“Red is the cup they drink, but not with wine,
Awake and watch tonight, or see no morning shine.”
—CAMPBELL.
“SHE is no worse, certainly she is no worse." So Viret said, standing at the door of his house, to Jacques Mercier, who called to inquire ere he went to take the father's place, as he had promised, for his four-and-twenty hours in the city watch. "There has been no return of the hemorrhage. Not that we are daring to hope—oh, no! But still, so far as it goes—. God bless thee, Jacques, for this good deed of thine, to me and to her." He wrung the youth's hand, and then turned silently into the house.
With the father's blessing warm at his heart, Mercier wended his way to his post at the Porte Neuve. “It was but a little thing to do," he thought," just to take his turn in the watch. 'Twere nothing, indeed, but for the trouble about Madelon, and good M. Robin has helped me there.
“Ah, well, there be people who can do great things for God, or suffer great things for Him, as M. Robin was saying, like the holy martyrs. Still, perhaps it may also be pleasing in His sight to do little things for Him, if one does them willingly. Here I am. Plenty of time I shall have to think about Madelon, since there is never the least thing, now-a-days, for us twenty men of the city guard to do. Save and except for the look of the thing, we might as well be about our lawful business all the evening, and asleep in our beds at night.—Good evening, Captain; good evening, Guillaume; good evening, Lefranc. 'Tis a cold afternoon.”
“Ay, and like to be a bitter night and a dark one," returned a comrade.
The watch was set as usual, and the guard settled down to a dull evening, to be followed by a long and weary night of chill discomfort and wakefulness, without, as they thought, even the stimulus of danger.
Slowly the evening wore on, and then the night set in. All was just as usual.
It was about three o'clock in the morning when the guard at the Porte Neuve, barely keeping awake in their dull monotonous watch, found themselves suddenly beset with foes. Out of the utter silence and the thick darkness came the flash of steel—blows, thrusts, a soldier's death. The enemy was upon them—a hundred—a thousand—an army—who could tell?
In that moment of panic they contrived to discharge their arquebuses, thus giving the alarm. Then they ran for their lives.
There were three however who did not run, but climbed instead in the darkness to the top of the great stone gate-post. One of them was Jacques Mercier. He crouched on the ledge near the top and looked down on the enemy. The light of a lantern was turned full upon the gate, and men were dragging forward some heavy thing. He knew what it was—a petard. They were going to blow up the gate.
And he knew what to do. He snatched a long knife from his girdle, and stooping low, severed a cord. A winch flew round, and then, with thundering noise and clangor, down crashed the ponderous iron portcullis. Jacques Mercier's work was done; the Porte Neuve was the key of the city. Geneva was saved.
For one supreme moment, worth years of our common life—he knew it. Then the inevitable bullet found his heart, and he knew something far better—something you and I know not yet, heirs of all the ages though we be.
- - -
Meanwhile, in one quiet room of the doomed city, a father and mother kept watch by the bedside of their child, dreaming of no foe, fearing no danger, save the fading of that feeble spark of life. But Theodora slept peacefully, only waking from time to time to smile at her parents, and to take the nourishment they gave.
So it was, until about three o'clock in the morning, when a medley of strange noises broke upon the sleeping town. The sick girl did not heed them, but the watchers looked at each other, wondering. There were hurrying footsteps, cries, shouts, and presently the sharp rattle of musketry. Then the great bell of St. Peter's tolled its loudest, echoed by the other bells of the city.
At last Theodora opened her eyes, though without alarm or agitation. "What hour is it?" she asked, quietly. "I thought it was the middle of the night. But all the bells are ringing. Is it for prayers?”
“It is, no doubt, for prayer," Viret answered, controlling his wonder and alarm. "My child, ask God to have us all in His good keeping—you too, my wife. As for me, I must go forth and see what is doing. Have no fear. As soon as may be I will come to you again." For the duty of a Genevan citizen was plain, whatever his domestic circumstances might be.
Viret donned hastily the cap and cuirass of the city guard, seized his arquebus, and ran to the town hall. As the alarm had found him awake and dressed, he was among the first to reach it, but a crowd of citizens accompanied or followed him, or ran to their several "quarters," half dressed, wholly amazed and bewildered, yet strong and resolute to fight to the death for their city and their Faith.
Meanwhile the enemy, though baffled at the Porte Neuve, had forced the gates of La Terrasse and La Monnaie, and some had scaled the wall. The watching mother and daughter could see nothing of what happened, and wondered at the noise and confusion outside without realizing the awful peril that beset them. The mother thought there must be a fire somewhere—perhaps one of the churches, perhaps the cathedral itself, already burned more than once, was again in danger. The daughter had no special thought about it, and no fear. The good God, and the Syndics, and her father, would take care of the town.
Presently a trumpet sounded, long and loud. Then indeed the mother's heart failed her for fear, for she knew it was the call to arms. Being very much frightened herself, of course she said to Theodora, "Dear child, be not afraid.”
To her surprise, almost to her terror, the look on the sick girl's face was one of pure gladness. Eye and lip smiled together as she repeated softly, "Afraid? Oh, mother, is it not the Trump our Lord told us should sound when He came again?—I shall not have to go alone, and leave you. He will take us all together. Thank God!" Then she paused, silent with joy, as her mother was with awe and wonder.
Presently she spoke again, very calmly, "I ought to be so glad—so glad! Only, somehow I cannot take it in. I cannot feel all the glory and the joy. I can only feel I am at rest—satisfied. He will not mind my not going forth to meet Him. He knows I would—only I am sick, and so tired.”
Had she not been too weak, physically, to realize all the meaning of the thought that had come to her, she would probably have "gone to meet Him" in another way, for joy can kill as well as grief. But to the very ill, as to the very old, great things come softly. There are still raptures, as well as stormy ones. As the deepest love is silent, so well may be the deepest joy. Such was the joy that enfolded Theodora Viret that night, and her heart rested in it, at peace.
At that very moment the father who loved her was praying she might die. For the streets of Geneva were ringing with the cry, "Vive Savoie! Vive Espagne! Kill! Kill!" In every street the foe had entered, wild and desperate fights-separate but simultaneous, in the dark or lit fitfully by torches—were going on.
The Savoyards had forced the gate of La Terrasse, but the citizens defended with their lives the passage that gave entrance to the town. Viret was amongst them, and saw the brave old Syndic, Jean Canal, the captain of his quarter, who had been led out, at his own earnest request, to strike one last blow for God and for Geneva. He did not see him fall. Little indeed could friend or foe see of each other in that strange midnight battle—or rather, those many battles. Only the torches which the Genevans had fixed at the corners of the streets shed a dim, smoky, flickering light on the swaying forms, and the furious, desperate faces of the combatants.
Meanwhile, from the houses that overlooked the ramparts, and the streets the Savoyards had entered, a sharp fire of musketry was kept up upon them. Women even, and children, did their part, throwing down whatever missiles came to hand. It is especially recorded that one woman killed a Savoyard in this way with an iron pot.
So the combats raged-hand to hand, foot to foot, each citizen standing on his own spot of free Genevan soil, and in his heart the one thought of keeping it from the murderous foe. Long was it ere each understood that the cause of all was won. At every point resistance had become pursuit, almost before the pursuers knew it themselves. Cries of "Vive Espagne! Vive Savoie!" were heard still, but they were mixed with the hoarse, despairing shouts of the captains, who tried in vain to rally their men, adjuring them to stand for God and for Savoy. Already the Savoyards were taking to the ladders, when a cannoneer who had managed to get his gun in place upon the rampart, sent a ball among them, breaking one of the ladders and precipitating the fugitives into the fosse beneath. This completed the panic; the retreat became a flight, the flight a stampede. The formidable army—composed of Savoyards, Spaniards, Corsicans— who were stationed on the rising grounds of Champel to follow up the victory of the escalading corps, advanced indeed upon the town, but only to share the panic of the rest, and to be put to flight, without striking a blow, by their own fears and the bullets of the Genevans. Brunaulieu, too large and heavy to attempt an escape, sought a soldier's death and found it on the rampart. Many another Savoyard came back no more from that night's wild conflict.
Geneva was saved!
There was in Geneva one man, and in all probability only one, who knew nothing of that night's terror and confusion. God's aged servant, Theodore Beza, slept in peace throughout; kept from fear and danger "in the hollow of His hand." When morning came, those around him poured eagerly into his dulled ear the story of their peril and their deliverance. He was bewildered, amazed, incredulous; he could not take it in. Later in the day, however, they led him to the ramparts and showed him the traces of the past night's desperate conflict—armor and weapons strewed about, dead lying unburied, the gate broken down and the shattered fragments of a ladder still hanging from the wall. Then he knew that, while he slumbered, God had saved Geneva. He had carried him tenderly over the peril and the conflict, in the arms of His messenger —Sleep. Nothing remained for him now save the giving of thanks. Lifting up his feeble hands to heaven, he found a voice for his wonder and his praise in the words spoken for Israel long ago:
“If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say;
If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us;
Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us;
Then the waters had overflowed us, the stream had gone over our soul.
Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth.
Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.
Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”