The Black Wolf's Breed/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
THE DAWN AND THE DUSK
GRADUALLY, so gradually the change could hardly be observed, the inner grating of the window became visible; the chinks between the edges of the stones assumed distinctness. A ghostly blotch grew into a fact upon the floor. A leaden hue, less black than the pulsing sea of ink about it, spread and spread, lighter and lighter, until it invaded the dim recesses where I stood. My hand became once more a tangible possession, unreal and grim, yet all my own. The opposite wall loomed up, my utmost frontier of the domain of certainty. Dimmer, darker, more obscure, the door, a vast unexplored cavern gathered to itself the hobgoblins of evil and gave them shelter. As still as the creeping on of day we two men stood, glaring at each other and watched it come.
Exactly when I began to see him I could not say. Every impulse and vital force of nature centered in my eyes, and they fastened themselves upon that one irregular shadow in the opposing corner which slowly—oh! with such agonizing slowness—assumed the outlines of a man. My fascinated gaze wandered not nor wearied. When in the moist light of the morning I clearly saw Broussard, haggard, pale and sunken-eyed, watching me thirty feet away, it seemed that I had seen him all the night.
No detail of his dress or manner but I observed. There was a scar across his forehead, fresh and bleeding a bit. A contusion rather. He had probably struck the door-facing as he rushed in. Yes, it bled. A few drops had trickled down his nose; there hung one, quite dry, from his brow. Precisely beneath this there were some dozen or so upon the floor. All could have been covered by my hand. Like myself Broussard had not moved throughout that awful night. God, how I pitied him. With such a weight of treason on his soul. And yet, looking back, the night was less awful than the coming day, far more merciful than the hideous night which followed it. With the sun Broussard heartened up, and first broke the silence.
"Who are you comrade, and what do you here?"
I was at a loss for reply. I had no faith in him, yet even a rotten stick might serve to get me out.
"I am trapped like yourself, and feared you all the night. God in Heaven what a long night it was."
Broussard had no words, his convulsive shudder expressed more than mine.
"Do you know how to get out of here?" I asked.
"Not I, except by the door, or the window," looking at that.
"I'll try the door," he continued, smiling the treacherous smile of the tiger. I remembered so well the first day he showed his teeth aboard ship. The man well knew I recognized him, he had heard me speak his name, and I feared if he found the door open he would shut me up again, and escape.
"I'll test the door softly and see what is outside," and he moved as if to put his thought in action.
"Hold on, not yet; methinks I'll try that door myself." I could see he had the same idea which had occurred to me, for he demurred.
"No, my fine sir; why you and not I?"
"Because I know you, sir, and fear to trust you."
"Verily, you have honourable intentions yourself to suspect me so readily." He was bent on engaging me in conversation, so he might perhaps recognize me from my voice. The mask still hid my features, and the entire difference in my mode of dress made recognition almost impossible. The puzzled expression of a half recollection still rested on his face as I continued:
"I do not merely suspect you, I know you for a traitor—nay do not clap your hand upon your sword until I have finished. You have now in your possession certain traitorous dispatches which were given you by one Carne Yvard in exchange for others which you brought over with you in a vessel called le Dauphin. Ah, you begin to pale and shrink, and well you may—"
"You lie!" he shrieked, convincing me I had made a home thrust.
"Softly, softly, have a care, lest you call the Marshal's bloodhounds down upon us. The dispatches with the purple seals, which you brought with such care from Biloxi, have been taken from Yvard, and are now in safe keeping for the King. The lie, ah, well, I'll pardon that for the while. You can not leave here, and I have ample time for avenging my honour after I have had the pleasure of your delightful conversation."
He leaned morosely against the wall, staring at me, as I went on.
"Now listen to me quietly. You have those dispatches upon your person. I want them, and by all the gods I will have them. If I have to kill you for them, then so much the worse for you. Now listen. Give me those dispatches. We will then get out of here together, and once outside, I will give you full four and twenty hours. That time elapsed, I will turn the dispatches over to the authorities. If you can escape with your miserable life so be it. Do you agree?"
"I have no dispatches," he sullenly replied, "and who are you to dare charge me with treason?"
There was no ring of real resentment in his tones, though he strove manfully to simulate offended and indignant innocence. It was necessary to keep him in ignorance for a while, because I feared he might set upon me, and being really an excellent swordsman, the issue of conflict would be doubtful. But the weightier reason lay in the fact that the clash of steel might draw down upon us the occupants of the house. Here I was in a much worse plight than he, though he knew it not. For whether those occupants were the friends of Broussard or the Marshal's men, the result would be equally fatal to me. A man must think quickly under such straits, and I was sorely put to it for some device. No stratagem would be too base to use against such a villain, for he would not hesitate to knife me in the back.
"Broussard, let us understand each other here and now. You know me. I am Placide de Mouret," removing my mask and looking him sternly in the eye.
"Great God, de Mouret!"
"The same. I am your master at the swords, and you know it. Now turn out those papers." I had been quietly drawing my blade during this speech, as the dazed man tried to collect his senses, so I was ready while he still stood unprepared.
"Throw up your hands."
He mechanically obeyed; the discovery of his villainy had completely unmanned him.
"Now unbuckle your belt, and drop it to the ground." He did as he was bid.
"Kick it across the floor." The weapon was tossed out of his reach.
I walked up closer to him, and forced him to loose his coat that I might find the papers, and was rewarded by the discovery of a packet, much similar to that dropped by Yvard. It was sealed in such a manner it could not be opened, and bore no address. I removed the dagger from his hip, and having, as I thought, completely disarmed him, felt no further uneasiness. The man was thoroughly cowed, and never once raised his eyes to mine. Verily treason doth rob the stoutest heart of half its courage.
"Now do as I bid you, and I will keep my promise to let you go. And mind that you make not the slightest sound which may attract the soldiers."
"Ah, you fear the soldiers too?" he asked, vaguely trying to puzzle out why I should be afraid of those in whose service I was.
"It is not to our purpose to talk. I simply want the credit myself, and do not want to share it with those fellows out there. We must work to leave this place at once. Do you stand where you are."
I gathered up the scattered weapons and piled them all in one corner, farthest from the door, where I now proposed to set about getting free. With the fearful blight of uncovered treason in his soul, Broussard obeyed me cringingly as a servant, and worked as hard, for his safety lay in mine. We went first to the door by which we entered, and after a tedious examination failed to find any means by which it could be opened or broken down. A stout latch, of some pattern we could not tell, held it fast from the outside. There was no catch or fastening of any sort within. The age-hardened oak, studded as it was with heavily wrought nails, forbade the plan of cutting through. This would require days and days of patient labour, and I was already faint from lack of food and the exhaustion of the night. Plainly the room was intended for a prison, and as such it served well its purpose. Baffled and disheartened I turned my thought to the window. It looked out upon the street; this was so much in my favor. The irons that guarded it were close set, bending out toward the street in the shape of a bow. I judged this was in order that archers stationed there might shoot the more easily into the street in times of siege.
I could have reached this without trouble, but I desired to employ Broussard, that I might know where he was and prevent treachery. For that double purpose I reached up and grasped the sill, commanding him to catch me about the knees and lift so I might see out. This he did. While in that position he made a pretence of shifting his hold, and something impelled me to glance downward at him. He was stealthily drawing a concealed knife from his bosom. I threw all my weight back upon him, casting the twain of us together to the floor. Meantime he had the knife full drawn, in his left hand held at my breast.
I grappled with him, holding his left hand in my right, and with the free hand clutched him by the throat, burying my thumb deep in his wind-pipe. Instinctively he raised both hands to protect his throat, and then we struggled to our feet. He made futile efforts to strike me with the knife, but his strength deserted him with his wind. The blade dropped clattering on the floor. My other hand closed about his neck, circling it with an unyielding collar of steel. Desperately as a caged rat might fight he squirmed and twisted in my grasp. To no avail.
Tigerish now, as though I held a rabid dog, I thrust him back against the wall, and there rigidly held him fast. In merciless silence I listened to the precious breath gurgling from his body; a reddish froth gathered at the lips. I could feel his hot blood surge and beat 
Then I rose, and gazed at my work.
Even in our mortal strife I marked the eternal harmony of the scene. Truly death had never stage more fitting whereon to play its last stern drama of dissolution. Hemmed in by four massive walls of granite, ghastly grim and desolately gray, we wrestled in a stifling stillness, while hell stood umpire at the game. No sound of trumpet, no warlike cry, no strains of martial music were there to thrill the nerves and taunt men on to glory. We fought to the scrape and scratch of shuffling feet, the laboured gasp, the rattle in the throat, while echo hushed in silence and in fright.
He grew more quiet, his muscles stiffened and relaxed—he was no longer conscious. A few more convulsive quivers, as a serpent might writhe and jerk, then he hung, a limp dead thing, in my hands. My outstretched arms seemed made as a gibbet, feeling no fatigue, so lightly did they sustain him. Cords of brass could be no more tense than mine; his weight was as nothing. Softly I eased him down, and composed his limbs in decent order upon the stones.
Then I rose, and gazed complacently at my work. Yes, it was well done, excellently done, in fact. The most expert strangler of the Choctows could have done no better. Those purpling lines about the throat, those darker clots where my thumbs had left their signs, could not have been more intelligently placed. I smiled my satisfaction at the job, then—then—my own overstrung nerves gave way, and I fell unconscious across the corpse of my hands' creation.
When I came to myself I was weeping, weeping as a child might weep, over the dead, distorted face of him I had loved. How long this lasted I had no means of knowing. Uncompromising necessity forced me to action; forbade me time to dream.
The body being in my way where it lay—for I proposed now to work in earnest at the window—I moved it tenderly as possible across the floor and stretched him out near the door sill. Springing up then I attacked the bars at the window. Hours and hours I laboured, impelled to greater effort by the dread of spending another night in that room of murder. I was patient, too, patient with the cunning of a maniac.
The dagger made my chisel; my sword, wrapped in a cloth to muffle the strokes, furnished me a maul. Full half the day was before me. The rough paving stones below held out the hope of escape or death. How to reach the street after the bars were removed, I did not suffer myself to consider. I should go mad if I lay idle. I leaned as far out the window as the grating would allow, and observed a guard standing in plain view at the corner. It was very evident the Provost of Paris had taken possession of the house, and there was little use in my trying to make a way out the door.
I bitterly resented the intrusion of every passenger along the street, and scanned with hatred the few who came. For while they remained in hearing I was obliged to cease my chipping at the masonry and leaden cement which held my freedom. I bided my time, and, long before the shadow of the house across the way had climbed to the window where I worked, had the gratification of finding a bar give way in my hands, and found I could take it out. Removing this bar, it gave me a powerful leverage on the others, and by exerting all my strength, succeeded in bending the two on either side to such a degree I could force my body between.
While thus engaged, my eyes were ever fixed anxiously upon the street, in the hope that Jerome might pursue his plan of watching the house, and I would catch sight of him. The passers-by were few indeed, but somehow it struck me that the same persons passed several times, and in something like regular order. A patrol of Jerome's? My heart bounded at the thought. I watched more carefully; yes, it was true. I counted five different persons; some walked fast, some walked slow, but all looked about them and inspected the house with more than an ordinary glance. And, no, I was not mistaken, that simple-looking countryman yonder was Jerome.
I was quite at a loss how to attract his attention; I feared to yell, lest that give notice to the sentry. I took a spur from my heel and dropped it directly in front of him; I knew he would recognize it, for it was his own, loaned to me for my more fashionable appearance. He heard the jingle and glanced around. His hat blew off as if by accident and fell near the spur. In stooping to pick it up, the spur also found its way into his hand beneath the hat. He was truly a quick-witted gentleman, and I forgave him from my heart all his chaff in the matter of teaching me manners. It took him not a great while to comprehend, and taking note of the situation of my window, he sauntered off. Thence forward only three men passed by the house, at much longer intervals. He had taken one with him, and I was left to surmise in what method they purposed to effect my deliverance. I made myself almost merry. The long labour at the window had cramped my limbs to such a degree it pained me to move. I clambered down and took a few turns about the room as if I had naught to do but exercise. But at every turn the hideous face and whitened eyes of Broussard dogged my footsteps as a spectre. Look where I would, it was only that I saw. Hour after hour crawled by. Jerome would wait for night. Night!
Did he but know what lurking horrors filled the dismal hours for me, he would come soon. By some fatality I had drawn the body directly to the spot where the last fading shafts of light would hover about its face. Not for a paradise of peace would I touch the loathsome thing again to hide it in the shadows. I could neither take my eyes from it nor put my hands upon it. Like the basilisk of fable it held my gaze charmed, fixed it, bound it fast. Crouch as I might in the remotest corner, cover my face in my mantle, still that searching, penetrating thing pierced all obstacles, glared grisly and distinct before me.
I tried to throw off the thought which now constantly recurred. What if Jerome did not come? Would I starve here in company with this corrupting flesh? No, there was the window; a headlong dash from that would bring death and release. So I determined. Then came on the night. To me it brought no rest, no sweet surcease of the labours through the day.
Somewhere, afar off in the city, there rang a tremulous bell, launching its vibrations upon the infinite silence as a sinner's guilty soul might trembling stand in the presence of Almighty condemnation. The melancholy howl of a dog at first cleft through every nerve and fibre of my being, thrilling with a creeping chill of horror. So regular did it come, so unvaried, I grew to count the seconds under my breath, and to note its monotonous precision. Somehow this occupation in a measure relieved me, and when the howls came more infrequently and at less well defined intervals, I mentally resented the change. Time had ceased to be. I cowered in the corner with naught but death and fear and darkness to keep me company.