Count Hannibal by Stanley J. Weyman

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"You believe that?"

"I know it!"

In two strides Count Hannibal was at the window. He seized a great piece
of the boarding which closed one-half of the opening; he wrenched it
away. A flood of evening light burst in through the aperture, and fell
on and heightened the flushed passion of his features, as he turned again
to his opponent.

"Then if you know it," he cried vehemently, "in God's name act upon it!"
And he pointed to the window.

"Act upon it?"

"Ay, act upon it!" Tavannes repeated, with a glance of flame. "The road
is open! If you would save your mistress, behold the way! If you would
save her from the embrace she abhors, from the eyes under which she
trembles, from the hand of a master, there lies the way! And it is not
her glove only you will save, but herself, her soul, her body! So," he
continued, with a certain wildness, and in a tone wherein contempt and
bitterness were mingled, "to the lions, brave lover! Will you your life
for her honour? Will you death that she may live a maid? Will you your
head to save her finger? Then, leap down! leap down! The lists are
open, the sand is strewed! Out of your own mouth I have it that if you
perish she is saved! Then out, Monsieur! Cry 'I am a Huguenot!' And
God's will be done!"

Tignonville was livid. "Rather, your will!" he panted. "Your will, you
devil! Nevertheless--"

"You will go! Ha! ha! You will go!"

For an instant it seemed that he would go. Stung by the challenge,
wrought on by the contempt in which Tavannes held him, he shot a look of
hate at the tempter; he caught his breath, and laid his hand on the edge
of the shuttering as if he would leap out.

But it goes hard with him who has once turned back from the foe. The
evening light, glancing cold on the burnished pike-points of a group of
archers who stood near, caught his eye and went chill to his heart.
Death, not in the arena, not in the sight of shouting thousands, but in
this darkening street, with an enemy laughing from the window, death with
no revenge to follow, with no certainty that after all she would be safe,
such a death could be compassed only by pure love--the love of a child
for a parent, of a parent for a child, of a man for the one woman in the
world!

He recoiled. "You would not spare her!" he cried, his face damp with
sweat--for he knew now that he would not go. "You want to be rid of me!
You would fool me, and then--"

"Out of your own mouth you are convict!" Count Hannibal retorted gravely.
"It was you who said it! But still I swear it! Shall I swear it to
you?"

But Tignonville recoiled another step and was silent.

"No? O _preux chevalier_, O gallant knight! I knew it! Do you think
that I did not know with whom I had to deal?" And Count Hannibal burst
into harsh laughter, turning his back on the other, as if he no longer
counted. "You will neither die with her nor for her! You were better in
her petticoats and she in your breeches! Or no, you are best as you are,
good father! Take my advice, M. de Tignonville, have done with arms; and
with a string of beads, and soft words, and talk of Holy Mother Church,
you will fool the women as surely as the best of them! They are not all
like my cousin, a flouting, gibing, jeering woman--you had poor fortune
there, I fear?"

"If I had a sword!" Tignonville hissed, his face livid with rage. "You
call me coward, because I will not die to please you. But give me a
sword, and I will show you if I am a coward!"

Tavannes stood still. "You are there, are you?" he said in an altered
tone. "I--"

"Give me a sword," Tignonville repeated, holding out his open trembling
hands. "A sword! A sword! 'Tis easy taunting an unarmed man, but--"

"You wish to fight?"

"I ask no more! No more! Give me a sword," he urged, his voice
quivering with eagerness. "It is you who are the coward!"

Count Hannibal stared at him. "And what am I to get by fighting you?" he
reasoned slowly. "You are in my power. I can do with you as I please. I
can call from this window and denounce you, or I can summon my men--"

"Coward! Coward!"

"Ay? Well, I will tell you what I will do," with a subtle smile. "I
will give you a sword, M. de Tignonville, and I will meet you foot to
foot here, in this room, on a condition."

"What is it? What is it?" the young man cried with incredible eagerness.
"Name your condition!"

"That if I get the better of you, you find me a minister."

"I find you a--"

"A minister. Yes, that is it. Or tell me where I can find one."

The young man recoiled. "Never!" he said.

"You know where to find one."

"Never! Never!"

"You can lay your hand on one in five minutes, you know."

"I will not."

"Then I shall not fight you!" Count Hannibal answered coolly; and he
turned from him, and back again. "You will pardon me if I say, M. de
Tignonville, that you are in as many minds about fighting as about dying!
I do not think that you would have made your fortune at Court. Moreover,
there is a thing which I fancy you have not considered. If we fight you
may kill me, in which case the condition will not help me much. Or
I--which is more likely--" he added, with a harsh smile, "may kill you,
and again I am no better placed."

The young man's pallid features betrayed the conflict in his breast. To
do him justice, his hand itched for the sword-hilt--he was brave enough
for that; he hated, and only so could he avenge himself. But the penalty
if he had the worse! And yet what of it? He was in hell now, in a hell
of humiliation, shame, defeat, tormented by this fiend! 'Twas only to
risk a lower hell.

At last, "I will do it!" he cried hoarsely. "Give me a sword and look to
yourself."

"You promise?"

"Yes, yes, I promise!"

"Good," Count Hannibal answered suavely, "but we cannot fight so, we must
have more light."

And striding to the door he opened it, and calling the Norman bade him
move the table and bring candles--a dozen candles; for in the narrow
streets the light was waning, and in the half-shuttered room it was
growing dusk. Tignonville, listening with a throbbing brain, wondered
that the attendant expressed no surprise and said no word--until Tavannes
added to his orders one for a pair of swords.

Then, "Monsieur's sword is here," Bigot answered in his half-intelligible
patois. "He left it here yester morning."

"You are a good fellow, Bigot," Tavannes answered, with a gaiety and good-
humour which astonished Tignonville. "And one of these days you shall
marry Suzanne."

The Norman smiled sourly and went in search of the weapon.

"You have a poniard?" Count Hannibal continued in the same tone of
unusual good temper, which had already struck Tignonville. "Excellent!
Will you strip, then, or--as we are? Very good, Monsieur; in the
unlikely event of fortune declaring for you, you will be in a better
condition to take care of yourself. A man running through the streets in
his shirt is exposed to inconveniences!" And he laughed gaily.

While he laughed the other listened; and his rage began to give place to
wonder. A man who regarded as a pastime a sword and dagger conflict
between four walls, who, having his adversary in his power, was ready to
discard the advantage, to descend into the lists, and to risk life for a
whim, a fancy--such a man was outside his experience, though in Poitou in
those days of war were men reckoned brave. For what, he asked himself as
he waited, had Tavannes to gain by fighting? The possession of
Mademoiselle? But Mademoiselle, if his passion for her overwhelmed him,
was in his power; and if his promise were a barrier--which seemed
inconceivable in the light of his reputation--he had only to wait, and to-
morrow, or the next day, or the next, a minister would be found, and
without risk he could gain that for which he was now risking all.

Tignonville did not know that it was in the other's nature to find
pleasure in such utmost ventures. Nevertheless the recklessness to which
Tavannes' action bore witness had its effect upon him. By the time the
young man's sword arrived something of his passion for the conflict had
evaporated; and though the touch of the hilt restored his determination,
the locked door, the confined space, and the unaccustomed light went a
certain distance towards substituting despair for courage.

The use of the dagger in the duels of that day, however, rendered despair
itself formidable. And Tignonville, when he took his place, appeared
anything but a mean antagonist. He had removed his robe and cowl, and
lithe and active as a cat he stood as it were on springs, throwing his
weight now on this foot and now on that, and was continually in motion.
The table bearing the candles had been pushed against the window, the
boarding of which had been replaced by Bigot before he left the room.
Tignonville had this, and consequently the lights, on his dagger hand;
and he plumed himself on the advantage, considering his point the more
difficult to follow.

Count Hannibal did not seem to notice this, however. "Are you ready?" he
asked. And then--

"On guard!" he cried, and he stamped the echo to the word. But, that
done, instead of bearing the other down with a headlong rush
characteristic of the man--as Tignonville feared--he held off warily,
stooping low; and when his slow opening was met by one as cautious, he
began to taunt his antagonist.

"Come!" he cried, and feinted half-heartedly. "Come, Monsieur, are we
going to fight, or play at fighting?"

"Fight yourself, then!" Tignonville answered, his breath quickened by
excitement and growing hope. "'Tis not I hold back!" And he lunged, but
was put aside.

"Ca! ca!" Tavannes retorted; and he lunged and parried in his turn, but
loosely and at a distance.

After which the two moved nearer the door, their eyes glittering as they
watched one another, their knees bent, the sinews of their backs
straining for the leap. Suddenly Tavannes thrust, and leapt away, and as
his antagonist thrust in return the Count swept the blade aside with a
strong parry, and for a moment seemed to be on the point of falling on
Tignonville with the poniard. But Tignonville retired his right foot
nimbly, which brought them front to front again. And the younger man
laughed.

"Try again, M. le Comte!" he said. And, with the word, he dashed in
himself quick as light; for a second the blades ground on one another,
the daggers hovered, the two suffused faces glared into one another; then
the pair disengaged again.

The blood trickled from a scratch on Count Hannibal's neck; half an inch
to the right and the point had found his throat. And Tignonville,
elated, laughed anew, and swaying from side to side on his hips, watched
with growing confidence for a second chance. Lithe as one of the
leopards Charles kept at the Louvre, he stooped lower and lower, and more
and more with each moment took the attitude of the assailant, watching
for an opening; while Count Hannibal, his face dark and his eyes
vigilant, stood increasingly on the defence. The light was waning a
little, the wicks of the candles were burning long; but neither noticed
it or dared to remove his eyes from the other's. Their laboured
breathing found an echo on the farther side of the door, but this again
neither observed.

"Well?" Count Hannibal said at last. "Are you coming?"

"When I please," Tignonville answered; and he feinted but drew back.

The other did the same, and again they watched one another, their eyes
seeming to grow smaller and smaller. Gradually a smile had birth on
Tignonville's lips. He thrust! It was parried! He thrust
again--parried! Tavannes, grown still more cautious, gave a yard.
Tignonville pushed on, but did not allow confidence to master caution. He
began, indeed, to taunt his adversary; to flout and jeer him. But it was
with a motive.

For suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he repeated the peculiar
thrust which had been successful before. This time, however, Tavannes
was ready. He put aside the blade with a quick parade, and instead of
making a riposte sprang within the other's guard. The two came face to
face and breast to shoulder, and struck furiously with their daggers.
Count Hannibal was outside his opponent's sword and had the advantage.
Tignonville's dagger fell, but glanced off the metalwork of the other's
hilt; Tavannes' fell swift and hard between the young man's eyes. The
Huguenot flung up his hands and staggered back, falling his length on the
floor.

In an instant Count Hannibal was on his breast, and had knocked away his
dagger. Then--

"You own yourself vanquished?" he cried.

The young man, blinded by the blood which trickled down his face, made a
sign with his hands. Count Hannibal rose to his feet again, and stood a
moment looking at his foe without speaking. Presently he seemed to be
satisfied. He nodded, and going to the table dipped a napkin in water.
He brought it, and carefully supporting Tignonville's head, laved his
brow.

"It is as I thought," he said, when he had stanched the blood. "You are
not hurt, man. You are stunned. It is no more than a bruise."

The young man was coming to himself. "But I thought--" he muttered, and
broke off to pass his hand over his face. Then he got up slowly, reeling
a little, "I thought it was the point," he muttered.

"No, it was the pommel," Tavannes answered dryly. "It would not have
served me to kill you. I could have done that ten times."

Tignonville groaned, and, sitting down at the table, held the napkin to
his aching head. One of the candles had been overturned in the struggle
and lay on the floor, flaring in a little pool of grease. Tavannes set
his heel upon it; then, striding to the farther end of the room, he
picked up Tignonville's dagger and placed it beside his sword on the
table. He looked about to see if aught else remained to do, and, finding
nothing, he returned to Tignonville's side.

"Now, Monsieur," he said in a voice hard and constrained, "I must ask you
to perform your part of the bargain."

A groan of anguish broke from the unhappy man. And yet he had set his
life on the cast; what more could he have done?

"You will not harm him?" he muttered.

"He shall go safe," Count Hannibal replied gravely.

"And--" he fought a moment with his pride, then blurted out the words,
"you will not tell her--that it was through me--you found him?"

"I will not," Tavannes answered in the same tone. He stooped and picked
up the other's robe and cowl, which had fallen from a chair--so that as
he spoke his eyes were averted. "She shall never know through me," he
said.

And Tignonville, his face hidden in his hands, told him.

CHAPTER XVIII. ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT.

Little by little--while they fought below--the gloom had thickened, and
night had fallen in the room above. But Mademoiselle would not have
candles brought. Seated in the darkness, on the uppermost step of the
stairs, her hands clasped about her knees, she listened and listened, as
if by that action she could avert misfortune; or as if, by going so far
forward to meet it, she could turn aside the worst. The women shivering
in the darkness about her would fain have struck a light and drawn her
back into the room, for they felt safer there. But she was not to be
moved. The laughter and chatter of the men in the guard-room, the coming
and going of Bigot as he passed, below but out of sight, had no terrors
for her; nay, she breathed more freely on the bare open landing of the
staircase than in the close confines of a room which her fears made
hateful to her. Here at least she could listen, her face unseen; and
listening she bore the suspense more easily.

A turn in the staircase, with the noise which proceeded from the guard-
room, rendered it difficult to hear what happened in the closed room
below. But she thought that if an alarm were raised there she must hear
it; and as the moments passed and nothing happened, she began to feel
confident that her lover had made good his escape by the window.

Presently she got a fright. Three or four men came from the guard-room
and went, as it seemed to her, to the door of the room with the shattered
casement. She told herself that she had rejoiced too soon, and her heart
stood still. She waited for a rush of feet, a cry, a struggle. But
except an uncertain muffled sound which lasted for some minutes, and was
followed by a dull shock, she heard nothing more. And presently the men
went back whispering, the noise in the guard-room which had been
partially hushed broke forth anew, and perplexed but relieved she
breathed again. Surely he had escaped by this time. Surely by this time
he was far away, in the Arsenal, or in some place of refuge! And she
might take courage, and feel that for this day the peril was overpast.

"Mademoiselle will have the lights now?" one of the women ventured.

"No! no!" she answered feverishly, and she continued to crouch where she
was on the stairs, bathing herself and her burning face in the darkness
and coolness of the stairway. The air entered freely through a window at
her elbow, and the place was fresher, were that all, than the room she
had left. Javette began to whimper, but she paid no heed to her; a man
came and went along the passage below, and she heard the outer door
unbarred, and the jarring tread of three or four men who passed through
it. But all without disturbance; and afterwards the house was quiet
again. And as on this Monday evening the prime virulence of the massacre
had begun to abate--though it held after a fashion to the end of the
week--Paris without was quiet also. The sounds which had chilled her
heart at intervals during two days were no longer heard. A feeling
almost of peace, almost of comfort--a drowsy feeling, that was three
parts a reaction from excitement--took possession of her. In the
darkness her head sank lower and lower on her knees. And half an hour
passed, while Javette whimpered, and Madame Carlat slumbered, her broad
back propped against the wall.

Suddenly Mademoiselle opened her eyes, and saw, three steps below her, a
strange man whose upward way she barred. Behind him came Carlat, and
behind him Bigot, lighting both; and in the confusion of her thoughts as
she rose to her feet the three, all staring at her in a common amazement,
seemed a company. The air entering through the open window beside her
blew the flame of the candle this way and that, and added to the
nightmare character of the scene; for by the shifting light the men
seemed to laugh one moment and scowl the next, and their shadows were now
high and now low on the wall. In truth, they were as much amazed at
coming on her in that place as she at their appearance; but they were
awake, and she newly roused from sleep; and the advantage was with them.

"What is it?" she cried in a panic. "What is it?"

"If Mademoiselle will return to her room?" one of the men said
courteously.

"But--what is it?" She was frightened.

"If Mademoiselle--"

Then she turned without more and went back into the room, and the three
followed, and her woman and Madame Carlat. She stood resting one hand on
the table while Javette with shaking fingers lighted the candles. Then--

"Now, Monsieur," she said in a hard voice, "if you will tell me your
business?"

"You do not know me?" The stranger's eyes dwelt kindly and pitifully on
her.

She looked at him steadily, crushing down the fears which knocked at her
heart.

"No," she said. "And yet I think I have seen you."

"You saw me a week last Sunday," the stranger answered sorrowfully. "My
name is La Tribe. I preached that day, Mademoiselle, before the King of
Navarre. I believe that you were there."

For a moment she stared at him in silence, her lips parted. Then she
laughed, a laugh which set the teeth on edge.

"Oh, he is clever!" she cried. "He has the wit of the priests! Or the
devil! But you come too late, Monsieur! You come too late! The bird
has flown."

"Mademoiselle--"

"I tell you the bird has flown!" she repeated vehemently. And her laugh
of joyless triumph rang through the room. "He is clever, but I have
outwitted him! I have--"

She paused and stared about her wildly, struck by the silence; struck too
by something solemn, something pitiful in the faces that were turned on
her. And her lip began to quiver.

"What?" she muttered. "Why do you look at me so? He has not"--she
turned from one to another--"he has not been taken?"

"M. Tignonville?"

She nodded.

"He is below."

"Ah!" she said.

They expected to see her break down, perhaps to see her fall. But she
only groped blindly for a chair and sat. And for a moment there was
silence in the room. It was the Huguenot minister who broke it in a tone
formal and solemn.

"Listen, all present!" he said slowly. "The ways of God are past finding
out. For two days in the midst of great perils I have been preserved by
His hand and fed by His bounty, and I am told that I shall live if, in
this matter, I do the will of those who hold me in their power. But be
assured--and hearken all," he continued, lowering his voice to a sterner
note. "Rather than marry this woman to this man against her will--if
indeed in His sight such marriage can be--rather than save my life by
such base compliance, I will die not once but ten times! See. I am
ready! I will make no defence!" And he opened his arms as if to welcome
the stroke. "If there be trickery here, if there has been practising
below, where they told me this and that, it shall not avail! Until I
hear from Mademoiselle's own lips that she is willing, I will not say
over her so much as Yea, yea, or Nay, nay!"

"She is willing!"

La Tribe turned sharply, and beheld the speaker. It was Count Hannibal,
who had entered a few seconds earlier, and had taken his stand within the
door.

"She is willing!" Tavannes repeated quietly. And if, in this moment of
the fruition of his schemes, he felt his triumph, he masked it under a
face of sombre purpose. "Do you doubt me, man?"

"From her own lips!" the other replied, undaunted--and few could say as
much--by that harsh presence. "From no other's!"

"Sirrah, you--"

"I can die. And you can no more, my lord!" the minister answered
bravely. "You have no threat can move me."

"I am not sure of that," Tavannes answered, more blandly. "But had you
listened to me and been less anxious to be brave, M. La Tribe, where no
danger is, you had learned that here is no call for heroics! Mademoiselle
is willing, and will tell you so."

"With her own lips?"

Count Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "With her own lips, if you will," he
said. And then, advancing a step and addressing her, with unusual
gravity, "Mademoiselle de Vrillac," he said, "you hear what this
gentleman requires. Will you be pleased to confirm what I have said?"

She did not answer, and in the intense silence which held the room in its
freezing grasp a woman choked, another broke into weeping. The colour
ebbed from the cheeks of more than one; the men fidgeted on their feet.

Count Hannibal looked round, his head high. "There is no call for
tears," he said; and whether he spoke in irony or in a strange obtuseness
was known only to himself. "Mademoiselle is in no hurry--and rightly--to
answer a question so momentous. Under the pressure of utmost peril, she
passed her word; the more reason that, now the time has come to redeem
it, she should do so at leisure and after thought. Since she gave her
promise, Monsieur, she has had more than one opportunity of evading its
fulfilment. But she is a Vrillac, and I know that nothing is farther
from her thoughts."

He was silent a moment; and then, "Mademoiselle," he said, "I would not
hurry you."

Her eyes were closed, but at that her lips moved. "I am--willing," she
whispered. And a fluttering sigh, of relief, of pity, of God knows what,
filled the room.

"You are satisfied, M. La Tribe?"

"I do not--"

"Man!" With a growl as of a tiger, Count Hannibal dropped the mask. In
two strides he was at the minister's side, his hand gripped his shoulder;
his face, flushed with passion, glared into his. "Will you play with
lives?" he hissed. "If you do not value your own, have you no thought of
others? Of these? Look and count! Have you no bowels? If she will
save them, will not you?"

"My own I do not value."

"Curse your own!" Tavannes cried in furious scorn. And he shook the
other to and fro. "Who thought of your life? Will you doom these? Will
you give them to the butcher?"

"My lord," La Tribe answered, shaken in spite of himself, "if she be
willing--"

"She is willing."

"I have nought to say. But I caught her words indistinctly. And without
her consent--"

"She shall speak more plainly. Mademoiselle--"

She anticipated him. She had risen, and stood looking straight before
her, seeing nothing.

"I am willing," she muttered with a strange gesture, "if it must be."

He did not answer.

"If it must be," she repeated slowly, and with a heavy sigh. And her
chin dropped on her breast. Then, abruptly, suddenly--it was a strange
thing to see--she looked up. A change as complete as the change which
had come over Count Hannibal a minute before came over her. She sprang
to his side; she clutched his arm and devoured his face with her eyes.
"You are not deceiving me?" she cried. "You have Tignonville below?
You--oh, no, no!" And she fell back from him, her eyes distended, her
voice grown suddenly shrill and defiant, "You have not! You are
deceiving me! He has escaped, and you have lied to me!"

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