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

peering from below bent brows, that he seemed to live.

"He would not waive his claim," Basterga answered gently, "save on a--but in substance that was all."

Blondel raised himself slowly and stiffly in the chair. His lips parted. "In substance?" he muttered hoarsely, "There was more then?"

Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "There was. Save, the Grand Duke added, on the condition--but the condition which followed was inadmissible."

Blondel gave vent to a cackling laugh. "Inadmissible?" he muttered. "Inadmissible." And then, "You are not a dying man, Messer Basterga, or you would think--few things inadmissible."

"Impossible, then."

"What was it? What was it?"--with a gesture eloquent of the impatience that was choking him.

"He asked," Basterga replied reluctantly, "a price."

"A price?"

The big man nodded.

The Syndic rose up and sat down again. "Why did you not say so? Why did you not say so at once?" he cried fiercely. "Is it about that you have been fencing all this time? Is that what you were seeking? And I fancied--A price, eh? I suppose"--in a lower tone, and with a gleam of cunning in his eyes--"he does not really want--the impossible? I am not a very rich man, Messer Basterga--you know that; and I am sure you would tell him. You would tell him that men do not count wealth here as they do in Genoa or Venice, or even in Florence. I am sure you would put him right on that," with a faint whine in his tone. "He would not strip a man to the last rag. He would not ask--thousands for it."

"No," Basterga answered, with something of asperity and even contempt in his tone. "He does not ask thousands for it, Messer Blondel. But he asks, none the less, something you cannot give."

"Money?"

"No."

"Then--what is it?" Blondel leant forward in growing fury. "Why do you fence with me? What is it, man?"

Basterga did not answer for a moment. At length, shrugging his shoulders, and speaking between jest and earnest, "The town of Geneva," he said. "No more, no less."

The Syndic started violently, then was still. But the hand which in the first instant of surprise he had raised to shield his eyes, trembled; and behind it great drops of sweat rose on his brow, and bore witness to the conflict in his breast.

"You are jesting," he said presently, without removing his hand.

"It is no jest," Basterga answered soberly. "You know the Grand Duke's keen desire. We have talked of it before. And were it only a matter," he shrugged his shoulders, "of the how--of ways and means in fact--there need be no impossibility, your position being what it is. But I know the feeling you entertain on the subject, Messer Blondel; and though I do not agree with you, for we look at the thing from different sides, I had no hope that you would come to it."

"Never!"

"No. So much so, that I had it in my mind to keep the condition to myself. But----"

"Why did you not, then?"

"Hope against hope," the big man answered, with a shrug and a laugh. "After all, a live dog is better than a dead lion--only you will not see it. We are ruled, the most of us, by our feelings, and die for our side without asking ourselves whether a single person would be a ducat the worse if the other side won. It is not philosophical," with another shrug. "That is all."

Apparently Blondel was not listening, for "The Duke must be mad!" he ejaculated, as the other uttered his last word.

"Oh no."

"Mad!" the Syndic repeated harshly, his eyes still shaded by his hand. "Does he think," with bitterness, "that I am the man to run through the streets crying 'Viva Savoia!' To raise a hopeless _emeute_ at the head of the drunken ruffians who, since the war, have been the curse of the place! And be thrown into the common jail, and hurried thence to the scaffold! If he looks for that----"

"He does not."

"He is mad."

"He does not," Basterga repeated, unmoved. "The Grand Duke is as sane as I am."

"Then what does he expect?"

But the big man laughed. "No, no, Messer Blondel," he said. "You push me too far. You mean nothing, and meaning nothing, all's said and done. I wish," he continued, rising to his feet, and reverting to the tone of sympathy which he had for the moment laid aside, "I wish I might endeavour to show you the thing as I see it, in a word, as a philosopher sees it, and as men of culture in all ages, rising above the prejudices of the vulgar, have seen it. For after all, as Persius says,

Live while thou liv'st! for death will make us all, A name, a nothing, but an old wife's tale.

But I must not," reluctantly. "I know that."

The Syndic had lowered his hand; but he still sat with his eyes averted, gazing sullenly at the corner of the floor.

"I knew it when I came," Basterga resumed after a pause, "and therefore I was loth to speak to you."

"Yes."

"You understand, I am sure?"

The Syndic moved in his chair, but did not speak, and Basterga took up his cap with a sigh. "I would I had brought you better news, Messer Blondel," he said, as he rose and turned to go. "But _Cor ne edito!_ I am the happier for speaking, though I have done no good!" And with a gesture of farewell, not without its dignity, he bowed, opened the door, and went out, leaving the Syndic to his reflections.


CHAPTER XI.

BY THIS OR THAT.

Long after Basterga, with an exultant smile and the words "I have limed him!" on his lips, had passed into the Bourg du Four and gone to his lodging, the Syndic sat frowning in his chair. From time to time a sigh deep and heart-rending, a sigh that must have melted even Petitot, even Baudichon, swelled his breast; and more than once he raised his eyes to his painted effigy over the mantel, and cast on it a look that claimed the pity of men and Heaven.

Nevertheless with each sigh and glance, though sigh and glance lost no whit of their fervour, it might have been observed that his face grew brighter; and that little by little, as he reflected on what had passed, he sat more firmly and strongly in his chair.

Not that he purposed buying his life at the price which Basterga had put on it. Never! But when a ship is on the lee-shore it is pleasant to know that if one anchor fails to hold there is a second, albeit a borrowed one. The knowledge steadies the nerves and enables the mind to deal more firmly with the crisis. Or--to put the image in a shape nearer to the fact--though the power to escape by a shameful surrender may sap the courage of the garrison, it may also enable it to array its defences without panic. The Syndic, for the present at least, entertained no thought of saving himself by a shameful compliance; it was indeed because the compliance was so shameful, and the impossibility of stooping to it so complete, that he sighed thus deeply, and raised eyes so piteous to his own portrait. He who stood almost in the position of Pater Patriae to Geneva, to betray Geneva! He the father of his country to betray his country! Perish the thought! But, alas, he too must perish, unless he could hit on some other way of winning the _remedium_.

Still, it is not to be gainsaid that the Syndic went about the search for this other way in a more cheerful spirit; and revolved this plan and that plan in a mind more at ease. The ominous shadow of the night, the sequent gloom of the morning were gone; in their place rode an almost giddy hopefulness to which no scheme seemed too fanciful, no plan without its promise. Betray his country! Never, never! Though, be it noted, there was small scope in the Republic for such a man as himself, and he had received and could receive but a tithe of the honour he deserved! While other men, Baudichon and Petitot for instance, to say nothing of Fabri and Du Pin, reaped where they had not sown.

That, by the way; for it had naught to do with the matter in hand--the discovery of a scheme which would place the _remedium_ within his grasp. He thought awhile of the young student. He might make a second attempt to coerce him. But Claude's flat refusal to go farther with the matter, a refusal on which, up to the time of Basterga's abrupt entrance, the Syndic had made no impression, was a factor; and reluctantly, after some thought, Blondel put him out of his mind.

To do the thing himself was his next idea. But the scare of the night before had given him a distaste for the house; and he shrank from the attempt with a timidity he did not understand. He held the room in abhorrence, the house in dread; and though he told himself that in the last resort--perhaps he meant the last but one--he should venture, while there was any other way he put that plan aside.

And there was another way: there were others through whom the thing could be done. Grio, indeed, who had access to the room and the box, was Basterga's creature; and the Syndic dared not tamper with him. But there was a third lodger, a young fellow, of whom the inquiries he had made respecting the house had apprised him. Blondel had met Gentilis more than once, and marked him; and the lad's weak chin and shifty eyes, no less than the servility with which he saluted the magistrate had not been lost on the observer. The youth, granted he was not under Basterga's thumb, was unlikely to refuse a request backed by authority.

As he reflected, the very person who was in his thoughts passed the window, moving with the shuffling gait and sidelong look which betrayed his character. The Syndic took his presence for an omen: tempted by it, he rose precipitately, seized his head-gear and cane, and hurried into the street. He glanced up and down, and saw Louis in the distance moving in the direction of the College. He followed. Three or four youths, bearing books, were hastening in the same direction through the narrow street of the Coppersmiths, and the Syndic fell in behind them. He dared not hasten over-much, for a dozen curious eyes watched him from the noisy beetle-browed stalls on either side; and presently, finding that he did not gain, he was making up his mind to await a better occasion, when Louis, abandoning a companion who had just joined him, dived into one of the brassfounders' shops.

The Syndic walked on slowly, returning here and there a reverential salute. He was nearly at the gate of the College, when Louis, late and in haste, overtook him, and hurried by him. Blondel doubted an instant what he should do; doubted now the moment for action was come the wisdom of the step he had in his mind. But a feverish desire to act had seized upon him, and after a moment's hesitation he raised his voice. "Young man," he said, "a moment! Here!"

Louis, not quite out of earshot, turned, found the magistrate's eye upon him, wavered,