Count Hannibal by Stanley J. Weyman

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"This intrusion is not by M. de Tavannes' orders!" she cried, stepping
forward haughtily. "This person has no business here. How dare you
admit him?"

The Norman showed his bearded visage a moment at the door.

"My lord's orders," he muttered sullenly. And he closed the door on
them.

She had a Huguenot's hatred of a cowl; and, in this crisis, her reasons
for fearing it. Her eyes blazed with indignation.

"Enough!" she cried, pointing, with a gesture of dismissal, to the door.
"Go back to him who sent you! If he will insult me, let him do it to my
face! If he will perjure himself, let him forswear himself in person.
Or, if you come on your own account," she continued, flinging prudence to
the winds, "as your brethren came to Philippa de Luns, to offer me the
choice you offered her, I give you her answer! If I had thought of
myself only, I had not lived so long! And rather than bear your presence
or hear your arguments--"

She came to a sudden, odd, quavering pause on the word; her lips remained
parted, she swayed an instant on her feet. The next moment Madame
Carlat, to whom the visitor had turned his shoulder, doubted her eyes,
for Mademoiselle was in the monk's arms!

"Clotilde! Clotilde!" he cried, and held her to him.

For the monk was M. de Tignonville! Under the cowl was the lover with
whom Mademoiselle's thoughts had been engaged. In this disguise, and
armed with Tavannes' note to Madame St. Lo--which the guards below knew
for Count Hannibal's hand, though they were unable to decipher the
contents--he had found no difficulty in making his way to her.

He had learned before he entered that Tavannes was abroad, and was aware,
therefore, that he ran little risk. But his betrothed, who knew nothing
of his adventures in the interval, saw in him one who came to her at the
greatest risk, across unnumbered perils, through streets swimming with
blood. And though she had never embraced him save in the crisis of the
massacre, though she had never called him by his Christian name, in the
joy of this meeting she abandoned herself to him, she clung to him
weeping, she forgot for the time his defection, and thought only of him
who had returned to her so gallantly, who brought into the room a breath
of Poitou, and the sea, and the old days, and the old life; and at the
sight of whom the horrors of the last two days fell from her--for the
moment.

And Madame Carlat wept also, and in the room was a sound of weeping. The
least moved was, for a certainty, M. de Tignonville himself, who, as we
know, had gone through much that day. But even his heart swelled, partly
with pride, partly with thankfulness that he had returned to one who
loved him so well. Fate had been kinder to him than he deserved; but he
need not confess that now. When he had brought off the _coup_ which he
had in his mind, he would hasten to forget that he had entertained other
ideas.

Mademoiselle had been the first to be carried away; she was also the
first to recover herself.

"I had forgotten," she cried suddenly, "I had forgotten," and she wrested
herself from his embrace with violence, and stood panting, her face
white, her eyes affrighted. "I must not! And you--I had forgotten that
too! To be here, Monsieur, is the worst office you can do me. You must
go! Go, Monsieur, in mercy I beg of you, while it is possible. Every
moment you are here, every moment you spend in this house, I shudder."

"You need not fear for me," he said, in a tone of bravado. He did not
understand.

"I fear for myself!" she answered. And then, wringing her hands, divided
between her love for him and her fear for herself, "Oh, forgive me!" she
said. "You do not know that he has promised to spare me, if he cannot
produce you, and--and--a minister? He has granted me that; but I thought
when you entered that he had gone back on his word, and sent a priest,
and it maddened me! I could not bear to think that I had gained nothing.
Now you understand, and you will pardon me, Monsieur? If he cannot
produce you I am saved. Go then, leave me, I beg, without a moment's
delay."

He laughed derisively as he turned back his cowl and squared his
shoulders.

"All that is over!" he said, "over and done with, sweet! M. de Tavannes
is at this moment a prisoner in the Arsenal. On my way hither I fell in
with M. de Biron, and he told me. The Grand Master, who would have had
me join his company, had been all night at Marshal Tavannes' hotel, where
he had been detained longer than he expected. He stood pledged to
release Count Hannibal on his return, but at my request he consented to
hold him one hour, and to do also a little thing for me."

The glow of hope which had transfigured her face faded slowly.

"It will not help," she said, "if he find you here."

"He will not! Nor you!"

"How, Monsieur?"

"In a few minutes," he explained--he could not hide his exultation, "a
message will come from the Arsenal in the name of Tavannes, bidding the
monk he sent to you bring you to him. A spoken message, corroborated by
my presence, should suffice: '_Bid the monk who is now with
Mademoiselle_,' it will run, '_bring her to me at the Arsenal, and let
four pikes guard them hither_.' When I begged M. de Biron to do this, he
laughed. 'I can do better,' he said. 'They shall bring one of Count
Hannibal's gloves, which he left on my table. Always supposing my
rascals have done him no harm, which God forbid, for I am answerable.'"

Tignonville, delighted with the stratagem which the meeting with Biron
had suggested, could see no flaw in it. She could, and though she heard
him to the end, no second glow of hope softened the lines of her
features. With a gesture full of dignity, which took in not only Madame
Carlat and the waiting-woman who stood at the door, but the absent
servants--

"And what of these?" she said. "What of these? You forget them,
Monsieur. You do not think, you cannot have thought, that I would
abandon them? That I would leave them to such mercy as he, defeated,
might extend to them? No, you forgot them."

He did not know what to answer, for the jealous eyes of the frightened
waiting-woman, fierce with the fierceness of a hunted animal, were on
him. The Carlat and she had heard, could hear. At last--

"Better one than none!" he muttered, in a voice so low that if the
servants caught his meaning it was but indistinctly. "I have to think of
you."

"And I of them," she answered firmly. "Nor is that all. Were they not
here, it could not be. My word is passed--though a moment ago, Monsieur,
in the joy of seeing you I forgot it. And how," she continued, "if I
keep not my word, can I expect him to keep his? Or how, if I am ready to
break the bond, on this happening which I never expected, can I hold him
to conditions which he loves as little--as little as I love him?"

Her voice dropped piteously on the last words; her eyes, craving her
lover's pardon, sought his. But rage, not pity or admiration, was the
feeling roused in Tignonville's breast. He stood staring at her, struck
dumb by folly so immense. At last--

"You cannot mean this," he blurted out. "You cannot mean, Mademoiselle,
that you intend to stand on that! To keep a promise wrung from you by
force, by treachery, in the midst of such horrors as he and his have
brought upon us! It is inconceivable!"

She shook her head. "I promised," she said.

"You were forced to it."

"But the promise saved our lives."

"From murderers! From assassins!" he protested.

She shook her head. "I cannot go back," she said firmly; "I cannot."

"Then you are willing to marry him," he cried in ignoble anger. "That is
it! Nay, you must wish to marry him! For, as for his conditions,
Mademoiselle," the young man continued, with an insulting laugh, "you
cannot think seriously of them. _He_ keep conditions and you in his
power! He, Count Hannibal! But for the matter of that, and were he in
the mind to keep them, what are they? There are plenty of ministers. I
left one only this morning. I could lay my hand on one in five minutes.
He has only to find one, therefore--and to find me!"

"Yes, Monsieur," she cried, trembling with wounded pride, "it is for that
reason I implore you to go. The sooner you leave me, the sooner you
place yourself in a position of security, the happier for me! Every
moment that you spend here, you endanger both yourself and me!"

"If you will not be persuaded--"

"I shall not be persuaded," she answered firmly, "and you do but"--alas!
her pride began to break down, her voice to quiver, she looked piteously
at him--"by staying here make it harder for me to--to--"

"Hush!" cried Madame Carlat. "Hush!" And as they started and turned
towards her--she was at the end of the chamber by the door, almost out of
earshot--she raised a warning hand. "Listen!" she muttered, "some one
has entered the house."

"'Tis my messenger from Biron," Tignonville answered sullenly. And he
drew his cowl over his face, and, hiding his hands in his sleeves, moved
towards the door. But on the threshold he turned and held out his arms.
He could not go thus. "Mademoiselle! Clotilde!" he cried with passion,
"for the last time, listen to me, come with me. Be persuaded!"

"Hush!" Madame Carlat interposed again, and turned a scared face on them.
"It is no messenger! It is Tavannes himself: I know his voice." And she
wrung her hands. "_Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu_, what are we to do?" she
continued, panic-stricken. And she looked all ways about the room.

CHAPTER XVI. AT CLOSE QUARTERS.

Fear leapt into Mademoiselle's eyes, but she commanded herself. She
signed to Madame Carlat to be silent, and they listened, gazing at one
another, hoping against hope that the woman was mistaken. A long moment
they waited, and some were beginning to breathe again, when the strident
tones of Count Hannibal's voice rolled up the staircase, and put an end
to doubt. Mademoiselle grasped the table and stood supporting herself by
it.

"What are we to do?" she muttered. "What are we to do?" and she turned
distractedly towards the women. The courage which had supported her in
her lover's absence had abandoned her now. "If he finds him here I am
lost! I am lost!"

"He will not know me," Tignonville muttered. But he spoke uncertainly;
and his gaze, shifting hither and thither, belied the boldness of his
words.

Madame Carlat's eyes flew round the room; on her for once the burden
seemed to rest. Alas! the room had no second door, and the windows
looked on a courtyard guarded by Tavannes' people. And even now Count
Hannibal's step rang on the stair! his hand was almost on the latch. The
woman wrung her hands; then, a thought striking her, she darted to a
corner where Mademoiselle's robes hung on pegs against the wall.

"Here!" she cried, raising them. "Behind these! He may not be seen
here! Quick, Monsieur, quick! Hide yourself!"

It was a forlorn hope--the suggestion of one who had not thought out the
position; and, whatever its promise, Mademoiselle's pride revolted
against it.

"No," she cried. "Not there!" while Tignonville, who knew that the step
was useless, since Count Hannibal must have learned that a monk had
entered, held his ground.

"You could not deny yourself?" he muttered hurriedly.

"And a priest with me?" she answered; and she shook her head.

There was no time for more, and even as Mademoiselle spoke Count
Hannibal's knuckles tapped the door. She cast a last look at her lover.
He had turned his back on the window; the light no longer fell on his
face. It was possible that he might pass unrecognized, if Tavannes' stay
was brief; at any rate, the risk must be run. In a half stifled voice
she bade her woman, Javette, open the door. Count Hannibal bowed low as
he entered; and he deceived the others. But he did not deceive her. He
had not crossed the threshold before she repented that she had not acted
on Tignonville's suggestion, and denied herself. For what could escape
those hard keen eyes, which swept the room, saw all, and seemed to see
nothing--those eyes in which there dwelt even now a glint of cruel
humour? He might deceive others, but she who panted within his grasp, as
the wild bird palpitates in the hand of the fowler, was not deceived! He
saw, he knew! although, as he bowed, and smiling, stood upright, he
looked only at her.

"I expected to be with you before this," he said courteously, "but I have
been detained. First, Mademoiselle, by some of your friends, who were
reluctant to part with me; then by some of your enemies, who, finding me
in no handsome case, took me for a Huguenot escaped from the river, and
drove me to shifts to get clear of them. However, now I am come, I have
news."

"News?" she muttered with dry lips. It could hardly be good news.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, of M. de Tignonville," he answered. "I have little
doubt that I shall be able to produce him this evening, and so to satisfy
one of your scruples. And as I trust that this good father," he went on,
turning to the ecclesiastic, and speaking with the sneer from which he
seldom refrained, Catholic as he was, when he mentioned a priest, "has by
this time succeeded in removing the other, and persuading you to accept
his ministrations--"

"No!" she cried impulsively.

"No?" with a dubious smile, and a glance from one to the other. "Oh, I
had hoped better things. But he still may? He still may. I am sure he
may. In which case, Mademoiselle, your modesty must pardon me if I plead
urgency, and fix the hour after supper this evening for the fulfilment of
your promise."

She turned white to the lips. "After supper?" she gasped.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, this evening. Shall I say--at eight o'clock?"

In horror of the thing which menaced her, of the thing from which only
two hours separated her, she could find no words but those which she had
already used. The worst was upon her; worse than the worst could not
befall her.

"But he has not persuaded me!" she cried, clenching her hands in passion.
"He has not persuaded me!"

"Still he may, Mademoiselle."

"He will not!" she cried wildly. "He will not!"

The room was going round with her. The precipice yawned at her feet; its
naked terrors turned her brain. She had been pushed nearer, and nearer,
and nearer; struggle as she might, she was on the verge. A mist rose
before her eyes, and though they thought she listened she understood
nothing of what was passing. When she came to herself, after the lapse
of a minute, Count Hannibal was speaking.

"Permit him another trial," he was saying in a tone of bland irony. "A
short time longer, Mademoiselle! One more assault, father! The weapons
of the Church could not be better directed or to a more worthy object;
and, successful, shall not fail of due recognition and an earthly
reward."

And while she listened, half fainting, with a humming in her ears, he was
gone. The door closed on him, and the three--Mademoiselle's woman had
withdrawn when she opened to him--looked at one another. The girl parted
her lips to speak, but she only smiled piteously; and it was M. de
Tignonville who broke the silence, in a tone which betrayed rather relief
than any other feeling.

"Come, all is not lost yet," he said briskly. "If I can escape from the
house--"

"He knows you," she answered.

"What?"

"He knows you," Mademoiselle repeated in a tone almost apathetic. "I
read it in his eyes. He knew you at once: and knew, too," she added
bitterly, "that he had here under his hand one of the two things he
required."

"Then why did he hide his knowledge?" the young man retorted sharply.

"Why?" she answered. "To induce me to waive the other condition in the
hope of saving you. Oh!" she continued in a tone of bitter raillery, "he
has the cunning of hell, of the priests! You are no match for him,
Monsieur. Nor I; nor any of us. And"--with a gesture of despair--"he
will be my master! He will break me to his will and to his hand! I
shall be his! His, body and soul, body and soul!" she continued
drearily, as she sank into a chair and, rocking herself to and fro,
covered her face. "I shall be his! His till I die!"

The man's eyes burned, and the pulse in his temples beat wildly.

"But you shall not!" he exclaimed. "I may be no match for him in
cunning, you say well. But I can kill him. And I will!" He paced up
and down. "I will!"

"You should have done it when he was here," she answered, half in scorn,
half in earnest.

"It is not too late," he cried; and then he stopped, silenced by the
opening door. It was Javette who entered. They looked at her, and
before she spoke were on their feet. Her face, white and eager, marking
something besides fear, announced that she brought news. She closed the
door behind her, and in a moment it was told.

"Monsieur can escape, if he is quick," she cried in a low tone; and they
saw that she trembled with excitement. "They are at supper. But he must
be quick! He must be quick!"

"Is not the door guarded?"

"It is, but--"

"And he knows! Your mistress says that he knows that I am here."

For a moment Javette looked startled. "It is possible," she muttered.
"But he has gone out."

Madame Carlat clapped her hands. "I heard the door close," she said,
"three minutes ago."

"And if Monsieur can reach the room in which he supped last night, the
window that was broken is only blocked"--she swallowed once or twice in
her excitement--"with something he can move. And then Monsieur is in the
street, where his cowl will protect him."

"But Count Hannibal's men?" he asked eagerly.

"They are eating in the lodge by the door."

"Ha! And they cannot see the other room from there?"

Javette nodded. Her tale told, she seemed to be unable to add a word.
Mademoiselle, who knew her for a craven, wondered that she had found
courage either to note what she had or to bring the news. But as
Providence had been so good to them as to put it into this woman's head
to act as she had, it behoved them to use the opportunity--the last, the
very last opportunity they might have.

She turned to Tignonville. "Oh, go!" she cried feverishly. "Go, I beg!
Go now, Monsieur! The greatest kindness you can do me is to place
yourself as quickly as possible beyond his reach." A faint colour, the
flush of hope, had returned to her cheeks. Her eyes glittered.

"Right, Mademoiselle!" he cried, obedient for once, "I go! And do you be
of good courage."

He held her hand: an instant, then, moving to the door, he opened it and
listened. They all pressed behind him to hear. A murmur of voices, low
and distant, mounted the staircase and bore out the girl's tale; apart
from this the house was silent. Tignonville cast a last look at
Mademoiselle, and, with a gesture of farewell, glided a-tiptoe to the
stairs and began to descend, his face hidden in his cowl. They watched
him reach the angle of the staircase, they watched him vanish beyond it;
and still they listened, looking at one another when a board creaked or
the voices below were hushed for a moment.

CHAPTER XVII. THE DUEL.

At the foot of the staircase Tignonville paused. The droning Norman
voices of the men on guard issued from an open door a few paces before
him on the left. He caught a jest, the coarse chuckling laughter which
attended it, and the gurgle of applause which followed; and he knew that
at any moment one of the men might step out and discover him. Fortunately
the door of the room with the shattered window was almost within reach of
his hand on the right side of the passage, and he stepped softly to it.
He stood an instant hesitating, his hand on the latch; then, alarmed by a
movement in the guard-room, as if some were rising, he pushed the door in
a panic, slid into the room, and shut the door behind him. He was safe,
and he had made no noise; but at the table, at supper, with his back to
him and his face to the partly closed window, sat Count Hannibal!

The young man's heart stood still. For a long minute he gazed at the
Count's back, spellbound and unable to stir. Then, as Tavannes ate on
without looking round, he began to take courage. Possibly he had entered
so quietly that he had not been heard, or possibly his entrance was taken
for that of a servant. In either case, there was a chance that he might
retire after the same fashion; and he had actually raised the latch, and
was drawing the door to him with infinite precaution, when Tavannes'
voice struck him, as it were, in the face.

"Pray do not admit the draught, M. de Tignonville," he said, without
looking round. "In your cowl you do not feel it, but it is otherwise
with me."

The unfortunate Tignonville stood transfixed, glaring at the back of the
other's head. For an instant he could not find his voice. At last--

"Curse you!" he hissed in a transport of rage. "Curse you! You did
know, then? And she was right."

"If you mean that I expected you, to be sure, Monsieur," Count Hannibal
answered. "See, your place is laid. You will not feel the air from
without there. The very becoming dress which you have adopted secures
you from cold. But--do you not find it somewhat oppressive this summer
weather?"

"Curse you!" the young man cried, trembling.

Tavannes turned and looked at him with a dark smile. "The curse may
fall," he said, "but I fancy it will not be in consequence of your
petitions, Monsieur. And now, were it not better you played the man?"

"If I were armed," the other cried passionately, "you would not insult
me!"

"Sit down, sir, sit down," Count Hannibal answered sternly. "We will
talk of that presently. In the mean time I have something to say to you.
Will you not eat?"

But Tignonville would not.

"Very well," Count Hannibal answered; and he went on with his supper. "I
am indifferent whether you eat or not. It is enough for me that you are
one of the two things I lacked an hour ago; and that I have you, M. de
Tignonville. And through you I look to obtain the other."

"What other?" Tignonville cried.

"A minister," Tavannes answered, smiling. "A minister. There are not
many left in Paris--of your faith. But you met one this morning, I
know."

"I? I met one?"

"Yes, Monsieur, you! And can lay your hand on him in five minutes, you
know."

M. de Tignonville gasped. His face turned a shade paler.

"You have a spy," he cried. "You have a spy upstairs!"

Tavannes raised his cup to his lips, and drank. When he had set it down--

"It may be," he said, and he shrugged his shoulders. "I know, it boots
not how I know. It is my business to make the most of my knowledge--and
of yours!"

M. de Tignonville laughed rudely. "Make the most of your own," he said;
"you will have none of mine."

"That remains to be seen," Count Hannibal answered. "Carry your mind
back two days, M. de Tignonville. Had I gone to Mademoiselle de Vrillac
last Saturday and said to her 'Marry me, or promise to marry me,' what
answer would she have given?"

"She would have called you an insolent!" the young man replied hotly.
"And I--"

"No matter what you would have done!" Tavannes said. "Suffice it that
she would have answered as you suggest. Yet to-day she has given me her
promise."

"Yes," the young man retorted, "in circumstances in which no man of
honour--"

"Let us say in peculiar circumstances."

"Well?"

"Which still exist! Mark me, M. de Tignonville," Count Hannibal
continued, leaning forward and eyeing the young man with meaning, "_which
still exist_! And may have the same effect on another's will as on hers!
Listen! Do you hear?" And rising from his seat with a darkening face,
he pointed to the partly shuttered window, through which the measured
tramp of a body of men came heavily to the ear. "Do you hear, Monsieur?
Do you understand? As it was yesterday it is to-day! They killed the
President La Place this morning! And they are searching! They are still
searching! The river is not yet full, nor the gibbet glutted! I have
but to open that window and denounce you, and your life would hang by no
stronger thread than the life of a mad dog which they chase through the
streets!"

The younger man had risen also. He stood confronting Tavannes, the cowl
fallen back from his face, his eyes dilated.

"You think to frighten me!" he cried. "You think that I am craven enough
to sacrifice her to save myself. You--"

"You were craven enough to draw back yesterday, when you stood at this
window and waited for death!" Count Hannibal answered brutally. "You
flinched then, and may flinch again!"

"Try me!" Tignonville retorted, trembling with passion. "Try me!" And
then, as the other stared at him and made no movement, "But you dare
not!" he cried. "You dare not!"

"No?"

"No! For if I die you lose her!" Tignonville replied in a voice of
triumph. "Ha, ha! I touch you there!" he continued. "You dare not, for
my safety is part of the price, and is more to you than it is to myself!
You may threaten, M. de Tavannes, you may bluster, and shout and point to
the window"--and he mocked, with a disdainful mimicry, the other's
gesture--"but my safety is more to you than to me! And 'twill end
there!"

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