The Abbess Of Vlaye

by Stanley John Weyman

"Hostages?" The Lieutenant's voice rang sharp with anger.

"Ay, hostages!" the man answered sturdily, informed by the murmurs of his fellows that he had got them back into the road from which des Ageaux' arguments had led them. "We must have hostages."

Clearly they had made up their minds to this, they had determined on it beforehand. For with one voice, "We must have hostages!" they thundered.

Des Ageaux paused before he answered--paused in dismay. It looked as if--already he feared it--he had put out his hand too far. As if he had trusted too implicitly to his management of men, and risked not himself only, but women; women of the class to which these human beasts set down their wrongs, women on whom the least accident or provocation might lead them to wreak their vengeance! If it were so! But he dared not follow up the thought, lest the coolness on which all depended should leave him. Instead, "We are all your hostages," he said.

"And what of those? And those?" the smith answered. With a cunning look he pointed to the two knots of troopers whom des Ageaux had brought with him. "And by-and-by there will be more. Madame"--he pointed to the little Countess who had shrunk to Bonne's side, and stood with the elder girl's arm about her--"Madame has sent for fifty riders from her lands in the north--on, we know! And the Duke who is ill, for another hundred and fifty from Bergerac! When they come"--with a leer--"where will be our hostages? No, it is now we must talk, Sir Governor, or not at all."

Des Ageaux, his cheek flushed, reflected amid an uneasy silence. He knew that two of his riders were away bearing letters, and that four more were patrolling the valley; that two with Charles de Villeneuve were isolated on the ridge, unable to help; in a word, that no more than twelve or thirteen were within call, who, separated from their horses, were no match for a mob of men outnumbering them by five or six to one, and whom the first blow would recruit from every quarter of the seething camp. He had miscalculated, and saw it. He had miscalculated, and the consequences he dare not weigh. The men in whose power he had placed himself--and so much more than himself--were not the dull clods he had deemed them, but alike ferocious and suspicious, ready on the first hint of treachery to exact a fearful vengeance. No man had ever kept faith with them; why should they believe that he would keep faith? He shut his teeth hard. "I will consider the matter," he said, "and let you know my answer to-morrow at noon." He spoke as ending the conference, and he made as if he would turn on his heel.

"Ay, when madame's fifty spears are come?" the smith cried. "That will not do! If you mean us well give us hostages. If you mean us ill," taking one step forward with an insolent gesture----

"Fool, I mean you no ill!" the Lieutenant answered sternly. "If I meant you ill, why should I be here?"

But "Hostages! Hostages!" the crowd answered, raising weapons and fists.

Their cries drowned his words. A score of hands threatened him. Without looking, he felt that the Bat and his troopers, a little clump apart, were preparing to intervene, and he knew that on his next movement all depended. The pale faces behind him he could not see, for he was aware that if his eye left his opponents, they would fall upon him. At any second a hurried gesture, or the least sign of fear might unloose the torrent, and well was it for all that in many a like scene his nerve had been tempered to hardness. He shrugged his shoulders.