Bardelys the Magnificent - Rafael Sabatini (affordable ebook reader .txt) 📗
- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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you no more - you whom I had enshrined so in my heart.
“I called myself a little fool that morning for having dreamed that
you had come to care for me; my vanity I thought had deluded me
into imagining that your manner towards me had a tenderness that
spoke of affection. I was bitter with myself, and I suffered oh,
so much! Then later, when I was in the rose garden, you came to me.
“You remember how you seized me, and how by your manner you showed
me that it was not vanity alone had misled me. You had fooled me,
I thought; even in that hour I imagined you were fooling me; you
made light of me; and my sufferings were naught to you so that I
might give you some amusement to pass the leisure and monotony of
your sojourn with us.”
“Roxalanne - my poor Roxalanne!” I whispered.
“Then my bitterness and sorrow all turned to anger against you.
You had broken my heart, and I thought that you had done it
wantonly. For that I burned to punish you. Ah! and not only that,
perhaps. I think, too, that some jealousy drove me on. You had
wooed and slighted me, yet you had made me love you, and if you
were not for me I swore you should be for no other. And so, while
my madness endured, I quitted Lavedan, and telling my father that
I was going to Auch, to his sister’s house, I came to Toulouse and
betrayed you to the Keeper of the Seals.
“Scarce was the thing done than I beheld the horror of it, and I
hated myself. In my despair, I abandoned all idea of pursuing the
journey to Auch, but turned and made my way back in haste, hoping
that I might still come to warn you. But at Grenade I met you
already in charge of the soldiers. At Grenade, too I learnt the
truth - that you were not Lesperon. Can you not guess something of
my anguish then? Already loathing my act, and beside myself for
having betrayed you, think into what despair I was plunged by
Monsieur de Marsac’s intimation.
“Then I understood that for reasons of your own you had concealed
your identity. You were not perhaps, betrothed; indeed, I remembered
then how, solemnly you had sworn that you were not; and so I
bethought me that your vows to me may have been sincere and such as
a maid might honourably listen to.”
“They were, Roxalanne! they were!” I cried.
But she continued “That you had Mademoiselle de Marsac’s portrait
was something that I could not explain; but then I hear that you
had also Lesperon’s papers upon you; so that you may have become
possessed of the one with the others. And now, monsieur—”
She ceased, and there against my breast she lay weeping and weeping
in her bitter passion of regret, until it seemed to me she would
never regain her self-control.
“It has been all my fault, Roxalanne,” said I, “and if I am to pay
the price they are exacting, it will be none too high. I embarked
upon a dastardly business; which brought me to Languedoc under
false colours. I wish, indeed, that I had told you when first the
impulse to tell you came upon me. Afterwards it grew impossible.”
“Tell me now,” she begged. “Tell me who you are.”
Sorely was I tempted to respond. Almost was I on the point of
doing so, when suddenly the thought of how she might shrink from me,
of how, even then, she might come to think that I had but simulated
love for her for infamous purposes of gain, restrained and silenced
me. During the few hours of life that might be left me I would at
least be lord and master of her heart. When I was dead - for I had
little hope of Castelroux’s efforts - it would matter less, and
perhaps because I was dead she would be merciful.
“I cannot, Roxalanne. Not even now. It is too vile! If - if they
carry out the sentence on Monday, I shall leave a letter for you,
telling you everything.”
She shuddered, and a sob escaped her. From my identity her mind
fled back to the more important matter of my fate.
“They will not carry it out, monsieur! Oh, they till not! Say that
you can defend yourself, that you are not the man they believe you
to be!”
“We are in God’s hands, child. It may be that I shall save myself
yet. If I do, I shall come straight to you, and you shall know all
that there is to know. But, remember, child” - and raising her
face in my hands, I looked down into the blue of her tearful eyes -
“remember, little one, that in one thing I have been true and
honourable, and influenced by nothing but my heart - in my wooing
of you. I love you, Roxalanne, with all my soul, and if I should
die you are the only thing in all this world that I experience a
regret at leaving.”
“I do believe it; I do, indeed. Nothing can ever alter my belief
again. Will you not, then, tell me who you are, and what is this
thing, which you call dishonourable, that brought you into Languedoc?”
A moment again I pondered. Then I shook my head.
“Wait, child,” said I; and she, obedient to my wishes, asked no more.
It was the second time that I neglected a favourable opportunity of
making that confession, and as I had regretted having allowed the
first occasion to pass unprofited, so was I, and still more
poignantly, to regret this second silence.
A little while she stayed with me yet, and I sought to instil some
measure of comfort into her soul. I spoke of the hopes that I
based upon Castelroux’s finding friends to recognize me - hopes
that were passing slender. And she, poor child, sought also to
cheer me and give me courage.
“If only the King were here!” she sighed. “I would go to him, and
on my knees I would plead for your enlargement. But they say he is
no nearer than Lyons; and I could not hope to get there and back by
Monday. I will go to the Keeper of the Seals again, monsieur, and
I will beg him to be merciful, and at least to delay the sentence.”
I did not discourage her; I did not speak of the futility of such
a step. But I begged her to remain in Toulouse until Monday, that
she might visit me again before the end, if the end were to become
inevitable.
Then Castelroux came to reconduct her, and we parted. But she left
me a great consolation, a great strengthening comfort. If I were
destined, indeed, to walk to the scaffold, it seemed that I could
do it with a better grace and a gladder courage now.
THE ELEVENTH HOUR
Castelroux visited me upon the following morning, but he brought no
news that might be accounted encouraging. None of his messengers
were yet returned, nor had any sent word that they were upon the
trail of my followers. My heart sank a little, and such hope as I
still fostered was fast perishing. Indeed, so imminent did my doom
appear and so unavoidable, that later in the day I asked for pen
and paper that I might make an attempt at setting my earthly affairs
to rights. Yet when the writing materials were brought me, I wrote
not. I sat instead with the feathered end of my quill between my
teeth, and thus pondered the matter of the disposal of my Picardy
estates.
Coldly I weighed the wording of the wager and the events that had
transpired, and I came at length to the conclusion that Chatellerault
could not be held to have the least claim upon my lands. That he
had cheated at the very outset, as I have earlier shown, was of less
account than that he had been instrumental in violently hindering me.
I took at last the resolve to indite a full memoir of the transaction,
and to request Castelroux to see that it was delivered to the King
himself. Thus not only would justice be done, but I should - though
tardily - be even with the Count. No doubt he relied upon his power
to make a thorough search for such papers as I might leave, and to
destroy everything that might afford indication of my true identity.
But he had not counted upon the good feeling that had sprung up
betwixt the little Gascon captain and me, nor yet upon my having
contrived to convince the latter that I was, indeed, Bardelys, and
he little dreamt of such a step as I was about to take to ensure his
punishment hereafter.
Resolved at last, I was commencing to write when my attention was
arrested by an unusual sound. It was at first no more than a
murmuring noise, as of at sea breaking upon its shore. Gradually
it grew its volume and assumed the shape of human voices raised in
lusty clamour. Then, above the din of the populace, a gun boomed
out, then another, and another.
I sprang up at that, and, wondering what might be toward, I crossed
to my barred window and stood there listening. I overlooked the
courtyard of the jail, and I could see some commotion below, in
sympathy, as it were, with the greater commotion without.
Presently, as the populace drew nearer, it seemed to me that the
shouting was of acclamation. Next I caught a blare of trumpets,
and, lastly, I was able to distinguish above the noise, which had
now grown to monstrous proportions, the clattering hoofs of some
cavalcade that was riding past the prison doors.
It was borne in upon me that some great personage was arriving in
Toulouse, and my first thought was of the King. At the idea of such
a possibility my brain whirled and I grew dizzy with hope. The
next moment I recalled that but last night Roxalanne had told me
that he was no nearer than Lyons, and so I put the thought from me,
and the hope with it, for, travelling in that leisurely, indolent
fashion that was characteristic of his every action, it would be a
miracle if His Majesty should reach Toulouse before the week was
out, and this but Sunday.
The populace passed on, then seemed to halt, and at last the shouts
died down on the noontide air. I went back to my writing, and to
wait until from my jailer, when next he should chance to appear, I
might learn the meaning of that uproar.
An hour perhaps went by, and I had made some progress with my memoir,
when my door was opened and the cheery voice of Castelroux greeted
me from the threshold.
“Monsieur, I have brought a friend to see you.”
I turned in my chair, and one glance at the gentle, comely face and
the fair hair of the young man standing beside Castelroux was enough
to bring me of a sudden to my feet.
“Mironsac!” I shouted, and sprang towards him with hands outstretched.
But though my joy was great and my surprise profound, greater still
was the bewilderment that in Mironsac’s face I saw depicted.
“Monsieur de Bardelys!” he exclaimed, and a hundred questions were
contained in his astonished eyes.
“Po’ Cap de Dieu!” growled his
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