The instant he entered the passage beyond, he stopped, exclaiming, "It is my uncle!" and turned to rush back into the cell; but before he could accomplish it, or De Coucy could start forward to assist him, the new jailer passed out, pushed the unhappy prince from the threshold, and shutting the door, fastened it with bolt after bolt.
"Now, minion," cried a voice without, which De Coucy could not doubt was that of king John, "wilt thou brave me as thou didst this morning?--Begone, slave!" he added, apparently speaking to the jailer; "quick! begone!" and then again turning to his nephew, he poured upon him a torrent of vehement and angry vituperation.
In that dark age such proceedings could have but one purpose, and De Coucy, comprehending them at once, glanced round the apartment in search of some weapon wherewith he might force the door; but it was in vain--nothing presented itself. The door was cased with iron, and the strength of Herculus would not have torn it from its hinges. Glaring then like a lion in a cage, the knight stood before it, listening for what was to follow,--doubting not for a moment the fearful object of the bad and bloodthirsty monarch,--his heart swelling with indignation and horror, and yet perfectly impotent to prevent the crime that he knew was about to be perpetrated.
"John of Anjou!" he cried, shouting through the door. "Bloodthirsty tyrant! beware what you do! Deeply shall you repent your baseness, if you injure but a hair of his head! I will brand your name with shame throughout Europe! I will publish it before your barons to your teeth! You are overheard, villain, and your crime shall not sleep in secret!"
But, in the dreadful scene passing without, neither nephew nor uncle seemed to heed his call. There was evidently a struggle, as if the king endeavoured to free himself from the agonised clasp of Arthur, whose faint voice was heard, every now and then, praying in vain for mercy, at the hands of the hard-hearted tyrant in whose power he was. At length the struggle seemed to grow fainter. A loud horrific cry rang echoing through the passages; and then a heavy, deadly fall, as if some mass of unelastic clay were cast at once upon the hollow stone of the pavement. Two or three deep groans followed; and then a distinct blow, as if a weapon of steel, stabbed through some softer matter, struck at last against a block of stone. A retreating step was heard; then whispering voices; then, shortly after, the paddling of a boat in the water below the tower--a heavy plunge in the stream--and all was silent.[[24]]
CHAPTER III.
No language can express the joy that spread over the face of France, when the first peal from the steeples of the churches announced that the interdict was raised--that the nation was once more to be held as a Christian people--that the barrier was cast down which had separated it from the pale of the church. Labour, and care, and sorrow seemed suspended. The whole country rang with acclamations; and so crowded were the churches, when the gates were first thrown open, that several hundred serfs were crushed to death in the struggle for admission.
Every heart was opened--every face beamed with delight; and the aspect of the whole land was as glad and bright, as if salvation had then first descended upon earth. There were but two beings, in all the realm, to whom that peal sounded unjoyfully; and to them it rang like the knell of death. Agnes de Meranie heard it on her knees, and mingled her prayers with tears. Philip Augustus listened to it with a dark and frowning brow; and, striding up and down his solitary hall, he commented on each echoing clang, with many a deep and bitter thought. "They rejoice," said he mentally--"they rejoice in my misery. They ring a peal to celebrate my disappointment; but each stroke of that bell breaks a link of the chain that held them together, secure from my vengeance. Let them beware! Let them beware! or that peal shall be the passing bell to many a proud knight and rebellious baron."
Philip's calculations were not wrong. During the existence of the interdict, the nobles of France had been held together in their opposition to the monarch, by a bond entwined of several separate parts, which were all cut at once by the king's submission to the papal authority. The first tie had been general superstition; but this would have hardly proved strong enough to unite them powerfully together, had the cause of Philip's opposition to the church been any thing but entirely personal. In his anger, too, the king had for a moment forgotten his policy, and added another tie to that which existed before. Instead of courting public opinion to his support, he had endeavoured to compel his unwilling barons to co-operate in his resistance; and by severity and oppression, wherever his will was opposed, had complicated the bond of union amongst his vassals, which the interdict had first begun to twine.
The moment, however, that the papal censure was removed, all those who had not really suffered from the king's wrath fell off from the league against him; and many of the others, on whom his indignation had actually fallen, whether from blind fear or clear-sighted policy, judged that safety was no longer to be found but in his friendship, and made every advance to remove his anger.