The Vert Gallant paused, gazing upon his prostrate enemy, with feelings that can be understood, when it is remembered that it was his own father, who, beaten down by his superior strength, lay within an inch of his sword's point, raised for the purpose of terminating their struggle by a parent's death. His eyes grew dim, his brain reeled, the sword dropped from his hand, and he fell back upon the pavement, without power or consciousness.
At the same moment, the axe of the executioner swung high in the air; there was a dull, heavy blow, a rush of dark blood poured over the scaffold, and the Lord of Imbercourt was no more.
CHAPTER XXX.
It is a sad thing for a calm, retired student, to sit down and depict the fierce and terrible passions which sometimes animate his fellow-beings; and it is scarcely possible to tell how worn and shaken his whole frame feels, after hurrying through some scene of angry violence and wild commotion. He meets, indeed, with compensations in pursuing his task. There may be a high and indescribable pleasure in portraying the better qualities of human nature in all their grand and beautiful traits; in describing sweet scenes of nature, and in striving to find latent associations between the various aspects of the material world and the mind, the feelings, or the fate of ourselves and our fellow-men. Nay, more, there may be some touch of satisfaction--part self-complacency, part gratified curiosity--in tracing the petty things of humanity mingling with the finer ones, the mighty and the mean counterbalancing each other within the same bosom, and in discovering that the noblest of recorded earthly beings is linked on to our little selves by some fond familiar fault or empty vanity. But at the same time, though not so wearing as to paint the struggle of mighty energies called forth on some great occasion, it is even more painful, perhaps, to sit and draw the same strong passions working by inferior means, and employing the low and treacherous slave, Cunning, instead of the bold bravo, Daring. To such a picture, however, we must now turn.
It was on the evening of the day, whose sanguinary commencement we have already noticed, that, placed calmly by a clear wood fire, with all the means of comfort, and even luxury around him, Ganay, the druggist, sat pondering over the past and the future. Neither he himself, nor Albert Maurice, had appeared at the execution of Imbercourt and Hugonet--the one careless of what else occurred, so that his bitter revenge was gratified--the other naturally abhorring scenes of blood. The druggist, however--though where it was necessary he neither wanted courage to undertake, nor hardihood to execute the most daring actions--was ever well pleased to let more careless fools perform the perilous parts of an enterprise, employing the time, which would have been thus filled up by action, in thinking over the best means of reaping his own peculiar harvest from the seed sown by others. He now revolved every circumstance of his present situation, and scanned the future--that dim and uncertain prospect--with steady eyes, determined to force his way onward, through its mists and obstacles, without fear and without remorse.
The predominant sensation in his bosom, however, was gratification at the consummation of his long sought revenge. The man whom he most hated on earth, who had offered him a personal indignity, and who had refused pardon to his son, he had sent to join the unhappy magistrates who had condemned that base and flagitious boy; and when he contemplated the difficulties he had surmounted to bring about that act of vengeance, the schemes he had formed and perfected, the events which he had turned from their natural course, by his sole art, to accomplish his purpose, the men he had used as instruments, and the passions he had bent to his designs--when he contemplated, I say, the whole course of his triumphant machinations, there rose up in his bosom that pride of successful villany, which is so often the ultimate means of its own punishment by the daring confidence which it inspires.
The maxim of Rochefoucault is applicable to men as well as women. Where was there ever the man who paused at one evil act? Ganay had previously determined to limit all his efforts to the death of the eschevins and of Imbercourt; but his very success in that endeavour had entailed the necessity, and furnished the encouragement, to new and, if possible, less justifiable acts. Nevertheless, it must not be thought that there was no such thing as a thrill of remorse ever entered his bosom. There probably never yet was a man, however he might brave it to the world, who, with a bosom loaded with crimes, did not feel remorse when solitary thought left him a prey to memory. Conscience is an Antæus, that, though often cast to the earth by the Herculean passions of man's heart, rises ever again re-invigorated by its fall; and he must be strong, indeed, who can strangle it altogether.
Remorse mingled its bitter drop even with the cup of Ganay's triumph; and while he gazed upon the crackling embers, the joy of his successes faded away; a feeling of age, and solitude, and crime, crept over his heart; and the memories of other years--the hopes and dreams of boyhood and innocence, rose up, and painfully contrasted themselves with the mighty disappointment of successful vice. Through life he had found many means of stifling such murmurs of the heart, in the excitement of new schemes and the intricacies of tortuous policy; but now he had learned another way of lulling the mind together with the body; and, rising with his usual calm and quiet pace, he approached a cupboard, poured a small silver cup half full of ardent spirits, and then swallowed in its contents a certain portion of that narcotic which he had found so soothing under the first anguish of his son's death. Then carefully replacing the cup and the vial, he again took his seat before the fire, and listened, as if waiting for some visitor.
He was not kept long in expectation; for, in a very few minutes after, the door was opened by the boy, and Maillotin du Bac entered without farther announcement. The cheek of the Prevot was flushed with wine, and his lip curled with triumph; but he had by this time, learned the influence of Ganay in the affairs of Ghent too completely to treat him with aught but the most profound deference. After some formality, he took the seat that Ganay offered; and hypocras and wine having been brought in, with spices and comfits, he helped himself largely, and then, at the request of the druggist, recapitulated the events connected with the execution of the morning, which we need not repeat.
"So now," said the Prevot, in conclusion, speaking of the unhappy Imbercourt, "he is dead, and that score is cleared. Master Ganay, I give you joy, with all my heart! Your son's death is nobly avenged, and you can sleep in peace. Now, give me joy in return."