What need to tell more of the journey? Day and night we pushed on, until our horses stumbled under us, over hill, through valley, avoiding the roads, seeking hidden ways, where M. le Comte would not think to follow. And always my guard was about me, until at last I came to see that Roquefort was taking no chance of losing me—no chance of missing his vengeance. The women were kept to the rear of the column; Fronsac I seldom saw; d’Aurilly passed me by with a sneering smile that turned me hot for murder. Well that I was young and strong, with a boy’s hopeful heart, else had despair weighed me down!
’Tis true, Drouet relaxed a little as we journeyed forward and exchanged a word with me now and then, pointing out the features of the country through which we rode or telling some little story of his numberless campaigns with Roquefort. Gruesome stories they were, most of them, of murder, outrage, robbery, for Roquefort’s men were not troubled by nice consciences and took, without questioning, all that came to their nets. Nor did their leader concern himself about them, so they went willingly on his business and fought his battles for him.
At noon of the third day we came to Marleon.
“You were asking about the castle,” said Drouet suddenly. “Behold it.”
I looked with all my eyes, but saw only the tumbled roofs of the little town.
“You look too low,” he said. “Higher, on the cliff behind the town.”
Then I descried it, and my heart grew cold as I looked at it. Two hundred feet or more the cliff sprang upward, straight as a house’s wall and near as smooth—so smooth that no tree nor shrub caught foothold on it. And just at the summit stood the castle, frowning down upon the village like some tireless, merciless watch-dog.
“But to get to it,” I ventured, after a moment. “It seems to have been built only for the birds.”
“You will see,” and Drouet laughed meaningly. “I advise you to look well at the way, Monsieur; you may never have occasion to use it a second time.”
I rode on without replying. What good to bandy words with this scoundrel? But as we drew nearer to the place my heart fell more and more. It might defy the king’s army.