The man, silent now, stared a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, 'tis fortunate it was his," he cried brutally, "and not His
Excellency's, or my back had suffered! And now," he added impatiently,
"by your leave, what answer?"
What answer? Ah, God, what answer? The men who leant on the parapet,
rude and coarse as they were, felt the tragedy of the question and the
dilemma, guessed what they meant to her, and looked everywhere save at
her.
What answer? Which of the two was to live? Which die--shamefully?
Which? Which?
"Tell him--to come back--an hour before sunset," she muttered.
They told him and he went; and one by one the men began to go too, and
stole from the roof, leaving her standing alone, her face to the shore,
her hands resting on the parapet. The light breeze which blew off the
land stirred loose ringlets of her hair, and flattened the thin robe
against her sunlit figure. So had she stood a thousand times in old
days, in her youth, in her maidenhood. So in her father's time had she
stood to see her lover come riding along the sands to woo her! So had
she stood to welcome him on the eve of that fatal journey to Paris!
Thence had others watched her go with him. The men remembered--remembered
all; and one by one they stole shamefacedly away, fearing lest she should
speak or turn tragic eyes on them.
True, in their pity for her was no doubt of the end, or thought of the
victim who must suffer--of Tavannes. They, of Poitou, who had not been
with him, knew nothing of him; they cared as little. He was a northern
man, a stranger, a man of the sword, who had seized her--so they heard--by
the sword. But they saw that the burden of choice was laid on her;
there, in her sight and in theirs, rose the gibbet; and, clowns as they
were, they discerned the tragedy of her role, play it as she might, and
though her act gave life to her lover.
When all had retired save three or four, she turned and saw these
gathered at the head of the stairs in a ring about Carlat, who was
addressing them in a low eager voice. She could not catch a syllable,
but a look hard and almost cruel flashed into her eyes as she gazed; and
raising her voice she called the steward to her.
"The bridge is up," she said, her tone hard, "but the gates? Are they
locked?"
"Yes, Madame."
"The wicket?"
"No, not the wicket." And Carlat looked another way.
"Then go, lock it, and bring the keys to me!" she replied. "Or stay!"
Her voice grew harder, her eyes spiteful as a cat's. "Stay, and be
warned that you play me no tricks! Do you hear? Do you understand? Or
old as you are, and long as you have served us, I will have you thrown
from this tower, with as little pity as Isabeau flung her gallants to the
fishes. I am still mistress here, never more mistress than this day. Woe
to you if you forget it."