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

to move then--three paces divided the men; but, in his haste to raise the pistol, Blondel had not shaken from it the handkerchief under which he had hidden it, and the lock fell on a morsel of the stuff. The next moment Basterga's huge hand struck aside the useless weapon, and flung Blondel gasping against the wall.

"Fool!" the scholar cried, towering above the baffled, shrinking man whose attempt had placed him at his mercy. "Think you that Caesar Basterga was born to perish by your hand? That the gods made me what I am, I who carry to-night the fortunes of a nation and the fate of a king, that I might fall by so pitiful a creature as you! Ay, 'tis the alarm-bell, you are right. And by-and-by your friends will be here. It is a wonder," he continued, with a cruel look, "that they are not here already; but perhaps they have enough to fill their hands! And come or stay--if they be like you, poor fool, weak in body as in wit--I care not! I, Caesar Basterga, this night lord of Geneva, and in the time to come, and thanks to you----"

"Curse you!" Blondel gasped.

"That which I dare be sworn you have dreamt of being!"--the scholar continued with a subtle smile. "The Grand Duke's _alter ego_, Mayor of the Palace, Adviser to his Highness! Yes, I hit you there? I touch you there! Oh, vanity of little men, I thought so! "He broke off and listened, as sharp on one another two gun-shots rang out at no great distance from the house. A third followed as he hearkened: and on it a swelling wave of sound that rose with each second louder and nearer. "Ay, 'tis known now!" Basterga resumed, in a tone more quiet, but not less confident. "And I must go, my dear friend--who thought a minute ago to speed me for ever. Know that it lies not in hands mean as yours to harm Caesar Basterga of Padua! And that to-night, of all nights, I bear a charmed life! I carry, Syndic, a kingdom and its fortunes!"

He seemed to swell with the thought, and in comparison of the sickly man scowling darkly on him from the wall, he did indeed look a king, as he turned to the door, flung it wide and passed into the passage. With only the street door between him and the hub-bub that was beginning to fill the night, he could measure the situation. He had stayed late. The beat of many feet hastening one way--towards the Porte Tertasse--the clatter of weapons as here and there a man trailed his pike on the stones, the roar of rising voices, the rattle of metal as some one hauled a chain across the end of the Bourg du Four and hooked it--sounds such as these might have alarmed an ordinary man who knew himself cut off from his party, and isolated among foes.

But Basterga did not quail. His belief in his star was genuine; he was intoxicated with the success which he fancied lay within his grasp. He carried Caesar and his fortunes! was it in mean men to harm him? Nay, so confident was he, that when he had opened the door he stood an instant on the threshold viewing the strange scene, and quoted with an appreciation as strange--

"At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu Miscetur, penitusque cavae plangoribus aedes Femineis ululant; ferit aurea sidera clamor"--

from his favourite poet. After which without hesitation but also without hurry he turned and plunged into the stream of passers that was hurrying towards the Porte Tertasse.

He had been right not to quail. In the medley of light and shadow which filled the Bourg du Four and the streets about the Town Hall, in the confusion, in the rush of all in one direction and with one intent, no one paid heed to him, or supposed him to belong to the enemy. Some cried "To the Treille! They are there! To the Treille!" And these wheeled that way. But more, guided by the sounds of conflict, held on to the point where the short, narrow street of the Tertasse turned left-handed out of the equally narrow Rue de la Cite--the latter leading onwards to the Porte de la Monnaye, and the bridges. Here, at the meeting of the two confined lanes, overhung by timbered houses, and old gables of strange shapes, a desperate conflict was being fought. The Savoyards, masters of the gate, had undertaken to push their way into the town by the Rue Tertasse; not doubting that they would be supported by-and-by, upon the entrance of their main body through the Porte Neuve. They had proceeded no farther, however, than the junction with the Rue de la Cite--a point where darkness was made visible by two dim oil lamps--before, the alarm being given, they found themselves confronted by a dozen half-clad townsfolk, fresh from their beds; of whom five or six were at once laid low. The survivors, however, fought with desperation, giving back, foot by foot; and as the alarm flew abroad and the city rose, every moment brought the defenders a reinforcement--some father just roused from sleep, armed with the chance weapon that came to hand, or some youth panting for his first fight. The assailants, therefore, found themselves stayed; slowly they were driven back into the narrow gullet of the Tertasse. Even there they were put to it to hold their ground against an ever-increasing swarm of citizens, whom despair and the knowledge that they were fighting on their hearths, for their wives, and for their children, brought up in renewed strength.

In the Tertasse, however, where it was not possible to outflank them, and no dark side-alley, vomiting now and again a desperate man, gave one to death, a score could hold out against a hundred. Here then, with the gateway at their backs--whence three or four could fire over their heads--the Savoyards stood stubbornly at bay, awaiting the reinforcements which they were sure would come from the Porte Neuve. They were picked troops not easily discouraged; and they had no fear that aught serious had happened. But they asked impatiently why D'Albigny with the main body did not come; why Brunaulieu with the Monnaye in his hands did not see that the time was opportune. They chafed at the delay. Give the city time to array itself, let it recover from its first surprise, and all their forces might scarcely avail to crush opposition.

It was at this moment, when the burghers had drawn back a little that they might deliver a decisive attack, that Basterga came up. Fabri the Syndic had taken the command, and had shouted to all who had windows looking on the lane to light them. He had arrayed his men in some sort of order and was on the point of giving the word to charge, when he heard the steps of Basterga and some others coming up; he waited to allow them to join him. The instant they arrived he gave the word, and followed by some thirty burghers armed with half-pikes, halberds, anything the men had been able to snatch up, he charged the Savoyards bravely.

In the narrow lane but four or five could fight abreast, and the Grand Duke's men were clad in steel and well armed. Nevertheless Fabri bore back the first line, pressed on them stoutly, and amid a wild _melee_ of struggling men and waving weapons, began to drive the troop, in spite of a fierce resistance, into the gate. If he could do this and enter with them, even though he lost half his men, he might save the city.

But the Savoyards, though they gave back, gave back slowly. Within twenty paces of the gate the advance wavered, stopped, hung an instant. Of that instant Basterga took advantage. He had moved on undetected, with the rearmost burghers: now he saw his opportunity and seized it. He flung to either side the man to right and left of him. He struck down, almost with the same movement, the man in front. He rushed on Fabri, who in the middle of the first line was supporting, though far from young, a single combat with one of the Savoyard leaders. On him Basterga's coward weapon alighted without warning, and laid him low. To strike down another, and turning, range himself in the van of the foreigners with a mighty "Savoy! Savoy!" was Basterga's next action; and it sufficed. The panic-stricken burghers, apprised of treason in their ranks, gave back every way. The Savoyards saw their advantage, rallied, and pressed them. Speedily the Italians regained the ground they had lost, and with the tall form of their champion fighting in the van, began to sweep the towns-folk back into the Rue de la Cite.

But arrived at the meeting of the ways, Basterga's followers paused, hesitating to expose their flank by entering this second street. The Genevese saw this, rallied in their turn, and for a moment seemed to be holding their own. But three or four of their doughtiest fighters lay stark in the kennel, they had no longer a leader, they were poorly armed and hastily collected; and devoted as they were, it needed little to renew the panic and start them in utter rout. Basterga saw this, and when his men still hung back, neglecting the golden opportunity, he rushed forward, almost alone, until he stood conspicuous between the two bands--the one hesitating to come on, the other hesitating to fly.

"Savoy!" he thundered, "Ville gagnee! The city is ours! Cowards, come on!" And waving his halberd above his head, he beckoned to his followers to advance.

Had they done so, had they charged on the instant, they had changed all for him, and perhaps all for Geneva. But they hung a moment, and the next, as in shame they drew themselves together for the charge, their champion stooped forward with a shrill scream. The next instant he received full on his nape a heavy iron pot, that descending with tremendous force from a window above him, rolled from him broken into three pieces.

He went down under the blow as if a sledge-hammer had struck him; and so sudden, so dramatic was the fall--his armour clanging about him--that for an instant the two bands held their hands and stood staring, as indifferent crowds stand and gaze in the street. A dozen on the patriots' side knew the house from which the _marmite_ fell, and marked it; and half as many saw at the small window whence it came the grey locks and stern wrinkled face of an aged woman. The effect on the burghers was magical. As if the act symbolised not only the loved ones for whom they fought, but the dire distress to which they were come, they rushed on the foreign men-at-arms with a spirit and a fury hitherto unknown. With a ringing shout of "Mere Royaume! Mere Royaume!"--raised by those who knew the old woman, and taken up by many who did not--they swept the foe, shaken by the fall of their leader, along the narrow Tertasse, pressed on them, and, still shouting the new war-cry, entered the gateway along with them.

"Mere Royaume! Mere Royaume!" The name rang savagely in the groining of the arch, echoed dully in the obscurity in which the fierce struggle went on. And men struck to its rhythm, and men died to it. And men who heard it thus and lived never forgot it, nor ever went back in their minds to that night without recalling it.

To one man, flurried already, and a coward at heart, the name carried a paralysing assurance of doom.