to me. You shall not take her!'
He caught hold of the Marquis's bridle with such a strength and angry will that the horse was forced to back before him.
'Insolent clod!' exclaimed Bellecour, with an angry laugh and a sharp, downward blow of the butt of his whip upon the peasant's head. Charlot's hand grew nerveless and released the bridle as he sank stunned to the ground. Bellecour touched his horse with the spur and rode over the prostrate fellow with no more concern than had he been a dog's carcase. 'Blaise, see to the girl,' he called over his shoulder, adding to his company: 'Come, messieurs, we have wasted time enough.'
Not a hand was raised to stay him, not a word of protest uttered, as the nobles rode by, laughing, and chatting among themselves, with the utmost unconcern of the tragedy that was being enacted.
Like a flock of frightened sheep the peasants stood huddled together and watched them go. In the same inaction—for all that not a little grief was blent with the terror on their countenances—they stood by and allowed Blaise to lift the half-swooning girl to the withers of his horse. No reply had they to the coarse jest with which he and his fellow-servant rode off. But La Boulaye, who, from the point where he and Duhamel had halted, had observed the whole scene from its inception, turned now a livid face upon his companion.
'Shall such things be?' he cried passionately. 'Merciful God! Are we men, Duhamel, and do we permit such things to take place?'
The old pedagogue shrugged his shoulders in despair. His face was heavily scored by sorrow.
'Helas!' he sighed. 'Are they not masters of all that they may take? The Marquis goes no further than is by ancient law allowed his class. It is the law needs altering, my friend, and then the men will alter. Meanwhile, behold them—lords of life and death.'
'Lords of hell are they!' blazed the young revolutionist. 'That is where they belong, whence they are come, and whither they shall return. Poltroons!' he cried, shaking his fist at the group of cowed peasants that surrounded the prostrate Charlot 'Sheep! Worthless clods! The nobles do well to despise you, for, by my faith, you invite nothing but contempt, you that will suffer rape and murder to be done under your eyes, and never do more than look scared encouragement upon your ravishers!'
'Blame not these poor wretches, Caron,' sighed the old man. 'They dare not raise a hand.'
'Then, pardieu! here, at least, is one who does dare,' he cried furiously, as from the breast pocket of his coat he drew a pistol.
Blaise, with the girl across the withers of his horse, was approaching them, followed by Jean.
'What would you do?' cried the old man fearfully, setting a restraining hand upon La Boulaye's sleeve. But Caron shook himself free.
'This,' was all he answered, and simultaneously, he levelled his pistol and fired at Blaise.
Shot through the head, the servant collapsed forward; then, as the horse reared and started off at a gallop, he toppled sideways and fell. The girl went down with him and lay in the road whilst he was dragged along, his head bumping horribly on the stones as faster and faster went the frightened horse.
With a shout that may have been either anger or dismay Jean reined in his horse, and sat for a second hesitating whether to begin by recovering the girl, or avenging his comrade. But his doubts were solved for him by La Boulaye, who took a deliberate aim at him.
'Begone!' cried the secretary, 'unless you prefer to go by the road I've sent your fellow.' And being a discreet youth, Jean made off in silence by the street down which poor Blaise had been dragged.
'Carom' cried Duhamel, in a frenzy of apprehension. 'I tremble for you, my son. Fly from Bellecour at once—now, this very instant. Go to my friends at Amiens; they will—'
But Caron had already left his side to repair to the spot where Marie was lying. The peasantry followed him, though leisurely, in their timid hesitation. They were asking themselves whether, even so remotely as by tending the girl, they dared participate in the violence La Boulaye had committed. That a swift vengeance would be the Seigneur's answer they were well assured, and a great fear possessed them that in that vengeance those of the Chateau might lack discrimination. Charlot was amongst them, and on his feet, but still too dazed to have a clear knowledge of the circumstances. Presently, however, his faculties awakening and taking in the situation, he staggered forward, and came lurching towards La Boulaye, who was assisting the frightened Marie to rise. With a great sob the girl flung herself into her husband's arms.
'Charlot, mon Charlot!' she cried, and added a moment later: 'It was he—this brave gentleman—who rescued me.'
'Monsieur,' said Charlot, 'I shall remember it to my dying day.'
He would have said more, but the peasants, stirred by fear, now roused themselves and plucked at his coat.
'Get you gone, Charlot, Get you gone quickly,' they advised him. 'And if you are wise you will leave Bellecour without delay. It is not safe for you here.'
'It is not safe for any of us,' exclaimed one. 'I have no mind to be caught when the Seigneur returns. There will be a vengeance. Ah Dieu! what a vengeance!'
The warning acted magically. There were hurried leave-takings, and then, like a parcel of scuttling rabbits, they made for their burrows to hide from the huntsman that would not be long in coming. And ere the last of them was out of sight there arose a stamping of hoofs and a chorus of angry voices. Down tine street thundered the Marquis's cavalcade, brought back by the servant who had escaped and who had ridden after them. Some anger there was—particularly in the heart of the Lord of Bellecour—but greater than their anger was their excitement at the prospect of a man-hunt, with which the chase on which they had been originally bent made but a poor comparison.
'There he is, Monseigneur' cried Jean, as he pointed to La Boulaye. 'And yonder are the girl and her husband.'
'Ah! The secretary again, eh?' laughed the nobleman, grimly, as he came nearer. 'Ma foi, life must have grown wearisome to him. Secure the woman, Jean.'
Caron stood before him, pale in his impotent rage, which was directed as much against the peasants who had fled as against the nobles who approached. Had these clods but stood there, and defended themselves and their manhood with sticks and stones and such weapons as came to their hands, they might have taken pride in being trampled beneath the hoofs of the Seigneurie. Thus, at least, might they have proved themselves men. But to fly thus—some fifty of them from the approach of less than a score—was to confess unworthiness of a better fate than that of which their seigneurs rendered themselves the instruments.
Himself he could do no more than the single shot in his pistol would allow. That much, however, he would do, and like him whose resources are reduced, and yet who desires to spend the little that he has to best advantage, he levelled the weapon boldly at the advancing Marquis, and pulled the trigger. But Bellecour was an old campaigner, and by an old campaigner's trick he saved himself at the last moment. At sight of that levelled barrel he pulled his horse suddenly on to its haunches, and received the charge in the animal's belly. With a shriek of pain the horse sought to recover its feet, then tumbled forward hurling the Marquis from the saddle. La Boulaye had an inspiration to fling himself upon the old roue and seek with his hands to kill him before they made an end of himself. But ere he could move to execute his design a horseman was almost on top of him. He received a stunning blow on the head. The daylight faded in his eyes, he felt a sensation of sinking, and a reverberating darkness engulfed him.
