Part 52 (1/2)
”Ah,” she said, ”proud, are you? 'Tis an ill place to bring pride to, this Castle of Machecoul. You will not deign to speak a word to a poor old woman now. But the day is not far distant when I shall have my pretty spitfire clinging about these old trembling knees, and beseeching me whom you despise, as a woman either to save you or kill you--you will not care which. _As a woman!_ Ha! ha! How long is it since La Meffraye was a woman? Was she ever rocked in a cradle? Did she play about any cottage door and fas.h.i.+on daisy chains, as I have seen you do, my pretties, long ere you came to Machecoul or even heard of the Sieur de Retz? Hath La Meffraye ever lain in any man's bosom--save as the tigress crouches upon her prey?”
She paused and smiled still more bitterly and malevolently than before upon the two maidens.
”Did you chance to be awake yester-even?” she went on. ”Aye, I know well that you were awake. La Meffraye saw right carefully to that. And you heard the crying that rang out of yonder high window, from which the light streamed all through the night. Wait, wait, my pretties, till it is your turn to be sent for up thither, when the s.h.i.+ning knife is sharpened and the red fire kindled. You will not despise La Meffraye when that day comes. You will grovel and weep, and then will La Meffraye spurn you with her foot, till the noise of your crying be borne out over the forest, and for very gladness the wolves howl in the darkness.”
The little Maid of Galloway was moved to answer, and her lips quivered. But Maud Lindesay sat pale and motionless, looking towards the north, from which she hoped for help to come.
”Our brother, the Earl of Douglas, will bring an army from his dukedom of Touraine, and sweep you and your castle from the face of the earth, if your master dares to lay so much as a finger upon us.”
La Meffraye laughed a low, cackling laugh, and in the act showed the four long eye-teeth which were the sole remaining dental equipment of her mouth.
”Oh, Great Barran--” she chuckled, ”listen to the pretty fool! Our brother will do this--our brother will do that. _Our_ brother will lick the country of Retz as clean as a dog licks a platter. Know you not, silly fool, that both your brothers are long since dead and under sod in the castle of your city of Edinburgh. I tell you my master set his little finger upon them and crushed them like flies on a summer chamber wall!”
Maud Lindesay rose to her feet as La Meffraye spoke these words.
”It is not true,” she cried; ”you lie to us as you have done from the first. The Earl of Douglas is not dead!”
It was now little Margaret who showed the spirit of her race, and put out her hand to clasp that of her elder comrade.
”Do not let her even know that she has power to hurt us with her words,” she whispered low to Maud Lindesay. Then she spoke aloud:
”If that which you say be true and my brothers are dead--there are yet Douglases. Our cousins will deliver us.”
”Your cousins have entered into your possessions,” jeered the hag; ”it is indeed a likely thing that they will desire your return to Scotland in order to rob them of that which is their own.”
”We are not afraid,” said the little maid, stoutly; ”there are many in the land of the Scots who would gladly die to help us.”
”Aye, that is it. They shall die--all die. Three of them died yester-even, torn to pieces by my lord's wolves. Fine, swift, four-footed guardians of the Castle of Machecoul--La Meffraye's friends! And one young c.o.c.k below there of the same gang hath gone even now to my lord's chamber. He hath mounted the stairs he will never descend.”
”Well,” said the Maid of Galloway, ”even so--we are not afraid. We can die, as died our friends.”
”Die--die!” cried the hag, sharply, angered at the child's persistence. ”'Tis easy to talk. To snuff a candle out is to die.
Poof, 'tis done! But the young and beautiful like you, my dearies, do not so die at Machecoul. No; rather as a dying candle flickers out--falls low, and rises again, so they die. As wine oozes drop by drop from the needle-punctured wine-skin--so shall you die, weeping, beseeching, drained to the white like a dripping calf in the shambles, yet at the same time reddened and shamed with the shame deadly and unnameable. Then La Meffraye, whom now you disdain to answer with a look, will wash her hands in your life's blood and laugh as your tears fall slowly upon the latchet of her shoon!”
But a new voice broke in upon the railing of the hideous woman fiend.
”_Out, foul hag! Get you to your own place!_” it said, with an accent strong and commanding.
And the affrighted and heart-sick girls turned them about to see the Lady Sybilla stand fair and pale at the head of the turret stair which opened out upon the roof of the White Tower.
At this interruption the eyes of La Meffraye seemed to burn with a fresher fury, and the green light in them shone as s.h.i.+nes an emerald stone held up to the sun.
The hag cowered, however, before the outstretched index finger of Sybilla de Thouars.
”Ah, fair lady,” she whimpered, ”be not angry--and tell not my lord, I beseech you. I did but jest.”
”_Hence!_” the finger was still outstretched, and, in obedience to the threatening gesture, the hag shrank away. But as she pa.s.sed through the portal down the steps of the turret, she flung back certain words with a defiant fleer.