The Helmet of Navarre
by Bertha Runkle · English · Gutenberg #14219 · 612,923 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Helmet of Navarre
Author: Bertha Runkle
Illustrator: J. André Castaigne
Release date: November 30, 2004 [eBook #14219]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14219
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HELMET OF NAVARRE ***
[Illustration: Cover]
THE HELMET OF NAVARRE.
Bertha Runkle.
THE HELMET OF NAVARRE
[Illustration: THE FLORENTINES IN THE HÔTEL DE MAYENNE]
[Illustration]
BY BERTHA RUNKLE
THE HELMET OF
NAVARRE
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANDRÉ CASTAIGNE
THE CENTURY CO.
NEW YORK 1901
TO MY MOTHER
Press where ye see my white plume shine amidst the ranks of war,
And be your oriflamme to-day the Helmet of Navarre.
LORD MACAULAY'S "IVRY."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A FLASH OF LIGHTNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
II AT THE AMOUR DE DIEU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
III M. LE DUC IS WELL GUARDED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
IV THE THREE MEN IN THE WINDOW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
V RAPIERS AND A VOW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
VI A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
VII A DIVIDED DUTY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
VIII CHARLES-ANDRÉ-ÉTIENNE-MARIE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
IX THE HONOUR OF ST. QUENTIN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
X LUCAS AND "LE GAUCHER" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
XI VIGO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
XII THE COMTE DE MAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
XIII MADEMOISELLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
XIV IN THE ORATORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
XV MY LORD MAYENNE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
XVI MAYENNE'S WARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
XVII "I'LL WIN MY LADY!". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
XVIII TO THE BASTILLE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
XIX TO THE HÔTEL DE LORRAINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
XX "ON GUARD, MONSIEUR" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
XXI A CHANCE ENCOUNTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
XXII THE SIGNET OF THE KING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
XXIII THE CHEVALIER OF THE TOURNELLES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
XXIV THE FLORENTINES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
XXV A DOUBLE MASQUERADE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
XXVI WITHIN THE SPIDER'S WEB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
XXVII THE COUNTERSIGN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
XXVIII ST. DENIS--AND NAVARRE!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
XXIX THE TWO DUKES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
XXX MY YOUNG LORD SETTLES SCORES WITH TWO FOES AT ONCE . . . . 440
XXXI "THE VERY PATTERN OF A KING" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE FLORENTINES IN THE HÔTEL DE MAYENNE. . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"WITH A CRY MONSIEUR SPRANG TOWARD ME" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
"IN A FLASH HE WAS OUT OF THEIR GRASP, FLYING DOWN THE ALLEY". . . 117
"I DO NOT FORGIVE HIS DESPATCHING ME HIS HORSE-BOY". . . . . . . . 149
MLLE. DE MONTLUC AND FÉLIX BROUX IN THE ORATORY. . . . . . . . . . 169
"SORRY TO DISTURB MONSIEUR, BUT THE HORSES MUST BE FED". . . . . . 205
"HE WAS DEPOSITED IN THE BIG BLACK COACH". . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
"WE CLIMBED OUT INTO A SILK-MERCER'S SHOP" . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
AT THE "BONNE FEMME" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
"IT DESOLATES ME TO HEAR OF HER EXTREMITY" . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
ON THE WAY TO ST. DENIS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
THE MEETING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
THE HELMET OF NAVARRE
THE HELMET OF NAVARRE.
[Illustration]
I
_A flash of lightning._
At the stair-foot the landlord stopped me. "Here, lad, take a candle.
The stairs are dark, and, since I like your looks, I would not have you
break your neck."
"And give the house a bad name," I said.
"No fear of that; my house has a good name. There is no fairer inn in
all Paris. And your chamber is a good chamber, though you will have
larger, doubtless, when you are Minister of Finance."
This raised a laugh among the tavern idlers, for I had been bragging a
bit of my prospects. I retorted:
"When I am, Maître Jacques, look out for a rise in your taxes."
The laugh was turned on mine host, and I retired with the honours of
that encounter. And though the stairs were the steepest I ever climbed,
I had the breath and the spirit to whistle all the way up. What mattered
it that already I ached in every bone, that the stair was long and my
bed but a heap of straw in the garret of a mean inn in a poor quarter? I
was in Paris, the city of my dreams!
I am a Broux of St. Quentin. The great world has never heard of the
Broux? No matter; they have existed these hundreds of years, Masters of
the Forest, and faithful servants of the dukes of St. Quentin. The great
world has heard of the St. Quentins? I warrant you! As loudly as it has
of Sully and Villeroi, Trémouille and Biron. That is enough for the
Broux.
I was brought up to worship the saints and M. le Duc, and I loved and
revered them alike, by faith, for M. le Duc, at court, seemed as far
away from us as the saints in heaven. But the year after King Henry III
was murdered, Monsieur came to live on his estate, to make high and low
love him for himself.
In that bloody time, when the King of Navarre and the two Leagues were
tearing our poor France asunder, M. le Duc found himself between the
devil and the deep sea. He was no friend to the League; for years he had
stood between the king, his master, and the machinations of the Guises.
On the other hand, he was no friend to the Huguenots. "To seat a heretic
on the throne of France were to deny God," he said. Therefore he came
home to St. Quentin, where he abode in quiet for some three years, to
the great wonderment of all the world.
Had he been a cautious man, a man who looked a long way ahead, his
compeers would have understood readily enough that he was waiting to see
how the cat would jump, taking no part in the quarrel lest he should
mix with the losing side. But this theory jibed so ill with Monsieur's
character that not even his worst detractor could accept it. For he was
known to all as a hotspur--a man who acted quickly and seldom counted
the cost. Therefore his present conduct was a riddle, nor could any of
the emissaries from King or League, who came from time to time to enlist
his aid and went away without it, read the answer. The puzzle was too
deep for them. Yet it was only this: to Monsieur, honour was more than a
pretty word. If he could not find his cause honest, he would not draw
his sword, though all the curs in the land called him coward.
Thus he stayed alone in the château for a long, irksome three years.
Monsieur was not of a reflective mind, content to stand aside and watch
while other men fought out great issues. It was a weary procession of
days to him. His only son, a lad a few years older than I, shared none
of his father's scruples and refused point-blank to follow him into
exile. He remained in Paris, where they knew how to be gay in spite of
sieges. Therefore I, the Forester's son, whom Monsieur took for a page,
had a chance to come closer to my lord and be more to him than a mere
servant, and I loved him as the dogs did. Aye, and admired him for a
fortitude almost more than human, in that he could hold himself passive
here in farthest Picardie, whilst in Normandie and Île de France battles
raged and towns fell and captains won glory.
At length, in the opening of the year 1593, M. le Duc began to have a
frequent visitor, a gentleman in no wise remarkable save for that he was
accorded long interviews with Monsieur. After these visits my lord was
always in great spirits, putting on frisky airs, like a stallion when he
is led out of the stable. I looked for something to happen, and it was
no surprise to me when M. le Duc announced one day, quite without
warning, that he was done with St. Quentin and would be off in the
morning for Mantes. I was in the seventh heaven of joy when he added
that he should take me with him. I knew the King of Navarre was at
Mantes--at last we were going to make history! There was no bound to my
golden dreams, no limit to my future.
But my house of cards suffered a rude tumble, and by no hand but my
father's. He came to Monsieur, and, presuming on an old servitor's
privilege, begged him to leave me at home.
"I have lost two sons in Monsieur's service," he said: "Jean, hunting in
this forest, and Blaise, in the fray at Blois. I have never grudged them
to Monsieur. But Félix is all I have left."
Thus it came about that I was left behind, hidden in the hay-loft, when
my duke rode away. I could not watch his going.
Though the days passed drearily, yet they passed. Time does pass, at
length, even when one is young. It was July. The King of Navarre had
moved up to St. Denis, in his siege of Paris, but most folk thought he
would never win the city, the hotbed of the League. Of M. le Duc we
heard no word till, one night, a chance traveller, putting up at the inn
in the village, told a startling tale. The Duke of St. Quentin, though
known to have been at Mantes and strongly suspected of espousing
Navarre's cause, had ridden calmly into Paris and opened his hôtel! It
was madness--madness sheer and stark. Thus far his religion had saved
him, yet any day he might fall under the swords of the Leaguers.
My father came, after hearing this tale, to where I was lying on the
grass, the warm summer night, thinking hard thoughts of him for keeping
me at home and spoiling my chances in life. He gave me straightway the
whole of the story. Long before it was over I had sprung to my feet.
"Do you still wish to join M. le Duc?" he said.
"Father!" was all I could gasp.
"Then you shall go," he answered. That was not bad for an old man who
had lost two sons for Monsieur!
I set out in the morning, light of baggage, purse, and heart. I can tell
naught of the journey, for I heeded only that at the end of it lay
Paris. I reached the city one day at sundown, and entered without a
passport at the St. Denis gate, the warders being hardly so strict as
Mayenne supposed. I was dusty, foot-sore, and hungry, in no guise to
present myself before Monsieur; wherefore I went no farther that night
than the inn of the Amour de Dieu, in the Rue des Coupejarrets.
Far below my garret window lay the street--a trench between the high
houses. Scarce eight feet off loomed the dark wall of the house
opposite. To me, fresh from the wide woods of St. Quentin, it seemed the
desire of Paris folk to outhuddle in closeness the rabbits in a warren.
So ingenious were they at contriving to waste no inch of open space
that the houses, standing at the base but a scant street's width apart,
ever jutted out farther at each story till they looked to be fairly
toppling together. I could see into the windows up and down the way; see
the people move about within; hear opposite neighbours call to each
other. But across from my aery were no lights and no people, for that
house was shuttered tight from attic to cellar, its dark front as
expressionless as a blind face. I marvelled how it came to stand empty
in that teeming quarter.
Too tired, however, to wonder long, I blew out the candle, and was
asleep before I could shut my eyes.
* * * * *
Crash! Crash! Crash!
I sprang out of bed in a panic, thinking Henry of Navarre was bombarding
Paris. Then, being fully roused, I perceived that the noise was thunder.
From the window I peered into floods of rain. The peals died away.
Suddenly came a terrific lightning-flash, and I cried out in
astonishment. For the shutter opposite was open, and I had a vivid
vision of three men in the window.
Then all was dark again, and the thunder shook the roof.
I stood straining my eyes into the night, waiting for the next flash.
When it came it showed me the window barred as before. Flash followed
flash; I winked the rain from my eyes and peered in vain. The shutter
remained closed as if it had never been opened. Sleep rolled over me in
a great wave as I groped my way back to bed.
II
_At the Amour de Dieu._
When I woke in the morning, the sun was shining broadly into the room,
glinting in the little pools of water on the floor. I stared at them,
sleepy-eyed, till recollection came to me of the thunder-storm and the
open shutter and the three men. I jumped up and ran to the window. The
shutters opposite were closed; the house just as I had seen it first,
save for the long streaks of wet down the wall. The street below was one
vast puddle. At all events, the storm was no dream, as I half believed
the vision to be.
I dressed speedily and went down-stairs. The inn-room was deserted save
for Maître Jacques, who, with heat, demanded of me whether I took myself
for a prince, that I lay in bed till all decent folk had been hours
about their business, and then expected breakfast. However, he brought
me a meal, and I made no complaint that it was a poor one.
"You have strange neighbours in the house opposite," said I.
He started, and the thin wine he was setting before me splashed over on
the table.
"What neighbours?"
"Why, they who close their shutters when other folks would keep them
open, and open them when others keep them shut," I said airily. "Last
night I saw three men in the window opposite mine."
He laughed.
"Aha, my lad, your head is not used to our Paris wines. That is how you
came to see visions."
"Nonsense," I cried, nettled. "Your wine is too well watered for that,
let me tell you, Maître Jacques."
"Then you dreamed it," he said huffily. "The proof is that no one has
lived in that house these twenty years."
Now, I had plenty to trouble about without troubling my head over
night-hawks, but I was vexed with him for putting me off. So, with a
fine conceit of my own shrewdness, I said:
"If it was only a dream, how came you to spill the wine?"
He gave me a keen glance, and then, with a look round to see that no one
was by, leaned across the table, up to me.
"You are sharp as a gimlet," said he. "I see I may as well tell you
first as last. Marry, an you will have it, the place is haunted."
"Holy Virgin!" I cried, crossing myself.
"Aye. Twenty years ago, in the great massacre--you know naught of that:
you were not born, I take it, and, besides, are a country boy. But I was
here, and I know. A man dared not stir out of doors that dark day. The
gutters ran blood."
"And that house--what happened in that house?"
"Why, it was the house of a Huguenot gentleman, M. de Béthune," he
answered, bringing out the name hesitatingly in a low voice. "They were
all put to the sword--the whole household. It was Guise's work. The Duc
de Guise sat on his white horse, in this very street here, while it was
going on. Parbleu! that was a day."
"Mon dieu! yes."
"Well, that is an old story now," he resumed in a different tone.
"One-and-twenty years ago, that was. Such things don't happen now. But
the people, they have not forgotten; they will not go near that house.
No one will live there."
"And have others seen as well as I?"
"So they say. But I'll not let it be talked of on my premises. Folk
might get to think them too near the haunted house. 'Tis another matter
with you, though, since you have had the vision."
"There were three men," I said, "young men, in sombre dress--"
"M. de Béthune and his cousins. What further? Did you hear shrieks?"
"There was naught further," I said, shuddering. "I saw them for the
space of a lightning-flash, plain as I see you. The next minute the
shutters were closed again."
"'Tis a marvel," he answered gravely. "But I know what has disturbed
them in their graves, the heretics! It is that they have lost their
leader."
I stared at him blankly, and he added:
"Their Henry of Navarre."
"But he is not lost. There has been no battle."
"Lost to them," said Maître Jacques, "when he turns Catholic."
"Oh!" I cried.
"Oh!" he mocked. "You come from the country; you don't know these
things."
"But the King of Navarre is too stiff-necked a heretic!"
"Bah! Time bends the stiffest neck. Tell me this: for what do the
learned doctors sit in council at Mantes?"
"Oh," said I, bewildered, "you tell me news, Maître Jacques."
"If Henry of Navarre be not a Catholic before the month is out, spit me
on my own jack," he answered, eying me rather keenly as he added:
"It should be welcome news to you."
Welcome was it; it made plain the reason Monsieur's change of base. Yet
it was my duty to be discreet.
"I am glad to hear of any heretic coming to the faith," I said.
"Pshaw!" he cried. "To the devil with pretences! 'Tis an open secret
that your patron has gone over to Navarre."
"I know naught of it."
"Well, pardieu! my Lord Mayenne does, then. If when he came to Paris M.
de St. Quentin counted that the League would not know his parleyings, he
was a fool."
"His parleyings?" I echoed feebly.
"Aye, the boy in the street knows he has been with Navarre. For, mark
you, all France has been wondering these many months where St. Quentin
was coming out. His movements do not go unnoted like a yokel's. But, i'
faith, he is not dull; he understands that well enough. Nay, 'tis my
belief he came into the city in pure effrontery to show them how much he
dared. He is a bold blade, your duke. And, mon dieu! it had its effect.
For the Leaguers have been so agape with astonishment ever since that
they have not raised a finger against him."
"Yet you do not think him safe?"
"Safe, say you? Safe! Pardieu! if you walked into a cage of lions, and
they did not in the first instant eat you, would you therefore feel
safe? He was stark mad to come to Paris. There is no man the League
hates more, now they know they have lost him, and no man they can afford
so ill to spare to King Henry. A great Catholic noble, he would be meat
and drink to the Béarnais. He was mad to come here."
"And yet nothing has happened to him."
"Verily, fortune favours the brave. No, nothing has happened--yet. But I
tell you true, Félix, I had rather be the poor innkeeper of the Amour de
Dieu than stand in M. de St. Quentin's shoes."
"I was talking with the men here last night," I said. "There was not one
but had a good word for Monsieur."
"Aye, so they have. They like his pluck. And if the League kills him it
is quite on the cards that the people will rise up and make the town
lively. But that will not profit M. de St. Quentin if he is dead."
I would not be dampened, though, by an old croaker.
"Nay, maître, if the people are with him, the League will not dare--"
"There you fool yourself, my springald. If there is one thing which the
nobles of the League neither know nor care about it is what the people
think. They sit wrangling over their French League and their Spanish
League, their kings and their princesses, and what this lord does and
that lord threatens, and they give no heed at all to us--us, the people.
But they will find out their mistake. Some day they will be taught that
the nobles are not all of France. There will come a reckoning when more
blood will flow in Paris than ever flowed on St. Bartholomew's day. They
think we are chained down, do they? Pardieu! there will come a day!"
I scarcely knew the man; his face was flushed, his eyes sparkling as if
they saw more than the common room and mean street. But as I stared the
glow faded, and he said in a lower tone:
"At least, it will happen unless Henry of Navarre comes to save us from
it. He is a good fellow, this Navarre."
"They say he can never enter Paris."
"They say lies. Let him but leave his heresies behind him and he can
enter Paris to-morrow."
"Mayenne does not think so."
"No; but Mayenne knows little of what goes on. He does not keep an inn
in the Rue Coupejarrets."
He stated the fact so gravely that I had to laugh.
"Laugh if you like; but I tell you, Félix Broux, my lord's
council-chamber is not the only place where they make kings. We do it,
too, we of the Rue Coupejarrets."
"Well," said I, "I leave you, then, to make kings. I must be off to my
duke. What's the scot, maître?"
He dropped the politician, and was all innkeeper in a second.
"A crown!" I cried in indignation. "Do you think I am made of crowns?
Remember, I am not yet Minister of Finance."
"No, but soon will be," he grinned. "Besides, what I ask is little
enough, God knows. Do you think food is cheap in a siege?"
"Then I pray Navarre may come soon and end it."
"Amen to that," said old Jacques, quite gravely. "If he comes a Catholic
it cannot be too soon."
I counted out my pennies with a last grumble.
"They ought to call this the Rue Coupebourses."
He laughed; he could afford to, with my silver jingling in his pouch. He
embraced me tenderly at parting, and hoped to see me again at his inn. I
smiled to myself; I had not come to Paris--I--to stay in the Rue
Coupejarrets!
III
_M. le Duc is well guarded._
I stepped out briskly from the inn, pausing now and again to inquire my
way to the Hôtel St. Quentin, which stood, I knew, in the Quartier
Marais, where all the grand folk lived. Once I had found the broad,
straight Rue St. Denis, all I need do was to follow it over the hill
down to the river-bank; my eyes were free, therefore, to stare at all
the strange sights of the great city--markets and shops and churches and
prisons. But most of all did I gape at the crowds in the streets. I had
scarce realized there were so many people in the world as passed me that
summer morning in the Town of Paris. Bewilderingly busy and gay the
place appeared to my country eyes, though in truth at that time Paris
was at its very worst, the spirit being well-nigh crushed out of it by
the sieges and the iron rule of the Sixteen.
I knew little enough of politics, and yet I was not so dull as not to
see that great events must happen soon. A crisis had come. I looked at
the people I passed who were going about their business so tranquilly.
Every one of them must be either Mayenne's man, or Navarre's. Before a
week was out these peaceable citizens might be using pikes for tools and
exchanging bullets for good mornings. Whatever happened, here was I in
Paris in the thick of it! My feet fairly danced under me; I could not
reach the hôtel soon enough. Half was I glad of Monsieur's danger, for
it gave me chance to show what stuff I was made of. Live for him, die
for him--whatever fate could offer I was ready for.
The hôtel, when at length I arrived before it, was no disappointment.
Here one did not wait till midday to see the sun; the street was of
decent width, and the houses held themselves back with reserve, like the
proud gentlemen who inhabited them. Nor did one here regret his
possession of a nose, as he was forced to do in the Rue Coupejarrets.
Of all the mansions in the place, the Hôtel St. Quentin was, in my
opinion, the most imposing; carved and ornamented and stately, with
gardens at the side. But there was about it none of that stir and
liveliness one expects to see about the houses of the great. No visitors
passed in or out, and the big iron gates were shut, as if none were
looked for. Of a truth, the persons who visited Monsieur these days
preferred to slip in by the postern after nightfall, as if there had
never been a time when they were proud to be seen in his hall.
Beyond the grilles a sentry, in the green and scarlet of Monsieur's
men-at-arms, stood on guard, and I called out to him boldly.
He turned at once; then looked as if the sight of me scarce repaid him.
"I wish to enter, if you please," I said. "I am come to see M. le Duc."
"You?" he ejaculated, his eye wandering over my attire, which, none of
the newest, showed signs of my journey.
"Yes, I," I answered in some resentment. "I am one of his men."
He looked me up and down with a grin.
"Oh, one of his men! Well, my man, you must know M. le Duc is not
receiving to-day."
"I am Félix Broux," I told him.
"You may be Félix anybody for all it avails; you cannot see Monsieur."
"Then I will see Vigo." Vigo was Monsieur's Master of Horse, the
staunchest man in France. This sentry was nobody, just a common fellow
picked up since Monsieur left St. Quentin, but Vigo had been at his side
these twenty years.
"Vigo, say you! Vigo does not see street boys."
"I am no street boy," I cried angrily. "I know Vigo well. You shall
smart for flouting me, when I have Monsieur's ear."
"Aye, when you have! Be off with you, rascal. I have no time to bother
with you."
"Imbecile!" I sputtered. But he had turned his back on me and resumed
his pacing up and down the court.
"Oh, very well for you, monsieur," I cried out loudly, hoping he could
hear me. "But you will laugh t'other side of your mouth by and by. I'll
pay you off."
It was maddening to be halted like this at the door of my goal; it made
a fool of me. But while I debated whether to set up an outcry that
would bring forward some officer with more sense than the surly sentry,
or whether to seek some other entrance, I became aware of a sudden
bustle in the courtyard, a narrow slice of which I could see through the
gateway. A page dashed across; then a pair of flunkeys passed. There was
some noise of voices and, finally, of hoofs and wheels. Half a dozen
men-at-arms ran to the gates and swung them open, taking their stand on
each side. Clearly, M. le Duc was about to drive out.
A little knot of people had quickly collected--sprung from between the
stones of the pavement, it would seem--to see Monsieur emerge.
"He is a bold man," I heard one say, and a woman answer, "Aye, and a
handsome," ere the heavy coach rolled out of the arch.
I pushed myself in close to the guardsmen, my heart thumping in my
throat now that the moment had come when I should see my Monsieur. At
the sight of his face I sprang bodily up on the coach-step, crying, all
my soul in my voice, "Oh, Monsieur! M. le Duc!"
Monsieur looked at me coldly, blankly, without a hint of recognition.
The next instant the young gentleman beside him sprang up-and struck me
a blow that hurled me off the step. I fell where the ponderous wheels
would have ended me had not a guardsman, quick and kind, pulled me out
of the way. Some one shouted, "Assassin!"
"I am no assassin," I cried; "I only sought to speak with Monsieur."
"He deserves a hiding, the young cur," growled my foe, the sentry.
"He's been pestering me this half-hour to let him in. He was one of
Monsieur's men, he said. Monsieur would see him. Well, we have seen how
Monsieur treats him!"
"Faith, no," said another. "We have only seen how our young gentleman
treats him. Of course he is too proud and dainty to let a common man so
much as look at him."
They all laughed; the young gentleman seemed no favourite.
"Parbleu! that was why I drew him from the wheels, because _he_ knocked
him there," said my preserver. "I don't believe there's harm in the boy.
What meant you, lad?"
"I meant no harm," I said, and turned sullenly off up the street. This,
then, was what I had come to Paris for--to be denied entrance to the
house, thrown under the coach-wheels, and threatened with a drubbing
from the lackeys!
For three years my only thought had been to serve Monsieur. From waking
in the morning to sleep at night, my whole life was Monsieur's. Never
was duty more cheerfully paid. Never did acolyte more throw his soul
into his service than I into mine. Never did lover hate to be parted
from his mistress more than I from Monsieur. The journey to Paris had
been a journey to Paradise. And now, this!
Monsieur had looked me in the face and not smiled; had heard me beseech
him and not answered--not lifted a finger to save me from being mangled
under his very eyes. St. Quentin and Paris were two very different
places, it appeared. At St. Quentin Monsieur had been pleased to take
me into the château and treat me to more intimacy than he accorded to
the high-born lads, his other pages. So much the easier, then, to cast
me off when he had tired of me. My heart seethed with rage and
bitterness against Monsieur, against the sentry, and, more than all,
against the young Comte de Mar, who had flung me under the wheels.
I had never before seen the Comte de Mar, that spoiled only son of M. le
Duc's, who was too fine for the country, too gay to share his father's
exile. Maybe I was jealous of the love his father bore him, which he so
little repaid. I had never thought to like him, St. Quentin though he
were; and now that I saw him I hated him. His handsome face looked ugly
enough to me as he struck me that blow.
I went along the Paris streets blindly, the din of my own thoughts
louder than all the noises of the city. But I could not remain in this
trance forever, and at length I woke to two unpleasant facts: first, I
had no idea where I was, and, second, I should be no better off if I
knew.
Never, while there remained in me the spirit of a man, would I go back
to Monsieur; never would I serve the Comte de Mar. And it was equally
obvious that never, so long as my father retained the spirit that was
his, could I return to St. Quentin with the account of my morning's
achievements. It was just here that, looking at the business with my
father's eyes, I began to have a suspicion that I had behaved like an
insolent young fool. But I was still too angry to acknowledge it.
Remained, then, but one course--to stay in Paris, and keep from
starvation as best I might.
My thrifty father had not seen fit to furnish me any money to throw away
in the follies of the town. He had calculated closely what I should need
to take me to Monsieur, with a little margin for accidents; so that,
after paying Maître Jacques, I had hardly two pieces to jingle together.
For three years I had browsed my fill in the duke's library; I could
write a decent letter both in my own tongue and in Italian, thanks to
Father Francesco, Monsieur's Florentine confessor, and handle a sword
none so badly, thanks to Monsieur; and I felt that it should not be hard
to pick up a livelihood. But how to start about it I had no notion, and
finally I made up my mind to go and consult him whom I now called my one
friend in Paris, Jacques the innkeeper.
'Twas easier said than done. I had strayed out of the friendly Rue St.
Denis into a network of dark and narrow ways that might have been laid
out by a wily old stag with the dogs hot on him, so did they twist and
turn and double on themselves. I could make my way only at a snail's
pace, asking new guidance at every corner. Noon was long past when at
length I came on laggard feet around the corner by the Amour de Dieu.
Yet was it not fatigue that weighted my feet, but pride. Though I had
resolved to seek out Maître Jacques, still 'twas a hateful thing to
enter as suppliant where I had been the patron. I had paid for my
breakfast like a lord, but I should have to beg for my dinner. I had
bragged of Monsieur's fondness, and I should have to tell how I had been
flung under the coach-wheels. My pace slackened to a stop. I could not
bring myself to enter the door. I tried to think how to better my story,
so to tell it that it should redound to my credit. But my invention
stuck in my pate.
As I stood striving to summon up a jaunty demeanour, I found myself
gazing straight at the shuttered house, and of a sudden my thoughts
shifted back to my vision.
Those murdered Huguenots, dead and gone ere I was born, had appeared to
me as plain as the men I passed in the street. Though I had beheld them
but the space of a lightning-flash, I could call up their faces like
those of my comrades. One, the nearest me, was small, pale, with
pinched, sharp face, somewhat rat-like. The second man was conspicuously
big and burly, black-haired and-bearded. The third and youngest--all
three were young--stood with his hand on Blackbeard's shoulder. He, too,
was tall, but slenderly built, with clear-cut visage and fair hair
gleaming in the glare. One moment I saw them, every feature plain; the
next they had vanished like a dream.
It was an unholy thing, no doubt, yet it held me with a shuddery
fascination. Was it indeed a portent, this rising of heretics from their
unblessed graves? And why had it been shown to me, true son of the
Church? Had any one else ever seen what I had seen? Maître Jacques had
hinted at further terrors, and said no one dared enter the place. Well,
grant me but the opportunity, and I would dare.
Thus was hatched in my brain the notion of forcing an entrance into that
banned house. I was an idle boy, foot-loose and free to do whatever mad
mischief presented itself. Here was the house just across the street.
Neglected as it was, it remained the most pretentious edifice in the
row, being large and flaunting a half-defaced coat of arms over the
door. Such a house might well boast two entrances. I hoped it did, for
there was no use in trying to batter down this door with the eye of the
Rue Coupejarrets upon me. I turned along the side street, and after
exploring several muck-heaped alleys found one that led me into a small
square court bounded on three sides by a tall house with shuttered
windows.
Fortune was favouring me. But how to gain entrance? The two doors were
both firmly fastened. The windows on the ground floor were small, high,
and iron-shuttered. Above, one or two shutters swung half open, but I
could not climb the smooth wall. Yet I did not despair; I was not
without experience of shutters. I selected one closed not quite tight,
leaving a crack for my knife-blade. I found the hook inside, got my
dagger under it, and at length drove it up. The shutter creaked shrilly
open.
A few good blows knocked in the casement. I followed.
I found myself in a small room bare of everything but dust. From this,
once a porter's room, I fancied, I passed out into a hallway dimly
lighted from the open window behind me. The hall was large, paved with
black and white marbles; at the end a stately stairway mounted into
mysterious gloom.
My heart jumped into my mouth and I cringed back in terror, a choked cry
rasping my throat. For, as I crossed the hall, peering into the dimness,
I descried, stationed on the lowest stair with upraised bludgeon, a man.
For a second I stood in helpless startlement, voiceless, motionless,
waiting for him to brain me. Then my half-uttered scream changed to a
quavering laugh, as my eyes, becoming used to the gloom, discovered my
bogy to be but a figure carved in wood, holding aloft a long since
quenched flambeau.
I blushed with shame, yet I cannot say that now I felt no fear. I
thought of the panic-stricken women, the doomed men, who had fled at the
sword's point up these very stairs. The silence seemed to shriek at me,
and I half thought I saw fear-maddened eyes peering out from the
shadowed corners. Yet for all that--nay, because of that--I would not
give up the adventure. I went back into the little room and carefully
closed the shutter, lest some other meddler should spy my misdeed. Then
I set my feet on the stair.
If the half-light before had been full of eery terror, it was naught to
the blackness now. My hand on the rail was damp. Yet I mounted steadily.
Up one flight I climbed, groped in the hot dark for the foot of the next
flight, and went on. Suddenly, above, I heard a noise. I came to an
instant halt. All was as still as the tomb. I listened; not a breath
broke the silence. It never occurred to me to imagine a rat in this
house of the dead, and the noise shook me. With a sick feeling about my
heart I went on again.
On the next floor it was lighter. Faint outlines of doors and passages
were visible. I could not stand the gloom a moment longer; I strode into
the nearest doorway and across the room to where a gleam of brightness
outlined the window. My shaking fingers found the hook of the shutter
and flung it wide, letting in a burst of honest sunshine. I leaned out
into the free air, and saw below me the Rue Coupejarrets and the sign of
the Amour de Dieu.
The next instant a cloth fell over my face and was twisted tight; strong
arms pulled me back, and a deep voice commanded:
"Close the shutter."
Some one pushed past me and shut it with a clang.
"Devil take you! You'll rouse the quarter," cried my captor, fiercely,
yet not loud. "Go join monsieur." With that he picked me up in his arms
and walked across the room.
The capture had been so quick I had no time for outcry. I fought my best
with him, half strangled as I was by the cloth. I might as well have
struggled against the grip of the Maiden. The man carried me the length
of the house, it seemed; flung me down upon the floor, and banged a door
on me.
IV
_The three men in the window_
I tore the cloth from my head and sprang up. I was in pitch-darkness. I
dashed against the door to no avail. Feeling the walls, I discovered
myself to be in a small, empty closet. With all my force I flung myself
once more upon the door. It stood firm.
"Dame! but I have got into a pickle," I thought.
They were no ghosts, at all events. Scared as I was, I rejoiced at that.
I could cope with men, but who can cope with the devil? These might be
villains--doubtless were, skulking in this deserted house,--yet with
readiness and pluck I could escape them.
It was as hot as a furnace in my prison, and as still as the grave. The
men, who seemed by their footsteps to be several, had gone cautiously
down the stairs after caging me. Evidently I had given them a fine
fright, clattering through the house as I had, and even now they were
looking for my accomplices.
It seemed hours before the faintest sound broke the stillness. If ever
you want to squeeze away a man's cheerfulness like water from a rag,
shut him up alone in the dark and silence. He will thank you to take him
out into the daylight and hang him. In token whereof, my heart welcomed
like brothers the men returning.
They came into the room, and I thought they were three in number. I
heard the door shut, and then steps approached my closet.
"Have a care now, monsieur; he may be armed," spoke the rough voice of a
man without breeding.
"Doubtless he carries a culverin up his sleeve," sneered the deep tones
of my captor.
Some one else laughed, and rejoined, in a clear, quick voice:
"Natheless, he may have a knife. I will open the door, and do you look
out for him, Gervais."
I had a knife and had it in my hand, ready to charge for freedom. But
the door opened slowly, and Gervais looked out for me--to the effect
that my knife went one way and I another before I could wink. I reeled
against the wall and stayed there, cursing myself for a fool that I had
not trusted to fair words instead of to my dagger.
"Well done, my brave Gervais!" cried he of the vivid voice--a tall
fair-haired youth, whom I had seen before. So had I seen the stalwart
blackbeard, Gervais. The third man was older, a common-looking fellow
whose face was new to me. All three were in their shirts on account of
the heat; all were plain, even shabby, in their dress. But the two young
men wore swords at their sides.
The half-opened shutters, overhanging the court, let plenty of light
into the room. It had two straw beds on the floor and a few old chairs
and stools, and a table covered with dishes and broken food and
wine-bottles. More bottles, riding-boots, whips and spurs, two or three
hats and saddle-bags, and various odds and ends of dress littered the
floor and the chairs. Everything was of mean quality except the bearing
of the two young men. A gentleman is a gentleman even in the Rue
Coupejarrets--all the more, maybe, in the Rue Coupejarrets. These two
were gently born.
The low man, with scared face, held off from me. He whose name was
Gervais confronted me with an angry scowl. Yeux-gris alone--for so I
dubbed the third, from his gray eyes, well open under dark
brows--Yeux-gris looked no whit alarmed or angered; the only emotion to
be read in his face was a gay interest as the blackavised Gervais put me
questions.
"How came you here? What are you about?"
"No harm, messieurs," I made haste to protest, ruing my stupidity with
that dagger. "I climbed in at a window for sport. I thought the house
was deserted."
He clutched my shoulder till I could have screamed for pain.
"The truth, now. If you value your life you will tell the truth."
"Monsieur, it is the truth. I came in idle mischief; that was the whole
of it. I had no notion of breaking in upon you or any one. They said the
house was haunted."
"Who said that?"
"Maître Jacques, at the Amour de Dieu."
He stared at me in surprise.
"What had you been asking about this house?"
Yeux-gris, lounging against the table, struck in:
"I can tell you that myself. He told Jacques he saw us in the window
last night. Did you not?"
"Aye, monsieur. The thunder woke me, and when I looked out I saw you
plain as day. But Maître Jacques said it was a vision."
"I flattered myself I saw you first and got that shutter closed very
neatly," said Yeux-gris. "Dame! I am not so clever as I thought. So old
Jacques called us ghosts, did he?"
"Yes, monsieur. He told me this house belonged to M. de Béthune, who was
a Huguenot and killed in the massacre."
Yeux-gris burst into joyous laughter.
"He said my house belonged to the Béthunes! Well played, Jacques! You
owe that gallant lie to me, Gervais, and the pains I took to make him
think us Navarre's men. He is heart and soul for Henri Quatre. Did he
say, perchance, that in this very courtyard Coligny fell?"
"No," said I, seeing that I had been fooled and had had all my terrors
for naught, and feeling much chagrined thereat. "How was I to know it
was a lie? I know naught about Paris. I came up but yesterday from St.
Quentin."
"St. Quentin!" came a cry from the henchman. With a fierce "Be quiet,
fool!" Gervais turned to me and demanded my name.
"Félix Broux."
"Who sent you here?"
"Monsieur, no one."
"You lie."
Again he gripped me by the shoulder, gripped till the tears stood in my
eyes.
"No one, monsieur; I swear it."
"You will not speak! I'll make you, by Heaven."
He seized my thumb and wrist to bend one back on the other, torture with
strength such as his. Yeux-gris sprang off the table.
"Let alone, Gervais! The boy's honest."
"He is a spy."
"He is a fool of a country boy. A spy in hobnailed shoes, forsooth! No
spy ever behaved as he has. I said when you first seized him he was no
spy. I say it again, now I have heard his story. He saw us by chance,
and Maître Jacques's bogy story spurred him on instead of keeping him
off. You are a fool, my cousin."
"Pardieu! it is you who are the fool," growled Gervais. "You will bring
us to the rope with your cursed easy ways. If he is a spy it means the
whole crew are down upon us."
"What of that?"
"Pardieu! is it nothing?"
Yeux-gris returned with a touch of haughtiness:
"It is nothing. A gentleman may live in his own house."
Gervais looked as if he remembered something. He said much less
boisterously:
"And do you want Monsieur here?"
Yeux-gris flushed red.
"No," he cried. "But you may be easy. He will not trouble himself to
come."
Gervais regarded him silently an instant, as if he thought of several
things he did not say. What he did say was: "You are a pair of fools,
you and the boy. Whatever he came for, he has spied on us now. He shall
not live to carry the tale of us."
"Then you have me to kill as well!"
Gervais turned on him snarling. Yeux-gris laid a hand on his sword-hilt.
"I will not have an innocent lad hurt. I was not bred a ruffian," he
cried hotly. They glared at each other. Then Yeux-gris, with a sudden
exclamation, "Ah, bah, Gervais!" broke into laughter.
Now, this merriment was a heart-warming thing to hear. For Gervais was
taking the situation with a seriousness that was as terrifying as it was
stupid. When I looked into his dogged eyes I could not but think the end
of me might be near. But Yeux-gris's laugh said the very notion was
ridiculous; I was innocent of all harmful intent, and they were
gentlemen, not cutthroats.
"Messieurs," I said, "I swear by the blessed saints I am what I told
you. I am no spy, and no one sent me here. Who you are, or what you do,
I know no more than a babe unborn. I belong to no party and am no man's
man. As for why you choose to live in this empty house, it is not my
concern and I care no whit about it. Let me go, messieurs, and I will
swear to keep silence about what I have seen."
"I am for letting him go," said Yeux-gris.
Gervais looked doubtful, the most encouraging attitude toward me he had
yet assumed. He answered:
"If he had not said the name--"
"Stuff!" interrupted Yeux-gris. "It is a coincidence, no more. If he
were what you think, it is the very last name he would have said."
This was Greek to me; I had mentioned no names but Maître Jacques's and
my own. And he was their friend.
"Messieurs," I said, "if it is my name that does not please you, why, I
can say for it that if it is not very high-sounding, at least it is an
honest one and has ever been held so down where we live."
"And that is at St. Quentin," said Yeux-gris.
"Yes, monsieur. My father, Anton Broux, is Master of the Forest to the
Duke of St. Quentin."
He started, and Gervais cried out:
"Voilà! who is the fool now?"
My nerves, which had grown tranquil since Yeux-gris came to my rescue,
quivered anew. The common man started at the very word St. Quentin, and
the masters started when I named the duke. Was it he whom they had
spoken of as Monsieur? Who and what were they? There was more in this
than I had thought at first. It was no longer a mere question of my
liberty. I was all eyes and ears for whatever information I could
gather.
Yeux-gris spoke to me, for the first time gravely:
"This is not a time when folks take pleasure-trips to Paris. What
brought you?"
"I used to be Monsieur's page down at St. Quentin," I answered, deeming
the straight truth best. "When we learned that he was in Paris, my
father sent me up to him. I reached the city last night, and lay at the
Amour de Dieu. This morning I went to the duke's hôtel, but the guard
would not let me in. Then, when Monsieur drove out I tried to get speech
with him, but he would have none of me."
The bitterness I felt over my rebuff must have been in my voice and
face, for Gervais spoke abruptly:
"And do you hate him for that?"
"Nay," said I, churlishly enough. "It is his to do as he chooses. But I
hate the Comte de Mar for striking me a foul blow."
"The Comte de Mar!" exclaimed Yeux-gris.
"His son."
"He has no son."
"But he has, monsieur. The Comte de--"
"He is dead," said Yeux-gris.
"Why, we knew naught--" I was beginning, when Gervais broke in:
"You say the fellow's honest, when he tells such tales as this! He saw
the Comte de Mar--!"
"I thought it must be he," I protested. "A young man who sat by
Monsieur's side, elegant and proud-looking, with an aquiline face--"
"That is Lucas, that is his secretary," declared Yeux-gris, as who
should say, "That is his scullion."
Gervais looked at him oddly a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and
demanded of me:
"What next?"
"I came away angry."
"And walked all the way here to risk your life in a haunted house?
Pardieu! too plain a lie."
"Oh, I would have done the like; we none of us fear ghosts in the
daytime," said Yeux-gris.
"You may believe him; I am no such fool. He has been caught in two lies;
first the Béthunes, then the Comte de Mar. He is a clumsy spy; they
might have found a better one. Not but what that touch about
ill-treatment at Monsieur's hand was well thought of. That was
Monsieur's suggestion, I warrant, for the boy has talked like a dolt
else."
"I am no liar," I cried hotly. "Ask Jacques whether he did not tell me
about the Béthunes. It is his lie, not mine. I did not know the Comte de
Mar was dead, and this Lucas of yours is handsome enough for a count. I
came here, as I told you, in curiosity concerning Maître Jacques's
story. I had no idea of seeing you or any living man. It is the truth,
monsieur."
"I believe you," Yeux-gris answered. "You have an honest face. You came
into my house uninvited. Well, I forgive it, and invite you to stay. You
shall be my valet."
"He shall be nobody's valet," Gervais cried.
The gray eyes flashed, but their owner rejoined lightly:
"You have a man; surely I should have one, too. And I understand the
services of M. Félix are not engaged."
"Mille tonnerres! you would take this spy--this sneak--"
"As I would take M. de Paris, if I chose," responded Yeux-gris, with a
cold hauteur that smacked more of a court than of this shabby room. He
added lightly again:
"You think him a spy, I do not. But in any case, he must not blab of us.
Therefore he stays here and brushes my clothes. Marry, they need it."
Easily, with grace, he had disposed of the matter. But I said:
"Monsieur, I shall do nothing of the kind."
"What!" he cried, as if the clothes-brush itself had risen in rebellion,
"what! you will not."
"No," said I.
"And why not?" he demanded, plainly thinking me demented.
"Because I know you are against the Duke of St. Quentin."
Whatever they had thought me, neither expected that speech.
"I am no spy or sneak," said I. "It is true I came here by chance; it is
true Monsieur turned me off this morning. But I was born on his land and
I am no traitor. I will not be valet or henchman for either of you, if I
die for it."
I was like to die for it. For Gervais whipped out his sword and sprang
for me. I thought I saw Yeux-gris's out, too, when Gervais struck me
over the head with his sword-hilt. The rest was darkness.
V
_Rapiers and a vow._
I came to my senses slowly, to hear loud, angry voices. As I opened my
eyes and stirred, the room reeled from me and all was blank again.
Awhile after, I grew aware of a clashing of steel. I lay wondering
thickly what it was and why it had to be going on while my head ached
so, till at length it dawned on my dull brain that swords were crossing.
I opened my eyes again, then.
They were fighting each other, Yeux-gris and Gervais. The latter was
almost trampling on me, Yeux-gris had pressed him so close to the wall.
Then he forced his way out, and they drove each other round in a circle
till the room seemed to spin once more.
I crawled out of the way and watched them, bewildered, absorbed. I had
more reason to thrill over the contest than the mere excellence of
it,--which was great,--since I was the cause of the duel, and my very
life, belike, hung on its issue.
They were both admirable swordsmen, yet it was clear from the first
where the palm lay. Anything nimbler, lighter, easier than the
sword-play of Yeux-gris I never hope to see in this imperfect world.
The heavier adversary was hot, angry, breathing hard. A smile hovered
over Yeux-gris's lips; already a red disk on Gervais's shirt showed
where his cousin's sword had been and would soon go again, and deeper. I
had forgotten my bruise in my interest and delight, when, of a sudden,
one whom we all had ignored took a hand in the game. Gervais's lackey
started forward and knocked up Yeux-gris's arm. His sword flew wide, and
Gervais slashed his arm from wrist to elbow.
With a smothered cry, Yeux-gris caught at his wound. Gervais, ablaze
with rage, sprang past him on his creature. The man gaped with
amazement; then, for there was no time for parley, leaped for the door.
It was locked. He turned, and with a look of deathly terror fell on his
knees, crouched up against the door-post. Gervais lunged. His blade
passed clean through the man's shoulders and pinned him to the door. His
head fell heavily forward.
"Have you killed him?" cried Yeux-gris.
"By my faith! I meant to," came the answer. Gervais was bending over the
man. With an abrupt laugh he called out: "Killed him, pardieu! He has
come off cheap."
He raised the fellow's limp head, and we saw that the sword had passed
just over his shoulder, piercing the linen, not the flesh. He had
swooned from sheer terror, being in truth not so much as scratched.
Gervais turned to his cousin.
"I never meant that foul trick. It was no thought of mine. I would have
turned the blade if I could. I will kill Pontou now, if you say the
word."
"Nay," answered the other, faintly; "help me."
The blood was pouring from his arm; he was half swooning. Gervais and I
ran to him and, between us, bathed the cut, bandaged it with strips torn
from a shirt, and made a sling of a scarf. The wound was long, but not
deep, and when we had poured some wine down his throat he was himself
again.
"You will not bear me malice for that poltroon's work, Étienne?" Gervais
asked, more humbly than I ever thought to hear him speak. "That was a
foul cut, but it was no fault of mine. I am no blackguard; I fight fair.
I will kill the knave, if you like."
"You are ungrateful, Gervais; he saved you when you needed saving,"
Yeux-gris laughed. "Faith! let him live. I forgive him. You will pay me
for my hurt by yielding me Félix."
Gervais looked at me. While we had worked side by side over Yeux-gris he
seemed to have forgotten that he was my enemy. But now all the old
suspicion and dislike came into his face again. However, he answered:
"Aye, you would have been the victor had it not been for Pontou. You
shall do what you like with your boy. I promise you that."
"Now that is well said, Gervais," returned Yeux-gris, rising, and
picking up his sword, which he sheathed. "That is very well said. For if
you did not feel like promising it, why, I should have to begin over
again with my left hand."
"Oh, I give you the boy," Gervais repeated rather sullenly, turning away
to pour himself some wine.
I could not but wonder at Yeux-gris, at his gaiety and his
steadfastness. He had hardly looked grave through the whole affair; he
had fought with a smile on his lips and had taken a cruel wound with a
laugh. Withal, he had been the constant champion of my innocence, even
to drawing his sword on his cousin for me. Now, with his bloody arm in
its sling, he was as debonair and careless as ever. I had been stupid
enough to imagine the big Gervais the leader of the two, and I found
myself mistaken. I dropped on my knee and kissed my saviour's hand in
all gratitude.
"Aha," said Yeux-gris, "what think you now of being my valet?"
Verily, I was hard pushed.
"Monsieur," I said, "I owe you much more than I can ever pay. If you
were any man's enemy but my duke's, I would serve you on my knees. But I
was born on the duke's land and I cannot be disloyal. You may kill me
yourself, if you like."
"No," he answered gravely, "that is not my métier."
Gervais laughed.
"Make me that offer, and I accept."
Yeux-gris turned to him with that little hauteur he assumed
occasionally.
"You are helpless, my cousin. You have passed your word."
"Aye. I leave him to you."
His sullen eyes told me it was no new-born tenderness for me that
prompted his surrender. Nor had I, truth to tell, any great faith in the
sacredness of his word. Yet I believed he would let me be. For it was
borne in upon me that, despite his passion and temper, he had no wish to
quarrel with Yeux-gris. Whether at bottom he loved him or in some way
dreaded him, I could not tell; but of this my fear-sharpened wits were
sure: he had no desire to press an open breach. He was honestly ashamed
of his henchman's low deed; yet even before that his judgment had
disliked the quarrel. Else why had he struck me with the hilt of the
sword?
"I leave him to you," he repeated. "Do as you choose. If you deem his
life a precious thing, cherish it. When did you learn a taste for
insolence, Étienne? Time was when you were touchy on that score."
"Time never was when I did not love courage."
"Oh, it is courage!" With a sneer he turned away.
"Gervais," said Yeux-gris, "have the kindness to unlock the door."
Gervais wheeled around, his face an angry question.
Yeux-gris answered it with cold politeness:
"That Félix Broux may pass out."
"By Heaven, he shall not!"
"You gave your word you would leave him to me. Did you lie?"
"I do leave him to you!" Gervais thundered. "I would slit his impudent
throat; but since you love him, you may have him to eat out of your
plate and sleep in your bosom. I will put up with it. But go out of
that door till the thing is done, sang dieu! he shall not!"
"If he goes straight to the duke, what then? He will say he found us
living in my house. What harm? We are no felons. Let him say it."
"And put Lucas on his guard?" returned Gervais. He was angry, yet he
spoke with evident attempt at restraint. "Put Lucas on the trail? He is
wary as a cat. Let him get wind of us here, and he will never let us
catch him."
"Well," said Yeux-gris, reluctantly, "it is true. And though I will not
have the boy harmed, he shall stay here. I will not put a spoke in the
wheel. We will take no risks till Lucas is shent. The boy shall be held
prisoner. And afterward--"
"I will come myself and let him out," said Gervais, and laughed.
I glanced at my protector, not liking to think of that moment, whenever
it might be, "afterward." He went up to Gervais.
"My cousin, are we friends or foes? For, faith! you treat me strangely
like a foe."
"We are friends."
"I am your friend, since it is in your cause that I am here. I have
stood at your shoulder like a brother--you cannot deny it."
"No," Gervais answered; "you stood my friend,--my one friend in that
house,--as I was yours. I stood at your shoulder in the Montluc
affair--you cannot deny that. I have been your ally, your servant, your
messenger to mademoiselle, your envoy to Mayenne. I have done all in my
power to win you your lady."
A shadow fell over Yeux-gris's open face.
"That task needs a greater power than yours, my Gervais."
He regarded Gervais with a rueful smile, his thoughts of a sudden as far
away from me as if I had never set foot in the Rue Coupejarrets. He
shook his head, sighing, and said, with a hand on Gervais's shoulder:
"It's beyond you, cousin."
Gervais brought him back to the point.
"Well, I've done what I could for you. But you don't help me when you
let loose a spy to warn Lucas."
"He shall not go. You know well, cousin, you will be no gladder than I
when that knave is dead. But I will not have Félix Broux suffer because
he dared speak for the Duke of St. Quentin."
"As you choose, then. I will not touch a hair of his head if you keep
him from Lucas."
Once more he turned away across the room. My bewilderment was so great
that the words came out of themselves:
"Messieurs, is it Lucas you mean to kill?"
Yeux-gris looked at me, not instantly replying. I cried again to him:
"Monsieur, is it Lucas or the duke?"
Then Yeux-gris, despite a gesture from Gervais, who would have told me
nothing I might ask, exclaimed:
"Why, Lucas!"
He said it in such honest surprise and with such a steady glance that
the heavy fear that had hung on me dropped from me like a dead-weight,
and suddenly I turned quite dizzy and fell into the nearest chair.
A dash of water in the face made me look up, to see Yeux-gris standing
wet-handed by me.
"Mon dieu!" he cried, "you were as white as the wall. Do you love so
much this Lucas who struck you?"
"No," I said, rising; "I thought you meant to kill the duke."
"Did you take us for Leaguers?"
I nodded.
He spoke as if actually he felt it important to set himself right in my
eyes.
"Well, we are none. We are no politicians, but private gentlemen with a
grudge to pay. I care not what the parties do. Whether we have the
Princess Isabelle or Henry the Huguenot, 'tis all one to me; I am not
putting either on the throne. So if you have got it into your head that
we are plotting for the League, why, get it out again."
"But you are enemies to the Duke of St. Quentin?"
He answered me slowly:
"We do not love him. But we do not plot his death. He goes his way
unharmed by us. We are gentlemen, not bravos."
"And Lucas?"
"Lucas is my cousin's enemy, and, being a great man's man, skulks behind
the bars of the Hôtel st. Quentin and will not face my cousin's sword.
So to reach him takes a little plotting. Do you believe me?"
I looked into his gray eyes, that had flashed so hotly in my defence,
and I could not but believe him.
"Yes, monsieur," I said.
He regarded me curiously.
"The duke's life seems much to you."
"Why, monsieur, I am a Broux."
"And could not be disloyal to save your life?"
"My life! Monsieur, the Broux would not seek to save their souls if M.
le Duc preferred them damned."
I expected he would rebuke me for the outburst, but he did not; he
merely said:
"And Lucas?"
"Oh, Lucas!" I said. "I know nothing of him. He is new with the duke
since my time. I do not owe him anything, save a grudge for that blow
this morning. Mon dieu, monsieur, I am thankful to you for befriending
me. Dying for Monsieur is all in a day's work; we expect to do that.
But, my faith, if I had died just now, it would have been for Lucas."
At this moment a long groan came from the end of the room. We turned;
the lackey was waking from his swoon, under the ministration of Gervais.
He opened his eyes; their glance was dull till they fell upon his
master. And then at once they looked venomous.
Gervais kicked him into fuller consciousness.
"Get up, hound. It is time to meet Martin."
The wretch scrambled shakily to his feet, and stood clutching the
door-jamb and eying Gervais, terror writ large on his chalky
countenance. Yet there was more than terror in his face; there was the
look you see in the eyes of a trapped animal that watches its chance to
bite. Yeux-gris cried out:
"You dare not send that man, Gervais."
"Why not?"
"Because the moment he is clear of the house he will betray you. Look at
his face."
"He shall swear on the cross!"
"Aye. But you cannot trust the oath of such as he."
"What would you? We must send."
"As you will. But you are mad if you send him."
Gervais pondered a moment, his slower wits taking in the situation. Then
he seized the man by the collar, fairly flung him across the room into
the closet, and bolted the door upon him.
"I will settle with him later. But you are right. We cannot send him."
Yeux-gris burst into laughter.
"My faith! we could not have more trouble if we were heads of the League
than this little duel of yours is giving us. Why, what if we are seen? I
will go."
Gervais started.
"No; that will not do."
"Eh, bien, then, what will you propose?"
But it was some one else who proposed. I said to Yeux-gris:
"Monsieur, if all your purpose is against Lucas and no other, I am your
man. I will go."
"What, my stubborn-neck, you?"
"Why, monsieur, I owe you a great debt. While I thought you meant ill to
M. le Duc, I could not serve you. But this Lucas is another pair of
sleeves. I owe him no allegiance. Moreover, he nearly killed me this
morning. Therefore I am quite at your disposal."
"Now, I wonder if you are lying," said Gervais.
"I do not think he is lying," Yeux-gris said. "I trow, Gervais, we have
got our messenger."
"You tell me to beware of Pontou because he hates me, and then would
have me trust this fellow?" Gervais demanded with some acumen.
I said: "Monsieur, you do not seem to understand how I come to make this
offer."
"To get out of the house with a whole skin."
I had a joy in daring him, being sure of Yeux-gris.
"Monsieur," I said, "I should be glad to leave this house with my skin
whole or broken, so long as I left on my own feet. But you have
mentioned the very reason why I shall not betray you. I do not love you
and I do not love Lucas. Therefore, if you and M. Lucas are to fight, I
ask nothing better than to help the quarrel on."
He stared at me with an air more of bewilderment than aught else, but
Yeux-gris's ready laughter rang out.
"Bravo, Félix! I am proud of you. That is an idea worthy of Cæsar! You
would set your enemies to exterminate each other. And I asked you to be
my valet!"
"Which do you wish to see slain?" demanded the black Gervais.
I answered quite truthfully:
"Monsieur, I shall be pleased either way."
I know not how he relished the answer, for Yeux-gris cried out at once:
"Bravo, Félix, you are a paragon! I have not wit enough to know whether
you are as simple as sunshine or as deep as a well, but I love you."
"Monsieur," I answered, as I think, very neatly, "if I am a well, truth
lies at the bottom."
"Well, Gervais?" demanded Yeux-gris.
Gervais bent his lowering brows on his cousin.
"Do you say, trust him?"
"Aye, I would trust him. For never yet did villain turn honest, nor
honest man false, in one short hour. When he was asked to serve against
the duke he showed his stuff. He was no traitor; he was no coward; he
was no liar. I think he is not those now."
Gervais was still doubtful.
"It is a risk. If he betrays--"
"What is life without risks?" cried Yeux-gris. "I thought you too good a
gambler, Gervais, to falter before a risk."
"Well," Gervais consented, "I leave it to you. Do as you like."
Yeux-gris said at once to me:
"This Lucas, as I told you, is too cowardly to meet my cousin in open
fight. Since he got the challenge he has never stuck his nose out of
doors without two or three of the duke's guard about him. Therefore we
have the right to get at him as we can. We have paid a man in the house
to tell of his movements. He is to fare out secretly at night on a
mission for M. le Duc, with one comrade only. M. Gervais and I will
interrupt that little journey."
"Very good, monsieur. And I?"
"You will meet our spy and learn the hour of the expedition. Last night,
when he told us of the plan, it had not been decided."
"Then he will be the other man I saw in the window? I shall know him."
"You have sharp eyes and a sharp brain, youngster. But he will not know
you. Therefore you can say you come from the shuttered house in the Rue
Coupejarrets. You will meet him in the little alley to the north of the
Hôtel St. Quentin. Do you know your way to the hôtel? Well, then, you
are to go down the passageway between the house and M. de Portreuse's
garden--you cannot mistake it, for on two sides of the house is the
street, on the third the garden, and on the fourth the alleyway.
Half-way down the alley is an arch with a small door. In that arch our
man, Louis Martin, will meet you. Do you understand?"
I repeated the directions.
"You have learned your lesson. You will ask him the hour--only that."
"And you will take oath not to betray us," commanded Gervais.
I took out the cross that hung on my rosary. I was ready to swear.
Gervais prompted:
"I swear to go and come straight, and speak no word to any but Martin."
With all solemnity I swore it on my cross.
"That oath will be kept," said Yeux-gris. He held out a sudden hand for
the cross, which I gave him, wondering.
"I swear that we mean no harm whatsoever to the Duke of St. Quentin." He
kissed the cross and flung the chain back over my neck.
At last I saw the door unlocked. Yeux-gris even returned to me my knife.
"Au revoir, messieurs."
Gervais, sullen to the last, vouchsafed no answer, but Yeux-gris called
out cheerily, "Au revoir."
VI
_A matter of life and death._
Nothing in life can be so sweet as freedom after captivity, safety after
danger. When I gained the open street once more and breathed the open
air, no one molesting or troubling me, I could have sung with joy. I
fairly hugged myself for my cleverness in getting out of my plight. As
for the combat I was furthering, my only doubt about that was lest the
skulking Lucas should not prove good sword enough to give trouble to M.
Gervais. It was very far from my wish that he should come out of the
attempt unscathed.
But as I went along and had more time to ponder the matter, other doubts
forced themselves into my reluctant mind. Put it as I pleased, the
affair smacked too much of secrecy to be quite savoury. It was curious,
to say the least, that an honest encounter should require so much
plotting. Also, Lucas, coward and rascal though he might be, was
Monsieur's man, doing Monsieur's errand, and for me to mix myself up in
a plot against him was scarcely in keeping with my vaunted loyalty to
the house of St. Quentin. My friend Gervais's quarrel might be just;
his manner of procedure, even, might be just, and yet I have no right to
take part in it.
And yet Monsieur had signified plainly enough that he was no longer my
patron. For my birth's sake I might never work against him, but I was
free to do whatever else I chose. Monsieur himself had made it necessary
for me to take another master, and assuredly I owed something to
Yeux-gris. I had reason to feel confidence in his honour; surely I might
reckon that he would not be in the affair unless it were honest. Lucas
was like enough a scoundrel of whom Monsieur would be well rid. And
lastly and finally and above all, I was sworn, so there was no use
worrying about it. I had taken oath, and could not draw back.
I hurried along to the rendezvous, only pausing one moment at the
street-corner to buy sausages hot from the brazier, which I crammed into
my mouth as I ran. But after all was there no need of haste; the little
arch, when I panted up to it, was all deserted.
No better place for a tryst could have been found in the heart of busy
Paris. Only the one door opened into the alley; M. de Portreuse's high
garden wall, forming the other side of the passage, was unbroken by a
gate, and no curious eyes from the house could look into the deep arch
and see the narrow nail-studded door at the back where I awaited the
rat-faced Martin.
I stood there long, first on one foot and then on the other, fearful
every moment lest some one of Monsieur's true men should come along to
demand my business. No one appeared, either foe or friend, for so long
that I began to think Yeux-gris had tricked me and sent me here on a
fool's errand, when, all at once, a low voice said close to my ear:
"What seek you here?"
I jumped on finding at my side a little, pale, sharp-faced man--the man
of the vision. He had slipped through the door so suddenly and quietly
that I was once more tempted to take him for a ghost. He eyed me for a
bare second; then his eyes dropped before mine.
"I am come to learn the hour," said I.
"Did you not hear the chimes ring five?"
"Oh, no need for disguise. I am come from the two in the Rue
Coupejarrets. They bade me ask the hour."
He favoured me with another of his shifty glances.
"What hour meant they?"
I said bluntly, in a louder tone:
"The hour when M. Lucas sets out on his secret mission."
"Hush!" he cried. "Hush! Don't say names aloud--his or the other's."
"Well," I said crossly, "you have kept me waiting already more time than
I care to lose. How much longer before you will tell me what I came to
know?"
He looked at me sharply for another brief instant before his eyes slunk
away from mine.
"You should have a password."
"They gave me none. They told me to say I came from the shuttered house
in the Rue Coupejarrets, and that would be enough."
"How came you into this business?"
"By a back window."
He gave me another suspicious glance, but making nothing by it, he
rejoined:
"Eh bien, I trust you. I will tell you."
He clutched my arm and drew me to the back of the arch, where the
afternoon shadows were already gathered.
"What have you for me?" he demanded.
"Nothing. What should I have?"
"No gold?"
"No."
"He promised me ten pistoles to-day. He did not give them to you?"
"I tell you, no."
"You are a thief! You have them!"
He stepped forward menacingly; so did I. He then fell back as abruptly.
"Nay, it was a jest; I know you are honest. But he promised me ten
pistoles."
"He did not give them to me," I said. "Perhaps he was not so convinced
of my honesty. He will doubtless pay you afterward."
"Afterward!" he retorted in a high key. "By our Lady, he shall pay me
afterward! The gutters will run gold then, will they? Pardieu! I will
see that a good stream flows my way. But one cannot play to-day with
to-morrow's coin. He said I should have ten pistoles when I let him know
the hour."
"I cannot mend that. It lies between you and him. I have not seen or
heard of any money."
Martin edged up close to the door of retreat and waxed defiant.
"Then all I have to say is, he may go whistle for his news."
Now, had I but thought of it, here was an easy road out of a bad
business. If Martin would not tell the hour of rendezvous, Lucas was
saved, Monsieur's interests not endangered, yet at the same time I was
not forsworn. But touch pitch and be defiled. You cannot go hand and
glove with villains and remain an honest man. I returned directly:
"As you choose. But M. Gervais carries a long sword."
He started at that and made no instant reply, seeming to be balancing
considerations. Then he gave his decision.
"I will tell you. But your M. Gervais is wrong if he thinks I can be
slighted and robbed of my dues. I know enough to make trouble for him,
and I know where to take my knowledge. He will not find it easy to shut
my mouth afterward, except with good broad gold pieces."
"Enfin, are you telling me the hour?" I said impatiently. I was ill at
ease; my only wish was to get the errand done and be gone.
He laid a hand on my shoulder and made me bend to him, and even then
spoke so low I could scarce catch the words.
"They have fixed positively on to-night. They will leave by this door
and take the route I described last night to M. Gervais. They will start
as soon as the streets are quiet, sometime between ten and eleven. They
must allow an hour to reach the gate, and the man goes off at twelve. In
all likelihood they will not set out before a quarter of eleven; M. le
Duc does not care to be recognized."
So they planned to kill Lucas at Monsieur's side? Yeux-gris had not
dared to tell me that. But he had looked me straight in the face and
sworn on the cross no harm was meant to M. le Duc. Natheless, the thing
looked ugly. My heart leaped up at the next words:
"Also Vigo will go."
"Vigo!"
"Not so loud! You will have the guard on us! Yes, he is to go. At first
Monsieur did not tell even him, he desired to keep this visit to the
king so secret. But this morning he took Vigo into his confidence, and
nothing would serve the man but to go. He watches over Monsieur like a
hen over a chick."
"Then it will be three to three," I said. I thought of Gervais,
Yeux-gris, and Pontou, for of course I would take no part in it.
"Three to two; Lucas will not fight."
Lucas must be a poltroon, indeed!
"But Vigo and Monsieur--" I began.
"Aye, they are quick enough with their swords. Your side must be
quicker, that's all. If you are sudden enough you can easily kill the
duke before he can draw."
Talk of words like thunderbolts! All the thunder of heaven could not
have whelmed me like those words. Yeux-gris and his oaths! It _was_ the
duke, after all!
I could not speak. I looked I know not how. But it was dusky in the
arch.
"It sounds simple," he went on. "But, three of you as you are, you will
have trouble with Vigo. That is all. I have told you all. I must get
back before I am missed. Good luck to the enterprise."
Still I stood like a block of wood.
"Tell M. Gervais to remember me," he said, and opening the door, passed
in. I heard him lock and bolt it after him, and his footsteps hurrying
down the passageway.
Then I came to myself and sprang to the door and beat upon it furiously.
But if he heard he was afraid to respond. After a futile moment that
seemed an hour I rushed out of the arch and around to the great gate.
The grilles were closed as before, but the sentry's face, luckily, was
strange to me.
"Open! open!" I shouted, breathless. "I must see M. le Duc!"
"Who are you?" he demanded, staring.
"My name is Broux. I have news for M. le Duc. Let me in. It is a matter
of life and death."
"Why, I suppose, then, I must let you in," that good fellow answered,
drawing back the bolts. "But you must wait here till--"
The gate was open. I took base advantage of him by sliding under his arm
and shooting across the court up the steps to the house. The door stood
open, and a couple of lackeys lounged on a bench in the hall.
"M. le Duc!" I cried. "I must see him."
They jumped up, the picture of bewilderment.
"Who are you? How came you here?" cried the quicker-tongued of the two.
"The sentry opened for me. Where am I to find M. le Duc? I must see him!
I have news!"
"M. le Duc sees no one to-day," the second lackey announced pompously.
"But I must see him, I tell you," I repeated. I had completely lost what
little head I ever had; it seemed to me that if I could not see M. le
Duc on the instant I should find him weltering in his gore. "I must see
him," I cried, parrot-like. "It is a matter of life and death."
"From whom do you come?"
"That's my affair. Enough that I come with news of the highest moment.
You will be sorry if I you do not get me quickly to M. le Duc."
They looked at each other, somewhat impressed.
"I will go for M. Constant," said the one who had spoken first.
Constant was Master of the Household; M. le Duc had inherited him with
the estate and kept him in his place for old time's sake. He was old,
fussy, and self-important, and withal no friend to me.
"I had rather you fetched Vigo," I said.
"Oh, Vigo will not come. He is with Monsieur. If I bring M. Constant, it
is the best I can do for you."
I had recovered myself sufficiently by this time to remember the nature
of lackeys, and gave the messenger the last silver piece I had in the
world. He regarded it contemptuously, but pocketed it and departed in
leisurely fashion up the stairs.
The other was not too grand to cross-examine me.
"What sort of news have you? Do you come from the king?" he asked in a
lowered voice.
"No."
"From M. de Valère?"
"No."
"Then who the devil are you?"
"Félix Broux of St. Quentin."
"Ah, St. Quentin," he said, as if he found that rather tame. "You bring
news from there?"
"No, I do not. Think you I shall tell you? This news is for Monsieur."
"It won't reach Monsieur unless you learn politeness toward the
gentlemen of his household," he retorted.
We were getting into a lively quarrel when Constant appeared on the
stairway--Constant and the lackey who had fetched him, and two more
lackeys, and a page, all of whom had somehow scented that something was
in the wind. They came flocking about us as I said:
"Ah, M. Constant! You know me, Félix Broux of St. Quentin. I must see M.
le Duc."
Constant's face of surprise at me changed to one of malice. Down at St.
Quentin he had suffered much from us pages, as a slow, peevish old
dotard must. I had played many a prank on him, but I had not thought he
would revenge himself at such time as this. He looked at me with a
spiteful grin, and said to the men:
"He lies. I do not know him. I never saw him."
"Never saw me, Félix Broux!" I cried, completely taken aback.
"No," maintained Constant. "You are an impostor."
"Impostor! Nonsense!" I cried out. "Constant, you know me as well as you
know yourself. I say I must see the duke; his life is in danger!"
Constant was paying off old scores with interest.
"An impostor," he yelled shrilly, "or else a madman--or an assassin."
"That is the truth," said some one, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder.
I turned; two men of the guard had come up, my friend of just now and my
foe of the morning. It was the latter who held me and said:
"This is the very rascal who sprang on Monsieur's coach-step in the
morning. M. Lucas threw him off, else he might have stabbed Monsieur. We
were fools enough to let him go free. But this time he shall not get off
so easy."
"I am innocent of all thought of harm," I cried. "I am M. le Duc's loyal
servant. I meant no harm this morning, and I mean none now. I am here to
save Monsieur's life."
"He is here to kill Monsieur; he is an assassin!" screamed Constant.
"Flog him, men; he will own the truth then!"
"I am no assassin!" I shouted, struggling in their grasp. "Let me go,
villains, let me go! I tell you, Monsieur's life is at stake--Monsieur's
very life, I tell you!"
They paid me no heed. Not one of them--save hat lying knave
Constant--knew me as other than the shabby fellow who had acted
suspiciously in the morning. They were dragging me to the door in spite
of my shouts and struggles, when suddenly a ringing voice spoke from
above:
"What is this rumpus? Who talks of Monsieur's life?"
The guards halted dead, and I cried out joyfully:
"Vigo!"
"Yes, I am Vigo," the big man answered, striding down the stairs. "Who
are you?"
I wanted to shout, "Félix Broux, Monsieur's page," but a sort of
nightmare dread came over me lest Vigo, too, should disclaim me, and my
voice stuck in my throat.
"Whoever you are, you will be taught not to make a racket in M. le Duc's
hall. By the saints! it's the boy Félix."
At the friendliness in his voice the guards dropped their hands from me.
"M. Vigo," I said, "I have news for Monsieur of the gravest moment. I am
come on a matter of life and death. And I am stopped in the hall by
lackeys."
He looked at me sternly.
"This is not one of your fooleries, Félix?"
"No, M. Vigo."
"Come with me."
VII
_A divided duty._
That was Vigo's way. The toughest snarl untangled at his touch. He had
more sense and fewer airs than any other, he saw at once that I was in
earnest; and Constant's voluble protests were as so much wind. The title
does not make the man. Though Constant was Master of the Household and
Vigo only Equery, yet Vigo ruled every corner of the establishment and
every man in it, save only Monsieur, who ruled him.
He said no word to me as we climbed the broad stair; neither reproved me
for the fracas nor questioned me about my coming. He would not pry into
Monsieur's business; and, save as I concerned Monsieur, he had no
interest in me whatsoever. He led the way straight into an antechamber,
where a page sprang up to bar our passage.
"No one may enter, M. Vigo, not even you. M. le Duc has ordered it. Why,
Félix! You in Paris!"
"I enter," said Vigo; and, sweeping Marcel aside, he knocked loudly.
"I came last night," I found time to say under my breath to my old
comrade before the door was opened.
The handsome secretary whom I had taken for the count stood in the
doorway looking askance at us. He knew me at once and wondered.
"You cannot enter, Vigo. M. le Duc is occupied."
He made to shut the door, but Vigo's foot was over the sill.
"Natheless, I must enter," he answered unabashed and pushed his way into
the room.
"Then you must answer for it," returned the secretary, with a scowl that
sat ill on his delicate face.
"_You_ shall answer for it if it turns out a mare's nest," said Vigo, in
a low, meaning voice to me. But I hardly heard him. I passed him and
Lucas, and flew down the long room to Monsieur.
M. le Duc was seated before a table heaped with papers. He had been
watching the scene at the door in surprise and anger. He looked at me
with a sharp frown, while the deer-hound at his feet rose on its
haunches growling.
"Roland!" I said. The dog sprang up and came to me.
"Félix Broux!" Monsieur exclaimed, with his quick, warm smile--a smile
no man in France could match for radiance.
I had no thought of kneeling, of making obeisance, of waiting permission
to speak.
"Monsieur," I cried, half choked, "there is a plot--a vile plot to
murder you!"
"Where? At St. Quentin?"
"No, Monsieur. Here in Paris. In the streets to-night, when you go to
the king."
Monsieur sprang to his feet, his hand on his sword. Lucas turned white.
Vigo swore. Monsieur cried:
"How, in God's name, know you that?"
"You have been betrayed, Monsieur. Your plan is known. You leave the
house to-night, near a quarter of eleven, to go in secret to the king.
You leave by the little door in the alley--"
"Diable!" breathed Vigo.
"They set on you on your way--three of them--to run you through before
you can draw."
"But, ventre bleu! Monsieur is not alone."
"No; he walks between you and M. Lucas."
Not one of them spoke. They stared at me as if I were something uncanny.
I, a raw country boy, disclosing a perfect knowledge of their most
intimate plans!
"How know you this?" Monsieur demanded of me. But he was not looking at
me. His keen glance went first to Lucas, then to Vigo, the two men who
had shared his confidence. The secretary cried out:
"You cannot think, Monsieur, that I betrayed you?"
Vigo said nothing. His steady eyes never left Monsieur's face.
"No," answered Monsieur to Lucas, "I cannot think it." And to Vigo he
said: "I shall accuse you when I accuse myself. But--none knew this
thing save our three selves." And his gaze went back to Lucas.
"It is not likely to be he," I said, impelled to be just to him though I
did not like him, "for they meant to kill him as well."
Lucas started, then instantly recovered himself.
"A comprehensive plot, Monsieur," he said, with a smile.
"Then who was it?" cried Monsieur to me. "You know. Speak."
"There is a spy in the house--an eavesdropper," I said, and then paused.
"Aye?" said Monsieur. "Who?"
Now the answer to this was easy, yet I flinched before it; for I knew
well enough what Monsieur would do. He feared no man, and waited on no
man's advice. And if he was a good lover, he was a good hater. He would
not inform the governor, and await the tardy course of justice, that
would probably accomplish--nothing. Nor would he consider the troubled
times and the danger of his position, and ignore the affair, as many
would have deemed best. He would not stop to think what the Sixteen
might have to say to it. No; he would call out his guards and slay the
plotters in the Rue Coupejarrets like the wolves they were. It was right
he should, but--I owed my life to Yeux-gris.
"His name, man, his name!" Monsieur was crying.
"Monsieur," I returned, flushing hot, "Monsieur--"
"Do you know his name?"
"Yes, Monsieur, I know his name, but--"
Monsieur looked at me in surprise and frowning, impatience. Quickly
Lucas struck in:
"Monsieur, I have grave doubts of the boy's honesty."
"Doubts!" cried Monsieur, with a sudden laugh. "It is not a case for
doubts. The boy states facts."
He seated himself in his chair, his face growing stern again. The little
action seemed to make him no longer merely my questioner, but my judge.
"Now, Félix Broux, let us get to the bottom of this."
"Monsieur," I began, struggling to put the case clearly, "I learned of
the plot by accident. I did not guess for a long time it was you who
were the victim. When I found out that, I came straight here to you.
Monsieur, there are four men in the plot, and one of them has stood my
friend."
"And my assassin!"
"He is a black-hearted villain!" I acknowledged. "For he swore no harm
was meant to you. He swore it was only a private grudge against M.
Lucas. But when one of them let out the truth I came straight to you."
"That is likely true," said Vigo, "for he was ready to kill the men who
barred his way."
"You were in a plot to kill my secretary!"
"Ah, Monsieur!" I cried.
"You--Félix Broux!"
I curled with shame.
"M. Lucas had struck me," I muttered; "I thought the fight was fair
enough. And they threatened my life."
Monsieur's contemptuous eyes shrivelled me as flame shrivels a leaf.
"You--a Broux of St. Quentin!"
Lucas, who had watched me close all the while, as they all three did,
said now:
"I believe he is a cheat, Monsieur. There is no plot. He has learned of
your plan through the eavesdropper he speaks of and thinks to make
credit out of a trumped-up tale of murder."
"No," answered Monsieur. "You may think that, Lucas, for he is a
stranger to you. But I know him. He was a fool sometimes, but he was
never dishonest. You used to be fond of me, Félix. What has happened to
make you consort with my enemies?"
"Ah, Monsieur, I love you. I have always loved you," I cried. "I am not
lying now, nor cheating you. There is a plot. I learned it and came
straight to you, though I was under oath not to betray them."
"Then, in Heaven's name, Félix," burst out Vigo, "which side are you
on?"
Monsieur began to laugh.
"That is what I should like to know. For, by St. Quentin, I can make
nothing of it."
"Monsieur," insisted Lucas, "whatever he was once, I believe him a
trickster now."
Monsieur bent his keen eyes on me.
"No; he is plainly in earnest. Therefore with patience I look to get
some sense out of this snarl of a story. Something is there we have not
yet fathomed."
"Will Monsieur let me speak?"
"I have done naught but urge you to do so for some time past," he
answered dryly.
"Monsieur, you know my father would not let me leave St. Quentin with
you, three months back. But at length he said I should come, and I
reached Paris last night and, since it was late, lodged at an inn. This
morning I came to your gate, but the guard would not let me enter. I was
so mad to see you, Monsieur, that when you drove out I sprang up on your
coach-step--"
"Ah," said Monsieur, a new light breaking in upon him, "that was you,
Félix? I did not know you; I was thinking of other matters. And Lucas
took you for a miscreant. Now I _am_ sorry."
If I had been a noble he could not have spoken franker apology. But at
once he was stern again. "And because my secretary took you in all good
faith for a possible assassin and struck you to save me, you turn
traitor and take part in a plot to set on him and kill him! I had
believed that of some hired lackey, not of a Broux."
"Monsieur, I was wrong--a thousand times wrong. I knew that as soon as I
had sworn. And when I found it was you they meant, I came to you, oath
or no oath."
"There spoke the Broux!" cried Monsieur with his brilliant smile. "Now
you are Félix. Who are my would-be murderers?"
We had come round in a circle to the place where we had stuck before,
and here we stuck again.
"Monsieur, I would tell you all before you could count ten--tell you
their names, their whereabouts, everything--were it not for one man who
stood my friend."
The duke's eyes flashed.
"You call him that--my assassin!"
"He is an assassin," I was forced to answer; "even Monsieur's
assassin--and a perjurer. But--but, Monsieur, he saved my life from the
other, at the risk of his own. How can I pay him back by betraying him?"
"According to your own account, he betrayed you."
"Aye, he lied to me," I said brokenly. "Yet Monsieur, if it were your
own case and one had saved your life, were he the scum of the gutter,
would you send him to his death?"
"To whom do you owe your first duty?"
"Monsieur, to you."
"Then speak."
But I could not do it. Though I knew Yeux-gris for a villain, yet he had
saved my life.
"Monsieur, I cannot."
The duke cried out:
"This to me!"
There was a silence. I stood with hanging head, the picture of a
shame-faced knave. Shame so filled me that I could not look up to meet
Monsieur's sentence. But when I had remembered the good hater in
Monsieur, I should have remembered, too, the good lover. Monsieur had
been fond of me at St. Quentin. As I waited for the lightning to strike,
he said with utmost gentleness:
"Félix, let me understand you. In what manner did this man save your
life?"
Now that was like my lord. Though a hot man, he loved fairness and ever
strove to do the just thing, and his patience was the finer that it was
not his nature. His leniency fired me with a sudden hope.
"Monsieur, there are four of them in the plot. But one cannot be as vile
as the others, since he saved my life. Monsieur, if I tell you, will you
let that one go?"
"I shall do as I see fit," he answered, all the duke. "Félix, will you
speak?"
"If Monsieur will promise to let him go--"
"Insolence, sirrah! I do not bargain with my servants."
His words were like whips. I flinched before his proud anger, and for
the second time stood with hanging head awaiting his sentence. And again
he did what I could not guess. He cried out:
"Félix, you are blind, besotted, mad. You know not what you do. I am in
constant danger. The city is filled with my enemies. The Leagues hate me
and are ever plotting mischief against me. Every day their mistrust and
hatred grow. I did a bold thing in coming to Paris, but I had a great
end to serve--to pave a way into the capital for the Catholic king and
bring the land to peace. For that, I live in hourly jeopardy, and risk
my life to-night on foot in the streets. If I am killed, more than my
life is lost. The Church may lose the king, and this dear France of ours
be harried to a desert in the civil wars!"
I had braced myself to bear Monsieur's anger, but this unlooked-for
appeal pierced me through and through. All the love and loyalty in
me--and I had much, though it may not have seemed so--rose in answer to
Monsieur's call. I fell on my knees before him, choked with sobs.
Monsieur's hand lay on my head as he said quietly:
"Now, Félix, speak."
I answered huskily:
"Would Monsieur have me turn Judas?"
"Judas betrayed his _master_."
It was my last stand. My last redoubt had fallen. I raised my head to
tell him all.
Maybe it was the tears in my eyes, but as I lifted them to M. le Duc, I
saw--not him, but Yeux-gris--Yeux-gris looking at me with warm good
will, as he had looked when he was saving me from Gervais. I saw him, I
say, plain before my eyes. The next instant there was nothing but
Monsieur's face of rising impatience.
I rose to my feet, and said:
"Kill me, Monsieur; I cannot tell."
"Nom de dieu!" he shouted, springing up.
I shut my eyes and waited. Had he slain me then and there it were no
more than my deserts.
"Monsieur," said Vigo, immovably, "shall I go for the boot?"
I opened my eyes then. Monsieur stood quite still, his brow knotted, his
hands clenched as if to keep them off me.
"Monsieur," I said, "send for the boot, the thumbscrew, whatever you
please. I deserve it, and I will bear it. Monsieur, it is not that I
will not tell. It is something stronger than I. I _cannot_."
He burst into an angry laugh.
"Say you are possessed of a devil, and I will believe it. My faith!
though you are a low-born lad and I Duke of St. Quentin, I seem to be
getting the worst of it."
"There is the boot, Monsieur."
Monsieur laughed again, no less angrily.
"That does not help me, my good Vigo. I cannot torture a Broux."
"There Monsieur is wrong. The lad has been disloyal and insolent, if he
is a Broux."
"Granted, Vigo," said M. le Duc. But he did not add, "Fetch the boot."
Vigo went on with steady persistence. "He has not been loyal to Monsieur
and his interests in refusing to tell what he knows. And if he goes
counter to Monsieur's interests he is a traitor, Broux or no Broux. He
has no claim to be treated as other than an enemy. These are serious
times. Monsieur does not well to play with his dangers. The boy must
tell what he knows. Am I to go for the boot, Monsieur?"
M. le Duc was silent for a moment, while the hot flush that had sprung
to his face died away. Then he answered Vigo:
"Nevertheless, it is owing to Félix that I shall not walk out to meet my
death to-night."
The secretary had stood silent for a long time, fingering nervously the
papers on the table. I had forgotten his presence, when now he stepped
forward and said:
"If I might be permitted a suggestion, Monsieur--"
Monsieur silenced him with a sharp gesture.
"Félix Broux," he said to me, "you have been following a bad plan. No
man can run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. You are either my
loyal servant or my enemy, one thing or the other. Now I am loath to
hurt you. You have seen how I am loath to hurt you. I give you one more
chance to be honest. Go and think it over. If in half an hour you have
decided that you are my true man, well and good. If not, by St. Quentin,
we will see what a flogging can do!"
VIII
_Charles-André-Étienne-Marie._
Unpleased, but unprotesting, Vigo led me out into the anteroom. Those
men who judged by the outside of things and, knowing Vigo's iron ways,
said that he ruled Monsieur, were wrong.
The big equery gave me over to the charge of Marcel and returned to the
inner room. Hardly had the door closed behind him when the page burst
out:
"What is it? What is the coil? What have you done, Félix?"
Now you can guess I was too sick-hearted for chatter. I had defied and
disobeyed my liege lord; I could never hope for pardon or any man's
respect. They threatened me with flogging; well, let them flog. They
could not make my back any sorer than my conscience was. For I had not
the satisfaction in my trouble of thinking that I had done right.
Monsieur's danger should have been my first consideration. What was
Yeux-gris, perjured scoundrel, in comparison with M. le Duc? And yet I
knew that at the end of the half-hour I should not tell; at the end of
the flogging I should not tell. I had warned Monsieur; that I would
have done had it been the breaking of a thousand oaths. But give up
Yeux-gris? Not if they tore me limb from limb!
"What is it all about?" cried Marcel, again. "You look as glum as a
Jesuit in Lent. What is the matter with you, Félix?"
"I have cooked my goose," I said gloomily.
"What have you done?"
"Nothing that I can speak about. But I am out of Monsieur's books."
"What was old Vigo after when he took you in to Monsieur? I never saw
anything so bold. When Monsieur says he is not to be disturbed he means
it."
I had nothing to tell him, and was silent.
"What is it? Can't you tell an old chum?"
"No; it is Monsieur's private business."
"Well, you are grumpy!" he cried out pettishly. "You must be out of
grace." He seemed to decide that nothing was to be made out of me just
now on this tack, and with unabated persistence tried another.
"Is it true, Félix, what one of the men said just now, that you tried to
speak with Monsieur this morning when he drove out?"
"Yes. But Monsieur did not recognize me."
"Like enough," Marcel answered. "He has a way of late of falling into
these absent fits. Monsieur is not the man he was."
"He does look older," I said, "and worn. I trow the risk he is
running--"
"Pshaw!" cried Marcel, with scorn. "Is Monsieur a man to mind risks? No;
it is M. le Comte."
I started like a guilty thing, remembering what Yeux-gris had told me
and I, wrapped in my petty troubles, had forgotten. Monsieur had lost
his only son. And I had chosen this time to defy him!
"How long ago was it?" I asked in a hushed voice.
"Since M. le Comte left us? It will be three weeks next Friday."
"How did he die?"
"Die?" echoed Marcel. "You crazy fellow, he is not dead!"
It was my turn to stare.
"Then where is he?"
"It would be money in my pouch if I knew. What made you think him dead,
Félix?"
"A man told me so."
"Pardieu!" he cried in some excitement. "When? Who was it?"
"To-day. I do not know the man's name."
"It seems you know very little. Pardieu! I do not believe M. le Comte is
dead. What else did your man say?"
"Nothing. He only said the Comte de Mar was dead."
"Pshaw! I don't believe it. You believe everything you hear because you
are just from the country. No; if M. le Comte were dead we should hear
of it. Oh, certainly, we should hear."
"But where is he, then? You say he is lost."
"Aye. He has not been seen or heard of since the day they had the
quarrel."
"Who quarrelled?"
"Why, he and Monsieur," answered Marcel, in a lower voice, pointing to
the door of the inner room. "M. le Comte has been his own master too
long to take kindly to a hand over him; that is the whole of it. He has
a quick temper. So has Monsieur."
But I thought of Monsieur's wonderful patience, and I cried:
"Shame!"
"What now?"
"To speak like that of Monsieur."
"Enfin, it is true. He is none the worse for that. But I suppose if
Monsieur had a cloven hoof one must not mention it."
"One would get his head broken."
"Oh, you Broux!" he cried out. "I have not seen you for half a year. I
had forgotten that with you the St. Quentins rank with the saints."
"You--you are a hired servant. You come to Monsieur as you might come to
anybody. With the Broux it is different," I retorted angrily. Yet I
could not but know in my heart that any hired servant might have served
Monsieur better than I. My boasted loyalty--what was it but lip-service?
I said more humbly: "Pshaw! it is no great matter. Tell me about the
quarrel."
"And so I will, if you're civil. In the first place, there was the
question of M. le Comte's marriage."
"What! is he married?"
"Oh, by no means. Monsieur wouldn't have it. You see, Félix," Marcel
said in a tone deep with importance, "we're Navarre's men now."
"Of course," said I.
"I suppose you would say 'of course' just like that to Mayenne himself.
You greenhorn! It is as much as our lives are worth to side openly with
Navarre. The League may attack us any day."
"I know," I said uneasily. Every chance word Marcel spoke seemed to dye
my guilt the deeper. "But what has this to do with M. le Comte's
marriage?" I asked him.
"Why, he was more than half a Leaguer. Perhaps he is one now. Some say
he and Monsieur were at daggers drawn about politics; but I warrant it
was about Mlle. de Montluc. They call her the Rose of Lorraine. She's
the Duke of Mayenne's own cousin and housemate. And we're king's men, so
of course it was no match for Monsieur's son. They say Mayenne himself
favoured the marriage, but our duke wouldn't hear of it. However, the
backbone of the trouble was M. de Grammont."
"And who may he be?"
"He's a cousin of the house. He and M. le Comte are as thick as thieves.
Before we came to Paris they lodged together. So when M. le Comte came
here he brought M. de Grammont. Dare I speak ill of Monsieur's cousin,
Félix? For I would say, at the risk of a broken head, that he is a
sour-faced churl. You cannot deny it. You never saw him."
"No, nor M. le Comte, either."
"Why, you have seen M. le Comte!"
"Never. The only time he came to St. Quentin I was laid up in bed with a
strained leg. I missed the chase. Don't you remember?"
"Why, you are right; that was the time you fell out of the buttery
window when you were stealing tarts, and Margot got after you with the
broomstick. I remember very well."
He was for calling up all our old pranks at the château, but it was
little joy to me to think on those fortunate days when I was Monsieur's
favourite. I said:
"Nay, Marcel, you were telling me of M. le Comte and the quarrel."
"Oh, as for that, it is easy told. You see M. le Comte and this Grammont
took no interest in Monsieur's affairs, and they had very little to say
to him, and he to them. They had plenty of friends in Paris, Leaguers or
not, and they used to go about amusing themselves. But at last M. de
Grammont had such a run of bad luck at the tables that he not only
emptied his own pockets but M. le Comte's as well. I will say for M. le
Comte that he would share his last sou with any one who asked."
"And so would any St. Quentin."
"Oh, you are always piping up for the St. Quentins."
"He should have no need in this house."
We jumped up to find Vigo standing behind us.
"What have you been saying of Monsieur?"
"Nothing, M. Vigo," stammered the page. "I only said M. le Comte--"
"You are not to discuss M. le Comte. Do you hear?"
"Yes, M. Vigo."
"Then obey. And you, Félix, I shall have a little interview with you
shortly."
"As you will, M. Vigo," I said hopelessly.
He went off down the corridor, and Marcel turned angrily on me.
"Mon dieu, Félix, you have got me into a nice scrape with your eternal
chanting of the praises of Monsieur. Like as not I shall get a beating
for it. Vigo never forgets."
"I am sorry," I said. "We should not have been talking of it."
"No, we should not. Come over here where we can watch both doors, and
I'll tell you the rest before the old lynx gets back."
We sat down close together, and he proceeded in a low tone to disobey
Vigo.
"Enfin, as I said, the two young gentlemen were quite sans le sou, for
things had come to a point where M. le Duc looked pretty black at any
application for funds--he has other uses for his gold, you see. One day
Monsieur was expecting some one to whom he was to pay a thousand
pistoles, and to have the money handy he put it in a secret drawer in
his cabinet in the room yonder. The man arrives and is taken to
Monsieur's private room. Monsieur gives him his orders and goes to the
cabinet for his pistoles. No pistoles there!"
Marcel paused dramatically. "And what then?" I asked.
"Well, it appears he had once shown M. le Comte the trick of the drawer,
so he sent for him--not to accuse him, mind you. For M. le Comte is wild
enough, yet Monsieur did not think he would steal pistoles, nor would
he, I will stake my oath. No, Monsieur merely asked him if he had ever
shown any one the drawer, and M. le Comte answered, 'Only Grammont.'"
And how have you learned all this?"
"Oh, one hears."
"One does, with one's ears to the keyhole."
"It behooves you, Félix, to be civil to your better!"
I made pretence of looking about me.
"Where is he?"
"He sits here. I am page to the Duke of St. Quentin. And you?"
"Touché!" I admitted bitterly enough. Little Marcel, my junior, my
unquestioning follower in the old days, was now indeed my better, quite
in a position to patronize.
"Continue, if you please, Marcel. Yet, in passing, I should like to ask
you how much you heard our talk in there just now."
"Nothing," he answered candidly. "When they are so far down the room one
cannot hear a word. In the affair of the pistoles they stood near the
cabinet at this end. One could not help but hear. As for listening at
keyholes, I scorn it."
"Yes, it is well to scorn it. People have an unpleasant trick of opening
doors so suddenly."
He laughed cheerfully.
"Old Vigo caught us, certes. Let's see, where was I? Oh, yes, then
Monsieur put on his proud look and said, if it was a case of no one but
his son and his cousin, he preferred to drop the matter. But M. le Comte
got out of him what the trouble was and went off for Grammont, red as
fire. The two together came back to Monsieur and denied up and down
that either of them knew aught of his pistoles, or had told of the
secret to any one. They say it was easy to see that Monsieur did not
believe Grammont, but he did not give him the lie, and the matter came
near dropping there, for M. le Duc would not accuse a kinsman. But then
Lucas gave a new turn to the affair."
"How long has Lucas been here, Marcel? Who is he?"
"Oh, he's a rascal of a Huguenot. Monsieur picked him up at Mantes, just
before we came to the city. And if he spies on Monsieur's enemies as
well as he does on this household, he must be a useful man. He has that
long nose of his in everything, let me tell you. Of course he was
present when Monsieur missed the pistoles. So then, quite on his own
account, without any orders, he took two of the men and searched M. de
Grammont's room. And in a locked chest of his which they forced open
they found five hundred of the pistoles in the very box Monsieur had
kept them in."
"And then?"
Marcel made a fine gesture.
"And then, pardieu! the storm broke. M. de Grammont raved like a madman.
He said Lucas was the thief and had put half the sum in his chest to
divert suspicion. He said it was a plot to ruin him contrived between
Monsieur and his henchman, Lucas. It is true enough, certes, that
Monsieur never liked him. He threatened Monsieur's life and Lucas's. He
challenged Monsieur, and Monsieur declined to cross swords with a
thief. He challenged Lucas, and Lucas took the cue from Monsieur. I was
not there--on either side of the door. What I tell you has leaked out
bit by bit from Lucas, for Monsieur keeps his mouth shut. The upshot of
the matter was that Grammont goes at Lucas with a knife, and Monsieur
has the guards pitch my gentleman into the street. Then M. le Comte
swore a big oath that he would go with Grammont. Monsieur told him if he
went in such company it would be forever. M. le Comte swore he would
never come back under his father's roof if M. le Duc crawled to him on
his knees to beg him."
"Ah!" I cried; "and then?"
"Marry, that's all. M. le Comte went straight out of this gate, without
horse or squire. And we have not heard a word of either of them since."
He paused, and when I made no comment, said, a trifle aggrieved:
"Eh bien, you take it calmly, but you would not had you been here. It
was an altogether lively affair. It wouldn't surprise me a whit if some
day Monsieur should be attacked as he drives out. He's not one to forget
an injury, this M. Gervais de Grammont."
At the name, intelligence flashed over me, sudden and clear as last
night's lightning-gleam. Yet this thing I seemed to see was so hideous,
so horrible, that my mind recoiled from it.
"Marcel," I stammered, shuddering, "Marcel--"
"Mordieu! what ails you? Is some one walking on your grave?"
"Marcel, how is M. le Comte named?"
"The Comte de Mar? Oh, do you mean his names in baptism?
Charles-André-Étienne-Marie. They call him Étienne. Why do you ask? What
is it?"
It was a certainty, then. Yet I could not bring myself to believe this
horrible thing.
"I have never seen him. How does he look?"
"Oh, not at all like Monsieur. He has fair hair and gray eyes--que
diable!"
For I had flung open Monsieur's door and dashed in.
IX
_The honour of St. Quentin._
Monsieur was seated at his table, talking in a low tone and hurriedly to
Lucas. They started and stared as I broke in upon them, and then
Monsieur cried out to me:
"Ah, Félix! You have come to your senses."
"I will tell Monsieur all, the whole story."
He tested my honesty with a glance, then looked beyond me at Marcel,
standing agape in the doorway.
"Leave us, Marcel. Go down-stairs. Leave that door open, and shut the
door into the corridor."
Marcel obeyed. Monsieur turned to me with a smile.
"Now, Félix."
I had hardly been able to hold my words back while Marcel was disposed
of.
"Monsieur, I knew not, myself, the names of those men. Now I have found
out. They--"
My eyes met the secretary's fixed excitedly upon me and the words died
on my tongue. Even in my rage I had the grace to know that this was no
story to tell Monsieur before another.
"I will tell Monsieur alone."
"You may speak before M. Lucas," he rejoined impatiently.
"No," I persisted. "I must tell Monsieur alone."
He saw in my face that I had strong reasons for asking it, and said to
the secretary:
"You may go, Lucas."
Lucas protested.
"M. le Duc will be wiser not to see him alone. He is not to be trusted.
Perchance, Monsieur, this demand covers an attack on your life."
The warning nettled my lord. He answered curtly:
"You may go."
"Monsieur--"
"Go!"
Lucas passed out, giving me, as he went, a look of hatred that startled
me. But I did not pay it much heed.
"Well!" exclaimed Monsieur.
But by this time I had bethought myself what a story it was I had to
tell a father of his son. I could not blurt it out in two words. I stood
silent, not knowing how to start.
"Félix! Beware how much longer you abuse my patience!"
"Monsieur," I began, "the spy in the house is named Martin."
"Ah!" cried Monsieur. "So it is Louis Martin. How he knew--But go on.
The others--"
"I lay the night in the Rue Coupejarrets, not far from the St. Denis
gate," I said, still beating about the bush, "at the sign of the Amour
de Dieu. Opposite is a closed house, shuttered with iron from garret
to cellar. You can enter from a court behind. It is here that they
plot."
[Illustration: "WITH A CRY MONSIEUR SPRANG TOWARD ME."]
Monsieur's brows drew together, as if he were trying to recall something
half remembered, half forgotten.
"But the men," he cried, "the men!"
"They are three. One a low fellow named Pontou."
"Pontou? The name is nothing to me. The others?" He was leaning forward
eagerly. I knew of what he was thinking--the quickest way to reach the
Rue Coupejarrets.
"There are two others, Monsieur," I said slowly. "Young men--noble."
I looked at him. But no light whatever had broken in upon him.
"Their names, lad!"
Then, seeing him unsuspecting, the fury in my heart surged up and
covered every other feeling. I burst out:
"Gervais de Grammont and the Comte de Mar."
He looked me in the face, and he knew I was telling the truth.
Unexpected as it was, hideous as it was, yet he knew I was telling the
truth.
I had seen cowards turn pale, but never the colour washed from a brave
man's face. The sight made my fingers itch to strangle that gray-eyed
cheat.
With a cry Monsieur sprang toward me.
"You lie, you cur!"
"No, Monsieur," I gasped; "it is the truth."
He let me go then, and laid his hand on the collar of the dog, who had
sprung to his aid. But Monsieur had got a hurt from which the dumb
beast's loyalty could not defend him. He stood with bowed head, a man
stricken to the heart's core. Full of wrath as I was, the tears came to
my eyes for Monsieur.
He recovered himself.
"It is some damnable mistake! You have been tricked!"
My rage blazed up again.
"No! They tricked me once. Not again! Not this time. I knew not who they
were till now, when I talked with Marcel. The two things fitted."
"Then it is your guess! You dare to say--"
"No, I know!" I interrupted rudely, too excited to remember respect.
"Shall I tell what these men were like? I had never seen M. le Comte nor
M. de Grammont before. One was broad-shouldered and heavy, with a black
beard and a black scowl, whom the other called Gervais. The younger was
called Étienne, tall and slender, with gray eyes and fair hair. And like
Monsieur!" I cried, suddenly aware of it. "Mordieu, how he is like,
though he is light! In face, in voice, in manner! He speaks like
Monsieur. He has Monsieur's laugh. I was blind not to see it. I believe
that was why I loved him so much."
"It was he whom you would not betray?"
"Aye. That was before I knew."
Thinking of the trust I had given him, my wrath boiled up again.
Monsieur took me by the shoulder and looked at me as if he would look
through me to the naked soul.
"How do I know that you are not lying?"
"Monsieur does know it."
"Yes," he answered after a moment. "Alas! yes, I know it."
He stood looking at me, with the dreariest face I ever saw--the face of
a man whose son has sought to murder him. Looking back on it now, I
wonder that I ever went to Monsieur with that story. I wonder why I did
not bury the shame and disgrace of it in my own heart, at whatever cost
keep it from Monsieur. But the thought never entered my head then. I was
so full of black rage against Yeux-gris--him most of all, because he had
won me so--that I could feel nothing else. I knew that I pitied
Monsieur, yet I hardly felt it.
"Tell me everything--how you met them--all. Else I shall not believe a
word of your devilish rigmarole," Monsieur cried out.
I told him the whole shameful story, every word, from my lightning
vision to my gossip with Marcel in the antechamber, he listening in
hopeless silence. At length I finished. It seemed hours since he had
spoken. At last he said, "Then it is true." The grayness of his face
drew the cry from me:
"The villain! the black-hearted villain!"
"Take care, Félix, he is my son!"
I got hold of my cross and tore it off, breaking the chain.
"See, Monsieur. That is the cross on which he swore the plot was not
against you. He swore it, and Gervais de Grammont laughed! I swore, too,
never to betray them! Two perjuries!"
I flung the cross on the floor and stamped on it, splintering it.
"Profaner!" cried Monsieur.
"It is no sacrilege!" I retorted. "That is no holy thing since he has
touched it. He has made it vile--scoundrel, assassin, parricide!"
Monsieur struck the words from my lips.
"It is true," I muttered.
"Were it ten times true, you have no right to say it."
"No, I have none," I answered, shamed. I might not speak ill of a St.
Quentin, though he were the devil's own. But my rage came uppermost
again.
"I can bring Monsieur to the house in twenty minutes. Vigo and a handful
of men can take them prisoners before they suspect aught amiss. They are
only three--he and Grammont and the lackey."
But Monsieur shook his head.
"I cannot do that."
"Why not, Monsieur?"
"Can I take my own son prisoner?"
"Monsieur need not go," said I, wondering. In his place I would have
gone and killed Yeux-gris with my own hands. "Vigo and I and two more
can do it. Vigo and I alone, if Monsieur would not shame him before the
men." I guessed at what he was thinking.
"Not even you and Vigo," he answered. "Think you I would arrest my son
like a common felon--shame him like that?"
"He has shamed himself!" I cried. I cared not whether I had a right to
say it. "He has forgotten his honour."
"Aye. But I have remembered mine."
"Monsieur! Monsieur cannot mean to let him go scot-free?"
But his eyes told me that he did mean it.
"Then," I said in more and more amazement, "Monsieur forgives him?"
His face set sternly.
"No," he answered. "No, Félix. He has placed himself beyond my
forgiveness."
"Then we will go there alone, we two, and kill him! Kill the three!"
He laughed. But not a man in France felt less mirthful.
"You would have me kill my son?"
"He would have killed you."
"That makes no difference."
I looked at him, groping after the thoughts that swayed him, and
catching at them dimly. I knew them for the principles of a proud and
honour-ruled man, but there was no room for them in my angry heart.
"Monsieur," I cried, "will you let three villains go unpunished for the
sake of one?" It was what I had meant to do, awhile back, but the case
was changed now.
"Of two: Gervais de Grammont is also of my blood."
"Monsieur would spare him as well--him, the ringleader!"
"He is my cousin."
"He forgets it."
"But I do not."
"Monsieur, will you have no vengeance?"
Monsieur looked at me.
"When you are a man, Félix Broux, you will know that there are other
things in this world besides vengeance. You will know that some injuries
cannot be avenged. You will know that a gentleman cannot use the same
weapons that blackguards use to him."
"Ah, Monsieur!" I cried. "Monsieur is indeed a nobleman!" But I was
furious with him for it.
He turned abruptly and paced down the room. The dog, which had been
standing at his side, stayed still, looking from him to me with puzzled,
troubled eyes. He knew quite well something was wrong, and vented his
feelings in a long, dismal whine. Monsieur spoke to him; Roland bounded
up to him and licked his hand. They walked up and down together,
comforting each other.
"At least," I cried in desperation, "Monsieur has the spy."
He laughed. Only a man in utter despair could have laughed then as he
did.
"Even the spy to wreak vengeance on consoles you somewhat, Félix? But
does it seem to you fair that a tool should be punished when the leaders
go free?"
"No," said I; "but it is the common way."
"That is a true word," he said, turning away again.
I waited till he faced me once more.
"Monsieur will not suffer the spy to go free?"
"No, Félix. He shall be punished lest he betray again."
He passed me in his dreary walk. Half a dozen times he passed by me, a
broken-hearted man, striving to collect his courage to take up his life
once more. But I thought he would never get over the blow. A husband may
forget his wife's treachery, and a mother will forgive her child's, but
a father can neither forget nor forgive the crime of the son who bears
his name.
"Ah, Monsieur, you are noble, and I love you!" I cried from the depths
of my heart, and knelt to kiss his hand.
Monsieur laid that kind hand on my shoulder.
"You shall serve me. Go now and send Vigo here. I must be looking to the
country's business."
X
_Lucas and "Le Gaucher."_
I cursed myself for a fool that I had carried the tale to Monsieur. It
should have been my business to keep a still tongue and go kill
Yeux-gris myself. For this last it was not yet too late.
Marcel was hanging about in the corridor, and to him I gave the word for
Vigo. I tore away from his eager questionings and hurried to the gate.
In the morning I had not been able to get in, and now I could no more
get out. By Vigo's orders, no man might leave the house.
Vigo was after the spy, of course. Monsieur knew the traitor now; he
would inform Vigo, and the gates would be open for honest men. But that
might take time and I could not wait five minutes. I had the audacity to
cry to the guards:
"M. le Duc will let me pass out. I refer you to M. le Duc."
The men were impressed. They had a respect for me, since I had been
closeted with Monsieur. Yet they dared not disobey Vigo for their lives.
In this dilemma the poor sentry, fearful of getting into trouble
whatever he did, sent up an envoy to ask Monsieur. I was frightened
then. I had uttered my speech in sheer bravado, and was very doubtful as
to how he would answer my impudence. But he was utterly careless, I
trow, what I did, for presently the word came down that I might pass
out.
The sun was setting as I hastened along the streets. I must reach the
Rue Coupejarrets before dark, else there was no hope for me. A man in
his senses would have known there was no hope anyway. Who but a madman
would think of venturing back, forsworn, to those three villains, for
the killing of one? It would be a miracle if aught resulted but failure
and death. Yet I felt no jot of fear as I plunged into the mesh of
crooked streets in the Coupejarrets quarter--only ardour to reach my
goal. When, on turning a corner, I came upon a group of idlers choking
the narrow ruelle, I said to myself that a dozen Parisians in the way
could no more stop me than they could stop a charge of horse. All heels
and elbows, I pushed into them. But, to my abasement, promptly was I
seized upon by a burly porter and bidden, with a cuff, to mind my
manners. Then I discovered the occasion of the crowd to be a little
procession of choristers out of a neighbouring church--St. Jean of the
Spire it was, though I knew then no name for it. The boys were singing,
the watchers quiet, bareheaded. They sang as if there were nothing in
the world but piety and love. The last level rays of the sun crowned
them with radiant aureoles, painted their white robes with glory. I shut
my eyes, dazzled; it was as if I beheld a heavenly host. When I opened
them again the folk at my side were kneeling as the cross came by. I
knelt, too, but the holy sign spoke to me only of the crucifix I had
trampled on, of Yeux-gris and his lies. I prayed to the good God to let
me kill Yeux-gris, prayed, kneeling there on the cobbles, with a fervour
I had never reached before. When I rose I ran on at redoubled speed,
never doubting that a just God would strengthen my hand, would make my
cause his.
I entered the little court. The shutter was fastened, as before, but I
had my dagger, and could again free the bolt. I could creep up-stairs
and mayhap stab Yeux-gris before they were aware of my coming. But that
was not my purpose. I was no bravo to strike in the back, but the
instrument of a righteous vengeance. He must know why he died.
One to three, I had no chance. But if I knocked openly it was likely
that Yeux-gris, being my patron, would be the one to come down to me.
Then there was the opportunity, man to man. If it were Grammont or the
lackey, I would boldly declare that I would give my news to none but
Yeux-gris. In pursuance of this plan I was pounding vigorously on the
door when a voice behind me cried out blithely:
"So you are back at last, Félix Broux"
At the first word I wheeled around. In the court entrance stood
Yeux-gris, smiling and debonair. He had laid aside his sword, and held
on his left arm a basket containing a loaf of bread, a roast capon, and
some bottles, for all the world like an honest prentice doing his
master's errand.
"Yes, I am back!" I shouted. "Back to kill you, parricide!"
He had a knife in his belt; the fight was even. I was upon him, my
dagger raised to strike. He made no motion to draw, and I remembered in
a flash he could not: his right arm was powerless. He sprang back,
flinging up his burdened left as a shield, and my blade buried itself in
the side of the basket.
As I stabbed I heard feet thundering down the stairs within. I jerked my
knife from the wicker and turned to face this new enemy. "Grammont," I
thought, and that my end had come.
The door flew open and, shoulder to shoulder like brothers, out rushed
Grammont and--Lucas!
My fear was drowned in amaze. I forgot to run and stood staring in
sheer, blank bewilderment. Crying "Damned traitor!" Gervais, with drawn
sword, charged at me.
I had only the little dagger. I owe my life to Yeux-gris's quick wits
and no less quick fingers. Dropping the basket, he snatched a bottle
from it and hurled it at Gervais.
"Ware, Grammont!" shouted Lucas, springing forward. But the missile flew
too quickly. It struck Grammont square on the forehead, and he went down
like a slaughtered ox.
We looked, not at him, but at Lucas--Lucas, the duke's deferential
servant, the coward and skulker, Grammont's hatred, standing here by
Grammont's side, glaring at us over his naked sword.
I saw in one glance that Yeux-gris was no less astounded than I, and
from that instant, though the inwardness of the matter was still a
riddle to me, my heart acquitted him of all dishonesty, of all
complicity. His was not the face of a parricide.
"Lucas!" he cried, in a dearth of words. "_Lucas!_"
I was staring at Lucas in thick bewilderment. The man was transformed
from the one I knew. At M. le Duc's he had been pale, nervous, and
shaken--senselessly and contemptibly scared, as I thought, since he was
warned of the danger and need not face it. But now he was another man. I
can think only of those lanterns I have seen, set with coloured glass.
They look dull enough all day, but when the taper within is lighted
shine like jewels. So Lucas now. His face, so keen and handsome of
feature, was brilliant, his eyes sparkling, his figure instinct with
defiance. A smile crossed his face.
"Aye," he answered evenly, "it is Lucas."
M. le Comte appeared to be in a state of stupor. He could not for a
space find his tongue to demand:
"How, in the name of Heaven, come you here?"
"To fight Grammont," Lucas answered at once.
"A lie!" I shouted. "You're Grammont's friend. You came here to warn him
off. It's your plot!"
"Félix! The plot?" Yeux-gris cried.
"The plot's to murder Monsieur. Martin let it out. I thought it was you
and Grammont. But it's Lucas and Grammont!"
Lucas hesitated. Even now he debated whether he could not lie out of it.
Then he burst into laughter.
"It seems the cat's out of the bag. Aye, M. le Comte de Mar, I came to
warn Grammont off. The duke will be here straightway. How will you like
to swing for parricide?"
Yeux-gris stared at him, neither in fear nor in fury, but in utter
stupefaction.
"But Gervais? He plotted with you? But he hates you!"
We gaped at Lucas like yokels at a conjurer. He made us no answer but
looked from one to the other of us with the alertness of an angry viper.
We were two, but without swords. I knew he was thinking how easiest to
end us both.
M. le Comte cried: "You! You come from Navarre's camp, from M. de
Rosny!"
"Aye. I have outwitted more than one man."
"Mordieu! I was right to hate you!"
Lucas laughed. Yeux-gris blazed out:
"Traitor and thief! You stole the money. I said that from the first. You
drove us from the house. How you and Grammont--"
"Came together? Very simple," Lucas answered with easy insolence.
"Grammont did not love Monsieur, your honoured father. It was child's
play to make an assignation with him and to lament the part forced on me
by Monsieur. Grammont was ready enough to scent a scheme of M. le Duc's
to ruin him. He had said as much to Monsieur, as you may deign to
remember."
"Aye," said M. le Comte, still like a puzzled child, "he was angry with
my father. But afterward he changed his mind. He knew it was you, and
only you."
Lucas broke again into derisive laughter.
"M. de Grammont is as dull a dolt as ever I met, yet clever enough to
gull you. He thought you must suspect. I dreaded it--needlessly. You
wise St. Quentins! You cannot see what goes on under your very nose."
M. le Comte sprang forward, scarlet. Lucas flourished the sword.
"The boy there caught at a glance what you had not found out in a
fortnight. He gets to the duke and blocks my game--for to-day. But if
they sent him ahead to hold us till their men came up, they were fools,
too. I'll have the duke yet, and I'll have you now."
He rushed at the unarmed Yeux-gris. The latter darted at Grammont's
fallen sword, seized it, was on guard, all in the second before Lucas
reached him. He might have been in a fortnight's trance, but he was
awake at last.
I trembled for him, then took heart again, as he parried thrust after
thrust and pressed Lucas hard. I had never seen a man fight with his
left arm before; I had not realized it could be done, being myself
helpless with that hand. But as I watched this combat I speedily
perceived how dangerous is a left-handed adversary. In later years I was
to understand better, when M. le Comte had become known the length of
the land by the title "Le Gaucher." But at this time he was in the
habit, like the rest of the world, of fencing with his right hand; his
dexterity with the other he rated only as a pretty accomplishment to
surprise the crowd. He used his left hand scarcely as well as Lucas the
right; yet, the thrust sinister being in itself a strength, they were
not badly matched. I stood watching with all my eyes, when of a sudden I
felt a grasp on my ankle and the next instant was thrown heavily to the
pavement.
Grammont had come to life and taken prompt part in the fray.
I fell close to him, and instantly he let go my leg and wound his arms
around me. I tried to rise and could not, and we rolled about together
in the wine and blood and broken glass. All the while I heard the
sword-blades clashing. Yeux-gris, God be thanked! seemed to be holding
his own.
Fighting Gervais was like fighting two men. Slowly but steadily he
pressed me down and held me. I struggled for dear life--and could not
push him back an inch.
I still held my knife but my arms were pinned down. Gervais raised
himself a little to get a better clutch, and his fingers closed on my
throat. One grip, and life seemed flowing from me. My arm was free now
if I could but lift it. If I could not, nevermore should I lift it on
this sunny earth. I did lift it, and drove the dagger deep into him.
I could not take aim; I could not tell where the knife struck. A gasp
showed he was hit; then he clinched my throat once more. Sight went from
me, and hearing. "It is no use," I thought, and then thought went, too.
But once again the saints were kind to me. The blackness passed, and I
wondered what had happened that I was spared. Then I saw Grammont
clutching with both hands at the dagger-hilt. After all, the blow had
gone home. I had struck him in the left side under the arm. Three good
inches of steel were in him.
He had turned over on his side, half off me. I scrambled out from under
him. To my surprise, Yeux-gris and Lucas were still engaged. I had
thought it hours since Grammont pulled me down.
As I rose, Yeux-gris turned his head toward me. Only for a second, but
in that second Lucas pinked his shoulder. I dashed between them; they
lowered their points.
"First blood for me!" cried Lucas. "That serves for to-day, M. le Comte.
I regret that I cannot wait to kill you, but that will come. It is
necessary that I go before M. le Duc arrives. Clear the way."
M. le Comte stood his ground, barring the alley. They glared at each
other motionless.
Grammont had raised himself to his knees and was trying painfully to get
on his feet.
"A hand, Lucas," he gasped.
Lucas gave him a startled glance but neither went nor spoke to him.
"I am not much hurt," said Grammont, huskily. Holding by the wall, he
clambered up on his feet. He swayed, reeled forward, and clutched
Lucas's arm.
"Lucas, Lucas, help me! Draw out the knife. I cannot. I shall be myself
when the knife is out. Lucas, for God's sake!"
"You will die when the knife is out," said Lucas, wrenching himself
free. He turned again to M. le Comte, and his eyes gleamed as he saw the
blood trickling down his sleeve and the sword tremble in his hand.
"Come on, then," he cried to Yeux-gris.
But I sprang forward and seized the sword from M. le Comte's hand.
"On guard!" I shouted, and we went to work.
I could handle a sword as well as the next one. M. le Duc had taught me
in his idle days at St. Quentin. It served me well now, and him, too.
The light was fading in the narrow court. Our blades shone white in the
twilight as the weapons clashed in and out. I saw, without looking,
Grammont leaning against the wall, his gory face ashen, and Yeux-gris
watching me with all his soul, now and then shouting a word of advice.
I had had good training, and I fought for all there was in me. Yet I was
a boy not come to my full strength, and Lucas was more than my match. He
drove me back farther and farther toward the house-wall. Of a sudden I
slipped in a smear of blood ('tis no lying excuse, I did slip) and lost
my guard. He ran his blade into my shoulder, as he had done with
Yeux-gris.
He would likely have finished me had not a cry from Grammont shaken him.
"The duke!"
In truth, a deepening noise of hoofs and shouts came down the alley from
the street.
Lucas looked at me, who had regained my guard and stood, little hurt,
between him and M. le Comte. He could not push past me into the house
and so through to the other street. He made for the alley, crying out:
"Au revoir, messieurs! We shall meet again."
Grammont seized him.
"Help me, Lucas, for the love of Christ! Don't leave me, Lucas!"
Lucas beat him off with the sword.
"Every man for himself!" he cried, and sprang down the alley.
"It is not the duke," I said to Yeux-gris. "It is most likely the
watch." I paled at the thought, for the watch was the League's, and
Lucas by all signs the League's tool. It might go hard with us if
captured. "Go through the house, M. le Comte," I cried. "Quick, if you
love your life! I'll keep them at the alley's mouth as long as I can."
Not waiting for his answer, I rushed down the passage. At the end of it
I ran against Lucas, who, in his turn, had bowled into Vigo.
XI
_Vigo._
I knew of old that it was easier to catch a weasel asleep than Vigo
absent where he was needed; yet I did not expect to meet him in the
alley. Monsieur, then, had changed his mind.
"Well caught!" cried Vigo, winding his arms round Lucas, who was
struggling furiously for liberty. "Here, Maurice, Jules, I have number
one. Ah, you young sinner! with your crew again? I thought as much. Tie
the knots hard, boys. Better be quiet, you snake; you can't get away."
Lucas seemed to make up his mind to this, for he quieted down directly.
"So the game is up," he said pleasantly. "I had hoped to be gone before
you arrived, dear Vigo."
We had both been deprived promptly of our swords and Lucas's wrists were
roped together, but my only bond was Vigo's hand on my arm.
"Where are the others?" he demanded. "No tricks, now."
"Here," I said, and led the way down the passage. Maurice and Jules,
with their prisoner, pressed after us, and half a dozen of the duke's
guard after them. The rest stayed without to mind the horses and keep
off the gathering crowd.
One of the men had a torch which lighted the red pavement. Vigo saw this
first.
"Morbleu! is it a shambles?"
"That is wine," I said.
"They spilled wine for effect, they spilled so little blood!" Thus
Lucas, speaking with as cool devilry as if he still commanded the
situation. Vigo could not know what he meant but he asked no questions;
instead, bade Lucas hold his tongue.
"I am dumb," Lucas rejoined, with a mock meekness more insolent than
insolence. But we paid it no heed for M. le Comte came forward out of
the shadows. He held his head well up but his face was white above his
crimsoned doublet.
"M. Étienne! Are you hurt?" shouted Vigo.
"No, but he is." M. le Comte stepped aside to show us Grammont leaning
against the wall.
"Ah!" cried Vigo, triumphantly. He and two of the men rushed at Gervais.
"You would not take me so easily but for a cursed knife in my back,"
Grammont muttered thickly. "For the love of Heaven, Vigo, draw it out."
With amazement Vigo perceived the knife.
"Who did it?"
"I."
"You, Félix? In the back?" Vigo looked at me as if to demand again which
side I was on.
"He lay on me, throttling me," I explained. "I stabbed any way I
could."
"I trow you are a dead man," Vigo told Grammont. "Natheless, here comes
the knife."
It came, with a great cry from the victim. He fell back against Vigo's
man, clapping his hand to his side.
"I am done for," he gasped faintly.
"That is well," said Vigo, carefully wiping off the knife.
"Yon is the scoundrel," Grammont gasped, pointing to Lucas.
"He will die a worse death than you," said Vigo.
Grammont looked from the one to the other of us, the sullen rage in his
face fading to a puzzled helplessness. He said fretfully:
"Which--which is Étienne?"
He could no longer see us plain. M. le Comte came forward silently.
Grammont struggled for breath in a way pitiable to see. I put my arm
about him and helped the guardsman to hold him straighter. He reached
out his hand and caught at M. le Comte's sleeve.
"Étienne--Étienne--pardon. It was wrong toward you--but I never had the
pistoles. He called me thief--the duke. I beseech--your--pardon."
M. le Comte was silent.
"It was all Lucas--Lucas did it," Grammont muttered with stiffening
lips. "I am sorry for--it. I am dying--I cannot die--without a chance.
Say you--for--give--"
Still M. le Comte held back, silent. Treachery was no less treachery
though Grammont was dying. All the more that they were cousins,
bedfellows, was the injury great to forgive. M. le Comte said nothing.
How Grammont found the strength only God knows, who haply in his
goodness gave him a last chance of mercy. Suddenly he straightened his
sinking body, started from our hold, and tottered toward his cousin,
both hands outstretched in appeal.
M. le Comte's face was set like a flint. The dying man faltered forward.
Then M. Étienne, never changing his countenance, slowly, half
reluctantly, like a man in a dream, held out his hand.
But the old comrades, estranged by traitory, were never to clasp again.
As he reached M. le Comte, Grammont fell at his feet.
"He was a strong man," said Vigo. He turned Grammont's face up and added
the word, "Dead." Vigo adored the Duke of St. Quentin. Otherwise he had
no emotions.
But I was not case-hardened. And I--I myself--had slain this man, who
had died slowly and in great pain. Vigo's voice sounded to me far off as
he said bluntly:
"M. le Comte, I make you my prisoner."
"No, by Heaven!" cried M. Étienne, in a vibrating voice that brought me
back to reality; "no, Vigo! I am no murderer. Things may look black
against me but I am innocent. You have one villain at your feet and one
a prisoner, but I am not a third! I am a St. Quentin; I do not plot
against my father. I was to aid Grammont to set on Lucas, who would not
answer a challenge. I have been tricked. Gervais asked my
forgiveness--you heard him. Their dupe, yes--accomplice I was not.
Never have I lifted my hand against my father, nor would I, whatever
came. That I swear. Never have I laid eyes on Lucas since I left
Monsieur's presence, till now when he came out of that door side by side
with Grammont. Whatever the plot, I knew naught of it. I am a St.
Quentin--no parricide!"
The ringing voice ceased and M. le Comte stood silent, with haggard eyes
on Vigo. Had he been prisoner at the bar of judgment he could not have
waited in greater anxiety. For Vigo, the yeoman and servant, never
minced words to any man nor swerved from the stark truth.
I burned to seize Vigo's arm, to spur him on to speech. Of course he
believed M. Étienne; how dared he make his master wait for the
assurance? On his knees he should be, imploring M. le Comte's pardon.
But no thought of humbling himself troubled Vigo. Nor did he pronounce
judgment, but merely said:
"M. le Comte will go home with me now. To-morrow he can tell his story
to my master."
"I will tell it before this hour is out!"
"No. M. le Duc has left Paris. But it matters not, M. Étienne. Monsieur
suspects nothing against you. Félix kept your name from him. And by the
time I had screwed it out of Martin, Monsieur was gone."
"Gone out of Paris?" M. Étienne echoed blankly. To his eagerness it was
as if M. le Duc were out of France.
"Aye. He meant to go to-night--Monsieur, Lucas, and I. But when Monsieur
learned of this plot, he swore he'd go in open day. 'If the League must
kill me,' says he, 'they can do it in daylight, with all Paris
watching.' That's Monsieur!"
At this I understood how Vigo came to be in the Rue Coupejarrets.
Monsieur, in his distress and anxiety to be gone from that unhappy
house, had forgotten the spy. Left to his own devices, the equery,
struck with suspicion at Lucas's absence, laid instant hands on Martin
the clerk, with whom Lucas, disliked in the household, had had some
intimacy. It had not occurred to Vigo that M. le Comte, if guilty,
should be spared. At once he had sounded boots and saddles.
"I will return with you, Vigo," M. le Comte said. "Does the meanest
lackey in my father's house call me parricide, I must meet the charge.
My father and I have differed but if we are no longer friends we are
still noblemen. I could never plot his murder, nor could he for one
moment believe it of me."
I, guilty wretch, quailed. To take a flogging were easier than to
confess to him the truth. But I conceived I must.
"Monsieur," I said, "I told M. le Duc you were guilty. I went back a
second time and told him."
"And he?" cried M. Étienne.
"Yes, monsieur, he did believe it."
"Morbleu! that cannot be true," Vigo cried, "for when I saw him he gave
no sign."
"It is true. But he would not have M. le Comte touched. He said he could
not move in the matter; he could not punish his own kin."
M. le Comte's face blazed as he cried out:
"Vastly magnanimous! I thank him not. I'll none of his mercy. I expected
his faith."
"You had no claim to it, M. le Comte."
"Vigo!" cried the young noble, "you are insolent, sirrah!"
"I cry monsieur's pardon."
He was quite respectful and quite unabashed. He had meant no insolence.
But M. Étienne had dared criticise the duke and that Vigo did not allow.
M. Étienne glared at him in speechless wrath. It would have liked him
well to bring this contumelious varlet to his knees. But how? It was a
byword that Vigo minded no man's ire but the duke's. The King of France
could not dash him.
Vigo went on:
"It seems I have exceeded my duty, monsieur, in coming here. Yet it
turns out for the best, since Lucas is caught and M. de Grammont dead
and you cleared of suspicion."
"What!" Yeux-gris cried. "What! you call me cleared!"
Vigo looked at him in surprise.
"You said you were innocent, M. le Comte."
M. le Comte stared, without a word to answer. The equery, all unaware of
having said anything unexpected, turned to the guardsman Maurice:
"Well, is Lucas trussed? Have you searched him?"
Maurice displayed a poniard and a handful of small coins for sole booty,
but Jules made haste to announce: "He has something else, though--a
paper sewed up in his doublet. Shall I rip it out, M. Vigo?"
With Lucas's own knife the grinning Jules slashed his doublet from
throat to thigh, to extract a folded paper the size of your palm. Vigo
pondered the superscription slowly, not much at home with the work of a
quill, save those that winged arrows. M. Étienne, coming forward, with a
sharp exclamation snatched the packet.
"How came you by my letter?" he demanded of Lucas.
"M. le Comte was pleased to consign it for delivery to Martin."
"What purpose had you with it?"
"Rest assured, dear monsieur, I had a purpose."
The questions were stormily vehement, the answers so gentle as to be
fairly caressing. It was waste of time and dignity to parley with the
scoundrel till one could back one's queries with the boot. But M.
Étienne's passion knew no waiting. Thrusting the letter into his breast
ere I, who had edged up to him, could catch a glimpse of its address, he
cried upon Lucas:
"Speak! You were ready enough to jeer at me for a dupe. Tell me what you
would do with your dupe. You dared not open the plot to me--you did me
the honour to know I would not kill my father. Then why use me
blindfold? An awkward game, Lucas."
Lucas disagreed as politely as if exchanging pleasantries in a salon.
"A dexterous game, M. le Comte. Your best friends deemed you guilty.
What would your enemies have said?"
"Ah-h," breathed M. Étienne.
"It dawns on you, monsieur? You are marvellous thick-witted, yet surely
you must perceive. We had a dozen fellows ready to swear that your hand
killed Monsieur."
"You would kill me for my father's murder?"
"Ma foi, no!" cried Lucas, airily. "Never in the world! We should have
let you live, in the knowledge that whenever you displeased us we could
send you to the gallows."
M. le Comte, silent, stared at him with wild eyes, like one who looks
into the open roof of hell. Lucas fell to laughing.
"What! hang you and let our cousin Valère succeed? Mon dieu, no! M. de
Valère is a man!"
With a blow the guardsman struck the words and the laughter from his
lips. But I, who no more than Lucas knew how to hold my tongue, thought
I saw a better way to punish this brazen knave. I cried out:
"You are the dupe, Lucas! Aye, and coward to boot, fleeing here
from--nothing. I knew naught against you--you saw that. To slip out and
warn Martin before Vigo got a chance at him--that was all you had to do.
Yet you never thought of that but rushed away here, leaving Martin to
betray you. Had you stuck to your post you had been now on the road to
St. Denis, instead of the road to the Grève! Fool! fool! fool!"
He winced. He had not been ashamed to betray his benefactor, to bite the
hand that fed him, to desert a wounded comrade; but he was ashamed to
confront his own blunder. I had the satisfaction of pricking, not his
conscience, for he had none, but his pride.
"I had to warn Grammont off," he retorted. "Could I believe St. Quentin
such a lack-wit as to forgive these two because they were his kin? You
did better than you knew when you shut the door on me. You tracked me,
you marplot, you sneak! How came you into the coil?"
"By God's grace," M. le Comte answered. He laid a hand on my shoulder
and leaned there heavily. Lucas grinned.
"Ah, waxing pious, is he? The prodigal prepares to return."
M. Étienne's hand clinched on my shoulder. Vigo commanded a gag for
Lucas, saying, with the only touch of anger I ever knew him to show:
"He shall hang when the king comes in. And now to horse, lads, and out
of the quarter; we have wasted too much time palavering. King Henry is
not in Paris yet. We shall do well not to rouse Belin, though we can
make him trouble if he troubles us. Come, monsieur. Men, guard your
prisoner. I misjudge if he is not cropful of the devil still."
He did not look it. His figure was drooping; his face purple and
contorted, for one of the troopers had crammed his scarf into the man's
mouth, half strangling him. As he was led past us, with a sudden frantic
effort, fit to dislocate his jaw, he disgorged the gag to cry out
wildly:
"Oh, M. l'Écuyer, have mercy! Have pity upon me! For Christ's sake,
pity!"
[Illustration: "IN A FLASH HE WAS OUT OF THEIR GRASP, FLYING DOWN THE
ALLEY."]
His bravado had broken down at last. He tried to fling himself at Vigo's
feet. The guards relaxed their hold to see him grovel.
That was what he had hoped for. In a flash he was out of their grasp,
flying down the alley.
"To Vigo! Vigo is attacked," we heard him shout.
It was so quick, we stood dumfounded. And then we dashed after,
pell-mell, tumbling over one another in our stampede. In the alley we
ran against three or four of the guard answering Lucas's cry. We lost
precious seconds disentangling ourselves and shouting that it was a ruse
and our prisoner escaped. When they comprehended, we all rushed together
out of the passage, emerging among frightened horses and a great press
of excited men.
XII
_The Comte de Mar._
"Which way went he?"
"The man who just came out?"
"This way!"
"No, yonder!"
"Nay, I saw him not."
"A man with bound hands, you say?"
"Here!"
"Down that way!"
"A man in black, was he? Here he is!"
"Fool, no; he went that way!"
M. Étienne, Vigo, I, and the guardsmen rushed hither and thither into
the ever-thickening crowd, shouting after Lucas and exchanging rapid
questions with every one we passed. But from the very first the search
was hopeless. It was dark by this time and a mass of people blocked the
street, surging this way and that, some eagerly joining in the chase,
others, from ready sympathy with any rogue, doing their best to hinder
and confuse us. There was no way to tell how he had gone. A needle in a
haystack is easy found compared with him who loses himself in a Paris
crowd by night.
M. Étienne plunged into the first opening he saw, elbowing his way
manfully. I followed in his wake, his tall bright head making as good an
oriflamme as the king's plume at Ivry, but when at length we came out
far down the street we had seen no trace of Lucas.
"He is gone," said M. le Comte.
"Yes, monsieur. If it were day they might find him, but not now."
"No. Even Vigo will not find him. He is worsted for once. He has let
slip the shrewdest knave in France. Well, he is gone," he repeated after
a minute. "It cannot be mended by me. He is off, and so am I."
"Whither, monsieur?"
"That is my concern."
"But monsieur will see M. le Duc?"
He shook his head.
"But, monsieur--"
He broke in on me fiercely.
"Think you that I--I, smirched and sullied, reeking with plots of
murder--am likely to betake myself to the noblest gentleman in France?"
"He will welcome M. le Comte."
"Nay; he believed me guilty."
"But, monsieur--"
"You may not say 'but' to me."
"Pardon, monsieur. Am I to tell Vigo monsieur is gone?"
"Yes, tell him." His lip quivered; he struggled hard for steadiness.
"You will go to M. le Duc, Félix, and rise in his favour, for it was you
saved his life. Then tell him this from me--that some day, when I have
made me worthy to enter his presence, then will I go to him and beg his
forgiveness on my knees. And now farewell."
He slipped away into the darkness.
I stood hesitating for a moment. Then I followed my lord.
He slackened his pace as he heard footsteps overtake him, and where a
beam of light shone out from an open door he wheeled about, thinking me
a footpad.
"You, Félix?"
"Yes, monsieur; I go with M. le Comte."
"I have not permitted you."
"Then must I go in despite. Monsieur is wounded; I cannot leave him to
go unsquired."
"There are lackeys to hire. I bade you seek M. le Duc."
"Is not monsieur a thought unreasonable? I cannot be in two places at
once. Monsieur can send a letter. The duke has Vigo and a household. I
go with M. le Comte."
"Oh," he cried, "you are a faithful servant! We are ridden to death by
our faithful servants, we St. Quentins. Myself, I prefer fleas!" He
added, growing angrier, "Will you leave me?"
"No, monsieur," said I.
He glowered at me and I think he had some notion of chasing me away with
his sword. But since his dignity could not so stoop, he growled:
"Come, then, if you choose to come unasked and most unwelcome!"
With this he walked on a yard ahead of me, never turning his head nor
saying a word, I following meekly, wondering whither, and devoutly
hoping it might be to supper. Presently I observed that we were in a
better quarter of the town, and before long we came to a broad,
well-lighted inn, whence proceeded a merry chatter and rattle of dice.
M. Étienne with accustomed feet turned into the court at the side, and
seizing upon a drawer who was crossing from door to door despatched him
for the landlord. Mine host came, fat and smiling, unworried by the hard
times, greeted Yeux-gris with acclaim as "this dear M. le Comte,"
wondered at his long absence and bloody shirt, and granted with all
alacrity his three demands of a supper, a surgeon, and a bed. I stood
back, ill at ease, aching at the mention of supper, and wondering
whether I were to be driven off like an obtrusive puppy. But when M. le
Comte, without glancing at me, said to the drawer, "Take care of my
serving-man," I knew my stomach was safe.
That was the most I thought of then, I do confess, for, except for my
sausage, I had not tasted food since morning. The barber came and
bandaged M. le Comte and put him straight to bed, and I was left free to
fall on the ample victuals set before me, and was so comfortable and
happy that the Rue Coupejarrets seemed like an evil dream. Since that
day I have been an easy mark for beggars if they could but manage to
look starved.
Presently came a servant to say that my bed was spread in M. le Comte's
room, and up-stairs ran I with an utterly happy heart, for I saw by this
token that I was forgiven. Indeed, no sooner had I got fairly inside
the door than my master raised himself on his sound elbow and called
out:
"Ah, Félix, do you bear me malice for an ungrateful churl?"
"I bear malice?" I cried, flushing. "Monsieur is mocking me. I know
monsieur cannot love me, since I attempted his life. Yet my wish is to
be allowed to serve him so faithfully that he can forget it."
"Nay," he said; "I have forgotten it. And it was freely forgiven from
the moment I saw Lucas at my cousin's side."
"For the second time," I said, "monsieur saved my life." And I dropped
on my knees beside the bed to kiss his hand. But he snatched it away
from me and flung his arm around my neck and kissed my cheek.
"Félix," he cried, "but for you my hands would be red with my father's
blood. You rescued him from death and me from worse. If I have any
shreds of honour left 'tis you have saved them to me."
"Monsieur," I stammered, "I did naught. I am your servant till I die."
"You deserve a better master. What am I? Lucas's puppet! Lucas's fool!"
"Monsieur, it was not Lucas alone. It was a plot. You know what he
said--"
"Aye," he cried with bitter vehemence. "I shall remember for some time
what he said. They would not kill me to make my cousin Valère duke! He
was a man. But I--nom de dieu, I was not worth the killing."
"It is the League's scheming, monsieur."
"Oh, that does not need the saying. Secretaries don't plot against
dukedoms on their own account. Some high man is behind Lucas--I dare
swear his Grace of Mayenne himself. It is no secret now where Monsieur
stands. Yet the king's party grows so strong and the mob so cheers
Monsieur, the League dare not strike openly. So they put a spy in the
house to choose time and way. And the spy would not stab, for he saw he
could make me do his work for him. He saw I needed but a push to come to
open breach with my father. He gave the push. Oh, he could make me pull
his chestnuts from the fire well enough, burning my hands so that I
could never strike a free blow again. I was to be their slave, their
thrall forever!"
"Never that, monsieur; never that!"
"I am not so sure," he cried. "Had it not been for the advent of a stray
boy from Picardie, I trow Lucas would have put his purpose through. I
was blindfolded; I saw nothing. I knew my cousin Gervais to be morose
and cruel; yet I had done him no harm; I had always stood his friend. I
thought him shamefully used; I let myself be turned out of my father's
house to champion him. I had no more notion he was plotting my ruin than
a child playing with his dolls. I was their doll, mordieu! their toy,
their crazy fool on a chain. But life is not over yet. To-morrow I go to
pledge my sword to Henry of Navarre."
"Monsieur, if he comes to the faith--"
"Mordieu! faith is not all. Were he a pagan of the wilderness he were
better than these Leaguers. He fights honestly and bravely and
generously. He could have had the city before now, save that he will not
starve us. He looks the other way, and the provision-trains come in. But
the Leaguers, with all their regiments, dare not openly strike down one
man,--one man who has come all alone into their country,--they put a spy
into his house to eat his bread and betray him; they stir up his own kin
to slay him, that it may not be called the League's work. And they are
most Catholic and noble gentlemen! Nay, I am done with these pious
plotters who would redden my hands with my father's blood and make me
outcast and despised of all men. I have spent my playtime with the
League; I will go work with Henry of Navarre!"
I caught his fire.
"By St. Quentin," I cried, "we will beat these Leaguers yet!"
He laughed, yet his eyes burned with determination.
"By St. Quentin, shall we! You and I, Félix, you and I alone will
overturn the whole League! We will show them what we are made of. They
think lightly of me. Why not? I never took part with my father. I lazed
about in these gay Paris houses, bent on my pleasure, too shallow a fop
even to take sides in the fight for a kingdom. What should they see in
me but an empty-headed roisterer, frittering away his life in follies?
But they will find I am something more. Well, enter there!"
He dropped back among the pillows, striving to look careless, as Maître
Menard, the landlord, opened the door and stood shuffling on the
threshold.
"Does M. le Comte sleep?" he asked me deferentially, though I think he
could not but have heard M. Étienne's tirading half-way down the
passage.
"Not yet," I answered. "What is it?"
"Why, a man came with a billet for M. le Comte and insisted it be sent
in. I told him Monsieur was not to be disturbed; he had been wounded and
was sleeping; I said it was not sense to wake him for a letter that
would keep till morning. But he would have it 'twas of instant import,
and so--"
"Oh, he is not asleep," I declared, eagerly ushering the maître in, my
mind leaping to the conclusion, for no reason save my ardent wish, that
Vigo had discovered our whereabouts.
"I dared not deny him further," added Maître Menard. "He wore the
liveries of M. de Mayenne."
"Of Mayenne," I echoed, thinking of what M. Étienne had said. "Pardieu,
it may be Lucas himself!" And snatching up my master's sword I dashed
out of the door and was in the cabaret in three steps.
The room contained some score of men, but I, peering about by the
uncertain candle-light, could find no one who in any wise resembled
Lucas. A young gamester seated near the door, whom my sudden entrance
had jostled, rose, demanding in the name of his outraged dignity to
cross swords with me. On any other day I had deemed it impossible to say
him nay, but now with a real vengeance, a quarrel à outrance on my
hands, he seemed of no consequence at all. I brushed him aside as I
demanded M. de Mayenne's man. They said he was gone. I ran out into the
dark court and the darker street.
A tapster, lounging in the courtyard, had seen my man pass out, and he
opined with much reason that I should not catch him. Yet I ran a hundred
yards up street and a hundred yards down street, shouting on the name of
Lucas, calling him coward and skulker, bidding him come forth and fight
me. The whole neighbourhood became aware than I wanted one Lucas to
fight: lights twinkled in windows; men, women, and children poured out
of doors. But Lucas, if it were he, had for the second time vanished
soft-footed into the night.
I returned with drooping tail to M. Étienne. He was alone, sitting up in
bed awaiting me, his cheeks scarlet, his eyes blazing.
"He is gone," I panted. "I looked everywhere, but he was gone. Oh, if I
caught Lucas--"
"You little fool!" he exclaimed. "This was not Lucas. Had you waited
long enough to hear your name called, I had told you. This is no errand
of Lucas but a very different matter."
He sat a moment, thinking, still with that glitter of excitement in his
eyes. The next instant he threw off the bedclothes and started to rise.
"Get my clothes, Félix. I must go to the Hôtel de Lorraine."
But I flung myself upon him, pushing him back into bed and dragging the
cover over him by main force.
"You can go nowhere, M. Étienne; it is madness. The surgeon said you
must lie here for three days. You will get a fever in your wounds; you
shall not go."
"Get off me, 'od rot you; you're smothering me," he gasped. Cautiously I
relaxed my grip, still holding him down. He appealed: "Félix, I must go.
So long as there is a spark of life left in me, I have no choice but to
go."
"Monsieur, you said you were done with the Leaguers--with M. de
Mayenne."
"Aye, so I did," he cried. "But this--but this is Lorance."
Then, at my look of mystification, he suddenly opened his hand and
tossed me the letter he had held close in his palm.
I read:
_M. de Mar appears to consider himself of very little consequence,
or of very great, since he is absent a whole month from the Hôtel
de Lorraine. Does he think he is not missed? Or is he so sure of
his standing that he fears no supplanting? In either case he is
wrong. He is missed but he will not be missed forever. He may, if
he will, be forgiven; or he may, if he will, be forgotten. If he
would escape oblivion, let him come to-night, at the eleventh hour,
to lay his apologies at the feet of_
LORANCE DE MONTLUC.
"And she--"
"Is cousin and ward to the Duke of Mayenne. Yes, and my heart's desire."
"Monsieur--"
"Aye, you begin to see it now," he cried vehemently. "You see why I have
stuck to Paris these three years, why I could not follow my father into
exile. It was more than a handful of pistoles caused the breach with
Monsieur; more than a quarrel over Gervais de Grammont. That was the
spark kindled the powder, but the train was laid."
"Then you, monsieur, were a Leaguer?"
"Nay, I was not!" he cried. "To my credit,--or my shame, as you
choose,--I was not. I was neither one nor the other, neither fish nor
flesh. My father thought me a Leaguer, but I was not. I was not
disloyal, in deed at least, to the house that bore me. Monsieur reviled
me for a skulker, a fainéant; nom de diable, he might have remembered
his own three years of idleness!"
"Monsieur held out for his religion--"
"Mademoiselle is my religion," he cried, and then laughed, not merrily.
"Pardieu! for all my pains I have not won her. I have skulked and evaded
and temporized--for nothing. I would not join the League and break my
father's heart; would not stand out against it and lose Lorance. I have
been trying these three years to please both the goat and the
cabbage--with the usual ending. I have pleased nobody. I am out of
Mayenne's books: he made me overtures and I refused him. I am out of my
father's books: he thinks me a traitor and parricide. And I am out of
mademoiselle's: she despises me for a laggard. Had I gone in with
Mayenne I had won her. Had I gone with Monsieur I was sure of a command
in King Henry's army. But I, wanting both, get neither. Between two
stools, I fall miserably to the ground. I am but a dawdler, a
do-nothing, the butt and laughing-stock of all brave men.
"But I am done with shilly-shally!" he added, catching his breath. "For
once I shall do something. Mlle. de Montluc has given me a last chance.
She has sent for me, and I go. If I fall dead on her threshold, I at
least die looking at her."
"Monsieur, monsieur," I cried in despair, "you will not die looking at
her, for you will die out here in the street, and that will profit
neither you nor her, but only Lucas and his crew."
"That is as may be. At least I make the attempt. A month back I sent her
a letter. I found it to-night in Lucas's doublet. She thinks me careless
of her. I must go."
"Monsieur, you are mad," I cried. "You have said yourself Mayenne is
likely to be behind Lucas. If you go you do but walk into the enemies'
very jaws. It is a trap, a lure."
"Félix, beware what you say!" he interrupted with quick-blazing ire. "I
do not permit such words to be spoken in connection with Mlle. de
Montluc."
"But, monsieur--"
"Silence!" he commanded in a voice as sharp as crack of pistolet. The
St. Quentins had ever the most abundant faith in those they loved. I
remembered how Monsieur in just such a blaze of resentment had forbidden
me to speak ill of his son. And I remembered, too, that Monsieur's faith
had been justified and that my accusations were lies. Natheless, I
liked not the look of this affair, and I attempted further warnings.
"Monsieur, in my opinion--"
"You are not here to hold opinions, Félix, but your tongue."
I did, at that, and stood back from the bed to let him do as it liked
him. He rose and went over to the chair where his clothes lay, only to
drop into it half swooning. I ran to the ewer and dashed half the water
in it into his face.
"Peste, you need not drown me!" he cried testily. "I am well; it was but
a moment's dizziness." He got up again at once, but was forced to seize
my shoulder to keep from falling.
"It was that damnable potion he made me drink," he muttered. "I am all
well else; I am not weak. Curse the room; it reels about like a ship at
sea."
I put my arm about him and led him back to bed; nor did he argue about
it but lay back with his eyes shut, so white against the white bed-linen
I thought him fainted for sure. But before I could drench him again he
raised his lids.
"Félix, will you go get a shutter? For I see clearly that I shall reach
Mlle. de Montluc this night in no other way."
"Monsieur," I said, "I can go. I can tell your mistress you cannot walk
across this room to-night. I can do my best for you, M. Étienne."
"My faith! I think I must e'en let you try. But what to bid you say to
her--pardieu! I scarce know what I could say to her myself."
"I can tell her how sorely you are hurt--how you would come, but
cannot."
"And make her believe it," he cried eagerly. "Do not let her think it a
flimsy excuse. And yet I do think she will believe you," he added, with
half a laugh. "There is something very trust-compelling about you,
Félix. And assure her of my lifelong, never-failing service."
"But I thought monsieur was going to take service with Henry of
Navarre."
"I was!" he cried. "I am! Oh, Félix, was ever a poor wight so harried
and torn betwixt two as I? Whom Jupiter would destroy he first makes
mad. I shall be gibbering in a cage before I have done with it."
"Monsieur will be gibbering in his bed unless he sleeps soon. I go now,
monsieur."
"And good luck to you! Félix, I offer you no reward for this midnight
journey into the house of our enemies. For recompense you will see her."
XIII
_Mademoiselle._
I went to find Maître Menard, to urge upon him that some one should stay
with M. Étienne while I was gone, lest he swooned or became
light-headed. But the surgeon himself was present, having returned from
bandaging up some common skull to see how his noble patient rested. He
promised that he would stay the night with M. le Comte; so, eased of
that care, I set out for the Hôtel de Lorraine, one of the inn-servants
with a flambeau coming along to guide and guard me. M. Étienne was a
favourite in this inn of Maître Menard's; they did not stop to ask
whether he had money in his purse before falling over one another in
their eagerness to serve him. It is my opinion that one gets more out of
the world by dint of fair words than by a long purse or a long sword.
We had not gone a block from the inn before I turned to the right-about,
to the impatience of my escort.
"Nay, Jean, I must go back," I said. "I will only delay a moment, but
see Maître Menard I must."
He was still in the cabaret where the crowd was thinning.
"Now what brings you back?"
"This, maître," said I, drawing him into a corner. "M. le Comte has been
in a fracas to-night, as you perchance may have divined. His arch-enemy
gave us the slip. And I am not easy for monsieur while this Lucas is at
large. He has the devil's own cunning and malice; he might track him
here to the Three Lanterns. Therefore, maître, I beg you to admit no one
to M. le Comte--no one on any business whatsoever. Not if he comes from
the Duke of Mayenne himself."
"I won't admit the Sixteen themselves," the maître declared.
"There is one man you may admit," I conceded. "Vigo, M. de St. Quentin's
equery. You will know him for the biggest man in France."
"Good. And this other; what is he like?"
"He is young," I said, "not above four or five and twenty. Tall and
slim,--oh, without doubt, a gentleman. He has light-brown hair and thin,
aquiline face. His tongue is unbound, too."
"His tongue shall not get around me," Maître Menard promised. "The host
of the Three Lanterns was not born yesterday let me tell you."
With this comforting assurance I set out once more on my expedition
with, to tell truth, no very keen enthusiasm for the business. It was
all very well for M. Étienne to declare grandly that as recompense for
my trouble I should see Mlle. de Montluc. But I was not her lover and I
thought I could get along very comfortably without seeing her. I knew
not how to bear myself before a splendid young noblewoman. When I had
dashed across Paris to slay the traitor in the Rue Coupejarrets I had
not been afraid; but now, going with a love-message to a girl, I was
scared.
And there was more than the fear of her bright eyes to give me pause. I
was afraid of Mlle. de Montluc, but more afraid of M. de Mayenne's
cousin. What mocking devil had driven Étienne de Mar, out of a whole
France full of lovely women, to fix his unturnable desire on this
Ligueuse of Mayenne's own brood? Had his father's friends no daughters,
that he must seek a mistress from the black duke's household? Were there
no families of clean hands and honest speech, that he must ally himself
with the treacherous blood of Lorraine?
I had seen a sample of the League's work to-day, and I liked it not. If
Mayenne were, as Yeux-gris surmised, Lucas's backer, I marvelled that my
master cared to enter his house; I marvelled that he cared to send his
servant there. Yet I went none the less readily for that; I was here to
do his bidding. Nor was I greatly alarmed for my own skin; I thought
myself too small to be worth my Lord Mayenne's powder. And I had, I do
confess, a lively curiosity to behold the interior of the greatest house
in Paris, the very core and centre of the League. Belike if it had not
been for terror of this young demoiselle I had stepped along cheerfully
enough.
Though the hour was late, many people still loitered in the streets,
the clear summer night, and all of them were talking politics. As Jean
and I passed at a rapid pace the groups under the wine-shop lanterns, we
caught always the names of Mayenne and Navarre. Everywhere they asked
the same two questions: Was it true that Henry was coming into the
Church? And if so, what would Mayenne do next? I perceived that old
Maître Jacques of the Amour de Dieu knew what he was talking about: the
people of Paris were sick to death of the Leagues and their intriguery,
galled to desperation under the yoke of the Sixteen.
Mayenne's fine new hôtel in the Rue St. Antoine was lighted as for a
fête. From its open windows came sounds of gay laughter and rattling
dice. You might have thought them keeping carnival in the midst of a
happy and loyal city. If the Lieutenant-General found anything to vex
him in the present situation, he did not let the commonalty know it.
The Duke of Mayenne's house, like my duke's, was guarded by men-at-arms;
but his grilles were thrown back while his soldiers lounged on the stone
benches in the archway. Some of them were talking to a little knot of
street idlers who had gathered about the entrance, while others, with
the aid of a torch and a greasy pack of cards, were playing lansquenet.
I knew no way to do but to ask openly for Mlle. de Montluc, declaring
that I came on behalf of the Comte de Mar.
"That is right; you are to enter," the captain of the guard replied at
once. "But you are not the Comte de Mar yourself? Nay, no need to ask,"
he added with a laugh. "A pretty count you would make."
"I am his servant," I said. "I am charged with a message for
mademoiselle."
"Well, my orders were to admit the count, but I suppose you may go in.
If mademoiselle cannot land her lover it were cruel to deny her the
consolation of a message."
A laugh went up and one of the gamblers looked round to say:
"It has gone hard with mademoiselle lately, sangdieu! Here's the Comte
de Mar has not set foot in the house for a month or more, and M. Paul
for a quarter of a year is vanished off the face of the earth. It seemed
as if she must take the little cheese or nothing. But now things are
looking up with her. M. Paul has walked calmly in, and here is a
messenger at least from the other."
"But M. Paul has walked calmly out again," a third soldier took up the
tale. "He did not stay very long, for all mademoiselle's graces."
"Then I warrant 'twas mademoiselle sent him off with a flea in his
ear," another cried. "She looks higher than a bastard, even Le Balafré's
own."
"She had better take care how she flouts Paul de Lorraine," came the
retort, but the captain bade me march along. I followed him into the
house, leaving Jean to be edified, no doubt, by a whole history, false
and true, concerning Mlle. de Montluc. We bow down before the lofty of
the earth, we underlings, but behind their backs there is none with
whose names we make so free. And there we have the advantage of our
masters; for they know little of our private matters while we know
everything of theirs.
In the hall the captain turned me over to a lackey who conducted me
through a couple of antechambers to a curtained doorway whence issued a
merry confusion of voices and laughter. He passed in while I remained to
undergo the scrutiny of the pair of flunkies whose repose we had
invaded. But in a moment my guide appeared again, lifting the curtain
for me to enter.
The big room was ablaze with candles set in mirrored sconces along the
walls, set also in silver candelabra on the tables. There was a crowd of
people in the place, a hundred it seemed to my dazzled eyes; grouped,
most of them, about the tables set up and down, either taking hands
themselves at cards or dice or betting on those who did. Bluff soldiers
in breastplate and jack-boots were not wanting in the throng, but the
larger number of the gallants were brave in silken doublets and spotless
ruffs, as became a noble's drawing-room. And the ladies! mordieu, what
am I to say of them? Tricked out in every gay colour under the sun,
agleam with jewels--eh bien, the ladies of St. Quentin, that I had
thought so fine, were but serving-maids to these.
I stood blinking, dazed by the lights and the crowd and the chatter,
unable in the first moment to note clearly any face in the congregation
of strange countenances. Nor would it have helped me if I could, for
here close about were a dozen fair women, any one of whom might be
Mlle. de Montluc. My heart hammered in my throat. I knew not whom to
address. But a young noble near by, dazzling in a suit of pink, took the
burden on himself.
"I heard Mar's name; yet you are not M. de Mar, I think."
He spoke with a languid but none the less teasing derision. In truth, I
must have resembled a little brown hare suddenly turned out of a bag in
the midst of that gorgeous company.
"No," I stammered; "I am his servant. I seek Mlle. de Montluc."
"I have wondered what has become of Étienne de Mar this last month,"
spoke a second young gentleman, advancing from his place behind a fair
one's chair. He was neither so pretty nor so fine as the other, but in
his short, stocky figure and square face there was a force which his
comrade lacked. He regarded me with a far keener glance as he asked:
"Peste! he must be in low water if this is the best he can do for a
lackey."
"Perhaps the fellow's errand is to beg an advance from Mlle. de
Montluc," suggested the pink youth.
"Who speaks my name?" a clear voice called; and a lady, laying down her
hand at cards, rose and came toward me.
She was clad in amber satin. She was tall, and she carried herself with
stately grace. Her black hair shadowed a cheek as purely white and pink
as that of any yellow-locked Frisian girl, while her eyes, under their
sooty lashes, shone blue as corn-flowers.
I began to understand M. Étienne.
"Who is it wants me?" she repeated, and catching sight of me stood
regarding me in some surprise, not unfriendly, waiting for me to explain
myself. But before I could find my tongue the man in pink answered her
with his soft drawl:
"Mademoiselle, this is a minister plenipotentiary and envoy
extraordinary--most extraordinary--from the court of his Highness the
Comte de Mar."
"Oh, that is it!" she cried with a little laugh, but not, I think, at my
uncouthness, though she looked me over curiously.
"He has not come himself, M. de Mar?"
"It appears not, mademoiselle."
She did not seem vastly disconcerted for all she cried in doleful tones:
"Alack! alack! I have lost. And Paul is not present to enjoy his
triumph. He wagered me a pair of pearl-broidered gloves that I could not
produce M. de Mar."
"But it is not his fault," I answered her, eagerly. "It is not M. de
Mar's fault, mademoiselle. He has been hurt to-day, and he could not
come. He is in bed of his wounds; he could not walk across his room. He
tried. He bade me lay at mademoiselle's feet his lifelong services."
"Ah, Lorance!" cried a young demoiselle in a sky-coloured gown,
"methinks you have indeed lost M. de Mar if he sends you no better
messenger of his regrets than this horse-boy."
"I have lost the gloves, that is certain and sad," Mlle. de Montluc
replied, as if the loss of the wager were all her care. "I am punished
for my vanity, mesdames et messieurs. I undertook to produce my recreant
squire and I have failed. Alas!" And she put up her white hands before
her face with a pretty imitation of despair, save that her eyes sparkled
from between her fingers.
By this time the gamesters about us had stopped their play, in a general
interest in the affair. An older lady coming forward with an air of
authority demanded:
"What is this disturbance, Lorance?"
"A wager between me and my cousin Paul, madame," she answered with
instant gravity and respect.
"Paul de Lorraine! Is he here?" the other asked, unpleased, I thought.
"Yes, madame. He dropped from the skies on us this afternoon. He is out
of the house again now."
"But while he was in the house," quoth she in sky-colour, "though he did
not find time to pay his respects to Mme. la Duchesse, he had the
leisure for considerable conversation with Mlle. de Montluc."
The other lady, whom I now guessed to be the Duchesse de Mayenne
herself, turned somewhat sharply on her cousin of Montluc.
"I do not yet hear your excuses, mademoiselle, for the introduction of a
stable-boy into my salon."
"I beg you to believe, madame, I am not responsible for it," she
protested. "Paul, when he was here, saw fit to rally me concerning M. de
Mar. Mlle. de Tavanne informed him of the count's defection and they
were pleased to be merry with me over it. I vowed I could get him back
if I wished. The end of the matter was that I wrote a letter which my
cousin promised to have conveyed to M. le Comte's old lodgings. This is
the answer," mademoiselle cried, with a wave of her hand toward me. "But
I did not expect it in this guise, madame. Blame your lackeys who know
not their duties, not me."
"I blame you, mademoiselle," Mme. de Mayenne answered her, tartly. "I
consider my salon no place for intrigues with horse-boys. If you must
hold colloquy with this fellow, take him whither he belongs--to the
stables."
A laugh went up among those who laugh at whatever a duchess says.
"Come, mesdames, we will resume our play," she added to the ladies who
had followed her on the scene, and turned her back in lofty disdain on
Mlle. de Montluc and her concerns. But though some of the company obeyed
her, a curious circle still surrounded us.
"Dame! if you must be banished to the stables, we all will go,
mademoiselle," declared the pink gallant. "We all want news of the
vanished Mar."
"Indeed we do. We have missed him sorely. And I dare swear this
messenger's account will prove diverting," lisped the sky-coloured
demoiselle.
I was not enjoying myself. I had given all my hopes of glory to be out
in the street again. I wished Mlle. de Montluc would take me to the
stables--anywhere out of this laughing company. But she had no such
intent.
"I think madame does not mean her sentence," she rejoined. "I would not
for the world frustrate your curiosity, Blanche; nor yours, M. de
Champfleury. Tell us what has befallen your master, Sir Courier."
"He has been in a duel, mademoiselle."
"Whom was he fighting?"
"And for what lady's favour?"
"Is it a pretty Huguenot this time?"
"Does she make him read his Bible?"
"Or did her big brother set on him for a wicked papist?"
The questions chorussed upon me; I saw they were framed to tease
mademoiselle. I answered as best I might:
"He thinks of no lady but Mlle. de Montluc. The fight was over other
matters. I am only told to say M. le Comte regrets most heartily that
his wound prevents his coming, and to assure mademoiselle that he is too
weak and faint to walk across the floor."
"Then exceed your instructions a little. Tell us what monsieur has been
about these four weeks that he could not take time to visit us."
I was in a dilemma. I knew she was M. Étienne's chosen lady and
therefore deserving of all fealty from me; yet at the same time I could
not answer her question. It was sheer embarrassment and no intent of
rudeness that caused my short answer:
"About his own concerns, mademoiselle."
"The young puppy begins to growl!" exclaimed the thick-set soldierly
fellow who had bespoken me before, whose hostile gaze had never left my
face. "I'll have him flogged, mademoiselle, for this insolence."
"M. de Brie--" she began at the same moment that I cried out to her:
"I meant no insolence; I crave mademoiselle's pardon." I added, in my
haste floundering deeper into the mire: "Mademoiselle sees for herself
that I cannot tell about M. le Comte's affairs in this house."
Brie had me by the collar.
"So that is what has become of Mar!" he cried triumphantly. "I thought
as much. If Mar's affairs are to be a secret from this house, then, nom
de dieu, they are no secret."
He shook me back and forth as if to shake the truth out of me, till my
teeth rattled together; I could not have spoken if I would. But he cried
on, his voice rising with excitement:
"It has been no secret where St. Quentin stands and what he has been
about. He came into Paris, smooth and smiling, his own man,
forsooth--neither ours nor the heretic's! Mordieu! he was Henry's, fast
and sure, save that he was not man enough to say so. I told Mayenne last
month we ought to settle with M. de St. Quentin; I asked nothing better
than to attend to him. But the general would not, but let him alone,
free and unmolested in his work of stirring up sedition. And Mar, too--"
He stopped in the middle of a word. All the company who had been
pressing around us halted still. I knew that behind me some one had
entered the room.
M. de Brie dragged me back from where we were blocking the passage. I
turned in his grasp to face the newcomer.
He was a tall, stout man, deep-chested, thick-necked, heavy-jowled. His
wavy hair, brushed up from a high forehead, was lightest brown, while
his brows, mustachios, and beard were dark. His eyes were dark also, his
full lips red and smiling. He had the beauty and presence of all the
Guises; it needed not the star on his breast to tell me that this was
Mayenne himself.
He advanced into the room returning the salutes of the company, but his
glance travelling straight to me and my captor.
"What have we here, François?"
"This is a fellow of Étienne de Mar's, M. le Duc," Brie answered. "He
came here with messages for Mlle. de Montluc. I am getting out of him
what Mar has been up to since he disappeared a month back."
"You are at unnecessary pains, my dear François; I already know Mar's
whereabouts and doings rather better than he knows them himself."
Brie dropped his hand from my collar, looking by no means at ease. I
perceived that this was the way with Mayenne: you knew what he said but
you did not know what he thought. His somewhat heavy face varied little;
what went on in his mind behind the smiling mask was matter for anxiety.
If he asked pleasantly after your health, you fancied he might be
thinking how well you would grace the gallows.
M. de Brie said nothing and the duke continued:
"Yes, I have kept watch over him these five weeks. You are late,
François. You little boys are fools; you think because you do not know a
thing I do not know it. Was I cruel to keep my information from you, ma
belle Lorance?"
The attack was absolutely sudden; he had not seemed to observe her.
Mademoiselle coloured and made no instant reply. His voice was neither
loud nor rough; he was smiling upon her.
"Or did you need no information, mademoiselle?"
She met his look unflinching.
"I have not been sighing for tidings of the Comte de Mar, monsieur."
"Because you have had tidings, mademoiselle?"
"No, monsieur, I have had no communication with M. de Mar since
May--until to-night."
"And what has happened to-night?"
"To-night--Paul appeared."
"Paul!" ejaculated the duke, startled momentarily out of his phlegm.
"Paul here?"
"He was, monsieur, an hour ago. He has since gone forth again, I know
not whither or for what."
Mayenne ruminated over this, pulling off his gloves slowly.
"Well? What has this to do with Mar?"
She had no choice, though in evident fear of his displeasure, but to go
through again the tale of the wager and letter. She was moistening her
dry lips as she finished, her eyes on his face wide with apprehension.
But he answered amiably, half absently, as if the whole affair were a
triviality:
"Never mind; I will give you a pair of gloves, Lorance."
He stood smiling upon us as if amused for an idle moment over our
childish games. The colour came back to her cheeks; she made him a
curtsey, laughing lightly.
"Then my grief is indeed cured, monsieur. A new bit of finery is the
best of balms for wounded self-esteem, is it not, Blanche? I confess I
am piqued; I had dared to imagine that my squire might remember me still
after a month of absence. I should have known it too much to ask of
mortal man. Not till the rivers run up-hill will you keep our memories
green for more than a week, messieurs."
"She turns it off well," cried the little demoiselle in blue, Mlle.
Blanche de Tavanne; "you would not guess that she will be awake the
night long, weeping over M. de Mar's defection."
"I!" exclaimed Mlle. de Montluc; "I weep over his recreancy? It is a
far-fetched jest, my Blanche; can you invent no better? The Comte de
Mar--behold him!"
She snatched a card from a tossed-down hand, holding it up aloft for us
all to see. It was by chance the knave of diamonds; the pictured face
with its yellow hair bore, in my fancy at least, a suggestion of M.
Étienne.
"Behold M. de Mar--behold his fate!" With a twinkling of her white
fingers she had torn the luckless knave into a dozen pieces and sent
them whirling over her head to fall far and wide among the company.
[Illustration: "I DO NOT FORGIVE HIS DESPATCHING ME HIS HORSE-BOY."]
"Summary measures, mademoiselle!" quoth a grizzled warrior, with a
laugh. "Mordieu! have we your good permission to deal likewise with the
flesh-and-blood Mar, when we go to arrest him for conspiring against the
Holy League?"
But Mlle. de Tavanne's quick tongue robbed him of his answer.
"Marry, you are severe on him, Lorance. To be sure he does not come
himself, but he sends so gallant a messenger!"
Mademoiselle glanced at me with hard blue eyes.
"That is the greatest insult of all," she said. "I could forgive--and
forget--his absence; but I do not forgive his despatching me his
horse-boy."
Thus far I had choked down my swelling rage at her faithlessness, her
vanity, her despiteful entreatment of my master's plight. I knew it was
sheer madness for me to attempt his defence before this hostile company;
nay, there was no object in defending him; there was not one here who
cared to hear good of him. But at her last insult to him my blood boiled
so hot that I lost all command of myself, and I burst out:
"If I were a horse-boy,--which I am not,--I were twenty times too good
to be carrying messages hither. You need not rail at his poverty,
mademoiselle; it was you brought him to it. It was for you he was turned
out of his father's house. But for you he would not now be lying in a
garret, penniless and dishonoured. Whatever ills he suffers, it is you
and your false house have brought them."
Brie had me by the throat. Mayenne interfered without excitement.
"Don't strangle him, François; I may need him later. Let him be flogged
and locked in the oratory."
He turned away as one bored over a trifling matter. And as the lackeys
dragged me back to the door, I heard Mlle. de Montluc saying:
"Oh, M. de Latour, what have I done in destroying your knave of
diamonds! Ma foi, you had a quatorze!"
XIV
_In the oratory._
"Here, Pierre!" M. de Brie called to the head lackey, "here's a
candidate for a hiding. This is a cub of that fellow Mar's. He reckoned
wrong when he brought his insolence into this house. Lay on well, boys;
make him howl."
Brie would have liked well enough, I fancy, to come along and see the
fun, but he conceived that his duty lay in the salon. Pierre, the same
who had conducted me to Mlle. de Montluc, now led the way into a long
oak-panelled parlour. Opposite the entrance was a huge chimney carved
with the arms of Lorraine; at one end a door led into a little oratory
where tapers burned before the image of the Virgin; at the other, before
the two narrow windows, stood a long table with writing-materials.
Chests and cupboards nearly filled the walls. I took this to be a sort
of council-room of my Lord Mayenne.
Pierre sent one of his men for a cane and to the other suggested that he
should quench the Virgin's candles.
"For I don't see why this rascal should have the comfort of a light in
there," he said. "As for Madonna Mary, she will not mind; she has a
million others to see by."
I was left alone with him and I promised myself the joy of one good blow
at his face, no matter how deep they flayed me for it. But as I gathered
myself for the rush he spoke to me low and cautiously:
"Now howl your loudest, lad; and I'll not lay on too hard."
My clinched fist dropped to my side.
"You never did me any harm," he muttered. "Howl till they think you half
killed, and I'll manage."
I gaped at him, not knowing what to make of it. But this is the way of
the world; if there is much cruelty in it, there is much kindness, too.
"Here's the cane, nom d'un chien!" Pierre exclaimed boisterously. "Give
it here, Jean; there'll not be much of it left when I get through."
"You'll strip his coat off?" said the second lackey, from the oratory.
"My faith! no; I should kill him if I did, and the duke wants him,"
Pierre retorted. So without more ado the two men tied my wrists in front
of me, and Jean held me by the knot while Pierre laid on. And he, good
fellow, grasping my collar, contrived to pull my loose jerkin away from
my back, so that he dusted it down without greatly incommoding me. Some
hard whacks I did get, but they were nothing to what a strong man could
have given in grim earnest.
I trust I could have taken a real flogging with as close lips as
anybody, but if my kind succourer wanted howls, howls he should have. I
yelled and cowered and dodged about, to the roaring delight of Jean and
his mate. Indeed, I had drawn a crowd of grinning varlets to the door
before my performance was over. But at length, when I thought I had done
enough for their pleasure and that of the nobles in the salon, I dropped
down on the floor and lay quiet, with shut eyes.
"He has had his fill, I trow; we must not spoil him for the master,"
Pierre said.
"Oh, he'll come to in a minute," another answered. "Why, you have not
even drawn blood, Pierre!" He laid his hand on my back, whereat I
groaned my hollowest.
"It will be many a day before he cares to have his back touched,"
laughed Pierre. "Here, men, lend a hand. Pardieu! I wonder what Our Lady
thinks of some of the devotees we bring her."
As they lifted me he took my hand with an inquiring squeeze; and I
squeezed back, grateful, if ever a boy was. They flung me down on the
oratory floor and left me there a prisoner.
I spent the next hour or so trying to undo the knot of my handcuff with
my teeth; and failing that, to chew the stout rope in two. I was minded
as I worked of Lucas and his bonds, and wondered whether he had managed
to rid himself of their inconvenience. He went straightway, doubtless,
to some confederate who cut them for him, and even now was planning
fresh evil against the St. Quentins. I remembered his face as he cried
to M. le Comte that they should meet again; and I thought that M.
Étienne was likely to have his hands full with Lucas, without this
unlucky tanglement with Mlle. de Montluc. In the darkness and solitude I
called down a murrain on his folly. Why could he not leave the girl
alone? There were other blue eyes in the world. And it would be hard on
humanity if there were none kindlier.
He had been at it three years, too. For three long years this girl's
fair face had stood between him and his home, between him and action,
between him and happiness. It was a fair face, truly; yet, in my
opinion, neither it nor any maid's was worth such pains. If she had
loved him it had not been worth it, but this girl spurned and flouted
him. Why, in the name of Heaven, could he not put the jade out of his
mind and turn merrily to St. Denis and the road to glory? When I got
back to him and told him how she had mocked him, hang me but he should,
though!
Ah, but when was I to get back to him? That rested not with me but with
my dangerous host, the League's Lieutenant-General, dark-minded Mayenne.
What he wanted with me he had not revealed; nor was it a pleasant
subject for speculation. He meant me, of course, to tell him all I knew
of the St. Quentins; well, that was soon done; belike he understood more
than I of the day's work. But after he had questioned me, what?
Would he consider, with his servant Pierre, that I had never done him
any harm? Or would he--I wondered, if they flung me out stark into some
alley's gutter, whether M. le Comte would search for me and claim my
carcass? Or would he, too, have fallen by the blades of the League?
I was shuddering as I waited there in the darkness. Never, not even this
morning in the closet of the Rue Coupejarrets, had I been in such mortal
dread. I had walked out of that closet to find M. Étienne; but I was not
likely to happen on succour here. Pierre, for all his kind heart, could
not save me from the Duke of Mayenne.
Then, when my hope was at its nadir, I remembered who was with me in the
little room. I groped my way to Our Lady's feet and prayed her to save
me, and if she might not, then to stand by me during the hard moment of
dying and receive my seeking soul. Comforted now and deeming I could
pass, if it came to that, with a steady face, I laid me down, my head on
the prie-dieu cushion, and presently went to sleep.
I was waked by a light in my face, and, all a-quiver, sprang up to meet
my doom. But it was not the duke or any of his hirelings who bent over
me, candle in hand; it was Mlle. de Montluc.
"Oh, my boy, my poor boy!" she cried pitifully, "I could not save you
the flogging; on my honour, I could not. It would have availed you
nothing had I pleaded for you on my bended knees."
With bewilderment I observed that the tears were brimming over her
lashes and splashing down into the candle-flame. I stared, too confused
for speech, while she, putting down the shaking candlestick on the
altar, as she crossed herself, covered her face with her hands,
sobbing.
"Mademoiselle," I stammered, "it is not worth mademoiselle's tears! The
man, Pierre, he told me to scream, so they would think he was half
flaying me. But in truth he did not strike very hard. He did not hurt so
much."
She struggled to check the rising tempest of her tears, and presently
dropped her hands and looked at me earnestly from out her shining wet
eyes. "Is that true? Are you not flayed?" And to make sure, she laid her
hand delicately on my back.
"They have whacked your coat to ribbons, but, thank St. Généviève, they
have not brought the blood. I saw a man flogged once--" she shut her
eyes, shuddering, and her mouth quivered anew. "But I am not much hurt,
mademoiselle," I answered her.
She took out her film of a handkerchief to wipe her wet cheeks, her hand
still trembling. I could think of nothing but to repeat:
"I am not in the least hurt, mademoiselle."
"Ah, but if they have spared you the flogging to take your life!" she
breathed.
It was not a heartening suggestion. To my astonishment, suddenly I found
myself, frightened victim, striving to comfort this noblewoman for my
death.
"Nay, I am not afraid. Since mademoiselle weeps over me, I can die
happily."
She sprang toward me as if to protect me with her body from some
menacing thrust.
"They shall not kill you!" she cried, her eyes flashing blue fire. "They
shall not! Mon dieu! is Lorance de Montluc so feeble a thing that she
cannot save a serving-boy?"
She fell back a pace, pressing her hands to her temples as if to stifle
their throbbing.
"It was my fault," she cried--"it was all my fault. It was my vanity and
silliness brought you to this. I should never have written that
letter--a three years' child would have known better. But I had not seen
M. de Mar for five weeks--I did not know, what I readily guess now, that
he had taken sides against us. M. de Lorraine played on my pique."
"Mademoiselle," I said, "the worst has not followed, since M. Étienne
did not come himself."
"You are glad for that?"
"Why, of course, mademoiselle. Was it not a trap for him?"
She caught her breath as if in pain.
"I knew that as soon as I saw that my cousin Mayenne was not angr
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