Part 90

“’S death!” said the provost, “what an appetite for the rack! I understand not this madwoman at all.” An old, gray-haired sergeant of the guard stepped out of the ranks, and addressing the provost,— “Mad in sooth, monseigneur. If she released the gypsy, it was not her fault, for she loves not the gypsies. I have been of the watch these fifteen years, and I hear her every evening cursing the Bohemian women with endless imprecations. If the one of whom we are in pursuit is, as I suppose, the little dancer with the goat, she detests that one above all the rest.” Gudule made an effort and said,— “That one above all.” The unanimous testimony of the men of the watch confirmed the old sergeant’s words to the provost. Tristan l’Hermite, in despair at extracting anything from the recluse, turned his back on her, and with unspeakable anxiety she beheld him direct his course slowly towards his horse. “Come!” he said, between his teeth, “March on! let us set out again on the quest. I shall not sleep until that gypsy is hanged.” But he still hesitated for some time before mounting his horse. Gudule palpitated between life and death, as she beheld him cast about the Place that uneasy look of a hunting dog which instinctively feels that the lair of the beast is close to him, and is loath to go away. At length he shook his head and leaped into his saddle. Gudule’s horribly compressed heart now dilated, and she said in a low voice, as she cast a glance at her daughter, whom she had not ventured to look at while they were there, “Saved!” The poor child had remained all this time in her corner, without breathing, without moving, with the idea of death before her. She had lost nothing of the scene between Gudule and Tristan, and the anguish of her mother had found its echo in her heart. She had heard all the successive snappings of the thread by which she hung suspended over the gulf; twenty times she had fancied that she saw it break, and at last she began to breathe again and to feel her foot on firm ground. At that moment she heard a voice saying to the provost: “_Corbœuf!_ Monsieur le Prevôt, ’tis no affair of mine, a man of arms, to hang witches. The rabble of the populace is suppressed. I leave you to attend to the matter alone. You will allow me to rejoin my company, who are waiting for their captain.” The voice was that of Phœbus de Châteaupers; that which took place within her was ineffable. He was there, her friend, her protector, her support, her refuge, her Phœbus. She rose, and before her mother could prevent her, she had rushed to the window, crying,— “Phœbus! aid me, my Phœbus!” Phœbus was no longer there. He had just turned the corner of the Rue de la Coutellerie at a gallop. But Tristan had not yet taken his departure. The recluse rushed upon her daughter with a roar of agony. She dragged her violently back, digging her nails into her neck. A tigress mother does not stand on trifles. But it was too late. Tristan had seen. “Hé! hé!” he exclaimed with a laugh which laid bare all his teeth and made his face resemble the muzzle of a wolf, “two mice in the trap!” “I suspected as much,” said the soldier. Tristan clapped him on the shoulder,— “You are a good cat! Come!” he added, “where is Henriet Cousin?” A man who had neither the garments nor the air of a soldier, stepped from the ranks. He wore a costume half gray, half brown, flat hair, leather sleeves, and carried a bundle of ropes in his huge hand. This man always attended Tristan, who always attended Louis XI. “Friend,” said Tristan l’Hermite, “I presume that this is the sorceress of whom we are in search. You will hang me this one. Have you your ladder?” “There is one yonder, under the shed of the Pillar-House,” replied the man. “Is it on this justice that the thing is to be done?” he added, pointing to the stone gibbet. “Yes.” “Ho, hé!” continued the man with a huge laugh, which was still more brutal than that of the provost, “we shall not have far to go.” “Make haste!” said Tristan, “you shall laugh afterwards.” In the meantime, the recluse had not uttered another word since Tristan had seen her daughter and all hope was lost. She had flung the poor gypsy, half dead, into the corner of the cellar, and had placed herself once more at the window with both hands resting on the angle of the sill like two claws. In this attitude she was seen to cast upon all those soldiers her glance which had become wild and frantic once more. At the moment when Rennet Cousin approached her cell, she showed him so savage a face that he shrank back. “Monseigneur,” he said, returning to the provost, “which am I to take?” “The young one.” “So much the better, for the old one seemeth difficult.” “Poor little dancer with the goat!” said the old sergeant of the watch. Rennet Cousin approached the window again. The mother’s eyes made his own droop. He said with a good deal of timidity,— “Madam”— She interrupted him in a very low but furious voice,— “What do you ask?” “It is not you,” he said, “it is the other.” “What other?” “The young one.” She began to shake her head, crying,— “There is no one! there is no one! there is no one!” “Yes, there is!” retorted the hangman, “and you know it well. Let me take the young one. I have no wish to harm you.” She said, with a strange sneer,— “Ah! so you have no wish to harm me!” “Let me have the other, madam; ’tis monsieur the provost who wills it.” She repeated with a look of madness,— “There is no one here.” “I tell you that there is!” replied the executioner. “We have all seen that there are two of you.” “Look then!” said the recluse, with a sneer. “Thrust your head through the window.” The executioner observed the mother’s finger-nails and dared not. “Make haste!” shouted Tristan, who had just ranged his troops in a circle round the Rat-Hole, and who sat on his horse beside the gallows. Rennet returned once more to the provost in great embarrassment. He had flung his rope on the ground, and was twisting his hat between his hands with an awkward air. “Monseigneur,” he asked, “where am I to enter?” “By the door.” “There is none.” “By the window.” “’Tis too small.” “Make it larger,” said Tristan angrily. “Have you not pickaxes?” The mother still looked on steadfastly from the depths of her cavern. She no longer hoped for anything, she no longer knew what she wished, except that she did not wish them to take her daughter. Rennet Cousin went in search of the chest of tools for the night man, under the shed of the Pillar-House. He drew from it also the double ladder, which he immediately set up against the gallows. Five or six of the provost’s men armed themselves with picks and crowbars, and Tristan betook himself, in company with them, towards the window. “Old woman,” said the provost, in a severe tone, “deliver up to us that girl quietly.” She looked at him like one who does not understand. “_Tête Dieu!_” continued Tristan, “why do you try to prevent this sorceress being hung as it pleases the king?” The wretched woman began to laugh in her wild way. “Why? She is my daughter.” The tone in which she pronounced these words made even Henriet Cousin shudder. “I am sorry for that,” said the provost, “but it is the king’s good pleasure.” She cried, redoubling her terrible laugh,— “What is your king to me? I tell you that she is my daughter!” “Pierce the wall,” said Tristan. In order to make a sufficiently wide opening, it sufficed to dislodge one course of stone below the window. When the mother heard the picks and crowbars mining her fortress, she uttered a terrible cry; then she began to stride about her cell with frightful swiftness, a wild beasts’ habit which her cage had imparted to her. She no longer said anything, but her eyes flamed. The soldiers were chilled to the very soul. All at once she seized her paving stone, laughed, and hurled it with both fists upon the workmen. The stone, badly flung (for her hands trembled), touched no one, and fell short under the feet of Tristan’s horse. She gnashed her teeth. In the meantime, although the sun had not yet risen, it was broad daylight; a beautiful rose color enlivened the ancient, decayed chimneys of the Pillar-House. It was the hour when the earliest windows of the great city open joyously on the roofs. Some workmen, a few fruit-sellers on their way to the markets on their asses, began to traverse the Grève; they halted for a moment before this group of soldiers clustered round the Rat-Hole, stared at it with an air of astonishment and passed on. The recluse had gone and seated herself by her daughter, covering her with her body, in front of her, with staring eyes, listening to the poor child, who did not stir, but who kept murmuring in a low voice, these words only, “Phœbus! Phœbus!” In proportion as the work of the demolishers seemed to advance, the mother mechanically retreated, and pressed the young girl closer and closer to the wall. All at once, the recluse beheld the stone (for she was standing guard and never took her eyes from it), move, and she heard Tristan’s voice encouraging the workers. Then she aroused from the depression into which she had fallen during the last few moments, cried out, and as she spoke, her voice now rent the ear like a saw, then stammered as though all kind of maledictions were pressing to her lips to burst forth at once. “Ho! ho! ho! Why this is terrible! You are ruffians! Are you really going to take my daughter? Oh! the cowards! Oh! the hangman lackeys! the wretched, blackguard assassins! Help! help! fire! Will they take my child from me like this? Who is it then who is called the good God?” Then, addressing Tristan, foaming at the mouth, with wild eyes, all bristling and on all fours like a female panther,— “Draw near and take my daughter! Do not you understand that this woman tells you that she is my daughter? Do you know what it is to have a child? Eh! lynx, have you never lain with your female? have you never had a cub? and if you have little ones, when they howl have you nothing in your vitals that moves?” “Throw down the stone,” said Tristan; “it no longer holds.” The crowbars raised the heavy course. It was, as we have said, the mother’s last bulwark. She threw herself upon it, she tried to hold it back; she scratched the stone with her nails, but the massive block, set in movement by six men, escaped her and glided gently to the ground along the iron levers. The mother, perceiving an entrance effected, fell down in front of the opening, barricading the breach with her body, beating the pavement with her head, and shrieking with a voice rendered so hoarse by fatigue that it was hardly audible,— “Help! fire! fire!” “Now take the wench,” said Tristan, still impassive.