"He has led to the death of many others. Also he is an English spy. Mes frères," he went on, turning to each of the other judges and whispering low, so that none but the silent Intendant sitting above could hear, "what is our verdict? We need not long deliberate, I imagine."
Both those others fixed also their eyes upon him acquiescingly, yet neither spoke. Words were not wanted.
Then Beauplan, turning his head over his shoulder toward the man who represented the King's majesty, and seeing that he sat there calm and impassable, statue-like, inscrutable, rose from his seat and made three solemn bows to Baville.
"We await permission to pronounce sentence," he said.
"Pronounce--it," and Baville drew a long breath between the two words. Yet the handsome face changed not. Or only grew more ivory-like--so ivory-like that those standing in that hall, both enemies and adherents, cast back their thoughts to their dead whom they had seen lying in their shrouds ere the coffin lid closed over and hid them forever.
"What does he see that blasts him?" whispered Montrevel in Fléchier's ear, and the bishop, turning his own white face to the inflamed one of the great bravo, muttered, "God, he knows, he only."
In the crowd beyond the railed-off place where the principals sat the effect was the same. Among all who now fixed their eyes on Baville, the greater number asked: "What does he see?" and glanced over their shoulders as though expecting themselves to see something terrible.
"Can the dead rise?" exclaimed one swarthy Cévenole who, in any other circumstances than the present, would have been arrested for an attroupé ere he had been an hour in Nîmes; have been borne to the earth by the Cravates and loaded with chains ere hurried to a dungeon, so certain did it appear that he was a Camisard. "Can the burned ashes of our loved ones come together again, the limbs that have rotted on the gibbets be restored to life? Has one of those come back to paralyze him?" And he laughed bitterly.
"Il est lâche," whispered Léonie Sabbat through her small white teeth. "Mon Dieu! il a peur. Fichtre pour Baville!" and she pressed her plump jewelled hand on the shoulder of her unwilling neighbour as she craned her neck over the balcony to observe the man she jibed at.
Yet he was no coward. Only his heart sickened within him. With fear, but not the fear of either phantom risen from the dead or of fierce Camisard ready to send him to join the dead. Sickened at the sight of that aged woman who never took her eyes off him, who seemed about to address all assembled there. For he remembered her. Recognised her face now beyond all doubt. Remembered one night--how long ago it seemed!--when all the land lay under the snow, and when, at the foot of the mountains the tourbillon whirled down from the heights above great flurries of other snow which froze as it fell, and struck and cut the faces of those riding through the wintry storm as knives or whipcord strike and cut. Recalled how he himself riding through the tourmente, followed by a dozen of his guard, had to strike breast and body to prevent this freezing snow from ensheathing him in its swift, hardening masses. Yet of what account such memory as that compared to another which followed swiftly in its train!