CHAPTER I.
THE STAIR PERILOUS
Jean del' Peyra was standing scraping a staff to form a lance-shaft. The sun shone hot upon him, and at his feet lay his shadow as a blot.
He was too much engrossed in his work to look about him, till he heard a voice call from somewhere above his head —
"Out of the way, clown!"
Then there crashed down by him a log of wood that rolled to his feet and was followed by another piece.
Now only did Jean look up, and what he saw made him drop his half-finished shaft and forget it. What Jean saw was this: a girl at some distance above him on the face of the rock, swaying a long-handled hammer, with which she was striking at, and dislodging, the steps by which she had ascended, and by means of which alone could she return.
The cliff was of white limestone, or rather chalk, not such as Dover headlands are composed of, and which have given their name to Albion, but infinitely more compact and hard, though scarcely less white. The appearance of the stone was that of fine-grained white limestone. A modern geologist peering among its fossils would say it was chalk. But the period of this tale far antedates the hatching out of the first geologist.
The cliff was that of La Roque Gageac, that shoots up from the Dordogne to the height of four hundred and sixty feet above the river. The lower portion is, however, not perpendicular; it consists of a series of ledges and rapid inclines, on which stands clustered, clinging to the rock, the town of Gageac. But two thirds of the height is not merely a sheer precipice, it overhangs. Half-way up this sheer precipice the weather has gnawed into the rock, where was a bed of softer stone, forming a horizontal cavern, open to the wind and rain, with a roof extending some forty feet, unsupported, above the hard bed that served as floor.
At some time unknown a stair had been contrived in the face of the rock, to reach this terrace a hundred feet above the roofs of the houses below; and then a castle had been built in the cave, consisting of towers and guard-rooms, halls and kitchens; a well had been sunk in the heart of the mountain, and this impregnable fastness had been made into a habitation for man.
It could be reached in but one way, by the stair from below. It could not be reached from above, for the rock overhung the castle walls.
But the stair itself was a perilous path, and its construction a work of ingenuity. To make the position – the eagle nest in the rock – absolutely inaccessible to an enemy, the stair had been contrived so that it could be wrecked by those flying up it, with facility, and that thereby they might cut off possibility of pursuit.
The method adopted was this.
Holes had been bored into the rock-face in gradual ascent from the platform at the foot of the rock to the gate-tower of the castle, nestled on the platform in the precipice. In each such hole a balk or billet of wood was planted, sliced away below where it entered, and this end was then made fast by a wedge driven in under it. From each step, when once secured, that above it could next be made firm. To release the steps a tap from underneath sufficed to loosen the wedge and send it and the balk it supported clattering down.
And now the girl was striking away these steps. What was her purpose? Had she considered what she was doing? To destroy the means of ascent was easy enough; to replace it a labour exacting time and patience. Was she a fool? was she mad?
There was some method in her madness, for she had not knocked away a succession of steps, but two only, with one left in position between.
"'Ware, fool!"
And down the face of the rock and clattering to his feet fell a third.
This was too much.
Jean ran to the foot of the stair and hastened up it till he reached the gap. Further he could not proceed – a step had been dislodged; the next remained intact. Then came another break, a second step in place, and then the third break. Above that stood the girl, swinging the long-handled mallet with which she had loosened the wedges and struck down the steps they held up. She was a handsome girl with dusky skin, but warm with blood under it, dark loose hair, and large deep brown eyes. She stood, athletic, graceful, poised on her stage, swaying the hammer, looking defiantly, insolently, at the youth, with lips half open and pouting.
"Do you know what you are about, madcap?" said he.
"Perfectly. Making you keep your distance, fool."
"Keep distance!" said the youth. "I had no thought of you. I was not pursuing you – I did not know you were here!"
"And now I have woke you to see me."
"What of that? You had acted like a mad thing. I cannot help you, I cannot leap to you. Nothing would make me do so."
"Nothing? Not if I said, 'Come, assist me down'?"
"I could not leap the space. See you – if one step only were thrown down I might venture, but not when every alternate one between us is missing. To leap up were to ensure my fall at the next gap."
"I do not need your help. I can descend. I can spring from one step to the next over the gaps."
"And risk a fall and a broken neck?"
"Then there is one madcap the less in this world."
"For what have you done this?"
"A prank."
"A prank! Yes; but to replace the steps takes time and pains."
"I shall expend neither on them."
"It will give trouble to others."
"If it amuses me, what care I?"
The young man looked at the strange girl with perplexity.
"If every peg of wood were away," said she, "I could yet descend."
"How? Are you a bird – can you fly? Not a cat, not a squirrel could run up or down this rock."
"Fool! I should slip down by the rope. Do you not know that there is a windlass? Do you suppose they take their kegs of wine, their meat, their bread, their fuel up this spider stair? I tell you that there is a rope, and at the end of it a bar of wood. They let this down and bring up what they want affixed to the bar. At pleasure, any man may go up or down that way. Do you not see? It must be so. If they were fast and all the ladders were gone, how should they ever descend? Why, they could not mend the stairs from aloft. It must be done step by step from below. Do you see that, fool?"
"I see that perfectly."
"Very well; I have but to run up, make love to the custodian, and he would swing me down. There; it is easy done!"
"You had best cast down the hammer and let me replace the steps."
"I'll come down without them and without a rope. I can leap. If I cannot creep up as a cat, I can spring down like one – aye! and like a squirrel, too, from one lodging place to another. Stand back and see me."
"Stay!" said Jean. "Why run the risk when not needed?"
"Because I like the risk – it is pepper and mustard to my meat of life. Stand back, clown, or I will spring and strike you over – and down you go and crack your foolish pate."
"If I go – you go also – do you not see that?"
"Look aloft!" said the girl. "Up in that nest – whenever the English are about, up goes into it the Bishop of Sarlat, and he takes with him all his treasure, his gold cups and patens, his shrines for holy bones all set with gems, and his bags of coin. There he sits like an old grey owl, Towhit! towhoo – towhit! towhoo! and he looks out this way, that – to see where houses are burning and smoke rises, and when at night the whole world is besprent with red fires – as the sky is with stars, where farms and homesteads are burning. And he says 'Towhit! towhoo! I have my cups and my patens and my coin-bags, and my dear little holy bones, all safe here. Towhit! towhoo! And best of all – I am safe – my unholy old bones also, whoo! whoo! whoo! Nobody can touch me – whoo! whoo! whoo!'"
"Is he there now?"
"No, he is not. There is no immediate danger. Only a few as guard, that is all. If I were a man, I'd take