The Sword of Gideon

by John Bloundelle-Burton

"Gained?" he reflected. He had gained nothing, while losing much, perhaps everything. Sylvia Thorne loved this man; she was not the woman to ever love another--above all, not him who had betrayed the beloved one. And, yes he had given this rival into the hands of the enemy. It might be, it doubtless was the case, that he had brought about his doom; but there--there!--but a few paces from him was one, his own connection, who was now about to send him also to his doom. For she knew enough to do so; she had told him so that night in the lane when, after the Englishman had disarmed him, she had taken him apart, even as, in the same breath, she had told him that if harm came to that other so it should come to him. And now--now--it had come to that other. In a few more moments it would come to him. She was about to speak. Gained! Out of his own mouth, by his own evil disposition, he had brought about his own fate.

As his mind was tortured thus the Comtesse de Valorme commenced the exposure which must lead to his undoing.

"Monsieur de Violaine," he heard her saying now, even as every fibre in his body trembled and seemed to become relaxed and flaccid, while the moisture stood in great drops on his cheeks and forehead, "you have heard Mr. Bracton proclaimed a spy, though he is none, but only a man who assumed a false name, a false nationality, to help a woman whom," she added, "he loves. He is no spy; but, if he were, is a spy worse than a traitor?"

De Violaine started as she uttered these words, since he remembered how the same thought, the same question, had arisen in his own mind that very day; then in reply he said:

"Each is an evil thing--contemned by all honourable men. Yet one man's evil-doing does not justify that of another."

"That is undoubted. Yet listen. This man," her eyes on Bevill, "is no spy; this one," and they fell with withering contempt on Francbois, "is a traitor."

"Have you proof of your words?" De Violaine asked, his marvellous calm always maintained.

"Proof? Ay, as much as you require. Le Maréchal de Boufflers comes here ere long, it is said, to see that all is prepared, all ready to resist the Allies; to, it is also said, resist Marlborough himself. When he comes show him these, after you have read them yourself." As she spoke thus the Comtesse de Valorme thrust her hand beneath the great houppelande, or travelling cloak, she had set out in and still wore; while, thrusting it next into the lace of her dress, she drew forth a small bundle of papers. "There is enough matter there," she said, "to hang a score of traitors." After which, turning to Francbois, she added: "You should have burnt those long ago instead of keeping them; or, keeping them, should have found sanctuary for them in the college of your friends and patrons, the Jesuits. Van Ryk's house, the house of a heretic," she said bitterly, "was a poor depository for such things; the bureau in a room sometimes occupied by a heretic woman the worst place of all."

But Francbois was now almost in a state of collapse; it was necessary for the stalwart troopers of the Risbourg dragoons to support him. For at last he knew that, whatever might be the fate of this Englishman whom he had striven to ruin, there was no ray of doubt about his own fate; while--and this was the bitterest of all--he had brought that fate upon himself. She, this tigress in woman's form, as he called her to himself, had warned him in the lane behind Van Ryk's house that it would be so if he betrayed the other; she had said the very same words that she had but just now uttered; had said that she had enough proof against him to hang a score of traitors. Only--she had not told him the exact nature of that proof. While he, who received so many letters by channels so devious that he could scarce remember how each reached his hands, had lost all memory of how once, when disturbed, he had thrust a small packet of them into the topmost drawer of an old bureau in a room that he generally occupied, except when other guests were in the house. In absolute fact, he had forgotten that bundle of letters until now.

For some moments Francbois could not speak; his breath seemed to have failed him. Nay more, even though the breath had been there to give utterance to his words, his mind was incapable of forming thoughts that, in their turn, should be expressed in words. He could but gasp and whine and raise his hand to his brow to wipe away the hot sweat oozing from it; he was so prostrate that the sturdy dragoons holding him thought that he would sink lifeless to the floor. Yet all the time he knew that the eyes of the others were upon him, were fixed coldly and contemptuously on him; the eyes of all except those of De Violaine, who, beneath the greasy candle guttering in their sockets, was reading the papers he had but now received. Yet, once Francbois saw that the Governor turned over a letter again and re-read it, and that--then he raised his eyes from the sheet and also looked at him for an instant. In that instant Francbois anticipated, perhaps experienced, the agonies of death a hundred times.