VII
And yet it had all occurred within a very few minutes. Gilles and Jacqueline were left alone now on La Bretèque, and neither of them had thought of fleeing. For each of them the awesome moment was just a pause wherein their minds faced the only important problem—how to help and what to do, singly, against that terrible tide.
It was just a moment—the space, perhaps, of a dozen heart-beats. All around them the turbulent passions of men—fear, enmity, greed—were raging in all their unbridled frenzy. The cannons roared, the walls of the ancient city tottered; but they stood in a world apart, he—the man who unknowingly had played so ignominious a part—and she, the woman whom he had so heinously wronged. He tried to read her innermost thoughts behind that forbidding mask, and a mad appeal to her for forgiveness rose, even at this supreme instant, to his lips.
But the appeal was never made. The man's feelings, his grief, his shame were all swept aside by the stirring of the soldier's soul. It was the moment when first the cannon roared and the runaway guard came running through the streets, Gilles saw them long before they had reached the Grand' Place. He realized what it all meant, saw the unutterable confusion and panic which would inevitably render the city an easy prey to the invader. He gave a cry of horror and dismay.
'My God! but 'tis black treachery that has been at work this day!' he exclaimed involuntarily.
She had not yet seen the runaway guard, did not perhaps for the moment realize the utter imminence of the peril. Her mind was still busy with the difficult problem—how to help, what to do. But his involuntary cry suddenly roused her ire and her bitter disillusionment.
'You should know Messire,' she retorted. 'You are well versed in the art.'
'God forgive me, I am!' he ejaculated ruefully. 'But this!' he added with a smothered oath, and pointed down to the panic-stricken soldiers. 'This! ... Oh, my God! Your safety, your precious life at stake! You'll not believe, Jacqueline,' he pleaded, 'that I had a hand in selling your city to your enemies?'
'In selling the city!' The words appeared to have whipped up her spirit as with a lash. She looked at him, wrathfully, boldly, with a still unspoken challenge lurking in her eyes. 'You do not believe that——'
'That traitors have engineered her perdition?' he broke in rapidly. 'I do!'
'But——'
'The disturbance in the crowd ... the panic ... the deserters ... those abominable agitators! In a few hours the Spaniards will be inside the city—and Cambray lost!'
'Cambray lost! Impossible!'
'With no discipline, no leaders.... She cannot resist——'
'Then you must lead her,' she said firmly.
'I?'
'Yes! You!'
She had taken the mask from off her face and confronted him now with a glowing challenge in her eyes.
'You!' she reiterated, speaking very rapidly. 'Whoever you are, save Cambray ... defend her ... save her! I know that you can.'
In the look which she gave him he read something which filled his very soul with rapture. He gave her back glance for glance, worship for this trust.
'I can at any rate die for her,' he said quietly. 'If you, ma donna, will forgive.'
'Save Cambray,' she reiterated with superb confidence, 'and I'll forgive everything!'
'Then may God have you in His keeping,' he called to her. And, before she could realize what was in his purpose, he had climbed to the top of the tall balustrade, stood for one moment there high above her, silhouetted against the clear blue of the sky, like a living statue of youth and enthusiasm and springtide, animated by that faith which moveth mountains and sets out to conquer the world in order to lay it at the loved one's feet.
'Jehan!' he called. 'À moi!'
Then, swinging himself with the easy grace of perfect strength, he jumped down on to the perron below.