The Maid of Honour: A Tale of the Dark Days of France. Volume 3 of 3

It did not occur to him that the idea was Toinon's, and that Jean had given way to her.

"It may be necessary," went on the baron, "to make a show of force-to make it understood, I mean, that we are not to be terrorised by that useful implement, the scythe. You will please load your fowling-pieces, gentlemen, and we will let them understand that we have gunpowder."

And so it came about that when the doors opened for the ladies' exodus, a glint was seen of muskets which fairly exasperated the crowd. If muskets, why not concealed cannon? The firebrands who had stood near to him during the colloquy, were dissatisfied by Jean's moderate tone and perfect temper. He had said a harsh thing or two, certainly; but should not have allowed that pouter-pigeon fool to suppose that he had made a score. The latter had retired in somewhat undignified fashion, pulled by leg and coat; but his feathers were all out notwithstanding, and he assumed the airs of a cock that was master of his dunghill. Now this was manifestly absurd. The mob had but to raise its myriad horny hands, and over would go the dunghill burying the cock. Why that display of firearms? The baron had without a doubt got the better of honest Jean; he had cheated him and achieved thereby an invaluable period of delay, during which his domestics were probably throwing up earthworks or doing something nefarious to baulk the sovereign people.

If this was the feeling in the front how much more did it dominate the rear. Jean's strong personality withdrawn-the White Chatelaine's piteous figure gone-those who had wept tears became the most frantic for vengeance.

The females became mœnads, and loudly taunted the males. Reports filtered from the front with the usual distortion, to the effect that the garrison had gained time by shrewd diplomacy, for running up works of defence; that Jean on his return would be laughed at; that the wily baron would snap his fingers in his face. A rumour even rose, nobody knew how, that there was a secret subway leading somewhere, and that the miscreants were at this very moment effecting an escape, laughing in their sleeves at the pursuers. And the sovereign people was to remain inactive to be fooled before all Europe? How the fugitive emigrés would laugh when the three ruffians joined them, and explained their clever ruse!

"Jean Boulot is too straight and upright," some one declared "to deal with such slippery cattle. When he returns anon, let him find the work accomplished. If he does not approve, he can say with truth, that he had nothing to do with the matter; but, if I mistake not, right sorry will he be to be deprived of his share of vengeance."

A squire was unlucky enough at this juncture to crawl up to the ladder-top, drawn thither by idle curiosity, and to miss his footing there. The fowling-piece in his hand struck the coping of the gateway and went off. A yell as of two thousand maniacs pealed heavenward. "They have fired on the sovereign people," rose in a mighty shout; and with one accord the sea that had been lashing quietly towered in a huge wave, encompassed the chateau and overwhelmed it. It was one of those sudden things which, like the phenomena of earth, strangles the breath and leaves men palsied. When the ground rocks and yawns in fissures, and the mountains tumble and the forests fall in heaps, lookers on can only marvel. The luckless denizens of Montbazon had scarcely time for that. The gun discharged by accident acted as a signal. For an instant the gates groaned and rattled under a rain of missiles. The walls were black with human atoms who swarmed and buzzed like flies, coming on and on in myriads. The seigneurs huddled mechanically together in a small knot, and fired one futile volley ere they were trodden under foot. A young fellow, bleeding from a deep gash inflicted by a scythe, leaned for support against an angle, and in answer to a question as to the brothers' whereabouts, pointed in the direction of the dining-hall. Ere his life-blood ebbed away, he saw with dimmed sight three wavering figures tossed hither and thither, like corks upon a boiling stream-was aware of a whirl of feet ascending a winding stair, amid yells of "à la lanterne," – of three writhing human creatures dangling at the ends of ropes.

Jean Boulot, hieing back from Lorge, was alarmed by a strange light and a curious sound of menace like the distant shouting of vast crowds. When he reached the open, from whence the chateau was visible, he pulled his horse up sharply. The concourse he had left so quiescent, were dancing like fiends around a mighty bonfire. Montbazon was aflame from end to end. Its wooden tenements had caught, and blazed like touchwood. As he gazed tranquilly upon the lurid spectacle, the ropes that held three black masses swinging aloft in space were licked by forked flames and parted, and the figures dropped into the furnace that seethed white hot below.

"God's will be done!" Jean muttered. "They have well merited their fate."

Winter and spring went by. The king was dead; the queen lingered yet in the Conciergerie. Jocund summer-time had come round again, and a quiet group clad in deep mourning enjoyed the balmy air in the secluded moat-garden of Lorge.

A tall lady on whose still beautiful face were ploughed hard lines of suffering, was contemplating with a subdued smile of settled sadness, the romps of two children on the green.

"Angelique!" she called in mild reproof, "you must not let them tire you;" whereupon an old lady sitting close at hand leaning on an ebony crutch said, "Let be. It does me good to hear Angelique laugh again after that awful day."

"Hush!" replied Madame de Gange, "you must not brood over that misfortune. The baron died as a French noble should, in doing what he believed to be his duty. Montbazon is rising from its ashes, a much more commodious dwelling."

"Thanks to your liberality," sighed Madame de Vaux, "but I can never endure to live in it."

"Nor shall you," returned Gabrielle, quickly. "We settled long ago that you and Angelique were to make your home with me."

There was a silence, while the ladies reviewed the past, which had been so terrible a nightmare to both. Then Madame de Vaux, drying her eyes, observed, "How strange it is that the baleful woman was never after heard of."

"Nor my jewel-case," replied Gabrielle, slyly. "I doubt if those stolen gems will bring good fortune to the thief!"

THE END