"Bah," Baville exclaimed, after throwing down these papers angrily, "sa grande battue! Son plan! What will come of it? What? Nothing. These dogs are as slippery as snakes. No battue will surround, entrap them. And--and--even though they, though this swashbuckler, who thinks more of the bouquet of his Celestin or the aroma of his white Frontignan than of our province's safety, should prevail, it will not bring her back to me."
And Baville, on whose soul there lay heavy the slaughter of countless innocent women--their only fault their faith--buried his face in his hands and moaned. "Urbaine, Urbaine," he whispered, "Ma mignonne, ma petite rose blanche, to think of you in their hands, you whom we have nurtured so soft and warm, you who, I swore to your father, should be my life's charge, the star of my existence! Fool! fool! fool! to ever let you go thus. Though God he knows," he whispered still, "I did it for the best; did it, knowing the dangers that threatened, that were surely coming, that must above all else strike at Baville and his. Deemed I could save you, send you away to peace and safety."
And still he sat on there, his head in his hands, while from between his fingers the tears trickled as he muttered still, "Urbaine, Urbaine!"
"She is dead," he said after a pause. "She must be dead. Of all, they would not spare her--my lamb. That is enough--to belong to me! O God!" he cried, springing from his chair and clasping his hands above his head, "nothing can give her back to me. Yet one thing thou canst give me: Vengeance! vengeance! vengeance! On him, above all, on that treacherous Huguenot, that viper who, when there was still a chance left, dragged her from the carriage, gave her up to his accursed brethren. Give me that! Place him but once in my hands and I ask no more. Urbaine can never come back, but at least she shall lie in her grave--where is it?"--and he shuddered--"lie in her grave avenged. Why did I ever trust him--kinsman of the de Rochebazons as he is--why not execute him that night at Montvert?"
After the rout of Poul's escort and of De Broglie's soldiers in an adjacent place by the Camisards, some half dozen of the dragoons of Hérault had managed to escape from the former slaughter, as well as many more from the latter. As has been said, they fled to Nîmes, where Baville was at the time, bringing with them the full account of what had happened to both detachments, and in their dismay and confusion making the disaster none the less in the telling. Now, among those who had thus escaped was one, a young porte-guidon, or cornet, who had by chance ridden also with De Peyre's detachment to Montvert when in attendance on Baville and the abbé's nephew. And there this lad had seen Martin upon the bridge with Buscarlet, had heard something of the conversation which ensued; knew, too, that he had returned to Alais with them. Therefore he was acquainted with Martin's appearance so well that, when the distracted Intendant had demanded from those who had escaped where his child was, he was very well able to inform him.
"My God!" Baville exclaimed, sitting in his rooms in the old Roman city, with the lad before him and surrounded by half the councillors of the place, sitting there white to the lips, "you saw it, saw him drag her out of the carriage, ride away with her."
"I saw it, your Excellency, beyond all doubt. And had it not been that I dared not take my eyes off these Camisards who were attacking me--one of the villains was armed with a reaping hook--I would have made a stroke to save mademoiselle; have hamstrung his horse, run him through. But, your Excellency sees," and he pointed to his hand, a mass of rags and bandages, "two fingers are gone; cut off as I wrested the brutal weapon from the man."
"Which road did he take?--yet, why ask?" Baville had said. "Which road would he go but one--that toward their accursed mountain dens? And he--he was of their faith."
A moment later he interrogated the young dragoon again.
"Can you by no chance be mistaken about this man? Think, I beseech you! Of all, she could have fallen into no worse hands than his."