Chapter XXIV

When De Violaine gave the order to the young Duc de Guise that the gate was to be opened no more for the night, Francbois, had he been present instead of in the citadel, might well have considered that he had succeeded in his betrayal of the man whom he regarded as his rival in the affections of Sylvia Thorne. For that man was now a prisoner in the hands of France; while the actual fact of his being in Liége by aid of a false passport was one that must in any case tell heavily against him. Also, some other statements--which were not facts--that Francbois was prepared to weave into his denunciation would, beyond all doubt, accomplish his destruction.

That those statements would soon be made none who were present at this time could doubt when, following on the order to have the gate kept fast until daybreak, another was issued by the Governor.

"Call Captain d'Aubenay," he said now to one of the mousquetaires under the command of De Guise, while, turning to Bevill, he continued. "You will be taken to the citadel; there you will hear the charge against you--the charge upon which, later, you will be tried, as well as upon another, of being present in a city under the control of France while falsely passing as a Frenchman."

To which Bevill made no reply, except a courteous bow, since he deemed silence best.

But, if he had nothing to say, one person at least--the Comtesse de Valorme--saw no reason for also being silent.

Approaching De Violaine, who stood some little distance apart from the rest, she said therefore:

"There is but one man in all Liége who can have denounced your newly acquired prisoner. That man is named Emile Francbois"; while, remarking that the other neither assented to nor denied this statement, she added, "It is so, is it not?"

But still De Violaine kept silence, whereupon the Comtesse continued, while adopting now a different form of inquiry--a more impersonal one.

"Whosoever the man may be," she said, "who has thought fit to testify against monsieur, to formulate the charges against him of which you speak--charges of which you could not otherwise have known--he must have sought you out to do so. Monsieur, I beseech of you to at least answer this, even though you answer nothing else."

Whereupon, stung by the coldness of his questioner, stung also by the almost contemptuous tone in which she spoke--she whom once he had loved so much--De Violaine replied:

"The person who has informed against the prisoner waited upon me at the citadel."

"And is present there now to repeat his charges against--the prisoner?"

To which question De Violaine contented him by answering with an inclination of his head.

"So be it," the Comtesse replied, and there was in her tone a bitterness that her listener could never have supposed her to be possessor of. "So be it. I know--nay, we all know"--with a glance that swept over Sylvia and Bevill--"who this informer is. But, since Monsieur le Gouverneur is by the way of listening to his informers," and she saw De Violaine start and flush as she spoke, "he will not refuse to give audience to another informer--at the citadel."

"Another!"

"Yes, another. Myself! Monsieur de Violaine will not perform his duty to France in a half-hearted manner. He gives open ear to the first one who tells him of spies being about he will not surely turn a deaf ear to a second informer who wishes to denounce a traitor."

"A traitor? Who is he? And who is to denounce him?"

"I am the latter. The man you received in the citadel--Emile Francbois--is the former. I claim the right to be received at the citadel by you in the same manner that you received that man. Only, my denunciation shall be an open one, made before others--not one made, as doubtless this was, within closed doors."

"So be it. The right is yours. When will Madame la Comtesse honour me by----"

"When? To-night. Now. At once!"

"At once? It grows late."

"Late! What matters the lateness of the night in comparison with the exposure of a villain? Monsieur de Violaine, I demand to be allowed to accompany your prisoner to the citadel and to hear what Emile Francbois has to assert against him."

"And I also," Sylvia said, since [illegible] ...tion had ceased by now to be c [illegible] ... tones and could easily be overheard in the guardroom.

"You, Mademoiselle!" De Violaine exclaimed, not knowing but that Sylvia was, in absolute truth, that which she was supposed to be, namely the _dame de compagnie_ of Madame de Valorme. "You? Surely Madame la Comtesse does not require your support at such a scene."

"That," Sylvia said, as she stood tall and erect before the Governor, so that he no longer deemed he was speaking to any other than a woman who was herself of equal rank and position with the Comtesse, "that is not the question. It was to enable me, to assist me to leave Liége, to protect me as I did so, that your prisoner made his way to this city--for this that the base, crawling creature, Francbois, denounced him to you."

"You are then Mademoiselle Thorne?"

"I am Mademoiselle Thorne. If Francbois has much to tell you about Monsieur Bracton, since that is his rightful name, so too have I," and as Sylvia spoke her eyes were turned for a moment towards Bevill--for a moment only, but it was enough. Enough to tell Bevill that, even though he should be condemned to-night and executed at dawn, it mattered little now. That glance had told him more than a hundred words could do: it had told him he was the possessor of Sylvia's love!

* * * * * * *

The _salle d'armes_ of the citadel, in which half an hour later De Violaine, the Comtesse, Sylvia, and Bevill stood, was large enough for half a regiment to bivouac in, and had, indeed, in past ages served for such a purpose, as well as many another of blacker memory. For in that great hall, wainscotted with oak from floor to roof, that dark hall in which those who stood at one end of it by night could scarce see to the other, deeds of blood and cruelty had been perpetrated the recollection of which had not by then been effaced. Here prisoners innumerable had heard their doom pronounced; while on other occasions those within the citadel had made many a last stand ere being captured or slain.

To-night this hall was but partly lighted by the wood that flamed in a huge cresset at the further end of it, and by great, common candles that flared from sconces fixed into the walls, while dropping masses of grease to the open floor as they did so.

Yet, sombre as was the light thus obtained, it served well enough for what was now occurring. It served to show De Violaine standing before the enormous empty fireplace that reached to the roof--one in which many persons might sit as in a room and warm themselves on winter nights; to show, also, the Comtesse de Valorme and Sylvia seated together on a huge oaken bench on which, in earlier days than these, Spanish, Burgundian, French, and Walloon soldiers had lolled as the citadel was held in turn by their various rulers and generals--a bench on which at times trembling prisoners had awaited the pronouncement of their doom. Also, that light showed Bevill standing erect and calm not far from where Sylvia was seated, with, behind him, four troopers of the Régiment de Risbourg, which was quartered partly in the citadel and partly in the Chartreuse, or Carthusian, monastery.

There was, however, one other man present, behind whom there also stood four soldiers. One other--Francbois. Francbois, white as a phantom, yet speaking with an assumption of calm while protesting that that which he was now saying was uttered in the interests of France and justice.

This protestation made, Francbois went on to state how, from the moment he had seen the prisoner on the Quai, he had recognised him as an Englishman with whom he had been at school in Paris years before; and, consequently, in the interests of his beloved France he had resolved to discover what reasons he might have for being in Liége.

"Was it not possible," De Violaine asked, in his clear, quiet voice, "that the reason the prisoner now gives for his presence here may have been the true one--that he had come from England to escort his compatriot, Mademoiselle Thorne, back to their country?"

"Monsieur, had that been so this Englishman, Bracton, would have proceeded differently. From the moment he landed at Antwerp, almost from the first moment, his actions were marked by deceit and, alas! by wickedness unparalleled. He landed under the assumed name that he has borne here--André de Belleville. When he was recognised as an Englishman by one whom he had deeply injured in earlier days, one whom he had driven to ruin, he passed as an officer of Mousquetaires named Le Blond----"

"Le Blond of the Mousquetaires. He is long since dead. I knew him well."

"And I," said the Comtesse. "He was my cousin."

"Monsieur," said Francbois, "it was that dead man's papers he possessed himself of. The very horse he rides was that of Le Blond."

"How," asked De Violaine, still with ominous calm, "are you acquainted with these matters?"

"Monsieur, the man whom he had so injured tracked him here--tracked him when he had recovered from the wound inflicted on him at St. Trond by the prisoner."

"It is false," Bevill said now, speaking for the first time; "by whomsoever the man may have been wounded at St Trond, that wound was not given by me." While, as he spoke, he learnt for the first time how it was that Sparmann had not denounced him at St. Trond, how it was that he had been enabled to quit St. Trond without molestation.

"In what way," said De Violaine, repeating what he had said before, "are you acquainted with these matters? You tell me that they have happened. What I desire to learn is who you have obtained your knowledge of them?"

"Monsieur le Gouverneur, that man--his name was Sparmann--came to Liége when his wound was healed, still determined to expose, to denounce the Englishman. He and I met--by--by--accident, and I discovered what his intention was."

"It is strange that the only two men in Antwerp who desired to denounce the prisoner should have met. What was this man?"

"He was a Hollander who had been vanquished by the prisoner in a duel. For that he fell into ill-favour. Later, he became a spy of France."

"A spy! You consort with spies!"

"Ah!" murmured the Comtesse de Valorme at these words of the Governor, yet the murmur was loud enough for all present to hear, and to notice also that it was full of meaning--so full that, unconsciously, De Violaine's eyes were turned to her for an instant. Then the latter continued:

"Nevertheless, this man has not denounced the prisoner. It may be he confided that task to you."

"Monsieur," Francbois said now, and it was apparent to all that he was about to make his supreme effort, "Monsieur," drawing himself up to his full height, "I denounce this man, not because the task was confided to me--I am no spy, no denouncer, whose office it is to do these things--but because that other is not here to do it for himself. He was murdered by that man, that Englishman, your prisoner!"

"Liar!" exclaimed Bevill, and in a moment he had sprung at Francbois, when, seizing him in a grasp of iron, he would have throttled him had not the troopers intervened and torn Francbois from his grasp. "Liar! If 'twas any who slew him that night in the Weiss Haus 'twas you!" though even as he spoke he had his doubts, remembering the signs he had discovered of the presence of a third man beside himself in Sylvia's house.

But now, amidst the excitement caused by Francbois' words and Bevill's prompt action to avenge them, amidst the contemptuous exclamations of both Sylvia and the Comtesse against Francbois (while, as the former spoke, she had sprung from the oak bench and stood by Bevill's side, whispering words of belief in his innocence of the horrible deed of which he had been accused), De Violaine's quiet tones fell once more on all their ears.

"You declare this man murdered that other one, that spy. What is your proof?"

"I saw him do it," Francbois replied, though as he spoke he was careful to draw close to the side of the soldiers. "I had gone there with Sparmann to assist in capturing this man."

"Yet did not give help. Had you no weapon with which to assist your 'friend,' your '_confrère_,' or, unable to do that, no power to avenge his death?"

"I--I----" Francbois stammered. "I----"

"Enough!" De Violaine said. "Your story does not bear the impress of truth upon it. Remove him," he said now to four of the soldiers. "It needs," he continued, "that I learn more of you--of who and what you are. There lies more matter behind all this than you have seen fit to divulge."

"That you shall know at once--on the instant!" the Comtesse exclaimed. "Let him remain here and listen to what I have to narrate. Also let Mr. Bracton remain. Beside what else there is to tell of that man, Francbois, he hates this Englishman for a reason he has not deemed it well to divulge--for the reason that he believes Sylvia Thorne----"

"What!" De Violaine exclaimed, startled.

"For the reason that he believes I love this man," Sylvia said, drawing even closer to Bevill as she spoke, and holding out her hand to him. Then, as Bevill clasped it in both of his, she turned and looked the others proudly in the face, while adding: "As in truth I do. If you slay him on that wretch's word, you slay the man I love--the man who, I pray, may live to call me wife; the man who has risked, perhaps thrown away, his life for me."