Part 56 (2/2)
”The Red Milk I pour for thee. The Red Milk I bring thee. The Red Milk I drink to thee--that thou mayest be pleased to restore vital energy and new youth to my veins, to make me strong as a young man in his strength, and wiser than the wisdom of age. Hear me, O great master of all the evil of the universe, thou equal and coadjutor of the Master of Good, hear and manifest thy so mighty power. Hear me and answer, O Barran-Sathanas!”
Gilles de Retz took the cup from the hands of the servitors. He seemed so weak with his crying that he could hardly hold it between his trembling palms.
He lifted his head and again cried aloud:
”See, I am weak, my Satan--see how I tremble. Strength is departed from me. Youth is dead. Help thy faithful servant, aid him to lift up this precious oblation to thee!”
And as the great dusky image seemed to lean over him, with a hoa.r.s.e cry Gilles de Retz raised the cup and held it high above his head. As he did so a beam, sudden as lightning, fell upon it, and with a quick, instinctive horror, Laurence saw that it was filled to the brim with blood fresh and red.
The marshal's voice strengthened.
”It is coming! It is coming! Barran manifests himself! O great lord, to thee I drain this draught!” cried Gilles de Retz. ”The Red Milk, the precious milk of innocence, to thee I drink it!”
And he set the cup to his lips and drank deep and long.
”It comes. It fills me. I am strong. O Barran, give me yet more strength. My limbs revive. My pulse beats. I am young as when I rode with Dunois. Barran, thou art indeed mightier than G.o.d. I will give thee yet more and more. I swear it. I have kept the best wine till the last--the death vintage of a great house. The wine of beauty and brightness--I have kept it for thee. Halt not to make me stronger!
Help me--Barran, help--I fail--!”
His voice had risen higher and higher till it was well nigh a scream of agony. Strangely too, in spite of the fict.i.tious youth that glowed in his veins and coloured his cheek, it sounded like a senile shriek.
But all suddenly, at the very height of his exaltation, the cup from which he had drunk slipped from his hand and rolled upon the tesselated pavement of the temple, staining it in gouts and vivid blotches of crimson.
”Hasten, ere I lose the power--I feel it checked. Poitou, De Sille, Henriet, go bring hither from the White Tower the Scottish maids.
Run, dogs--or you die! Quick, Henriet! Good De Sille, quick! Fail not your master now! It ebbs, it weakens--and it was so near completion.
Stay, O Barran, till I finish the sacrifice, and here at thy feet offer up to thee the richest, and the fairest, and the n.o.blest! Bring hither the maidens! I tell you, bring them quickly!”
And the terrible Lord of Retz, exhausted with his own fury, cast himself at the feet of the gigantic image, which, bending over him, seemed with the same grimace sardonically to mock alike his exaltation and his downfall.
But Laurence heard no more. For sense and feeling had wholly departed from him, and he lay as one dead behind the door of the temple of Barran-Sathanas, Lord of Evil, in the thrice-abhorrent Castle of Machecoul.
CHAPTER LVI
THE SHADOW BEHIND THE THRONE
Within the grim walls of Black Angers Duke John of Brittany and reigning sovereign of western France was holding his court. The city and fortress did not properly, of right and parchment holding, appertain to him. But he had occupied it during the recent troubles with the English, and his loving cousin and nominal suzerain Charles the Seventh of France had not yet been strong enough to make him render it up again.
The Duke sat in the central tower of the fortress of Black Angers, that which looks between the high flanking turrets of the mighty enceinte of walls. He wriggled discontentedly in his chair and grumbled under his breath.
At his shoulder, tall, gaunt, angular, with lantern jaws and a mouth like a wolf trap, deep-set eyes that flamed under bushy eyebrows, stood Pierre de l'Hopital, the true master of Brittany.
”I tell you I will go to the tennis-courts--the three Scots must wait audience till to-morrow. What errand can they have with me--some rascals whom Charles will not pay now that his job is done? They come to take service doubtless. A beggarly lot are all such out-land varlets, but brave--yes, excellent soldiers are the Scots, so long as they are well fed, that is.”
”Nay, my Lord Duke,” said Pierre de l'Hopital, standing up tall and sombre, his long black gown accentuating the peculiarities of his figure. ”It were almost necessary to see these men now and hear what they have to say. I myself have seen them and judge it to be so.”
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