第42章 EAUCOURT BY THE WATERS(5)

The crowd in the Rue de Bethisy was thinning, as bands of soldiers, each with its tail of rabble, moved off to draw other coverts.There was fighting still in many houses, and on the roof-tops as the pale dawn spread could be seen the hunt for fugitives.Torches and lanterns still flickered obscenely, and the blood in the gutters shone sometimes golden in their glare and sometimes spread drab and horrid in the waxing daylight.

The Jacobin stood at their elbow."Follow me, my lords of Spain," he cried.

"No friends of God and the Duke dare be idle this happy morn.Follow, and Iwill show you wonders."

He led them east to where a broader street ran to the river.

"Somewhere here lies Teligny," he croaked."Once he is dead the second head is lopped from the dragon of Babylon.Oh that God would show us where Conde and Navarre are hid, for without them our task is incomplete.

There was a great crowd about the door of one house, and into it the Jacobin fought his way with prayers and threats.Some Huguenot--Teligny it might be--was cornered there, but in the narrow place only a few could join in the hunt, and the hunters, not to be impeded by the multitude, presently set a guard at the street door.The mob below was already drunk with blood, and found waiting intolerable; but it had no leader and foamed aimlessly about the causeway.There were women in it with flying hair like Maenads, who shrilled obscenities, and drunken butchers and watermen and grooms who had started out for loot and ended in sheer lust of slaying, and dozens of broken desperadoes and led-captains who looked on the day as their carnival.But to the mob had come one of those moments of indecision when it halted and eddied like a whirlpool.

Suddenly in its midst appeared two tall horsemen.

"Men of Paris," cried Gaspard with that masterful voice which is born of the deep seas."You see this jewel.It was given me an hour back by Henry of Guise."A ruffian examined it."Ay," he murmured with reverence, "it is our Duke's.

I saw it on his breast before Coligny's house."The mob was all ears."I have the Duke's command," Gaspard went on."He pursues Montgomery and the Vidame of Chartres.Coligny is dead.Teliguy in there is about to die.But where are all the others? Where is La Rochefoucault? Where is Rosny? Where is Grammont? Where, above all, are the young Conde and the King of Navarre?"The names set the rabble howling.Every eye was on the speaker.

Gaspard commanded silence."I will tell you.The Huguenots are cunning as foxes.They planned this very day to seize the King and make themselves masters of France.They have copied your badge," and he glanced towards his left arm."Thousands of them are waiting for revenge, and before it is full day they will be on you.You will not know them, you will take them for your friends, and you will have your throats cut before you find out your error."A crowd may be wolves one moment and chickens the next, for cruelty and fear are cousins.A shiver of apprehension went through the soberer part.

One drunkard who shouted was clubbed on the head by his neighbour.Gaspard saw his chance.

"My word to you--the Duke's word--is to forestall this devilry.Follow me, and strike down every band of white-badged Huguenots.For among them be sure is the cub of Navarre."It was the leadership which the masterless men wanted.Fifty swords were raised, and a shout went up which shook the windows of that lodging where even now Teliguy was being done to death.With the two horsemen at their head the rabble poured westwards towards the Rue d'Arbre Sec and the Louvre, for there in the vicinity of the Palace were the likeliest coverts.

"Now Heaven send us Petrucci," said Gaspard."Would that the Little Man had been alive and with us! This would have been a ruse after his own heart,""I think the great Conde would have specially misliked yon monk," said the Englishman.

"Patience, Gawain.One foe at a time.My heart tells me that you will get your priest."The streets, still dim in the dawn, were thickly carpeted with dead.The mob kicked and befouled the bodies, and the bravos in sheer wantonness spiked them with their swords.There were women there, and children, lying twisted on the causeway.Once a fugitive darted out of an entry, to be brought down by a butcher's axe.

"I have never seen worse in the Indies," and Champernoun shivered."My stomach turns.For heaven's sake let us ride down this rabble!""Patience," said Gaspard, his eyes hard as stones."Cursed be he that putteth his hand to the plough and then turns back."They passed several small bodies of Catholic horse, which they greeted with cheers.That was in the Rue des Poulies; and at the corner where it abutted on the quay before the Hotel de Bourbon, a ferret-faced man ran blindly into them.Gaspard caught him and drew him to his horse's side, for he recognised the landlord of the tavern where he had supped.

"What news, friend?" he asked.

The man was in an anguish of terror, but he recognised his former guest.

"There is a band on the quay," he stammered."They are mad and do not know a Catholic when they see him.They would have killed me, had not the good Father Antoine held them till I made off.""Who leads them?" Gaspard asked, having a premonition.

"A tall man in crimson with a broken plume.""How many?"

"Maybe a hundred, and at least half are men-at-arms."Gaspard turned to Champernoun.

"We have found our quarry," he said.

Then he spoke to his following, and noted with comfort that it was now some hundred strong, and numbered many swords."There is a Huguenot band before us," he cried."They wear our crosses, and this honest fellow has barely escaped from them.They are less than three score.On them, my gallant lads, before they increase their strength, and mark specially the long man in red, for he is the Devil.It may be Navarre is with them."The mob needed no second bidding.Their chance had come, and they swept along with a hoarse mutter more fearful than any shouting.