Part 18 (2/2)
It was a night in which the human soul must beat against cas.e.m.e.nts to break free and roam the blessed dark. All of spring was in the air.
Directly overhead stood the north star, with slow constellations wheeling in review before him.
”So D'Aulnay sent you to spy on my lord, as my lord believed?”
”You shall not call me a spy. I came to my husband. I hate him,” she added in a resentful burst. ”He made me walk the marshes, miles and miles alone, carrying that child.”
”Why the child?”
”Because the people from St. John would be sure to pity it.”
”And what word did he send you to tell me?” demanded Klussman. ”Give me that word.”
Marguerite waited with her face downcast.
”It was kind of him to think of me,” said the Swiss; ”and to send you with the message!”
She felt mocked, and drooped against the wall. And in the midst of his scorn he took her face in his hands with a softness he could not master.
”Give me the word,” he repeated. Marguerite drew his neck down and whispered, but before she finished whispering Klussman flung her against the cannon with an oath.
”I thought it would be, betray my lord's fortress to D'Aulnay de Charnisay! Go down stairs, Marguerite Klussman. When I have less matter in hand, I will flog thee! Hast thou no wit at all? To come from a man who broke faith with thee, and offer his faith to me! Bribe me with Pen.o.bscot to betray St. John to him!”
Marguerite sat on the floor. She whispered, gasping,--
”Tell not the whole fortress.”
Klussman ceased to talk, but his heels rung on the stone as he paced the turret. He felt himself grow old as silence became ma.s.sive betwixt his wife and him. The moon rose, piercing the cannon embrasure, and showed Marguerite weeping against the wall. The ma.s.s of silence drove him resistless before her will. That soft and childlike shape did not propose treason to him. He understood that she thought only of herself and him. It was her method of bringing profit out of the times. He heard his relief stumble at the foot of the turret stairs, and went down the winding darkness to stop and send the soldier back to bed.
”I am not sleepy,” said Klussman. ”I slept last night. Go and rest till daybreak.” And the man willingly went. Marguerite had not moved a fold of her gown when her husband again came into the lighted tower. The Swiss lifted her up and made her stand beside him while he stanched her tears.
”You hurt me when you threw me against the cannon,” she said.
”I was rough. But I am too foolish fond to hold anger. It has worn me out to be hard on thee. I am not the man I was.”
Marguerite clung around him. He dumbly felt his misfortune in being thralled by a nature of greater moral crudity than his own. But she was his portion in the world.
”You flung me against the cannon because I wanted you made a seignior.”
”It was because D'Aulnay wanted me made a traitor.”
”What is there to do, indeed?” murmured Marguerite. ”He said if you would take the sentinels off the wall on the entrance side of the fort, at daybreak any morning, he will be ready to scale that wall.”
”But how will he know I have taken the sentinels off?”
”You must hold up a ladder in your hands.”
”The tower is between that side of the fort and D'Aulnay's camp. No one would see me standing with a ladder in my hands.”
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