The Long Night

The Long Night, by Stanley
Weyman

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Title: The Long Night
Author: Stanley Weyman
Release Date: October 7, 2006 [EBook #19485]
Language: English
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THE LONG NIGHT
BY STANLEY WEYMAN

AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," ETC.
SECOND IMPRESSION
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW,
LONDON AND BOMBAY 1903

WORKS BY STANLEY WEYMAN.
The House of the Wolf.
The New Rector.
The Story of Francis Cludde.
A Gentleman of France.
The Man in Black.
Under the Red Robe.
My Lady Rotha.
The Red Cockade.
Shrewsbury.
Sophia.
The Castle Inn.
From the Memoirs of a Minister of France.
Count Hannibal.
In Kings' Byways.
The Long Night.

CONTENTS
I. A Student of Theology 1
II. The House on the Ramparts 16
III. The Quintessential Stone 31
IV. Cæsar Basterga 45
V. The Elixir Vitæ 59
VI. To Take or Leave 74
VII. A Second Tissot 88
VIII. On the Threshold 102
IX. Melusina 116
X. Auctio Fit: Venit Vita 129
XI. By This or That 143
XII. The Cup and the Lip 157
XIII. A Mystery Solved 172
XIV. "And Only One Dose in all the World!" 185
XV. On the Bridge 200
XVI. A Glove and What Came of It 215
XVII. The Remedium 227
XVIII. The Bargain Struck 242

XIX. The Departure of the Rats 257
XX. In the Darkened Room 271
XXI. The Remedium 285
XXII. Two Nails in the Wall 301
XXIII. In Two Characters 318
XXIV. Armes! Armes! 335
XXV. Basterga at Argos 350
XXVI. The Dawn 365
CHAPTER I.
A STUDENT OF THEOLOGY.
They were about to shut the Porte St. Gervais, the north gate of Geneva.
The sergeant of the gate had given his men the word to close; but at the
last moment, shading his eyes from the low light of the sun, he
happened to look along the dusty road which led to the Pays de Gex,
and he bade the men wait. Afar off a traveller could be seen hurrying
two donkeys towards the gate, with now a blow on this side, and now
on that, and now a shrill cry. The sergeant knew him for Jehan Brosse,
the bandy-legged tailor of the passage off the Corraterie, a sound
burgher and a good man whom it were a shame to exclude. Jehan had
gone out that morning to fetch his grapes from Möens; and the sergeant
had pity on him.
He waited, therefore; and presently he was sorry that he had waited.
Behind Jehan, a long way behind him, appeared a second wayfarer; a
young man covered with dust who approached rapidly on long legs, a
bundle jumping and bumping at his shoulders as he ran. The favour of
the gate was not for such as he--a stranger; and the sergeant anxious to
bar, yet unwilling to shut out Jehan, watched his progress with disgust.

As he feared, too, it turned out. Young legs caught up old ones: the
stranger overtook Jehan, overtook the donkeys. A moment, and he
passed under the arch abreast of them, a broad smile of
acknowledgment on his heated face. He appeared to think that the gate
had been kept open out of kindness to him.
And to be grateful. The war with Savoy--Italian Savoy which, like an
octopus, wreathed clutching arms about the free city of Geneva--had
come to an end some months before. But a State so small that the
frontier of its inveterate enemy lies but two short leagues from its gates,
has need of watch and ward, and curfews and the like, so that he was
fortunate who found the gates of Geneva open after sunset in that year,
1602; and the stranger seemed to know this.
As the great doors clanged together and two of the watch wound up the
creaking drawbridge, he turned to the sergeant, the smile still on his
face. "I feared that you would shut me out!" he panted, still holding his
sides. "I would not have given much for my chance of a bed a minute
ago."
The sergeant answered only by a grunt.
"If this good fellow had not been in front----"
This time the sergeant cut him short with an imperious gesture, and the
young man seeing that the guard also had fallen stiffly into rank, turned
to the tailor. He was