Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (164 page)

Blanche looked round this gloomy and spacious hall; then at the men, and to her father, who, smiling cheerfully at her, addressed himself to the hunters. ‘This is an hospitable hearth,’ said he, ‘the blaze of a fire is reviving after having wandered so long in these dreary wilds. Your dogs are tired; what success have you had?’ ‘Such as we usually have,’ replied one of the men, who had been seated in the hall, ‘we kill our game with tolerable certainty.’ ‘These are fellow hunters,’ said one of the men who had brought the Count hither, ‘that have lost their way, and I have told them there is room enough in the fort for us all.’ ‘Very true, very true,’ replied his companion, ‘What luck have you had in the chace, brothers? We have killed two izards, and that, you will say, is pretty well.’ ‘You mistake, friend,’ said the Count, ‘we are not hunters, but travellers; but, if you will admit us to hunters’ fare, we shall be well contented, and will repay your kindness.’ ‘Sit down then, brother,’ said one of the men: ‘Jacques, lay more fuel on the fire, the kid will soon be ready; bring a seat for the lady too. Ma’amselle, will you taste our brandy? it is true Barcelona, and as bright as ever flowed from a keg.’ Blanche timidly smiled, and was going to refuse, when her father prevented her, by taking, with a good humoured air, the glass offered to his daughter; and
Mons.
St. Foix, who was seated next her, pressed her hand, and gave her an encouraging look, but her attention was engaged by a man, who sat silently by the fire, observing St. Foix, with a steady and earnest eye.

‘You lead a jolly life here,’ said the Count. ‘The life of a hunter is a pleasant and a healthy one; and the repose is sweet, which succeeds to your labour.’

‘Yes,’ replied one of his hosts, ‘our life is pleasant enough. We live here only during the summer, and autumnal months; in winter, the place is dreary, and the swoln torrents, that descend from the heights, put a stop to the chace.’

‘‘Tis a life of liberty and enjoyment,’ said the Count: ‘I should like to pass a month in your way very well.’

‘We find employment for our guns too,’ said a man who stood behind the Count: ‘here are plenty of birds, of delicious flavour, that feed upon the wild thyme and herbs, that grow in the vallies. Now I think of it, there is a brace of birds hung up in the stone gallery; go fetch them, Jacques, we will have them dressed.’

The Count now made enquiry, concerning the method of pursuing the chace among the rocks and precipices of these romantic regions, and was listening to a curious detail, when a horn was sounded at the gate. Blanche looked timidly at her father, who continued to converse on the subject of the chace, but whose countenance was somewhat expressive of anxiety, and who often turned his eyes towards that part of the hall nearest the gate. The horn sounded again, and a loud halloo succeeded. ‘These are some of our companions, returned from their day’s labour,’ said a man, going lazily from his seat towards the gate; and in a few minutes, two men appeared, each with a gun over his shoulder, and pistols in his belt. ‘What cheer, my lads? what cheer?’ said they, as they approached. ‘What luck?’ returned their companions: ‘have you brought home your supper? You shall have none else.’

‘Hah! who the devil have you brought home?’ said they in bad Spanish, on perceiving the Count’s party, ‘are they from France, or Spain? — where did you meet with them?’

‘They met with us, and a merry meeting too,’ replied his companion aloud in good French. ‘This chevalier, and his party, had lost their way, and asked a night’s lodging in the fort.’ The others made no reply, but threw down a kind of knapsack, and drew forth several brace of birds. The bag sounded heavily as it fell to the ground, and the glitter of some bright metal within glanced on the eye of the Count, who now surveyed, with a more enquiring look, the man, that held the knapsack. He was a tall robust figure, of a hard countenance, and had short black hair, curling in his neck. Instead of the hunter’s dress, he wore a faded military uniform; sandals were laced on his broad legs, and a kind of short trowsers hung from his waist. On his head he wore a leathern cap, somewhat resembling in shape an ancient Roman helmet; but the brows that scowled beneath it, would have characterized those of the barbarians, who conquered Rome, rather than those of a Roman soldier. The Count, at length, turned away his eyes, and remained silent and thoughtful, till, again raising them, he perceived a figure standing in an obscure part of the hall, fixed in attentive gaze on St. Foix, who was conversing with Blanche, and did not observe this; but the Count, soon after, saw the same man looking over the shoulder of the soldier as attentively at himself. He withdrew his eye, when that of the Count met it, who felt mistrust gathering fast upon his mind, but feared to betray it in his countenance, and, forcing his features to assume a smile, addressed Blanche on some indifferent subject. When he again looked round, he perceived, that the soldier and his companion were gone.

The man, who was called Jacques, now returned from the stone gallery. ‘A fire is lighted there,’ said he, ‘and the birds are dressing; the table too is spread there, for that place is warmer than this.’

His companions approved of the removal, and invited their guests to follow to the gallery, of whom Blanche appeared distressed, and remained seated, and St. Foix looked at the Count, who said, he preferred the comfortable blaze of the fire he was then near. The hunters, however, commended the warmth of the other apartment, and pressed his removal with such seeming courtesy, that the Count, half doubting, and half fearful of betraying his doubts, consented to go. The long and ruinous passages, through which they went, somewhat daunted him, but the thunder, which now burst in loud peals above, made it dangerous to quit this place of shelter, and he forbore to provoke his conductors by shewing that he distrusted them. The hunters led the way, with a lamp; the Count and St. Foix, who wished to please their hosts by some instances of familiarity, carried each a seat, and Blanche followed, with faltering steps. As she passed on, part of her dress caught on a nail in the wall, and, while she stopped, somewhat too scrupulously, to disengage it, the Count, who was talking to St. Foix, and neither of whom observed the circumstance, followed their conductor round an abrupt angle of the passage, and Blanche was left behind in darkness. The thunder prevented them from hearing her call but, having disengaged her dress, she quickly followed, as she thought, the way they had taken. A light, that glimmered at a distance, confirmed this belief, and she proceeded towards an open door, whence it issued, conjecturing the room beyond to be the stone gallery the men had spoken of. Hearing voices as she advanced, she paused within a few paces of the chamber, that she might be certain whether she was right, and from thence, by the light of a lamp, that hung from the ceiling, observed four men, seated round a table, over which they leaned in apparent consultation. In one of them she distinguished the features of him, whom she had observed, gazing at St. Foix, with such deep attention; and who was now speaking in an earnest, though restrained voice, till, one of his companions seeming to oppose him, they spoke together in a loud and harsher tone. Blanche, alarmed by perceiving that neither her father, or St. Foix were there, and terrified at the fierce countenances and manners of these men, was turning hastily from the chamber, to pursue her search of the gallery, when she heard one of the men say:

‘Let all dispute end here. Who talks of danger? Follow my advice, and there will be none — secure THEM, and the rest are an easy prey.’ Blanche, struck with these words, paused a moment, to hear more. ‘There is nothing to be got by the rest,’ said one of his companions, ‘I am never for blood when I can help it — dispatch the two others, and our business is done; the rest may go.’

‘May they so?’ exclaimed the first ruffian, with a tremendous oath— ‘What! to tell how we have disposed of their masters, and to send the king’s troops to drag us to the wheel! You was always a choice adviser — I warrant we have not yet forgot St. Thomas’s eve last year.’

Blanche’s heart now sunk with horror. Her first impulse was to retreat from the door, but, when she would have gone, her trembling frame refused to support her, and, having tottered a few paces, to a more obscure part of the passage, she was compelled to listen to the dreadful councils of those, who, she was no longer suffered to doubt, were banditti. In the next moment, she heard the following words, ‘Why you would not murder the whole GANG?’

‘I warrant our lives are as good as theirs,’ replied his comrade. ‘If we don’t kill them, they will hang us: better they should die than we be hanged.’

‘Better, better,’ cried his comrades.

‘To commit murder, is a hopeful way of escaping the gallows!’ said the first ruffian— ‘many an honest fellow has run his head into the noose that way, though.’ There was a pause of some moments, during which they appeared to be considering.

‘Confound those fellows,’ exclaimed one of the robbers impatiently, ‘they ought to have been here by this time; they will come back presently with the old story, and no booty: if they were here, our business would be plain and easy. I see we shall not be able to do the business to-night, for our numbers are not equal to the enemy, and in the morning they will be for marching off, and how can we detain them without force?’

‘I have been thinking of a scheme, that will do,’ said one of his comrades: ‘if we can dispatch the two chevaliers silently, it will be easy to master the rest.’

‘That’s a plausible scheme, in good faith,’ said another with a smile of scorn— ‘If I can eat my way through the prison wall, I shall be at liberty! — How can we dispatch them SILENTLY?’

‘By poison,’ replied his companions.

‘Well said! that will do,’ said the second ruffian, ‘that will give a lingering death too, and satisfy my revenge. These barons shall take care how they again tempt our vengeance.’

‘I knew the son, the moment I saw him,’ said the man, whom Blanche had observed gazing on St. Foix, ‘though he does not know me; the father I had almost forgotten.’

‘Well, you may say what you will,’ said the third ruffian, ‘but I don’t believe he is the Baron, and I am as likely to know as any of you, for I was one of them, that attacked him, with our brave lads, that suffered.’

‘And was not I another?’ said the first ruffian, ‘I tell you he is the Baron; but what does it signify whether he is or not? — shall we let all this booty go out of our hands? It is not often we have such luck at this. While we run the chance of the wheel for smuggling a few pounds of tobacco, to cheat the king’s manufactory, and of breaking our necks down the precipices in the chace of our food; and, now and then, rob a brother smuggler, or a straggling pilgrim, of what scarcely repays us the powder we fire at them, shall we let such a prize as this go? Why they have enough about them to keep us for— ‘

‘I am not for that, I am not for that,’ replied the third robber, ‘let us make the most of them: only, if this is the Baron, I should like to have a flash the more at him, for the sake of our brave comrades, that he brought to the gallows.’

‘Aye, aye, flash as much as you will,’ rejoined the first man, ‘but I tell you the Baron is a taller man.’

‘Confound your quibbling,’ said the second ruffian, ‘shall we let them go or not? If we stay here much longer, they will take the hint, and march off without our leave. Let them be who they will, they are rich, or why all those servants? Did you see the ring, he, you call the Baron, had on his finger? — it was a diamond; but he has not got it on now: he saw me looking at it, I warrant, and took it off.’

‘Aye, and then there is the picture; did you see that? She has not taken that off,’ observed the first ruffian, ‘it hangs at her neck; if it had not sparkled so, I should not have found it out, for it was almost hid by her dress; those are diamonds too, and a rare many of them there must be, to go round such a large picture.’

‘But how are we to manage this business?’ said the second ruffian: ‘let us talk of that, there is no fear of there being booty enough, but how are we to secure it?’

‘Aye, aye,’ said his comrades, ‘let us talk of that, and remember no time is to be lost.’

‘I am still for poison,’ observed the third, ‘but consider their number; why there are nine or ten of them, and armed too; when I saw so many at the gate, I was not for letting them in, you know, nor you either.’

‘I thought they might be some of our enemies,’ replied the second, ‘I did not so much mind numbers.’

‘But you must mind them now,’ rejoined his comrade, ‘or it will be worse for you. We are not more than six, and how can we master ten by open force? I tell you we must give some of them a dose, and the rest may then be managed.’

‘I’ll tell you a better way,’ rejoined the other impatiently, ‘draw closer.’

Blanche, who had listened to this conversation, in an agony, which it would be impossible to describe, could no longer distinguish what was said, for the ruffians now spoke in lowered voices; but the hope, that she might save her friends from the plot, if she could find her way quickly to them, suddenly reanimated her spirits, and lent her strength enough to turn her steps in search of the gallery. Terror, however, and darkness conspired against her, and, having moved a few yards, the feeble light, that issued from the chamber, no longer even contended with the gloom, and, her foot stumbling over a step that crossed the passage, she fell to the ground.

The noise startled the banditti, who became suddenly silent, and then all rushed to the passage, to examine whether any person was there, who might have overheard their councils. Blanche saw them approaching, and perceived their fierce and eager looks: but, before she could raise herself, they discovered and seized her, and, as they dragged her towards the chamber they had quitted, her screams drew from them horrible threatenings.