The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust

Front matter

By

Authors of "The Pride Jennico," etc.

They had their time, and we may say: they were! Don Lewis of Madrid is now the sole remaining master of the world.

II

Thou art a traitor and a miscreant, Too good to be so and too bad to live!… With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat!… What my tongue speaks my right drawn sword may prove.

Shakespeare (Richard II).

IT WAS the eleventh of December by English reckoning—the twenty-second according to the new Gregorian calendar used in foreign lands—that Dick Wyatt, at a turning of the road by the elbow of a hill, came in sight of the goal of his three months' journeying.

Reining in his nag, he gazed. There was Geneva! It rose in the distance from the plain, severe within its bastioned walls; a few spires faintly gilt by the parting rays of the sun fast sinking behind the farther chain of low hills. There was something in the spring of the cathedral on its eminence above the black clustering roofs which brought back to his mind, with a transient pang of yearning, the outline of Paul's on Ludgate Heights, away in far England. In the forefront the Rhone bounded and roared, foaming in its southward race. Beyond the grim city spread the dark waters and the silence of Lake Leman. Beyond again, through the clear frosty air, against a darkening sky, towered the still gold and rosy snows of Savoy.

The sight, impressive enough, was specially welcome at the end of a day's ride through bitter weather and sore rough ways. As the traveler gazed, with eyes of satisfaction not unmixed with awe, a distant boom rolled through the still air.

Many experiences had Dick Wyatt gone through since he had left his peaceful island; among others the disastrous one of closed town-gates at fall of night. He spurred his tired mount, therefore; and it was with but a few minutes to spare that he reached the Porte de Cornevin and found himself inside the staid stronghold of Calvinism. Before being granted free entrance, he was suspiciously questioned by the sergeant of the burgher guard on his character, religion, and the purpose of his journeying—an examination which he passed with some difficulty, for French was still unready to his tongue. So soon, however, as it transpired that his business was with one Maître Todescan, the sour visage relaxed; he was not only admitted but sped on—any friend of worthy Master Todescan, Provost of the Town Companies, must be welcome in Geneva!

And so, all in the uncertain light of a Wintry orange afterglow, the last comer to the town found his way through the winding streets; past the old Castle of St. Gervais, by the Pont aux Mariniers over the thundering Rhone as it rushes out of the lake, across the isle, toward the steep rising Grand Rue, wherein—so had said the burgher sergeant—dwelt the great provost-at-arms, "at the sign of the Roy David, just a pistol-shot short of St. Germain Church."

Dick Wyatt, after the manner of men haunted by a fixed purpose, paid little heed to aught but what fell in with the main tenor of his thoughts. He marveled not at the prosperity of the noble Free City, at the orderly sober throng, the breath of peace that pervaded the place—unlike those airs of furtive merriment snatched between spells of disaster which marked the war-ridden towns he had recently passed through; he took scarce note of the houses, wondrous tall, showing at almost every floor a glow of fire or lamp that met you like a smile of welcome. But rather he marveled how a man of martial renown, such as the great Todescan, could find congenial dwelling among people where psalming and grave converse rather than the ringing of spurs and the cocking of beavers seemed the chief assertion of manliness.

And it made his heart leap, for all his weariness, as he halted at length before the Roy David, suddenly to hear, above the bustle of a hostelry at supper-time, the rousing clank of iron, the stamp of foot, the sharp cries, which tell of the fencing hour. The sounds proceeded from a row of windows on the first floor, lighted redly and wide open in spite of the great cold.

"So! Todescan at last!"

With an eager presentiment of all that he—well-prepared scholar if ever there was one—was soon to learn under those projecting gables, Dick Wyatt entered the inn. Little did he dream how fast his knowledge would grow that very night!

Mine host of the Roy David appraised the newcomer with one look of an experienced eye.

"Aye—faith! There is still accommodation, though my house is all but full. And you would have speech with Master Todescan? And, faith, I thought as much. Though what there is in our Todescan that you all should thus—and another Englishman too! But I, for one, have no call to grumble.… And I may make bold to guess further, my gentleman, that you desire speech of Todescan even before sight of supper? Eh? Said I truly?"

And without more ado the traveler was conducted up a winding stairway to the door of the fencing-room.

'Twas a long, low, beam-ceiled gallery, covering the whole depth of the house from high street to back lane; lit with four oil lamps; bare of all furniture but for a couple of forms and an arm-rack in the corner. The last lesson of the day was over. A heavy-looking youth had just drawn on his doublet and was adjusting its points, ever and anon wiping his face and the back of his neck, spite the icy blast pouring through the windows.

"Maître Todescan," cried mine host from the threshold, all professional cheeriness, "again I bring an English admirer—one, too, mark you, that can not wait another hour before saluting you! What a man you are, aha! No doubt you would, as usual, partake of supper together? I leave you. But the time to toss that basket of trout into the pan and to carbonade a rib of that veal—say I well? Aye, and a pitcher of the white wine of Morges—eh? I know, I know!"

Without waiting for reply, he retired, leaving Dick Wyatt face to face with his great man.

The first impression was curiously unpleasant, and Dick was seized with an unexpected revulsion—a sense of resentment as against something unnatural. Every master of the blade he had known in his days, ruffian at heart though he might be, had borne about him the note of joviality. But here was a saturnine visage with a vengeance! An unformed thought quickly took possession of the Englishman's mind; in practise with such a one, cunning strokes of fence would assume a new purpose; would savor more of cruelty and treachery than of skill!

As a fact, Maître Todescan's face displayed anything but cordiality at that moment. It was with the air of him who finds his time trespassed upon at a decidedly inopportune moment that he turned upon the visitor, looking deeply at him. With an engaging glibness, cultivated on repeated occasions, the youth fell to explaining his presence. For a while Todescan listened in silence; then suddenly seemed to make up his mind to more graciousness. A smile found its way to his lips, without, however, reaching the eyes, that remained filled as with some dark and absorbing speculation.

He was honored. He would—on the morrow—offer his humble services to the gentleman. Now, he must go forth; he had charge to-night of the burgher guard's watch. But to-morrow. … He bowed. There came a furtive look into the close-set eyes. It was happy for the stranger that he had just saved the hour of the setting of the watch. The days were of the shortest. Had he encountered any noticeable experience on his approach to Geneva? Which road had his been? From the Bern side? Ah, from the north!

He stood musing for a moment. Well, he must even crave the young master's leave—until the morrow.

He spoke with a conscious air which betrayed the tardy grafting of courtly manners upon an original stock of camp brutality. And Dick Wyatt, escorted down-stairs, politely but firmly shaken off at the kitchen door, as he watched the fencing-master wrap himself up scientifically in his great cloak and stride out into the night, had a fantastic impression as one who has just passed by an unknown personal danger.

In some dudgeon, with lingering regrets for the merry taverns of Paul's Chains (oh, how far they seemed!), he consumed his trout and drank his thin wine by himself. And soon after, the melancholy drone of curfew having sounded from a neighboring tower, he wended his way dejectedly to the bare and very cold room allotted to him just below the eaves.

But under the combined influence of bodily chill, overfatigue, and mental annoyance, it seemed as though the soothing of sleep were not to be granted that night. After a few hours of angry tossing, the youth made up his mind to defy the curfew laws, struck the flint, and once more lit the small length of tallow allotted to him.

Geneva at last!… Three months since he had started from England, but a few days after that tavern meeting which had fired his young blood, and, throughout, the burden of his thoughts had been Todescan—Todescan of Geneva! A long and tedious way it had been, with more than one unpleasant adventure. Laid by the heels at Cologne through some pernicious fever; hindered almost at every step by his ignorance of tongues, of travel.… But the goal was reached; Geneva at last!

Wrapped in his traveling-cloak, he began to rehearse the tale of his fencing knowledge, in preparation of the morrow's ordeal, when he should face, foiled rapier in hand, "the king of them all," as Captain Strongi'th'arm had dubbed this Todescan of Geneva.

After the manner of men enamored, living in dreams of their lady; of poets, haunted by rhymes and hits and metaphors; of misers, with thoughts ever circling round their treasures (madmen all, in their degree), so this youth, on whom the meretricious new-fangled rapier had cast her spell, had grown mad—mad as any lover, rhymester or harpagon; fencing-mad even as the Martius portrayed by Marston. No uncommon occurrence about these years! Not of lady's eyebrows or instep; not of dimples by rosy lips, ran his fevered thoughts, but of nattiest tricks with edge and point, of undiscovered wards of the swift blades, and of the deadly masters of swordland!

The few inches of candle supplied by the Roy David came abruptly to an end; the long unsnuffed wick collapsed, drowned its flame with a sizzle, and left him once more in darkness. Dick Wyatt was in that state of nocturnal lucidity of mind in which it seems verily as if sleep would never be known again in life. He remained as he was, sitting up in bed, gazing at some particular bright star that, between two gables, peered into the blackness of his room. In time the star progressed out of sight, and he had nothing left but to hearken to the all-pervading silence; that singular silence of an enclosed town buried in slumber on a night of frost when not even a prowling animal is about.

Into the stillness the tower-clock of a neighboring church dropped the stroke of one. The grave note reverberated with an odd emphasis; the pulsing vibrations hung lingering upon the air as if in warning. Strangely, the reminder of the hour appeared to break a spell. At first, to the musing listener, it was only as if that sense of death-like hush had departed. True, he could hear nothing; yet he felt as if, in the world around, were sounds that ought to be heard. Presently he realized that there was indeed something astir under the silent scintillation of the stars. Filled with an unaccountable sense of surprise, he sprang out of bed, and, standing tiptoe in the darkness, strained his ear to catch he knew not what. A moment later he had pushed open the casement and thrust his head into the cold night; a rumor without, very faint, intermittent, indefinable; into the midst of it, suddenly springing, human sounds; a sharp cry, pain or rage; a call; and then a shot, harquebus or pistol; another! Silence again, and now a clang that made the woodwork rattle. All was as clear to his mind's eye as if he saw; a on the rampart had spoken. It was fight! It was a dead-of-night assault on the sleeping town!

The news began to pour like water from open sluices through the main ways. Drums, sharp and panting, ran north and west, checkering the night. One came drubbing up the High Street, and Dick bent out of his window to peer down. Nothing to be seen but a denser shadow in the dark, a faint whiteness—the skin of the drum. But out of the murk rose the cry, thrown out between the taps, strangled words from a throat out of all breath:

"To arms! To arms! To the Tertasse—the gate is taken! The Savoyards!"

Right and left casements clattered back; heads were thrust forth with much exchange of exclamation. Half-dressed men, many in naught but shoes and shirts, came hastening out of their houses, halbert or matchlock in hand, feverishly concerting as they scurried toward the west ramparts, whence the clamor upwelled. And presently, over all, the great bell of the Cathedral threw the clang and drone of the tocsin, lamentable, making the windows, the very rafters, shiver as if with terror in the dark.

Some new treachery of the ever-treacherous Ligue party—the ferocious mercenaries of the Duke of Savoy.… The sack of the town! … 'Twas a fearsome thing to contemplate—Les Savoyards! Awestruck voices cried the tidings from window to window.

Dick Wyatt understood but one thing; and a new spirit awoke in him. He thrust his feet into his list shoes—no time to pull on long boots—buckled his sword over a still unfastened doublet, and groped his way down the black stairs into the street; the house door was open. His host, loading a harquebus on the steps by the light of a lantern which the half-clad handmaid held up, shouted something to him as he passed out—something he could not understand.

He found himself swiftly caught by the ever-increasing stream flowing toward the lower town. Men moved like shadows. Here and there a lantern made a narrow circle of light. More shirts, vaguely white in the all but complete darkness, were to be met than doublets or cloaks; many a foot went bare, to save that priceless minute of time at the rampart that might decide between success or massacre. With jaws firmly set on the thought of the coming death-struggle (aye, and on the thought of children and women!) none found breath to spare for words. A halt was called at last, at the entrance, squat, thick-pillared, of some monstrous cavern—or so it seemed to Dick. Pungent into the crisp air spread the smell of apples, onions, straw.… Ah, the Market Hall! A man sprang into the midst of them, out of the black. His voice rang; a soldier's voice, accustomed to command:

"Back! To the Bastion de Rive, every man! Every man, I say! The attack at the Tertasse is but a feint. The enemy is at the Rive Gate! That is where men are wanted! Back!" He ran, flinging out his arms; and the whole posse turned before him as the flock before the sheep-dog. The light of a lantern fell upon a harsh thin face, upon gleaming small eyes. 'Twas Todescan the Provost.

Dick Wyatt's soul leaped to the splendid mastery of the soldier in the emergency. Here was the champion in his right place; here the leader for him; here a gorgeous chance to take his first lesson from the terrible blade!

Upon the very spring of this elation fell a sudden chilling doubt. The last of the crowd had moved lustily up the narrow street once more, but Todescan had stopped short; and, with a stride to one side and a swift glance from right to left, he had dived down an alley. After a second's hesitation, moved by uneasy curiosity, Wyatt bounded forward in his wake, found the mouth of the entry, and noiselessly followed in pursuit.

The alley, narrow, winding, and all but closed from the skies by overhanging eaves, was pitch-dark. But the rapid, assured footsteps in front guided him and he was able to thread his way. At a turn of the lane a vague lifting of the gloom told of a more open space; and, against the lighter background, the black bulk of his man became perceptible. A vague yet overpowering suspicion caused Dick Wyatt to remain concealed. Todescan had halted. His steel cap, catching the glint of starlight, revealed furtive movements as of one peering and hearkening. Against the faintly luminous sky, a crenelated outline, cut high above, told the nature of the place—an inner patrolway at the foot of the town walls. The night all around was now alive with rumor, but this spot still held silence and emptiness. With a dart, like a serpent, Todescan suddenly stooped, and from under a pile of stones (as far as the listener could judge) dragged forth some heavy object.

Wyatt watched, held by the horrid suspicion that gripped him ever more sickeningly. Todescan was fiercely busy. There came a thud, as though the unknown thing that was so heavy and clanked on the cobbles as it moved, were being thrust against a door. And now, out of the darkness danced the red sparkle of flint and steel. A faint point sprang and remained aglow. Thereafter, more sparkle and then a steady fizzle.

Wyatt was no soldier, but he knew the quick-match and the little hissing fire-snake whispered of dire treachery. With his evil glimmer it kindled lurid understanding in his brain. An unguarded postern in the ramparts, a traitor behind it, a petard to blow the breach!

The young man's blood rose in fury. He drew his sword; his cry rang out incoherently:

"Oh, base and murderous! Treachery! Hold, rogue, traitor, renegade rogue! Help there! O sweet Jesu!"

The English words could be but sounds to the knave; but their clamor was eloquent. Todescan started, wheeled round; his blade leaped forth. The scintillation of the match cast the merest trembling gleam, yet he recognized the youth; and, cursing him blasphemously for an English fool, opposed his headlong attack with contemptuous yet vindictive mastery.

For a single moment, that yet seemed, in its tension, to pass the bounds of time, as Wyatt found himself under the glare—felt rather than seen—of those sinister eyes that from the first had struck a chill to his soul, the full realization of his madness swept upon him. He was challenging to the death the world's greatest swordsman; all his own science served but to emphasize his sense of appalling helplessness. But, even at the first meeting of blades, the misgiving vanished. His spirit rose to exaltation, stimulated by the very feeling of his opponent's superb authority. His sword seemed to be less combated than taken possession of; stimulated, too, by the low chuckle that Todescan gave. The utter scorn of it—so might a demon laugh in the dark, exulting in the power of his own soul!

Upon a singular trick of the imagination, as in the flash of a vision, he was once more in the old fencing-room of Paul's Chains, in the "Friars"—there rose the great yellow windows looking Thamesward, the paneled walls, the hacked pillars—and there, over the point of his own foiled rapier, the kindly, keen face of his revered master, of Saviolo, the mirror of chivalrous courtesy. Hark to his voice, admonitory yet encouraging:

"Eh la! point in line, figlio mio; ever in line! And ever lower than the wrist! Lower—lower, good lad! Thumb down, and up with the little finger, elbow out, nearly straight! So—and I promise thee, ne'er a blade in the world shall surprise thy ward!"

As if in obedience, he swiftly fell into the well-practised expectant guard. Even as he did so, there was a jerk—it was almost like an exclamation of wonder and disappointment—in the steel that pressed on his own; and Dick Wyatt was back again, fighting for his life, the Genevan cobblestones under his feet, the glimmer of the quick-match and its steady hiss—frightful menace!—warning him to haste! He gripped the ground in his soft shoes (a blessing it was he had not waited to don the great boots!). He set his teeth. Never, for one breathing-space, did the terrible long-blade release his own. He felt it gliding, seeking to bind, fiercely caressing—the deadly spring behind a tiger's crouch—felt the invincible unknown thrust ready against the first weakening. And that weakening was coming apace! It was all he could do to hold his opposition. As a kind of spell, cast by the fingers of steel and the superhuman flexibility of his opponent's wrist, a palsy was creeping up his outstretched arm. And one twitch of relaxation, he knew, and he was sped! Now, whether from the depth of his own need, or whether the spirit of the master were hovering over a beloved scholar in his dire extremity—who shall say?—certain it was that the very tones of Saviolo were now recalling to Wyatt's brain a favorite axiom of the fence-school:

"Chi para, busca; chi tira, tocca!" (He who parries, only seeketh; he who thrusts finds!)

It was to the youth as if a flame had been lit in his soul. Why wait in anguish to parry a coming secret thrust, when he could still himself strike? Up he sprang; brain and eye, wrist and nimble feet in magnificent concert. To his dying day, Dick swore that, for the instant, he saw in the dark, even to the dreadful grin on the face opposite to him. His ear, strained to the same marvel of keenness, caught the sound of a catching breath—not his own. Exultant, he thrust; out went Saviolo's favorite botta lunga supramano!

It was on the very dart of Todescan's stroke , which leaped out like a bolt from ambush—but one splinter of a second too late! Todescan's own pass: the fierce, jerky binding, the incredible turn of the wrist inward, the infallible estocade that was to have driven the point irremediably under the armpit and let free the overweening soul that dared oppose him in earnest! There was a sinister grating of steel, and the edge of the menacing blade glided, harmless, by Wyatt's side; but his own rapier, driven straight, heart-high, went home. Todescan, caught on the start of his own lunge, actually ran upon the point!

At any other moment, the horrible ease with which his steel traversed living flesh would have sickened Dick Wyatt, but now there was nothing but fierce leaping triumph in his blood; the great gaunt figure had stopped dead-short. A broken curse, a groan ending in a long sigh, and the Provost of Geneva fell at the feet of the bewildered London apprentice, whose bright blade was now black to within a foot of the hilt.

"Master Vincent Saviolo—have thanks!" cried the youth and waved the victorious weapon at the stars. Even as he did so, a drop falling from it glittered, a dreadful red, in the light of the quick-match. "My God!" he called out, upon a new thought; flung the good sword from him, and was down on his knees, tearing like one possessed at the last inch of the burning rope.

The urgency of the peril, for he had no mind to see the fruits of his great combat thrown away, lent a desperate sureness to his effort. In another instant he had sprung up again and was stamping the last spark under foot. Then he stood and breathed deeply, feeling dazed, almost as in a dream.

Hemmed in by the rumors, this little square under the bastion was still wrapped in stillness—a stillness that suddenly grew awful to Dick as he thought of the dead man. It was the first time he had sped a soul. In the cant of rufflers, this was "his first man." Yonder black heap—that was he who had been Todescan, a name Dick had never spoken but with bated breath!

The sight of torches bobbing at the far depth of the wall lane, the sound of running steps and voices uplifted, startled him from his mood. With a sudden vividness he saw his own peril. To be found alone with the corpse of the honored Provost, near the tell-tale petard and the remains of the quick-match, he, a stranger just arrived in the city, without a single friend, without even speech to explain or defend himself—his doom as spy, traitor, and murderer would be trebly sealed! He hastily picked up his rapier, and made a wildcat spring up the steps that led to the battlements, reaching the black shelter of the platform only just in time.

There, although prudence urged a noiseless flight along the walls to some farther quarter of the town where, unnoticed, he might mix with the throng, he was fain to sit down and gather strength, for shaking knees and laboring heart refused service. He dropped on the sill of an empty gun embrasure, and listened. Within the walls the steps and voices were drawing near the spot where the body lay. Outward, beyond the moat, stretched the fields under the starlight. Frogs were croaking with strange persistence. All at once the lane below him was filled with new sounds, exclamations, hurried steps, a clang as of a falling pike. Impelled by a desperate curiosity he crept back to the edge of the platform and looked down.

Luridly illumined by the glare of torches, he could see a party of disheveled, anxious-faced burghers, a score or so of them, armed with harquebus or halbert, clustered together. One rushed, cursing, from the petard at the postern to the body of Todescan. Another was shaking his fist upward as to some unseen enemy. Dick was preparing to crawl to some safer hiding-place, when it was borne in upon him, to his utter astonishment, that the slayer of the Town Provost was already vindicated. Little French had he, true, but his wits were sharpened by danger and deed and by his knowledge of the truth in this matter. One, who seemed to be the leader of the party, was speaking, emphasizing his words by vindictive thumps of his clinched hand on his palm:

"He sent us to the Bastion de Rives—there was no enemy there! That was his treachery! Todescan has betrayed us—but God has avenged!"

And deep-mouthed, thrice repeated, came the words:

"Todescan the traitor!"

Dick Wyatt straightened himself with a long sigh of relief. Yet he deemed it still best play to withdraw unseen from the neighborhood of these hard-pressed, excited men. Stealthily he wiped his blade: and, in disgust, flung the bloody kerchief over the wall into the ditch.

Instantly he was struck by the singular cessation of the obtrusive frog-croaking. He paused a moment, wondering. Then, as though the throwing of a kerchief had been an expected signal, from the darkness without a muffled call came up the wall:

"Eh, is it you at last, Espingola! Are you ready?"

At once one of the words evoked the memory of old Strongi'th'arm: "a corporal in Piedmont they called Espingola"—had said the old man of travels; and he thrust his head through the embrasure and peered into the moat. Yonder, in sooth, huddled at the foot of the rampart—in their black armor, darker shadows upon the gloom—lay a party of the Savoyards.

Boyish Dick forgot his wise resolution; all thoughts of safety, of self-preservation, evaporated. He sheathed his rapier and rushed back boldly to the platform's edge.

"Ho, there, my men!" he shouted in sturdy English to the party that was, even then, hastily moving on. "Here, here! The enemy is yonder!"

All torches were lifted, all heads looked up in astonishment. He pointed and waved vehemently, and summoned a scrap of their language to his tongue:

"L'ennemi! l'ennemi! Là—Là!"

Rapidly the burghers lined the parapet. Those outside who had expected a secret ally to beckon from the breach were confronted by defenders. Stealth and silence were of no further avail; the Savoyards upsprang. The harquebusade began.

THE story of the escalade of Geneva has become matter of history. Widespread in all Protestant countries has been the bitter tale of that night surprise, treacherously planned in the midst of proclaimed peace. And all who heard of it know how nigh the vile plan came to fruition; how narrow, for one panting hour, remained the margin between victorious repulse and annihilation; what nameless orgies of blood, lust and rapine were, by the Duke's explicit orders, to follow on the shout of "The city is taken."

Once indeed that cry of terror was actually raised, to strike ice-cold to many an innocent heart. And no doubt it would have been justified, had all the concerted measures of assailants without and confederates within come to their expected issue—of which the most pregnant was the blowing up of the forgotten little postern under the Bastion de l'Oye!

But as yet Dick Wyatt knew naught of all this. Toward the fourth hour of the morning when the last gun on the south walls had vomited its last shot at the retreating enemy; when the Savoyard army had vanished into the darkness whence it had sprung, the young man, sitting on a heap of rubbish, exhausted, dazed with fight, had not yet plumbed the mystery of the night's monstrous doings. He had had a glut of sword work; not, indeed, of the subtle fencing tricks of his dreams, but of furious strokes, by mere fighting man's instinct, all in the light of nature; here falling on morion or corselet, there roughly warding a push of pike. The struggle was over; but about him turmoil was still seething. The whole town was in the street, yet in the midst of the throng he was in solitude. Each in the crowd was moved to exultation or thanksgiving, to lament or solicitude for friend and kin; but he had no friend among them; none thought of dropping him a word of kindness. By the light of one of those street fires that had been kindled wherever possible until the opening of the blessed eye of day, he was sullenly attending to sundry slight wounds that now had begun to stiffen and smart. A morose depression gathered upon him.