The Long Night

by Stanley John Weyman

A second they gazed at one another with suspended breath. Then from the street below rose a wild shriek, a crash, and lo, the huge pot lay shattered in the kennel beside the man whom, Heaven directed, it had slain. As if the shock of its fall stayed for an instant even the movement of the world, a silence fell on all: then, as the roar of conflict rose again, louder, more vengeful, with a new note in it, she caught her mother in her arms.

"Mother! Mother!" she cried. "Mother!"

The elder woman was white to the lips. "Get me to bed!" she muttered. "Get me to bed!" She had lost the power even to stand. That she had ever borne, even for a yard, the great pot which it taxed Anne's utmost strength to carry upstairs was a miracle. But a miracle were all the circumstances connected with the act.

Anne carried her back and laid her on the bed, greatly fearing for her. And thenceforth for a while the girl's horizon, so wide and stormy an instant before, was narrowed to the bed beside which she stood, narrowed to the dear face on which the lamplight fell, disclosing its death-like pallor. For the time Anne forgot even her lover, was deaf to the struggle outside, was unmindful of the flight of the hours. For her, Geneva might have lain at peace, the night been as other nights, the house below been heavy with the breathing of tired sleepers. She looked neither to the right nor the left, until under her loving hands Madame Royaume revived, opened her eyes and smiled—the smile she had for one face only in the world.

By that time Anne had lost count of the time. It might be hard on morning, it might be a little after midnight. One thing only was clear, the lamp required oil, and to get it she must descend to the ground floor. She opened the door and listened, wondering dully how the conflict had gone. She had lost count of that also.

The small window at the head of the stairs remained open as they had left it; and through it a ceaseless hum, as of a hive of bees swarming, poured in from the night, and told of multitudes astir. The alarm-bell had ceased to ring, the wilder sounds of conflict had died down; in the parts about the Tertasse the combat appeared to be at an end. But this might be either because resistance had ceased, or because the battle had rolled away to other quarters, or—which she scarcely dared to hope—because the foe had been driven out.

As she stood listening, she shivered in the cold air that came from the window. She felt as if she had been beaten, and knew that this came of the shocks she had suffered and the long strain. She feared for her nerves, and hated to go down into the dark parts of the house as if some danger lurked there. She longed for morning, for the light; and thought of Claude and his fate, and wondered why the thought of his danger did not move her to weeping, as it had moved her a few hours earlier.

In truth she was worn out. The effort to revive her mother had cost her the last remains of strength. Her feet as she descended the stairs were of lead, the brazen notes of the alarm-bell hummed in her ears. When she reached the living-room she set the lamp on one of the tables and sat down wearily, with her eyes on the cold, empty hearth and on the settle where she had sat with his arms about her. And now, if ever, she must weep; but she could not.

The lamp burned low, and cast smoky shadows on the ceiling and the walls. The shuttered windows showed their dead faces. The cheerful soul of the room had passed from it with the fire, leaving the shell gloomy, lifeless, repellent. Anne drowsed a moment in sheer exhaustion, and would have slept, if the lamp on the point of expiring had not emitted a sound and roused her. She rose reluctantly, dragged herself to the great cupboard under the stairs, and, having lighted a rushlight at the dying flame, put out the lamp and refilled it.

She was about to re-light it, and had taken the rushlight in her hand for the purpose, when she heard through the shuttered windows and the barred door a growing clamour; the tramp of heavy feet, the hum of many voices, the buzz of a crowd that, almost as soon as she awoke to its near presence, came to a stand before the house. The tumult of voices raised all at once in different keys did not entirely drown the clash of arms; and while she stood, sullenly regarding the door, and resigned to the inevitable, whatever it might be, thin shafts of light pierced the shutters and stabbed the gloom about her.