He turned in his saddle, and beckoning the two servants he had named, he bade Marie to mount behind Blaise.
She drew back now, her cheeks white as those of the dead. With a wild terror in her eyes she turned to Charlot, who stood the very picture of anguish and impotent rage. In the cortege, where but a few moments ago all had been laughter, a sob or two sounded now from some of the women.
“By my faith,” laughed Bellecour contemptuously eyeing their dejection, “you have more the air of a burial than a bridal party.”
“Mercy my lord!” cried the agonised voice of Charlot, as, distraught with grief, he flung himself before the Marquis.
“Who seeks to harm you, fool?” was Bellecour's half-derisive rejoinder.
“Do not take her from me, my lord,” the young man pleaded piteously.
“She shall return to-morrow, booby,” answered the noble. “Out of the way!”
But Charlot was obstinate. The Marquis might be claiming no more than by ancient law was the due of the Seigneur, but Charlot was by no means minded to submit in craven acquiescence to that brutal, barbarous law.
“My lord,” he cried, “you shall not take her. She is my wife. She belongs to me. You shall not take her!”
He caught hold of the Marquis's bridle with such a strength and angry will that the horse was forced to back before him.
“Insolent clod!” exclaimed Bellecour, with an angry laugh and a sharp, downward blow of the butt of his whip upon the peasant's head. Charlot's hand grew nerveless and released the bridle as he sank stunned to the ground. Bellecour touched his horse with the spur and rode over the prostrate fellow with no more concern than had he been a dog's carcase. “Blaise, see to the girl,” he called over his shoulder, adding to his company: “Come, messieurs, we have wasted time enough.”
Not a hand was raised to stay him, not a word of protest uttered, as the nobles rode by, laughing, and chatting among themselves, with the utmost unconcern of the tragedy that was being enacted.
Like a flock of frightened sheep the peasants stood huddled together and watched them go. In the same inaction--for all that not a little grief was blent with the terror on their countenances--they stood by and allowed Blaise to lift the half-swooning girl to the withers of his horse. No reply had they to the coarse jest with which he and his fellow-servant rode off. But La Boulaye, who, from the point where he and Duhamel had halted, had observed the whole scene from its inception, turned now a livid face upon his companion.