The Long Night - Stanley Weyman (free novel 24 .txt) 📗

its neighbours. The same row of chestnut trees darkened its lower windows, the same breezy view of the Rhone meadows, the sloping vineyards and the far-off Jura lightened its upper rooms. A kindred life, a life apparently as quiet and demure, moved within its walls. Yet was the house a house apart. Silently and secretly, it had absorbed and sucked and drawn into itself the hearts and souls and minds of two men. It held for the one that which the old prize above all things in the world--life; and for the other, that which the young set above life--love.

Life? The Syndic did not doubt; the bait had been dangled before his eyes with too much cunning, too much skill. In a casket, in a room in that house in the Corraterie, his life lay hidden; his life, and he could not come at it! His life? Was it a marvel that waking or sleeping he saw only that house, and that room, and that casket chained to the wall; that he saw at one time the four steps rising to the door, and the placid front with its three tiers of windows; at another time, the room itself with its litter of scripts and dark-bound books, and rich furnishings, and phials and jars and strangely shaped alembics? Was it a marvel that in the dreams of the night the sick man toiled up and up and up the narrow staircase, of which every point remained fixed in his mind; or that waking, whatever his task, or wherever he might be, alone or in company, in his parlour or in the Town House, he still fell a-dreaming of the room and the box--the room and the box that held his life?

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 clear before him; for he had known men die of the disease which held him in its clutches, and he knew how they had died. And then he must needs lock himself into his room that other eyes might not witness the passionate fits of revolt, of rage and horror, and weak weeping, into which the knowledge cast him. And out of which he presently came back to--_the house_. His life lay there, in that room, in that house, and he could not 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 possession of the philtre. Some of the plans that occurred to him were wild and desperate; dangerous and hopeless on the face of them. Others were merely violent; others again, of which craft was the mainspring, held out a prospect of success. For a whole day the notion of arresting Basterga on a charge of treason, and seizing the steel casket together with his papers, was uppermost. It seemed feasible, and was feasible; nay, it was more than feasible, it was easy; for already there were rumours of the man abroad, and his name had been mentioned at the council table. The Syndic had only to give the word, and the arrest would 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 he would not have the courage to take it. For if Basterga had so much as two minutes' notice, if his ear so much as caught the tread of those who came to take him, he might, in pure malignity, pour the medicine on the floor, or he might so hide it as to defy search. And at the thought--at the thought of the destruction of that wherein lay his only chance of life, his only hope of seeing the sun and feeling again the balmy breath of 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 and more after the thought occurred to him, he dared not approach the scholar's lodging, or be seen in the neighbourhood, so great was his fear 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 him in a concrete form; and with an abruptness which placed him on the edge of perplexity. It was at a morning meeting of the smaller council. The day was dull, the chamber warm, the business to be transacted monotonous; and Blondel, far from well and interested in one thing only--beside which the most important affairs of Geneva seemed small as the doings of an ant-hill viewed through a glass--had fallen asleep, or nearly asleep. Naturally a restless and wakeful man, of thin habit and nervous temperament, he had never done such a thing before: and it was unfortunate that he succumbed on this occasion, for while he drowsed the current of business changed. The debate grew serious, even vital. Finally he awoke to the knowledge of place and time with a name ringing in his ears; a name so fixed in his waking thoughts that, before he knew where he was or what he was doing, he repeated it in a tone that drew all 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 First Syndic, who sat two places from him, and had just taken a letter from the secretary, leaned forward so as to view him. "Ay, Basterga," he said, "an Italian, I take it. Do you know him, Messer Blondel?"

He was awake now, but, confused and startled, inclined to believe that he was on his trial; and that the faint parleyings with treason, small things 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 he could be, while ignorant of what had passed, and how he came to be challenged. "Yes, I know him," he said slowly, "if you mean a Paduan, a scholar of some note, I believe. Who applied to me--I dare say it would be 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 his shoulders--"I forget from whom. What of him?" with a steady look at Baudichon the councillor, his life-long rival, and the quarter whence if trouble were brewing it was to be expected. "What of him?" he repeated, throwing himself back in his chair, and tapping the table with his fingers.

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

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

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

"Well, it is not like me. I can say that I am not often," with a keen look at Baudichon, "caught napping! And now, M. Fabri," he continued with 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 First Syndic's hands.

"Well, it is really your affair in the main," Fabri answered, "since as Fourth Syndic you are responsible for the guard and the city's safety; and ours afterwards. It is a warning," he continued, his eyes reverting to the page before him, "from our secret agent in Turin, whose name I need not mention"--Blondel nodded--"informing us of a fresh attempt to be made on the city before Christmas; by means of rafts formed of hurdles and capable of transporting whole companies of soldiers. These he has seen tried in the River Po, and they performed the work. Having reached the walls by their means the assailants are to mount by ladders which are being made to fit into one another. They are covered with black cloth, and can be laid against the wall without noise. It sounds--circumstantial?" Fabri commented, breaking off and looking at Blondel.

The Syndic nodded thoughtfully. "Yes," he said, "I think so. I think also," 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 a double chin and a weighty manner; honest, but slow, and the spokesman of the more wealthy burghers. His neighbour Petitot, a man of singular appearance, lean, with a long thin drooping nose, commonly supported him. Petitot, who bore the nickname of "the Inquisitor," represented the Venerable Company of Pastors, and was viewed with especial distaste by the turbulent spirits whom the war had left in the city, as well as by the lower ranks, who upheld Blondel. In sense and vigour the Fourth Syndic was more than a match for the two precisians: but honesty of purpose has a weight of its own that slowly makes itself felt. "That is not all," Baudichon repeated after a glance at his neighbour and ally Petitot, "I want to know----"

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

"With the ladders and rafts?"

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

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

"Yes."

"Well, if he be not more successful with this," Blondel answered contemptuously, "than he was with the attempt to mine the Arsenal--which ended in supplying us with two or three casks of powder--I think Captain Blandano 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 had daughters, whose faces were grave. Just thirty years had passed over the world since the horrors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew--to be speedily 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 prove a match and more than a match for both in horror and cruelty. That the Papists, if they entered, would deal more gently with Geneva, the head and front of offence, or extend to the Mother of Heretics mercy which they had refused to her children, these men did not believe. The presence of an enemy ever lurking within a league of their gates, ever threatening them by night and by day, had shaken their nerves. They feared everything, they feared always. In fitful sleep, in the small hours, they heard their doors smashed in; their dreams were disturbed by cries and shrieks, by the din of bells, and the clash of weapons.

To these men Blondel seemed over