Still briskly he retraced his steps the way we three had come, but it was only as he paused before the forced door that I divined his purpose.
"Not there!" I cried; "for God's sake not there, Martin; the thought is horrible."
But he only stumbled on up the step. Martin was losing his youth, and the burden in his arms weighed heavier than he would own.
"There's neither pick nor spade; would you leave her to the wolves? Horrible!" and again he paused, panting; "never a Hellewyl of them all, Seigneurs though they were, had so fine a burial. Look at the smoke, Monsieur Gaspard, and listen to the wind in the tree-tops."
The pall had lifted, and a steady flow of grey vapour flecked with sparks was already streaming east towards Courtray. With such a wind abroad the charred ends still smouldering in the heart of the pyre would yet set flying such a flag as would tell Jan Meert, even were he ten leagues away, that his work was well done. Martin was right. Better that than the wolves. The God who is Himself a consuming fire might be trusted to see to His own, and that which the cold earth gives up, flame will surely not hold back.
With all reverence we cleared a space as near the heart of Solignac as the heat and smoke and danger would permit. There we laid her, piling in—still with all reverence—the torn silks and tapestries that were the brightness of our house, the shattered spoils of raids by more than one generation of Hellewyls, intermixed with rafters and rough timber; beauty, glory, strength, all that was left of Solignac to round off the red grave of almost its last servant.
There we left her, and as we ended, there came the sudden roaring as of a furnace springing into furious heat from a dozen centres. Flame, fanned to sudden birth, spurted, strengthened, leaped from splintered joist to shattered armoire, caught beams and flooring, sucked strength from their three hundred years of dryness, licked up in an instant the gaudy fripperies that hung like rent flags amidst the wreck, soared up, soared outwards, and streamed in smoke-tipped spirals flapping down the wind. Truly Martin was right; never had a Hellewyl of Solignac so grand a funeral as we gave to old Babette.
"It's hey for Ghent!" said Martin again, as we stood on the grass watching the sparks fly, but with hearts less heavy than might have been supposed. The very greatness of a catastrophe can be its own alleviation. The spirit of a man rises within him to watch the crisis and face it down. "Hey for Ghent! or maybe, Cologne? And the sooner we are on the road the better. Which shall it be, Monsieur Gaspard, burgher or Emperor?"
"Neither," I answered; "the King and Paris."
"Paris?" and he looked his incredulity. It was a new thing for Monsieur Gaspard to have a will of his own. "Why to Paris?"